It was a surreal scene on that Friday night in 1999.

The trademark golden-striped caftan illuminated the gray corridors of the Manhattan medical center as the sun was about to set — an incongruous setting for the scion of a holy dynasty, his well-worn shtreimel crowning his head, his prayers with the same lofty fervor that burned within when he was in his father’s holy court in Jerusalem.

For the future Pinsk-Karliner Rebbe, Rav Aryeh Rosenfeld shlita (who would take over the reins of the chassidus two years later, in 2001), a hospital room in New York or a holy beis medrash in Jerusalem were both places where G-dliness could be revealed — even as his son, Rav Yehoshua Heschel Rosenfeld a”h, lay gravely ill. Father and son were here alone, hoping for Heavenly mercy, and the stark, secular hallways didn’t preclude the Rebbe from burning with the holy fire of Shabbos in typical Karliner style.

He paced back and forth, closed his eyes, and began to sing:

“V’yiheyu rachamecha misgollelim al am kodshecha

L’hashkos tzemei’ei chasdecha

Minahar hayotzei mei’Eden...

Shabbos Kodesh, nafshi cholas ahavasecha

Shabbos Kodesh, nafshos Yisrael

B’tzel kenafecha yechesayun

Yirveyun mideshen beisecha.”

That night, the future Rebbe’s voice rose with the niggunim of Shabbos, competing with the beeping of the medical equipment. As he sang the words composed by his ancestor Rebbe Aharon HaGadol of Karlin, all of Manhattan, with its lights and glitz and materialism, seemed to recede into the background, while that ancient prayer rose above the skyscrapers and soared higher than anything the city could offer.

That Shabbos in the cold, sterile hospital was a peek into the richness and noble character of the future Pinsk-Karliner Rebbe. Painful challenges were nothing new to him — the Rebbe was just nine years old when his mother passed away suddenly one Shabbos afternoon — but throughout his life, wherever Hashem placed him, he didn’t complain, neither would he change who he was. He would never alter his temperament of faith and calm, nor change his levush — even in Sloan-Kettering. Rav Aryeh would accompany his son throughout his medical travails, pursuing every possible lead and hope, but never did his spirit break. And Rav Yehoshua Heschel, although young in years when he finally succumbed to his illness, reached lofty levels in his short life.

“I didn’t know how great my son was,” the Rebbe said during the shivah, “until I saw him while he was ill — a period that was wondrous and dreadful at the same time.” The Rebbe related during the shivah how during treatment, Rav Yehoshua Heschel needed to undergo a risky operation, but the doctors who examined him prior to the surgery determined that his tense emotional state precluded them from beginning the surgery — if the patient wasn’t calm, the risk would be even greater.

“I opened the sefer Tanya,” the Rebbe related, “and learned with my son Epistle 11 in Iggeres Hakodesh, the letter ‘L’haskilcha Binah.’ This is a fundamental selection that explains the basics of emunah and accepting suffering with absolute love.”

[“L’haskilcha Binah” explains how everything Hashem does is good, even when it might not seem like it to us humans, and we think we have the right to feel bad or mad or sad. Rebbe Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Baal HaTanya, explains that if our emunah is strong, it doesn’t make sense to feel bad (which isn’t the same thing as legitimately feeling pain), because everything that Hashem does is good, although that good cannot always be grasped. We don’t see it because Hashem hides His Face in the world He created where we don’t automatically feel His Presence, even though He is constantly holding us up and doing only good for us — Hashem never does anything but good.]

“… He is the source of life and good and pleasure…” the Rebbe and his son learned through their tears. “… It is only because it cannot be grasped, therefore it seems to the person that it is bad for him or that he is suffering, but in truth there is no bad that descends from Above, and everything is good…. That is the main objective of the emunah for which a person is created,”

After they finished, the Rebbe called the doctors back. “Now you can do the surgery,” he told them.

