Community Magazine January 2019

Remember i ng Ch i ef Rabb i , Hacham Shau l Kass i n, z t ” l 40 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Beit HaMikdash . It’s very well-known in the family that for most of his life, my grandfather comes out of bed around midnight, sits on the floor and recites Tikkun Hasot . He then goes back to sleep for a few hours, only to awake again to serve his Creator by starting his day with praying early in the morning, followed by learning Torah.”  Sari, Jakie’s wife, continues, “My strongest feeling about him was that he was never fully in this world. Everything he did he elevated to a spiritual level and purpose. Even simple things; he had very little intake of food, very few words, and he didn’t like to waste time. He never talked in synagogue during prayers and couldn’t understand how anybody dared! In the house he would not waste even a slice of cucumber. He wasn’t lazy, and brought Hashem in every way he could. With him, the mundane became spiritual.” Barbara, Abe’s wife, continues, “He had four daughters-in- law and he treated us all as equals. We loved every minute of our time with him. So many people would come to him with problems. One time a woman came to his door. He decided she needed a doctor and proceeded to take her there in his car. He bought her medicine, food, and the things she needed. He was missing for hours. I would hide when people came, I didn’t want to see and hear all the things he dealt with. I asked him once, ‘How do you sleep at night with the weight of the world on your shoulders?’ He answered me, ‘What makes you think I do?’” Eved Hashem The rabbi was often compared to Moshe Rabbeinu, eved Hashem . Rabbi Saul J. Kassin, his grandson, explains, “The stories the Torah tells describing Moshe before he was great show his human side, the way he helped people, defended the defenseless, and felt pain for all of Gd’s creatures. Like many of our leaders, Moshe was a shepherd, and the last story told is of Moshe caring for and retrieving a sheep that had left the fold, carrying it on his back. It is on the heels of this venture that he comes upon the burning bush and his calling from Hashem. My grandfather, also, carried the burden of pain of others. When we would tell him about someone with a sickness, he would become visibly disturbed; he would sigh deeply, almost like he was in pain himself. He couldn’t bear it. He worried about our community like a father for a son. It was very hard for him to let things go. This quality of feeling for the people was very much his essence.” Rabbi Joseph Dana spent many hours and Shabbatot learning and conversing with Hacham Shaul over the last few years. As someone who looked up to the Rabbi since his childhood, he recalls, “He was the Chief Rabbi of all the Sephardic Jews in the United States and yet, still, he made time for every phone call, and every issue. A single mother called him once asking for help. He gave her a check every month personally, called her, and visited her. He would stress patience with people. ‘Give them a chance to develop,’ he’d say. ‘Embrace them, bring them closer.’” Upholding Tradition: Mikveh Nothing was more important to the Rabbi than family, and Taharat Hamishpaha, family sanctity, was a big part of that. In the early seventies there was no Sephardic mikveh in Brooklyn. Women used the Ashkenazic mikveh on Ave J, or the one in Deal. We were desperately in need of a modern, state-of-the-art building, but the push to build one in the neighborhood did not come without opposition. Many worried that a mikveh would bring too strong or too much religion into the community, but Hacham Shaul was adamant. With the help of Ike Hidary, Sonny Laniado, Manny Haber, and others, in 1975 the first Sephardic mikveh on Ave. S was built. While theywere building it, hewas so excited, hewould go there to watch the workers and even carry the buckets himself to speed the process. He and his wife also fostered the idea of educating brides and grooms on family purity Rabbi Tzuberri, Hacham Shaul, Rabbi Levy, Jakey Kassin, Joe Faham, and Abe Kassin at Shuvi Nafshi in Jerusalem. Special Tribute