88-year-old Rav Tzvi Kushelevsky brings his own bechor Into Avraham Avinu’s covenant
When dancing broke out in the streets of Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood outside Rav Tzvi Kushelevsky’s yeshivah last week, it didn’t take long for the extraordinary news to spread around the world: The Rosh Yeshivah, at the age of 88, was celebrating the birth of his firstborn son.
Reminiscent of then 99-year-old Avraham Avinu when the angel told him he’d have a line of continuity through his wife Sarah, the joy in Yeshivas Heichal HaTorah after the standing-room only bris this past Sunday is still overflowing. And amid the tumult sits the beaming Rosh Yeshivah, who last week was on the receiving end of an open miracle, his legions of spiritual sons finally joined by a biological one. He’s endlessly elated — but not really surprised.
“Hashem’s ‘miracle bank’ is infinite,” Rav Tzvi declares as we sit in his private apartment in the yeshivah building. “There is no yiush, no despair in the world at all! We say on Purim, ‘Lehodia shekol kovecha lo yeivoshu lo yikalmu lanetzach kol hachosim Bach — to make known that all who place hope in You shall not be put to shame, nor shall all those who put their trust in you be disgraced…’ ”
Over the last week, the entire Jewish world and beyond has been talking about Rav Tzvi Kushelevsky’s miracle — the birth of a baby boy to his second wife whom he married six years ago as a widower, after he and his first wife of over half a century remained childless. But all the hype is just fine with him. He’s happy to publicly thank Hashem for this most precious and unusual gift, to be mekadesh Sheim Shamayim and to strengthen others who are coping with challenges and difficulties and mostly, waiting many long years for children of their own.
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