But what they didn’t know was that this wasn’t some type of meditative trick — it was a way of life for the Rebbe, the principles of which he’s been imparting to his kehillah for the last 17 years.

Looking for a Leader

The Yerushalmi chassidus of Pinsk-Karlin follows the path of the early Yerushalmi chassidim. In fact, they’re knows as “di alter Karliners” even though the chassidus has plenty of young families as well. Pinsk-Karlin is really a perpetuation of the Karliner community that’s been extant in Jerusalem for more than 150 years. While the Karliner rebbes dwelled in White Russia, they had large communities in both Jerusalem and Teveria.

But the chassidus in Eretz Yisrael faced a crisis with the petirah of Rebbe Yochanan Perlow zy”a on 21 Kislev 5716 (1955). Rebbe Yochanan, who lived in America after the war where he became the Karlin-Stoliner Rebbe, was the youngest son of Rebbe Yisrael (known as the Yanuka of Stolin or the “Frankfurter,” because he’s buried in Frankfurt). After Rebbe Yochanan’s passing, the kehillah in Eretz Yisrael was divided: Some became adherents of Rebbe Yochanan’s grandson, Rebbe Baruch Meir Yaakov Shochet — the current Karlin-Stoliner Rebbe who today lives in Givat Zeev — but many of the elders of the community refused to accept the current Rebbe, who was just a year old at the time and wouldn’t take on the mantle of leadership for close to two decades.

Six years later, in 1962, the elder chassidim, led by Rav Yehoshua Heschel Haltovsky, who was already 90 at the time, decided to turn to Rebbe Moshe Mordechai Biderman of Lelov to lead them. The Lelov-Karlin connection goes back to the mid-1800s, when Rebbe Dovid’l of Lelov, a chassid of the Beis Aharon of Karlin, established the Karliner shul in the Old City. His grandson, Rebbe Moshe Mordechai, was an ardent chassid of Rebbe Avraham Elimelech of Karlin.

The Lelover Rebbe agreed, and for an entire generation, when someone identified himself as a Karliner chassid, he would be asked if he was from the “younger” or the “elders.”

After the passing of Rebbe Moshe Mordechai in Teves 5747 (1987), the elders of Karlin initially accepted the leadership of his son, Rebbe Shimon Nosson Nuta Biderman of Lelov. Like his father, Rebbe Shimale bore the title of Lelov-Karlin Rebbe for a short while, until he decided it was time for the Karliner chaburah to appoint a rebbe of their own (he continued to serve as Lelover Rebbe of Bnei Brak). The chassidim then appointed Rav Aharon HaKohein Rosenfeld, himself an “elder” Karliner chassid, veteran mechanech and author of Orchos Aharon, as their rebbe. To distinguish themselves from the Karlin-Stoliner chassidim, they called themselves Pinsk-Karlin.

The respected elder chassid accepted his new role, but with one condition: “A rebbe must work seven days a week and be available, but since I am a melamed in the Erlauer cheder, I feel it isn’t proper to abandon my talmidim in the middle of year,” he told them. “I will be the Rebbe on Shabbos, but during the week I will remain a melamed until the end of the year.”

The Orchos Aharon, a descendant of Rav Aharon HaGadol of Karlin, was a master at reading the hearts of the generation. His methods of chinuch, which are delineated in his sefer, serve to this day as a guide for mechanchim.

Rebbe Aharon led Pinsk-Karlin for ten years, until his passing on 28 Nissan 5761 (2001). In his will he wrote that with regard to leadership, “the elders and leaders of the community should convene and appoint someone to lead them,” and in accordance with this tzavaah, the kehillah appointed his oldest son, Rav Aryeh HaKohein Rosenfeld, who has transformed the Pinsk-Karlin kehillah into a vibrant, far-reaching chassidus.

