Rabbi Moshe Bamberger unveils hidden greatness in the cemetery

Photos: Jeff Zorabedian

How interesting could a book about graves be?

Just ask Rabbi Moshe Bamberger, mashgiach ruchani at Lander College for Men in Kew Garden Hills, Queens, and he’ll tell you that there’s a lot more to a cemetery than earth and tombstones.

“When someone visits a grave, there’s always a lesson they can take away from the niftar,” he says. Especially if that person was a gadol or important Torah personality.

Rabbi Bamberger, author of the Great Jewish book series, wants to bring those takeaways to everyone. He’s about to launch the seventh book of the series, but this one is more than just a graphic presentation of Jewish history. Great Jewish Journeys is also a travelogue of hard-to-find kivrei tzaddikim and little-known, fascinating snippets of their lives, and it’s filled with photographs, biographies, fragments of inspiration, and even custom-designed maps for those who actually want to follow along with their feet.

The entire Great Jewish series started — as many great things do — quite by accident, when, back in 2008, as Rabbi Bamberger was trying to decide on a year-long topic for his weekly class, he remembered the fascinating letters from gedolim that he’d come across over the years.

“Many of us know the intellectual side of these great Torah personalities, but the letters show another angle that most have never seen,” he says. “It’s the emotional, pull-at-your-heartstrings side that you can see in the letters they penned to their families and students.”

Rabbi Bamberger — who attributes his love for Judaica to his father a”h, a collector of Jewish books, artifacts, and manuscripts — decided to discuss a different letter every week, and the class became increasingly popular. “Why don’t you publish this?” some students asked, pointing out that the course material would make a great book.