“I’m the lawyer, the agent, serving as an advocate between you and your Father in Heaven,” Rav Dovid Chaim Stern tells those who seek his counsel. The work he demands isn’t easy, but Rav Stern, the mekubal of Bnei Brak, is ready to pour out his tefillos and bestow his brachos in exchange for spiritual “deals” he makes with his chassidim around the world.
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hen Rav Dovid Chaim Stern of Bnei Brak comes to Boro Park, the home of his host Reb Aryeh Wald looks like a beis medrash for the ingathering of the exiles. Rav Stern has no court or kehillah, and his adherents run the spectrum of Torah Jewry: chassidim from Monsey, Litvaks from Lakewood, businessmen from Manhattan and the Five Towns, and Sephardim with roots in Aleppo. They don’t daven in the same style shuls or send their children to the same schools, but when their mentor visits America, they all join together under one roof for a few short days of spiritual elevation.
Rav Stern is not a rebbe only for chassidim. He unites thousands both in Israel and around the world, likely because of his multifaceted affiliations. He is Hungarian-born, but he grew up among the giants of the litvishe community and was personally nurtured by the Chazon Ish. At the same time, Rav Stern is fully proficient in chassidic Torah and the esoteric world of Kabbalah; 40 years ago he received an endorsement of his enormous powers of tefillah from the Beis Yisrael of Gur zy”a. Yet he combines chassidus with the Torah of his rebbi muvhak, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein ztz”l, his mentor from the time he was a bochur in Ponevezh. (In fact, the shiurim of Ponevezh rosh yeshivah Rav Dovid Povarsky that were prepared for publication are based on Rav Stern’s notebooks from yeshivah.)
After fleeing Serdehely, Hungary, to pre-state Palestine with his family, Reb Yisrael Zecharia Stern established a successful business in Bnei Brak. He would often visit the rebbes of Gur with his son, Dovid Chaim.
When Reb Yisrael Zecharia’s wife was declared a “vegetable” after a massive stroke, father and son traveled to the Beis Yisrael of Gur. But when the Beis Yisrael was asked for a brachah for the ailing mother, he turned to Reb Yisrael Zecharia and said, “Your son has a great power of tefillah.” Then he instructed the young Dovid Chaim, “Go and daven for her. It’s her only hope.” The young man davened, but apparently did not understand what great powers of tefillah the Rebbe was referring to.
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