By COLlive reporter
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin welcomed two Lubavitcher chassidim at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem and was left deeply moved by the encounter.
Visiting him were the businessman Meir Zeiler and Chabad activist Zalman Wolff, both residents of the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Malachi.
They brought Rivlin a set of Lulav and Esrog to be used at the upcoming holiday of Sukkos next week and a copy of the Kfar Chabad magazine. “I knew you wouldn’t forget me!” the President exclaimed when they walked in.
He thanked them for the gift and asked them to relate “in my name, to all Chabad chassidim in the world a good year and a happy Sukkos.”
The two then surprised him with a paperback booklet titled “Biur Vehagahos L’Maamar Vayaachilcha Es Hamon,” a newly published commentary on a Chassidic discourse said by the Alter Rebbe.
The President was touched when he saw the name of the author of the booklet – Rabbi Eliyahu Yosef Rivlin, the great Chabad chossid and scholar who is President Rivlin’s great-great-grandfather.
A transcript of the commentary by Rabbi Rivkin, a chossid of the Mittler Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek, was recently discovered in the Lubavitch Library in Brooklyn, NY.
The work was edited by Rabbi Yitzchok Wilhelm of the library’s staff. It is assumed to have been written before Rabbi Rivlin moved to Eretz Yisroel in 5617 and founded the historic Tzemach Tzedek shul in the old city of Jerusalem.
“The President was really excited to see that this was published,” Wolff told COLlive.com about the meeting. “We had a pleasant conversation in which he proudly told us about his Chabad roots.”
The booklet is available for purchase at Kehot.com and for online study at Lahak.org
IT was his great great .. grandfather’s brother.