“He was like a diamond. He was gold”

Named for the Pnei Menachem of Gur, Pinchas Menachem Knoblowitz had all the traits of his namesake. “How would this advance my learning?” he asked himself when choosing a dirah or a yeshivah, or looking into a shidduch. He was the one thinking about society’s forgotten and actively seeing to help others.

Menachem found a mirror image of himself when he got engaged this past Chol Hamoed to Hindy Rozmarin from Lakewood — a Gerrer family whose father grew up in Eretz Yisrael, a home steeped in chinuch and chesed. He went back to Eretz Yisrael with a bounce in his step as he looked forward to his chasunah, scheduled for after Succos.

His tragic petirah on Lag B’omer devastated both families.

“It looks like I was not worthy to have such a husband,” the kallah confided mournfully to a friend.

Menachem seemed to be born with a festive disposition — he was born on Hoshana Rabbah, became a chassan during Pesach, and was niftar on Lag B’omer. His father, Reb Dovid, from Moshav Komemiyus in Eretz Yisrael, was close to the Pnei Menachem and named his son for his rebbe; his mother is the former Tova Glick.

Menachem grew up with a keen sensitivity for other people, said Asher Agassi, a close family friend whose son was with Menachem that fateful night last week. His son, Dovid, learned with Menachem on and off over the years, including during the COVID lockdown last year, when Menachem would come over to his house and the two would learn outdoors.

“He was a real serious boy, a chassidishe and erliche bochur. He just wanted to sit and learn,” Rabbi Agassi recalled. “He ran away from politics and machlokes — that’s why he wanted to learn in Mir, so he could focus totally on his learning.”

When he came home for his sister’s wedding two years ago, he told his father, “Ta, I need a chavrusa,” Rabbi Agassi said. “Life revolved his learning.”

He had enormous respect for his parents. When selecting a dirah, he had one condition — that nobody there have a smartphone. Early to bed, early to rise, Menachem grew tremendously over the years spent learning in Eretz Yisrael.

When he and his friends became shidduch age, Menachem took an active interest in helping those who would naturally have a harder time, urging his mother to make calls on their behalf. Rabbi Agassi recalled once taking him to the kever of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens. Along the way, Menachem discussed a list of people who needed help.

“I was thinking,” Rabbi Agassi said, “how does such a young person think of having to help so many people?”

Menachem had grand plans for this Lag B’omer. He rented an apartment in the village of Meron for Shabbos for himself and his friends and left Jerusalem early in the day to help them organize.

Rabbi Agassi’s son Dovid was with him at the hadlakah of the Boyaner Rebbe, which ushered in the auspicious day, but the two got separated afterward. When Dovid heard about the fatal crowd crush, he rushed over there, fearing that his friend was involved. He himself got caught up in the crowd but managed to extricate himself.

The sad news came shortly afterward.

“He was like a diamond,” Rabbi Agassi said with a sigh. “He was gold.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 859)