He Was the Source for Many of the Modern Pesakim on Aveilus and Beyond
January, 2020
“Rabbi, you still did not get back to me regarding my shailah”.
It was true, I hadn’t.
Weeks earlier this member asked an off-the-beaten-path question. After the milchama, her grandparents discovered that their own parents as well as their siblings and their families were wiped out, hy’d.
There are no kevarim or known yartziets, yet her surviving grandparents chose a certain date on the calendar to mark their passing as a zikaron. On this date someone in the family will light a ner neshama, say kaddish and even daven for the amud if available.
This has been kept in the family for several decades now, and through many new generations.
Nowadays, its her son-in-law in eretz yisroel who commemorates the date with kaddish. He is four generations removed from the niftarim.
“Rabbi, I am just curious…While it is by no means a burden, how long should our family continue to do this? Should my daughters’ children continue, and their children, ad bias goel? Perhaps it more b’kovidik to end it officially, rather than have it un-purposefully wither and over time become forgotten”
Now of course this is not a pressing matter, rather an interesting curiosity.
Her question opens up many imponderables.
The importance of choosing some date for a yartziet in such cases is mentioned in early sources (see, e.g. Magen Avraham 568:20).
However, just how to go about choosing such a date is more complicated, and the poskim discuss various fascinating methods.
Some write that if the year of their passing is known, then one should choose the last day of the year (due to one’s chezaka of being alive, see Igeress Hakodesh to the Lubavtzher rebbe, Rav Yosef Yitzchak Schneirson, chelek 9).
Others suggest the fifth of teves to be chosen as, should one have the custom to fast on a yartziet, it will be short taanis (M’orei Ohr quoted in Moed Kol Chai 2:21).
Rav Felder z’l, the av beis din of Toronto (Pri Yeshurin p. 246) says that since chazal already stated (Sanhedrin 47b) that Hashem completes the years of the righteous, and we know that those killed by the Nazi’s y’s are considered kedoshim, then we should simply choose their birthday(s) as a likelihood of their day of death!
[On this idea that all Jews killed at the hands of the Nazis’ have the status of ‘kedoshim’, there are a myriad of teshuvos and kesavim, see Hidden in Thunder, volume 2, pages 439-475]
Rav Shterrbuch (shu’t Teshuvos V’Hanhagos, 2:588) suggests selecting Yom Kippur; still others suggest using the date of one’s discovery of their death as the yartziet (see, e.g. Pachad Yitzchak, erech ‘taanis’), and Rav Yechezkal Abramsky suggests that, whichever month one chooses, it is best to pick the fifteenth day of the month of the day of the molad (Sefer Zikaron Rav Abramsky, p. 238, and shu’t Be’er Moshe 8:112).
But what about her question –for how long, or how many doros –should such a date be a remembrance?
I told her that I just do not have an answer.
You see, for all my years in rabbanus, whenever any interesting issue came up relating to death, aveilus, bikkur cholim and all other interrelated topics, there was a recognized expert whom I could call:
Rav Aaron Levine.
Sadly, he was niftar last week after a long battle.
So the reader understands how important he was to rabbanim, every single wonderful source brought above is taken from his sefer on yartziet –a two-volume magnum opus titled Kol Bo LaYartzeit (volume 1, p. 153160).
Whenever I wrote in these pages on topics relating to his expertise I would first confirm sources and receive guidance from him.
His sefarim and research in these matters were recognized throughout the Torah world.
When his son Rav Yitzchok Levine –the current CFO of Lakewood yeshiva, BMG –was a bachur he went to Rav Shlomo Zalman Aurbach for a beracha.
When asked about his family, he spoke about his maternal grandfather, Rav Moshe Nussbaum, an important askan and Torah builder.
“But what is your last name”
“Levine”
“Rav Aaron Levine is your father?”
“Yes”
“Well where is chelek beis of sefer Zichron Meir?!” the great posek asked.
