The Bostoner Rebbe

The Bostoner Rebbe Zatzal

I just arrived back from the funeral of the Bostoner Rebbe Zatzal.

Bostoner Rebbe Involved with Thousands of Families

The tears are drying. I sit with 10 fingers on the keyboard, understanding that something has to be said, but I’m not sure what. I remember many years ago my chavrusa told me that if you notice you will see that whenever there is a tragedy, everyone wants to put himself in the limelight. Those were the days when there was a suicide bomber almost every day. He told me, notice that whenever someone comes in to the Kollel to tell the news, they always find a way to put themself into the story, like, “a bomb just went off at such and such a place, and, you know, the bus that I was on passed by that very place just five minutes before it blew up”. Or, “so and so was killed in a car accident, and you know, I was one of the last people to speak to him …”

So I don’t want to be guilty of that practice. I also don’t want to be guilty of competing: I cried more, or that the Rebbe was more involved with our family, or that my history in Boston goes back further, that’s also not for me. Because it is self-obvious to anyone who knows, that the Bostoner Rebbe was very much involved in thousands of families’ lives. Who can claim that their relationship was stronger, and why does it matter even if it is true?

The Bostoner Rebbe at one of our Weddings

My Personal Relationship with the Bostoner Rebbe

I also don’t want to start telling stories depicting my personal relationship with the Bostoner Rebbe, what I gained and what I contributed. That would take hundreds of pages, and this is neither the time nor the place. Not yet. I remember when Rav Moshe Halberstam zatzal passed away, someone close said to me, “I feel like I’ve lost a father …”

Someone said tonight a line which is not original: It says, “a generation leaves, and a generation comes…” I see the generation that left, but I don’t yet see the generation which is coming.

Hashem should have rachmunus on Klal Yisroel.

Boruch Rappaport