Mr. Heshy Mermelstein

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is was a life that was lived with a full heart.

Whether it was his passion for learning, his love for his fellow man, his exceptionally close relationship with his family or his tremendous simchas hachaim, Heshy Mermelstein was someone who didn’t do anything halfway, and his passing leaves behind a tremendous void that extends far beyond the Flatbush community that he called home.

The oldest of five children born to Reb Shalom a’h and Chana tblc’t Mermelstein, Heshy lived the first four years of his life in a Boro Park duplex that was also home to the Chusta Rav and his shul. The families shared a close relationship, and the seeds for Heshy’s exceptional capacity for hasmadah were sown in his youth in the Rebbe’s shul. His father would often pair him up with the talmidei chachamim who came to learn and he spent several summers as a teenager enjoying a chavrusashaft with Rav Avraham Yehoshua Heschel Bick. His brother, Pinny, recalled being sent to wake Heshy for shul one Shabbos morning, only to discover that he was already awake and surrounded by seforim. Pinny’s efforts to get his brother’s attention were completely fruitless — Heshy was so deeply immersed in his learning that he didn’t even realize that someone else was in the room and trying to catch his attention.

Heshy’s talents as a masterful orator were also evident early on. While some find public speaking daunting, Heshy was a natural and by the time he was 17 he was teaching bar mitzvah boys their pshetls. As a high schooler at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, Heshy gained a reputation as someone who was both resourceful and bright, and his high school yearbook lauded him as someone whose “stamina and determination will lead him to great heights.” Heshy continued on at Torah Vodaath for beis medrash as well, moving on to Rabbi Yisroel Zev Gustman’s Netzach Yisroel-Vilna Ramiles Yeshivah in Rechavia, and even years later, he was still able to explain Rav Gustman’s pshat when discussions arose on particular sugyos that he had learned there.