Zichron Meir is a much admired sefer on the laws of aveilus. It was published many years ago as ‘chelek aleph’, but due to his many sefarim being written in the interim, the second part was never completed.
Rabbanim have gained so much from his life’s work, even if they do not know his sefarim, virtually every modern likut –English or Hebrew –culls from his material. Aside for American gedolim, his sefarim received glowing haskamos from Rav Shach and other eretz yisroel gedolim.
But he also wrote books for the public.
Many years ago he was asked to speak about ‘Jewish Grief and Counseling’ before a Jewish but not frum group. Before his turn to speak to the audience, a man got up and said something about grief and faith that I will not even quote here.
Rav Levine was shocked and disgusted by this, and realized the need for another work geared also toward the more secular Jew setting down the proper hashkafos for suffering and mourning, ‘To Comfort the Bereaved: A Guide for Mourners and Those Who Visit Them’ was thus born. I recommend it often to anyone going through a crises of faith after a tragic loss, l’a.
He could reach such people not only because he had the proper hadracha, but because he and his Rebbitzen Chani Levine suffered from their own grief, as I shall soon explain.
At the age of 12, he arrived to Toronto from England, and by the late 1950’s would find his way to Telshe, Cleveland.
American bochurim in those days were not like today. Entry fahers were not as intense, to say the least. One boy arriving in yeshiva at that time was asked by Rav Mottel Katz one question to gain entry: Was Noach a tzadik or a rasha?
The boy responded honesty: “I don’t know”.
“Exactly right!” cried out Rav Mottel. “We don’t know, and Rashi gives both views. Welcome to Telshe!”
After spending time in Ner Yisroel, Baltimore, Rav Levine would go into chinuch, soon serving as the menahal in Ner Yisroel, Toronto, and then Eitz Chaim.
Before those posts, he began in Savanah, Georgia, in the late 1960’s early 1970’s, where he served as a principal.
My parents were living there at that same time, also to spread Torah, and our families remained close ever since.
The Levine’s would then move to Deal, N.J. where he continued in chinuch.
It was there when horrible tragedy struck. Their second son, Efraim, was niftar on his second birthday.
Years later, growing up in Toronto, their son Chaim was a close friend. His full name is Chaim Efraim, named for his brother he never met.
In the hakdama (introduction) to his first sefer on these topics he explains that while sitting shiva he realized the need for sefarim and books on these topics, to guide people in the proper halachos and outlook.
Thereby, Rav Levine turned his son’s short life into Torah that will live on forever.
There is much more to say about Rav Levine, his Rebbitzen and his family. But in addition to the bounty of Torah and psak he left behind (much still to be published iy’h), let me conclude with a story about who he was as a person and a michanech.
While serving as menahel in Ner Yisroel, there was a series of thefts in the dorm. It got so bad that the hanhala was considering bringing in the police to put an end to it.
Rav Levine interceded and asked if he can try to discover who the ganaf was before such drastic measured need to be taken.
He decided he will meet with each and every boy of the large yeshiva, starting from the ninth grade through the beis midrash, a time consuming task.
One by one, he would sit down each boy in his office. “This is very serious. If you tell me know it was you it will never leave this room. But if not, well, its about to get very serious, with police, etc. And then I will have no control…”.
The idea worked, and the bachur who was doing the geneiva admitted his guilt to Rav Levine.
Yet, amazingly, Rav Levine didn’t stop the one-on-one integration. Rav Levine continued to meet with every boy from each and every grade, giving them the same third-degree. He did this so that no one would ever figure out who the guilty boy was. And indeed, no one ever did find out, baruch Hashem.
May Rav Levine’s middos, emes, and Torah be a meilitz yashor for his Rebbitzen, children and all of klal yisroel.
(Following this article’s publication, Rav Aaron’s son, Rav Shneur Levine of Waterbury, shared with me a private correspondence that Rav Avraham Ausband sent him during shiva. I can share that as a younger bochur in Telshe, Rav Ausband looked up to Rav Aaron Levine)
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