Regular Rebbe

The Rebbe, who is 68 today, continues the path paved by his father, but is an innovator as well. On Shabbos, he sits at the head of the table surrounded by rows and rows of young chassidim who sing songs of yearning with typical Karliner fervor, but the way he sits at the tish is a bit different than what’s commonly accepted. The Rebbe has no special garments, no huge fish or elegant silver vessels at the table. He could be sitting at a Shabbos meal with his family.

The Rebbe feels at home wherever he happens to be, blending into a regular minyan on Friday night at the Kosel — where he walks without attendants or escorts — or while walking through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, where he engages in conversation with many types of Jews, some of whom have no clue that they’re speaking to the rebbe of a respected chassidic community. In the morning, he joins the Geulah foot traffic when he walks along from his home on Abramsky Street to his beis medrash in Beis Yisrael.

During the week, he finds shuls in remote corners where he can be undisturbed, and he can often be spotted walking from one beis medrash to another around Meah Shearim and Beis Yisrael. He also answers his own phone.

This “regularness” isn’t about breaking his middos or getting used to a life of humility in spite of his lofty status. It’s just the nature ingrained in his soul — he’s never considered himself to be anything above the norm.

Rav Yitzchak David Grossman, founder of the Migdal Ohr institutions and rav of Migdal HaEmek, grew up in Meah Shearim under the umbrella of Rebbe Moshe Mordechai of Lelov and the elder Pinsk-Karliners. (His father, Rav Yisrael Grossman, was among the prominent chassidim and served as rosh yeshivah.) Rav Grossman says he remembers how every Shabbos after the tish ended,  Rebbe Moshe Mordechai would dance and sing with the chassidim to the tune of “Me’ein Olam Haba yom Shabbos menuchah,” and he always noticed that the Rebbe carefully chose whose hands to grasp. He was afraid to take the hand of any who had not immersed in a mikveh that day, or whose thoughts were not sufficiently pure. Before the dancing, he would always look right and left, and when he saw Rav Aryeh Rosenfeld, he would grasp his hand. It was a sign of the great appreciation that this elder rebbe accorded the future rebbe of Pinsk-Karlin.

“The Rebbe was a talmid of my father,” Rav Grossman relates. “He’s a huge talmid chacham, and like his own father, he has a special talent in chinuch. That’s why he’s so attractive to the younger generation — he’s able to bridge the gap between young chassidim and alte Karliners.”

The Grossman family was actually at the juncture between Lelov and Karlin back in the mid-1800’s. Rebbe Dovid Tzvi Shlomo of Lelov (Rebbe Dovid’l), who led the Lelover chassidus in Eretz Yisrael, became a chassid of the Beis Aharon of Karlin (the grandson of Rebbe Aharon HaGadol) when he was a young man, and organized groups of chassidim from Jerusalem to travel back to Europe to bask in his presence. One of the avreichim that Rebbe Dovid sent to Karlin was Rav Grossman’s great-grandfather (Rav Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, for whom the rav of Migdal HaEmek is named). Rav Grossman originally joined the Perushim community when he reached Jerusalem, but Rebbe Dovid’l pulled him to the chassidus and sent him to the Beis Aharon of Karlin.

Karlin’s trademark is the energy they put into tefillah (stand outside any Karliner shul and hear how they scream the davening), and the early chassidim referred to the Beis Aharon as “The Siddur of the World.”

“My father would tell me about a friend of his zeide, a Yid from Eretz Yisrael who would travel abroad on business,” Rav Grossman says. “In the middle of a regular week for Shacharis, he happened upon the beis medrash of the Beis Aharon, and when he came back to Eretz Yisrael, he reported that in Karlin, ‘The entire community lies on the ground, davening and screaming.’”

Rav Grossman relates that a year before the Holocaust broke out, Rebbe Avraham Elimelech of Karlin made his fourth trip to Eretz Yisrael. When the chassidim who welcomed him at the port began to dance — Rav Grossman’s own father included — the Rebbe exclaimed, “How can Yidden in Eretz Yisrael dance when black clouds are gathering over the Jewish nation?”

