By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5TJT.com Four years ago, Klal Yisroel had lost an extraordinary Rosh Yeshiva, a world-class Posek, and a remarkable Tzaddik – Rav Yisroel Belsky, zichron tzaddik v’kadosh livracha. If you stayed in his home for just an hour one would see numerous Nitzrachim of Klal Yisroel, an Agunah here, an Ani there, the downtrodden and the forgotten.  He had an unmatched empathy for others.  And everyone saw his tzidkus. Just one small example of this tzidkus occurred two months before he passed away. Rav Belsky was very ill, in tremendous pain, and could barely walk.  And yet Rav Belsky arranged a Get for an Agunah whose husband had violated the trust of numerous young people. Rav Belsky’s remarkable personality was instrumental in arranging for this woman’s freedom. She told me all about it the next day. This former Agunah had tears of joy as she expressed her remarkable admiration for Rav Belsky who was so instrumental in freeing her. Alas, Klal Yisroel no longer has a Rav Belsky zt”l. Moreinu HaRav HaGaon Rav Chaim Yisroel Belsky zatzal, passed away at the age of 77, four years ago. In the words of the maspidim – he was an outstanding Talmid Chochom and Tzaddik that served as a Rosh Yeshiva in Torah v’Daas, a world-class Posek in the largest kashrus agency in the world, and the Rav of Camp Agudah for many years. Rav Shimon Finkelman shlita wrote a Sefer published by Artscroll about Rav Belsky zt”l.  Toward the end there were so many stories of his tzidkus that they just had to simply decide to stop.  This was the type of Tzaddik Rav Belsky was. Rav Belsky had studied in Yeshiva Torah VaDaas, under Rav Moshe Feinstein zatzal, and in Beis Medrash Elyon in Monsey. PRODIGIOUS ACCOMPLISHMENTS Rav Belsky’s prodigious accomplishment range the full gamut of activity. He served as a magid shiur in Yeshiva Torah Vodaas for over half a century. He ruled on thousands and thousands of halachic questions for the Orthodox Union. And there are literally thousands of hours of his recorded shiurim available in Torah libraries across the country – all delivered by him. The shiurim are filled with the classic thinking of Gedolei HaRishonim and Acharonim as well as his own chiddushim. Rav Belsky zt”l gave regular shiurim in the Daf Yomi, Yore Deah, Chumash and Rashi, and much more. Aside from all this he served as Rav, Masmidim Program Director and general mashpia on thousands of young men in Camp Agudah in Ferndale, New York. Rav Belsky’s relationship with his Talmidim and campers was like that of a loving father. One summer it was arranged that his masmidim shiur was to be taken over by someone else. When he noticed the sadness on the faces of four of the students, he worked out that he would give them a private shiur in the laws of chazara and shehiya on Shabbos – at six o’clock in the morning. To this day, the boys – now grown men, remember those halachos particularly well. On one occasion, a camper was hospitalized with a serious brain tumor in a hospital some four hours away. Entirely unfazed by the distance, Rav Belsky drove the four hours to the hospital, spent a few hours with the young […]

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