It’s easy to understand why people came to him to sort out their worries. And every year at his yahrtzeit seudah, new stories of his kindness emerge,

“My father always said, ‘You don’t have to be the greatest person in the world. Ordinary people can sometimes do extraordinary things,” says Rabbi Ari Spiegel.

Someone who never came to shul arrived one day and told Rabbi Spiegel that, as a child, he used to sing in the shul’s choir. He wanted to relive the memory so he asked if he could come to shul occasionally, sit in the back with his siddur open to Aleinu, and when the congregation would reach Aleinu, he would sing it for them. Looking at the visitor’s red suspenders and green shoes, Rabbi Spiegel understood that this man would end up a laughingstock. “On one condition,” he told the man warmly, “if I can sing along with you.”

And so, whenever the man came, he’d sit in the back with a newspaper, wait for Aleinu, and then sing the duet with the Rabbi. No one even knew his name — he was officially called “Aleinu.” One time, Ari Spiegel dropped in for Minchah with some friends, and “Aleinu” was sitting in the back, waiting for his stage. Ari cringed. He knew their duet would make a downright fool of Rabbi Spiegel in front of Ari’s friends — but it was too late. Sure enough, the boys were in stitches.

Rabbi Ari admits that afterward he went over to his father, asking him why he had to embarrass him in front of his friends.

“My father reminded me of the Baal Shem Tov story of the boy who sang alef-beis on Yom Kippur and then he told me, ‘How do you know that your whole Minchah is more worthy to the Ribbono Shel Olam than his Aleinu?’ ”

At Rabbi Spiegel’s shivah, “Aleinu” arrived, asking the three Spiegel sons, “With which song do you think your father was greeted when he came to Heaven?”

Too broken to think, they shrugged.

“Aleinu L’shabeiach,” he declared heartily.

“And you know,” says Rabbi Ari now, “we never knew just how much it meant it to him.”

Even at the edge of death, Rabbi Spiegel was busy doing chesed for others. One day in the summer of 2001, a woman came into his shul looking for the rabbi. Her daughter, an unaffiliated single mom, had given birth to a baby boy, and although she wasn’t sure if this little grandson would ever know anything about Judaism, she at least wanted a bris performed according to Jewish law. Rabbi Spiegel didn’t hesitate, and efficiently made all the arrangements. At the bris, Rabbi Spiegel named the child Eliyahu ben Avraham. After the seudah, at which he delivered a full derashah, the Spiegel sons had already left when their father suddenly felt unwell. Hatzolah was summoned, and as they prepared to take his bloods, he fell into their arms in cardiac arrest, passing on from This World to the Next with the merit of his final chesed and sealing his own covenant.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

In 2003, the corner of Ludlow and Rivington Streets in Manhattan was co-named Rabbi Yaakov Spiegel Way. The idea came from a congregant named Alan Gerson, who was running for City Council in the shul’s district. At Rabbi Spiegel’s shloshim on September 7, 2001, Gerson announced that, if elected, he would rename the shul’s street for Rabbi Spiegel. One thing that especially touched Gerson was the level of Rabbi Spiegel’s ahavas Yisrael. When 14-year-old Bais Yaakov student Suri Feldman was lost in the forest for several days in 1994, Rabbi Spiegel called him saying, “Let’s go help with the search.”

Gerson was amused. “Rabbi, how do you think you’re gonna find her?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, “but let’s drive to Connecticut and start looking.”

The elections were due to take place on what became the calamitous September 11th. Obviously they didn’t. When they eventually did and Gerson won his seat, he kept his promise. The name change had to be voted on and passed by three committees within the City Council. “The chiddush,” says Rabbi Ari Speigel, “was that after 9/11, any street dedications in Manhattan were understandably in memory of fallen police or firemen who perished at Ground Zero, yet they agreed for Rivington Street to be named after a humble Jewish rabbi.”

During the street-naming ceremony, a reporter for a non-Jewish local paper asked one of those assembled to share something about the namesake. “Rabbi Spiegel was the local Messiah,” he answered. “If you had any problems, you’d go to him and he’d take care of it.”

When the reporter asked the family for a message, they said: “One day, when a kid is walking down this street, he might be feeling down or he might be struggling with religion, and he’ll see a sign with a rabbi’s name in middle of Manhattan. It will probably arouse his curiosity and he’ll do his research and he might be inspired to become a better Jew.”

A letter received after the inauguration of “Rabbi Yaakov Spiegel Way” accentuated the name’s significance. “May the street name help perpetuate our Rabbi’s way,” wrote the letter writer. “His way of boundless love for all people that transformed so many lives.”

Manhattan isn’t Boro Park, but nevertheless, the street bears the name “Yaakov” rather than “Jacob.”

“My father was makpid not to use our English names,” his son explains, “believing that one of the ways we will merit Mashiach is by not changing our names, like the Yidden in Mitzrayim who merited geulah by not changing their Jewish names. He wouldn’t register our births until we had our bris. So when the family was asked how we’d like the name to appear, it wasn’t even a question.”

Rabbi Spiegel says his father would have laughed at the idea of having a street named after him, yet he shares a related childhood memory. There was a Jewish assemblyman and judge named Samuel A. Spiegel, who had a square named for him posthumously. As a local clergyman, Rabbi Yaakov Spiegel, who was not related, attended the ceremony. Rabbi Spiegel’s youngest son — and eventual successor — is named Shmuel Aharon, so for the fun of it, Rabbi Spiegel brought home one of the placards on the street, laid it on the table when his sons came home from school, and announced that he had named a street for their youngest brother, showing the sign as evidence. “We really believed him!” says Rabbi Ari.

Rabbi Ari shares an inspiring vort. “There’s a Radak in Yeshayahu that explains the pasuk, “Shem olam etein lo — I will give them a name forever,” as that Hashem will put into the hearts of people to name things after themselves, so they should be remembered forever. Now, if someone donates a million dollars to a yeshivah he can easily own the name, and lehavdil every American president gets an exclusive presidential library to preserve his memory. But the kuntz is to merit having something in one’s name because of the way he lived his life. The street name is more than just a sign. My father always thought about others, and he therefore now merits others looking up and thinking about him. It bears his legacy.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 806)