Great Rav Henkin Story

Very Cool Hashgacha Pratis Story

Where do I start? A week or 2 ago Fran sent me an email with a link to an article entitled, “Rav Henkin, America’s Forgotten Poseik”. Here is the link http://5tjt.com/rav-henkin-americas-forgotten-poseik/.

I don’t believe we have any letters from him, especially with any Halachik rulings.

Now fast forward to this past Sunday. As you may know we had 4 funerals in one week & so on Sunday night we had 2 Shiva houses, so I, as the second stringer, went to the home of the Shiva for Lenny Weiner. Lenny lived right across the street from the Kilstein’s & in fact single handedly built the handicap ramp for them. His late wife “Footsie” passed away 2 years ago & was a participant where Ima works.

Now Footsie’s grandfather was Rev. Turetsky, who was a mohel, shochet, shamash at the Anshei. He died in 1959. As I walked in to the house several people told me that a relative had brought over a bunch of letters that were written to Rev. Turetsky that were in Yiddish, Hebrew even Russian. They asked if I could translate them. I told them I couldn’t help with the Russian but I’d love to see the letters after we daven.

Being at somewhat of a loss what to say between mincha & maariv, I told a story that I saw in the sefer, “Veha’arev Na” (chelek 2, parshas vayechi) which was a tremendous hashgacha pratis story about how a nursing home informed the wrong next of kin  that his Mother had passed away. It’s too long to write here. Bkitzur, the lady who passed away was buried k'das UK'din only because of the terrible mixup when her son who had become a priest intended to have her cremated.

Anyway, I talked about how everything happens for a reason (there was a mixup with the niftar's medical care in the hospital) & how "G-d moves the chess pieces".

Everyone liked the story & we moved on. Right after maariv, they brought out the folder with the letters.

The first letter right on top of the pile was a letter from Rav Henkin!

I didn't get every word of it but apparently the shaila had to do with the family leaving the graveside before the complete covering of the grave.

Bottom line was Rav Henkin was against it, (he quoted the Chasam Sofer that "Chadash is asur min hatorah". He said that he didn’t like these “ceremonies” but concluded that he shouldn't make a machlokes over it. I hope to get a copy of the letter soon.

Everyone was freaked out that my step- grandfather wrote a letter to their great grandfather, that I just happened to be there that night, that I just happened to have just told the story I did, that they just happen to be looking for his letters now, & that Fran just happened to have made me aware of that.

Here is the letter...

Here is a link to see it better    Link to Rav Henkin Letter pdf