Rabbi Leibel Posner, 97, OBM

Rabbi Yehuda Leib (Leibel) Posner, a beloved and respected Chossid and one of the first to be sent on Shlichus by the Frierdiker Rebbe, passed away on Tuesday, 19 Tammuz, 5785.

He was 97.

Yehuda Leib Posner was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1928. He was the second child born to Rabbi Sholom and Chaya Posner, Chabad chassidim who’d recently escaped the Soviet Union.

At the urging of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the couple relocated to New Jersey. He assured them that their children would remain faithful to Chassidic tradition.

By the time young Leibel was seven or eight years old, he was boarding with his brother with a Chassidic family in Brooklyn so that they could attend a proper Jewish school.

In time, the family relocated to Chicago and the boys enrolled in the local Jewish school.

Shortly after arriving in New York from war-torn Poland, the Rebbe founded a yeshivah, and then a middle school. Young Leibel was sent from Chicago and became the first out-of-town student in his age bracket.

Prior to his bar mitzvah, which was held in Chicago during Passover break, he and his older brother, Zalman, entered the Sixth Rebbe’s room for a private audience. The Rebbe inquired about their travel plans—making sure the bus home was heated and that they’d be able to put on tefillin and pray. He then expressed his satisfaction with their progress and remarked, “You are my children. You are physical children of your parents and you are my spiritual children.”

In 1948, he was chosen to spend five weeks on the road, traveling throughout the farmlands, towns and cities of New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The 19-year-old yeshivah student was instructed to travel on what was then called the “milk train,” which stopped at every local station, where he would disembark to meet Jews in each community, offering Jewish books and subscriptions to Torah literature.

(At the same time, his elder brother Zalman, together with fellow student Mendel Baumgarten, had been dispatched to Europe to serve the needs of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Stalinist oppression living in displaced-persons camps throughout the continent.)

Before he left, Posner was granted a private audience with the Rebbe. Ailing and frail, the Rebbe leaned forward in his seat and said, “When you meet another person, make sure that you look for his strong points. At the same time, do not overlook his weak points. The Torah has some large letters and some small letters. Chassidim used to say: We need to see a person’s fine qualities in big letters, and take note of their shortcomings with small letters,” for the sake of helping to correct them. The Rebbe blessed him with success, and Posner set off.

On that trip, he visited a certain rabbi who asked what he was doing in town. The young student explained that he was conducting a census for Lubavitch. “Who is Lubavich to conduct a census?” the rabbi fumed.

When telling the story decades later, Posner would smile and say, “Today no one would ask such a question.”

As a yeshiva student, he was especially studious and gained greatly from the tutelage of Rabbi Yisroel Zev Gustman, who taught in the Chabad yeshiva at the time.

At the levayah of the Frierdiker Rebbe on 11 Shevat 5710, Rabbi Posner merited to help carry the Rebbe’s holy aron. He later recounted the moment in an interview with Kfar Chabad Magazine:

“As the levayah of the Frierdiker Rebbe drew to a close, the crowding was unimaginable. People pushed and shoved, desperate to get close to the Rebbe’s holy aron. Despite the police presence along the entire Eastern Parkway, it was nearly impossible to maintain order. But I didn’t let go. I made every effort to hold onto the Rebbe’s aron the entire way.”

He continued: “Originally, the plan was to continue the levayah until the yeshiva branch on Bedford Avenue. But the overwhelming crowd made that impossible, so the procession was halted at the corner of Eastern Parkway and Brooklyn Avenue. I stood at the intersection as they placed the Rebbe’s aron into the chevra kadisha vehicle. Inside the car, on the floor beneath the aron, they placed small wooden blocks so we could hold onto the aron until the cemetery. Around the aron sat three of the elder Chassidim—Rabbi Shmuel Levitin, Rabbi Dovber Rivkin, and Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson. The fourth seat was still empty.”

“They began calling out, looking for another elder Chossid nearby who could join. But because of the intense crowding, no one was found. Our Rebbe, then known as the Ramash, was standing by the car and pointed at me. He said, ‘Leibel, you go.’ So I sat in the car and held onto the Rebbe’s aron all the way to the cemetery. The feelings we experienced on that journey are indescribable in words.”

Following the histalkus of the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Posner was sent by the Rebbe to California on shlichus to spread Yiddishkeit.

In the summer of 1950, Rabbi Posner became engaged to Thirza, and the newly engaged couple called the Rebbe’s office to report the good news.

In the course of the conversation, the Rebbe asked Rabbi Posner, “When two people marry, what is the reason for the great joy that ensues?”

The logical explanation is that we need to inhabit the world and continue life. “If that is the case,” the Rebbe asked, “the day of the wedding should remind us of mortality. Why would it be such a joyous occasion?”

The Rebbe then explained: In heaven, each soul is divided into two. They are then sent to earth, with one half entering a boy and the other half entering a girl. These two halves are destined to marry each other. At the wedding, we rejoice that the divided soul has been reunited.

Their wedding—held on 30 Shevat—was a happy one indeed, as it was the first wedding at which the Rebbe officiated and it marked the first joyous occasion the Rebbe attended since the passing of his beloved predecessor.

Shortly thereafter, the couple set off by train to Los Angeles, where the Rebbe had sent Leibel several months before.

There, they piloted the Rebbe’s concept of shlichut. While the Previous Rebbe’s emissaries went to run a school, take a rabbinical post in an established synagogue or serve as a shochet, they were to take a more holistic approach, seeing what needed to be done and how they could bolster Judaism as a whole.

In 1953, they took up a position in Marinette, Wisconsin, where he served as rabbi, schochet, and Torah teacher for the entire region, stretching into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Decades later, his students would recall him as unique. Bearded and devout, he spoke English like them, played baseball with them, and made Judaism fun and relevant.

“He taught us always to do what’s right, it does not matter what conventional wisdom is,” recalled onetime student Charles Lavine, who now serves as a member of the New York State Assembly. “I loved him.”

His teaching career then took him to southern New Jersey, where he taught in the local day school.

Then in New York, he taught in the German-Jewish Yeshiva Rabbi Shamson Raphael Hirsch. The school’s director, Rabbi Dr. Joseph Breur, would note with satisfaction that the Chassidic instructor made sure to include in his lessons teachings of the leaders of the German-Jewish Orthodox community of the previous generations.

His other postings included teacher and principal in the Chabad school in the Bronx, dean at Beth Rivkah in Brooklyn, and shochet and kosher supervisor at many facilities.

In his later years, his primary occupation was Torah study and he loved nothing more than to share a novel Torah thought on the weekly Torah portion or upcoming holiday.

A longtime resident of Brooklyn’s Boro Park neighborhood, he lived his final decades in Crown Heights, where his apartment was frequently visited by children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren from all over the world.

He is survived by his children, Chana Sonnenfeld – Nachlas Har Chabad, Israel, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Posner – Skokie, IL, Rabbi Uri Posner – Crown Heights, Rabbi Yechezkel Posner – Crown Heights, Rabbi Shmuel Posner – Boston, MA, Mrs. Brocha Sapochkinsky, Westlake, CA and Mrs. Elisheva Mishulovin – Beitar, Israel, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

His surviving siblings are Bassie Garelik (Milan, Italy) and Sara Rivka Sasonkin (Taanach, Israel).

His wife Thirza passed away in 2016.

The Levaya will take place Wednesday, passing by 770 at 10:45 am.

Shiva at 580 Crown Street building B #208
4 minyanim needed:
Shachris 7:15, 7:30, 8:00, 8:15
Mincha 8:00, 4 minyanim
Marriv B’zman

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes.