What Can I Give in Return?  

Aviezer Wolfson gave us “Mah Ashiv” — and so much more 

Rabbi Aviezer Wolfson’s first claim to fame might have been his widely-loved composition of “Mah Ashiv,” sung in shuls during Hallel for the last four decades. But he was in fact a larger-than-life mechanech, marbitz Torah, mekarev, and philanthropist, blessed with exceptional intellectual gifts and a knack for igniting Jewish souls across the world — and in his own backyard

18 Tishrei 5785.

It’s Sunday, the first day of Chol Hamoed Succos that visitors from chutz l’Aretz can travel,and at the Kosel, the traditional Bircas Kohanim, Shacharis, and Mussaf service is taking place. As tens of thousands of Jews stand together, singing Hallel in unison, one niggun stands out — “Mah Ashiv LaHashem Kol Tagmulohi Alai (How can I repay Hashem for all His bounties to me)” — a melody widely sung across Jewish communities worldwide for over four decades.

At that same time, not far away in Jerusalem’s Shaarei Chesed neighborhood, Rabbi Aviezer Wolfson, 87, the composer of that famed niggun, had finished davening in the neighborhood’s Minchas Chinuch shul and was spending the day learning in the shul’s succah. A few hours later, he was niftar.

While his claim to fame among many was his universally sung “Mah Ashiv” — originally recorded by Leibele Haschel on his solo album in 1980, and then rerecorded by Mordechai Ben David on Suki and Ding’s all-star Hallel album (Rabbi Suki Berry once told Mishpacha that at the time they didn’t even know who the composer was) — Rabbi Wolfson was in fact a larger-than-life mechanech, marbitz Torah, mekarev, and philanthropist.

Aviezer Shimon Yosef Wolfson was born in London into one of England’s prominent Jewish philanthropic families, led by his uncle, Sir Isaac Wolfson, with whom young Aviezer had a close bond.