Rabbi Travels for Student’s Funeral

By COLlive reporter

Rabbi Moshe Herson, Dean of the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, NJ has arranged to send a representative to Ukraine to attend the funeral of a student who was tragically killed by a sanitation truck on Sunday.

Rabbi Chaim Schapiro, head of the rabbinical ordination program where 25-year-old Gedalya Greenzayd learned, is flying to participate in the burial of his student in the ancient city of Vinnitsa.

A fellow student who learned with Greenzayd will be flying to the funeral as well.

The entire funeral cost and the flight tickets are being covered Rabbi Avraham Lieder of Ahavas Chesed, who raised funds from the Crown Heights community.

Greenzayd left a deep impact on many students with his care and devotion to learning.

“For many students he was a pillar of support,” says Rabbi Boruch Hecht, admissions director at Tiferes Bachurim, the division for Yeshiva beginners, where Greenzayd was enrolled.

“He would seek out the new students and others who were having a hard time transitioning into yeshivah life and set up study sessions, helping them acclimate,” Rabbi Hecht told Chabad.org.

In September, Greenzayd began studying for his rabbinic ordination under the tutelage of Rabbi Schapiro. He was “refined, humble, and had a great devotion to Torah study,” says Rabbi Schapiro. “He was the first one to show up and never wasted a moment of learning.”

One of the few times Greenzayd would leave the study hall was on Fridays, when he would visit elderly Russian-speaking Jewish people in assisted-living homes, Chabad.org reported.

Fellow student Benjy Licht says Grinzayd developed a special rapport with the seniors. “From the way the people talked about him, you could tell that they loved his visits—he would make them lebedik [lively].”

On Monday, over 2,000 people attended the funeral procession that passed by Lubavitch Headquarters 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. An only child, Greenzayd will be buried in Ukraine on Thursday.

Rabbi Shapiro will be comforting the parents, Avraham and Malka Greenzayd and conveying the deep sorrow that is shared by the faculty and students of the Yeshiva in Morristown and those who knew him.