“Throughout the visit, the Rebbe was restless,” Rav Grossman says. “He gathered the community for a fast day of tefillah at the Kosel and at the end he said, ‘Kinderlach, mir hoben gornisht gepoilt — we have accomplished nothing.’

“Then the Rebbe went to the tziyun of Rabi Meir Baal Haness in Teveria, and he davened and pleaded from the depths of his heart, but emerged and said, ‘Kinderlach, mir hoben gornisht gepoilt.’ From there he traveled to Tzfas and on the descent to the tziyun of the Ari HaKadosh in the old cemetery, the Rebbe quoted from Midrash Eichah about the churban of the Bais Hamikdash. Yerushalmi Dayan Rav Fishel Burstein was present — he was a resident of Yerushalayim but not a Karliner chassid — and he said to the Rebbe, ‘Rebbe, to such an extent?’ and the Rebbe replied, ‘Much, much worse.’ Rav Fishel then said, ‘It says al tiftach peh lasatan.’ And the Rebbe replied, ‘What can I do, it is all written in the letter of the Baal Shem Tov.’ Rav Fishel asked to see the letter, and the Rebbe replied, ‘For what reason? You will just become distressed.’

“From there the Rebbe continued to Meron, where he closed himself alone in the tziyun and davened and conducted yichudim. In the end he opened the door and said again, ‘Kinderlach, mir hoben gornisht gepoilt.’

“After all that, the Rebbe insisted on traveling home to Karlin. The chassidim exerted tremendous pressure to try and change his decision. First they tried to hide his passport, and when the Rebbe reached the Haifa port, the chassidim threw themselves under the tires of the car, but the Rebbe insisted on leaving and not abandoning his flock trapped in Europe. When he got to the port, he took his overcoat (the razhevilke), his shtreimel, his silver cane, and his gold watch and gave them to Rav Aharon Haltovsky, saying, ‘At least the evil ones will get less out of me.’

“Rav Avraham Elimelch arrived in Karlin just as the war broke out,” Rav Grossman continues. “Throughout that time, he refused to leave the Pinsk ghetto. Three years later, he was killed with his community. But, baruch Hashem, we still have a continuation of the holy traditions.”

Souls Aflame

While the Pinsk-Karliner Rebbe draws on the sefer Beis Aharon, the fundamental sefer of Karliner chassidus, he’s proficient in the gamut of chassidic seforim, and isn’t ashamed to take young men as his chavrusas if they can help him in his ongoing acquisition of chassidic teachings. At various times, the Rebbe has learned b’chavrusa with various mekubalim, including Rav Aharon Mordechai Rotner, one of the sages of Shaar Hashamayim and an elder chassid of Rebbe Aharon of Belz zy”a (as a young avreich, the Rebbe received permission from his own rebbe, Rav Moshe Mordechai of Lelov, to delve into Kabbalah). He would also travel to the court of Rebbe Mottel of Vizhnitz-Monsey zy”a until Rebbe Mottel’s passing last year, where he would spend Shabbos like any other chassid.

The Rebbe has several young chavrusas, with whom he acts like any regular avreich, preparing them a cup of coffee and chatting like a friend. When he’s learning in the beis medrash, he leaves all the rebbishe hanhagos outside the door. Actually, that’s not exactly true, because even when he’s outside, he eschews the standard trappings of a rebbe — he’ll often pick up the phone and dial the number of scholarly chassidim in order to work through a complex sugya in Gemara or Kabbalistic works.

After being appointed to lead the chassidus, he set up chavrusas with Chabad mashpiim Rav Chaim Shalom Deutsch and Rav Zalman Gopin, to whose home in Kfar Chabad he would travel to once a week. In the chassidus they say that this path, of delving into chassidic works of all kinds, is the Rebbe’s own path, but not widely accepted by the kehillah, which generally sticks to the particular Torah of the rebbes of the chassidus. In Karlin they generally don’t veer too far from the writings of their rebbes, and distance themselves from learning Kabbalah. One of the Pinsk-Karliner Rebbe’s goals is to simplify for his chassidim the study of sefer Beis Aharon and make it accessible for everyone, despite his own predilection for depth.

