Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipskar faces the Days of Awe in the shadow of the Surfside tragedy
The shofar is meant to serve as a wake-up call to slumbering, complacent, and sometimes sinful Jews; it’s a message to arise and work to better themselves, thereby meriting inscription in the Book of Life for the coming year. This year though, Rabbi Sholom Lipskar received his wake-up call weeks before the shofar began to sound for the rest of us.
Rabbi Lipskar is best known as the rav who transformed the Miami-area Bal Harbour–Surfside community from a midbar into a thriving Jewish community and founded the Aleph Institute to help incarcerated Jews. But on the evening of the 14th of Tammuz, June 24, as he lay in bed, he was roused around 1:45 by a text from his granddaughter, who lives a few blocks from the Champlain Towers South condominium.
“Do you know what’s going on?” she asked. “There are police and sirens everywhere.”
Rabbi Lipskar called the police department, and after he heard that the 13-story building had collapsed, he was soon speeding over. What met his eyes as he approached was an apocalyptic scene reminiscent of 9/11. The cloud of smoke hanging over the area was so thick it was impossible to get closer than a couple of blocks from the scene. A woman had come running out earlier that night screaming that there must be a bomb or an earthquake, but no one took her seriously.
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