When Rav Baruch Rosenblum shared his distress over his wife’s illness with Rav Aharon Leib Steinman, the Rosh Yeshivah had one eitzah for him: “Go out there and inspire others.”

Photos: Menachem Kalish

It’s Thursday night in Bnei Brak’s Beit Knesset Hagadol, and just like every other week, the place is packed, as Rav Baruch Rosenblum leans on his shtender while cameras positioned opposite his face are poised to broadcast his words to dozens of locations around the world. This modern-day maggid speaks a language that’s part yeshivish, part vernacular, tying up Rishonim, Acharonim, and midrashei Chazal on the week’s parshah with his own powerful chiddushim and lessons for us to live by.

Suddenly, though, Rav Rosenblum stops. He closes the Chumash and speaks from the heart, a heart that’s feeling the pain of Am Yisrael in its suffering — with the hostages, the evacuees, the soldiers, and their families — anyone who’s in one of this war’s many concentric circles.

“These days,” he says as his eyes begin to tear, “every morning when we hear or look at the news, we’re faced with those words, ‘Hutar lepirsum — cleared for publication,’ and then there’s a name, or two or three or more. We’re so used to it already, but are you giving a second to think what those two words — hutar lepirsum — really mean? It means a widow, orphaned children, bereaved parents, entire families whose lives will never be the same. Another hutar lepirsum, and then another. And another. Hashem Yerachem!

“And what about the tens of thousands of evacuees from both the south and the north — people who have been living for three months with their spouses and children in a room and a half in a hotel, people out of work for three months — are any of you thinking about that?

“Think about a father and mother who have two or even three children in the army. They can’t sleep at night. Their phone is on, ready, 24/7, and the heart, oy, the heart, it skips a beat with every ring. But us? ‘Na, we’re in the center of the country. We’re safe. And besides, there’s Iron Dome, so everything’s good. Why worry? Nu, shoin, what do you want from me? I said Shir hama’alos mimaamakim after davening, I checked off the box.’

“But rabbosai, where is our sharing the burden? How can any of us sleep as if nothing is happening, when parents are sitting shivah for their sons, when children are sitting shivah for their fathers, when soldiers in Gaza are sleeping on the ground, on sand dunes? During World War I, the Chofetz Chaim didn’t sleep in his bed for even one night. Where are we? Our soldiers are fighting throughout the night, and we’re sleeping in our warm beds?

“What do I want? One thing: not Sinwar’s head, Hashem can take care of that in a second, make him step on a mine and get blown to smithereens. We need to ask for one thing: Hashem, send us Mashiach Tzidkeinu!

“Had we known ahead of time what was decreed for us to go through on Simchas Torah — would anyone have gone home during davening on Yom Kippur? We would have stood and davened from the beginning of the fast until the end, storming the Gates of Heaven with our cries! But we didn’t know. So, do we need to wait for war to break out on the northern front in order to cry over the fact that we didn’t sufficiently tear down those Heavenly gates with our tears? We can still do it! It’s not too late to storm Shamayim pleading with Hashem to annul this horrible decree!”

Rav Baruch Rosenblum, a popular maggid shiur and prolific author based in Bnei Brak, has been delivering shiurim to thousands across Israel and the world for over 20 years. And now, more than ever, as soldiers are fending off terrorist threats in the north and south while hapless Jews are trapped in Hamas dungeons, people in Israel are flocking to hear his messages, to find some rays of light, some meaning within this morass. While his words engulf his listeners with brutal honesty cushioned with a large dose of hope and revival, few know about the Rav’s own struggles as an overactive, rambunctious child trying to navigating a yeshivah system with standardized expectations.