For a man who lived with fire, there’s no time like the present to ignite yet another flame

On a blustery Friday morning last week, a day-school rebbi was on his way to his morning job in Pennsylvania from an early morning bris he had attended in Passaic. It wasn’t his regular route, and when he noticed a sign for “Iselin, New Jersey” on the Garden State Parkway, he recalled that Rabbi Dovid Trenk, the beloved and ebullient mechanech who inspired a generation with his warmth and love and who passed away in 2019, was interred in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Iselin. He was still ahead of schedule, and having had a personal relationship with Rabbi Trenk, decided to make a quick detour to say a kapitel of Tehillim at the kever of this tzaddik. A chilly wind blew through the eerie cemetery as he made his way to Rabbi Trenk’s kever, where a small aluminum box had been set up for people to light candles l’illui nishmaso. He bent down and there, before his eyes, were several candles — already lit. It was January, and Rabbi Trenk’s yahrtzeit is in June. Yet, evidently, several people had come to visit the kever that very day, all seeming to share the sentiment that, for a man who lived with fire, there’s no time like the present to ignite yet another flame.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 896)