The Rebbe acts in accordance with the directives of his predecessors, Rebbe Yochanan and Rebbe Yisrael, in another area as well — he distances himself from public involvement. The Karliner Rebbes always ran from politics like from fire, but instead of taking this policy to the level of isolation and estrangement, the Pinsk-Karliner Rebbe makes sure to embrace everyone — because he has no political interests at all.

He will never instruct his chassidim to vote in elections, and his institutions don’t take government money, but every MK who seeks advice will find the same welcoming, open door as for the most ardent chassidim. The Rebbe believes in being connected to everyone, lives in harmony with everyone, and draws close anyone seeking to enter.

With this attitude, it’s no wonder the Rebbe speaks often on the subject of simchah, and fosters a sense of joy in avodas Hashem among his chassidim. But along with that even temperament and joyous disposition — even in the wake of his own personal tragedies — the Rebbe always seems to have an eye out for the family struck by calamity or heartache. And he keeps track of the personal situations of all those people who’ve come before to share their troubles.

Despite the many tzaros that the Rebbe is exposed to, he always emphasizes simchah as the most important element in avodas Hashem. Not a day passes that he doesn’t find the opportunity to say to someone, “When a person is happy, he doesn’t have complaints about those around him, and everything is fine. When a person is in a low mood, everything around him is grim and he blames others for what’s happening to him.”

Concurrent to the simchah the Rebbe exudes, he also insists on the observance of every nuance of halachah with no games or excuses — and as such, he canceled the practice of holding tishen in the beis medrash, because according to the straightforward halachah, one should not eat in a beis medrash. Toward that end, he instructed that a tish hall be built. Pinsk-Karlin has another standout feature — absolutely no talking during any part of the davening. Even during a Mi Shebeirach that a baal simchah makes during Krias HaTorah, no one will call out “mazel tov.”

That doesn’t mean the Rebbe and his chassidim don’t daven like true Karliners. “If you want to see if someone is connected to spirituality, observe how he looks when he’s davening,” the Rebbe once said. And he practices it as well: Each morning, dozens of bnei aliyah from among the chassidim daven Shacharis with the Rebbe, which starts promptly at 7:30. The tefillah lasts at least an hour and a half, much of it sounding like people shouting, albeit with tremendous kavanah. The Rebbe recently told his chassidim that “In our day, the level of the generation has become better and there are a lot of people who know how to learn, but people who know how to daven the right way? There are not too many.”

The Rebbe, however, doesn’t daven for the amud, and even during the Yamim Noraim, he suffices with singing “HaMelech.”

Being that tefillah plays such a central role in life of the Rebbe and the chassidim, the Rebbe has instituted an early-night policy. Even when there’s a simchah in the Rebbe’s own family, the Rebbe insists that bentshing be at 10:30, followed by a short mitzvah tantz, without grammen, so that the crowd can get up early the next day well-rested.

The Rebbe, a master mechanech, invests extensive efforts in teaching the younger generation to daven with fervor — a “flahm fier” (a flame of fire) as he says, in the Karliner fashion. Once a delegation came and asked the Rebbe, “How is it that you teach your children to scream when davening?” The Rebbe replied, “We teach our children to serve Hashem with fire in their hearts. When the heart is on fire — one screams.”

At the same time, the Rebbe instructs that the fire of the heart has to come from inside. He has often related, “My father never told me how to daven and never told me to scream when I daven, but from the time I was a child I saw how my father invested all his energies when he was standing before Hashem. I saw the bren and the enthusiasm. That’s how a Jew faces his Creator.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 726)