Seven Men from LA Chabad Shul Travel to Boro Park to Make Shiva Call

  By Yehudit Garmaise

      Last Shabbos at the shul's Shalosh Seuda, the men at Chabad-Lubavitch of South La Cienega (SOLA) in Los Angeles were wondering what they could do to provide nechama and to show solidarity with the six American families who had tragically lost loved ones in Meron.

     Several SOLA members who themselves had children who were in Meron on Lag B’Omer, but were, Baruch Hashem, unharmed, also wanted to show gratitude that their children were safe. The men decided right then and there that they would leave on Tuesday for a one-day Nichum Avielim trip to New York and New Jersey to visit the Knoblowitz, Morris, Gestetner, and Tauber families, and “to honor the lives of the holy neshamos that we lost in Meron,” said Rabbi Avroham Zajac, shlita. 

     After davening, the seven Yidden who went spoke about how they went to provide chizzuk, but they came home so strengthened themselves.

    “The families all had such tremendous emunah,” said Rabbi Zajac, who said that only tzaddikim do not question Hashem. “The parents were broken, yet, no one was angry, and no one complained,” similar to Ahron’s silence after Nadav and Avihu passed away. “Emunah is contagious.”

    Each of the men spoke about different experiences and impressions at each shiva house. The men noted that each family described the men they lost almost identically as “masmidim, chesed-oriented, and down-to-earth,” loving simple things in life, such as barbeques.

   “These beautiful middos were characteristics all the men we lost shared,” said Rabbi Zajac, who also spoke about the haklatas the men on the trip took on to honor the niftarim, such as reaching out to loved ones every day.

    While congregants passed around a copy of the jam-packed handwritten learning schedule of 19-year-old Nachman Daniel “Donny” Morris, a”h, from Bergenfield, NJ, many Yidden also were inspired to take on more daily learning.

    The SOLA contingent’s last stop of the day was to provide nechama to the Boro Park home of the Knoblowitz family, who was also visited that day by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

    “We just wanted to tell them that all of K’lal Yisroel was with them,” said Rabbi Zajac, who said the Knobowitzes seemed touched that this contingent of Yidden came from L.A., to provide them with comfort and solidarity. Without smart phones or Internet, the Knoblowitz family was not aware of the extent to which K’lal Yisroel worldwide was crying with them.

     Pinchas Menachem Knoblowitz, a”h, who had been engaged for two weeks, returned to Israel where he had previously learned because he wanted to learn for a z’man before getting married, said his father, who said that he did not know that his son also particularly wanted to be by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Lag B’Omer.

     Even as Pinchas Menachem fell, he was trying to help others, many men witnessed.  Like many others in the tragedy, buried under hundreds of others who had fallen, Pinchas Menachem, his father said, had “moicheled anyone who was responsible for his fall, before saying Shema and passing from this world,” said Rabbi Zajac recounted.

    “Pinchas Menachem was doing until the very end, and we should also always be ‘doing,’ and always helping other Jews.”