5783: The Year That Was

Prior to Mashiach’s coming there will be the Chevlei Mashiach, the searing birth pains that come as a majestic new reality edges into being. Reflecting over all that’s transpired since the onset of 5783, one can only hope that we’ve heard the final cries of anguish as we usher in a year of joyous redemption. We have every reason to be hopeful. The tragedies have been multiple, but so were the flashes of inspiration, those moments when the invincible grandeur of our people become so tangibly apparent. Through the good and the difficult our hopes for the realization of our destiny remain whole, vibrant, and unified. May we all merit a kesivah v’chasimah tovah. Amen.

Kislev

Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu ztz”l, who passed away on Rosh Chodesh Kislev, made a global impact, but European Jewry was particularly affected by the loss. The Dayan, who was the founder and head of the Sunderland kollel for 18 years, was one of Europe’s leading halachic authorities of the last half century. He was involved in large scale initiatives — pioneering the eiruv in Northwest London, helping the first organized English kiruv movement get up and running, and flying frequently to other parts of Europe to help arrange gittin within the auspices of his role as head of the Beis Din of European Rabbis — but none of this precluded him from making himself available to anyone who needed him, be it the anorexic young woman whom he visited in the hospital daily for five months, or another patient refusing lifesaving treatment, who consented after the Dayan informed that he would not leave the hospital until she agreed.

His petirah left the English kehillah bereft, but consoled that his legacy would continue to guide them.

Nissan

Chol Hamoed is that confusing time where the lines marking kedushah and the weekday aren’t clearly demarcated, and we need our leaders’ guidance to help us navigate the duality. It seems somehow fitting that it was Chol Hamoed Pesach, 18 Nissan, when Rebbetzin Bruria David a”h founder and menaheles of Beth Jacob Jerusalem, better known as BJJ, passed away.

Rebbetzin David — wife of Rav Yonasan David shlita and only child of Rav Yitzchok Hutner ztz”l — devoted decades to infusing her thousands of students with the fortitude and clarity to live lives of heightened spirituality, even as the outside world grows increasingly secular. Her life injected kedushah into chol, and her scores of talmidos continue to do the same.