The worlds of psak and of pure kindness and compassion have lost a giant

Two years ago, a rosh kollel within the Belzer chassidus received a call from the Belzer Rebbe’s gabbai around noontime. A leading Israeli doctor had released a breakthrough in the world of infertility and, along with rabbanim from Bonei Olam, he’d presented it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe thought that some of the information could help a certain avreich, and he wanted the rosh kollel to discuss it with this man.

The rosh kollel promised to study the findings, which had come via fax, together with an attached halachic teshuvah that the Rebbe had requested. Later in the day, the gabbai called again, anxious to know if the rosh kollel had spoken to the avreich in question. The rosh kollel said that he was planning to do so later in the evening, after seder.

The gabbai replied with a message from the Rebbe that the rosh kollel will never forget. “The Rebbe received the medical information this morning and there was one posek he trusted to write a teshuvah on it — Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg. Rav Zalman Nechemiah, who is 87 years old, understood that as busy as he is  —he’s carrying so many talmidim and mosdos — and even if he doesn’t have as much energy as he used to, the pain of a childless couple is such that every hour is crucial if there is potential good news. Two hours after receiving the information from the Rebbe, Rav Zalman Nechemiah’s teshuvah was complete — and you are delaying sharing potential hopeful news because of your schedule?”

With the passing last week of Rav Zalman Nechemiah — a son-in-law of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, one of the most respected poskim across Eretz Yisrael, a person who’d taught and tested more rabbanim than perhaps anyone else in this generation — the worlds of psak and of pure kindness and compassion have lost a giant.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 825)