Bostoner The Jewish world has lost a spiritual giant, the Bostoner Rebbe, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, who passed away on Shabbos at the age of 88.

I had a chance to meet the Bostoner Rebbe when I lived in Jerusalem, and was inspired by his amazing spirit. His approach to Jewish life was completely non-judgmental, based in joy and helping others. Davening with him at his Boston Beis Midrash on Shabbos in Har Nof was always memorable.

One of the Rebbe’s many projects was his Rofeh International organization, dedicated to provide medical referral and support services to the needy. According to their website, “The organization is dedicated to provide Medical Referral and Support Services to the needy. The organization assists the sick and their families with referrals, Hospitality & Kosher meals during their stay in Boston.”

The Rebbe worked tirelessly to connect sick people with medical specialists and experts around the world, making connections between doctors and patients to ensure that they found the best care possible.

The only serious obituary I found on Yeshivanet:
From the Religious News

There is a wonderful book of stories compiled together with the parsha:The Bostoner: Stories and Recollections from the Colorful Chassidic Court of the Bostoner Rebbe, Rabbi Levi L. Horowitz.

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Rabbi Yonah

3 Comments

  • I happen to have had personal, direct, and VERY UNPLEASANT ‘meetings’ and experiences with the ‘family’ (a totally nasty, lying ‘son’, according to everyone I know who knows this same person), and not only did this person LIE HIS FACE OFF to me, but when I told him to his very face that I KNEW that he is a lying thief (and gave legal documentation, et cetera) to PROVE my claims against him/his organization, not ONLY he, but the so- called “insurance agent” that he took me to, NOT the doctor I was told we (including my former so-called ‘wife’) were TOLD we were going to be seeing and speaking with, the SAME “insurance agent” that was (in 1994) CONVICTED of insurance fraud, and said ‘rebbe’, y’mach sh’mo v’zichro ADMITTED DIRECTLY TO ME HIMSELF THAT HE AND HIS FILTHY, LYING, THIEVING ORGANIZATION HAD BEEN DOING THIS FOR MANY YEARS, AND IN FACT THAT EVERY ONE OF THE PEOPLE THEY WERE ‘HELPING’ WAS TOTALLY AND 100% PART OF THIS FRAUD ORGANIZATION, AND THE HUNDREDS/THOUSANDS OF ISRAELIS THEY HAD ‘HELPED’ KNEW 100% THAT THIS WAS A TOTAL FRAUD SITUATION. You may believe that I am a liar, but the phony “insurance agent” will not agree with you, and the testimony of the very people IN FRONT OF MYSELF AND MY FORMER (so-called) ‘wife’ (y’mach sh’ma v’zichra), GIVES ABSOLUTE PROOF THAT THERE IS A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF THIEVERY GOING ON IN THE NAME OF ‘religion’. If THIS is supposedly ‘true’ (your claims to assist and aid other Jewish people), I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE IOTA OF EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT THIS CLAIM!!!! In simple fact, I and my personal experience with you and your organization have been entirely and totally ROTTEN, and I resent your claims to be assisting people. I KNOW WHAT YOUR GROUP HAS BEEN DOING, and I SERIOUSLY doubt that what you are doing has changed one damned BIT since my own filthy, rotten experiences with your crew of lying thieves. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONVINCE ME THAT MY STATEMENTS ARE INCORRECT, SINCE I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOUR PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DOING FOR MANY, MANY YEARS. YOU ARE LIARS, DESTROYERS, AND ABSOLUTE, TOTAL THIEVES. IT IS TRULY TOO, TOO BAD THAT THIS ‘RELIGION’ WAS EVER ALLOWED TO EXIST!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Rabash’s article nubmer 8-Het( rav Gotlieb’s edition) is called General Questions and the first question is about the performing the Mitzvot Lo LeShma. As we know it is a big period of time that a person performs the Mitzvot not for the sake of bestowing, before he comes to the level of performing them LeShma, and the question asks if at this level there is a purifing effert on our heart=Ratzon Lekabbel, becuase it is sais I created The Wish to Get and I created Torah the spice(=the possibility to correct it ), and it doesn’t separate here the levels when we perform the Mitzvot LeShma and Lo LeShma. And Rabash cites Baal HaSulam’s introduction for Zohar, which sais that when a person starts to perform the Mitzvot even without any intention, just as pure phisycal actions, even without Love and Awe, as should be done by a servant of the Creator, and it is called LoLeShma( not for the sake of bestowing= without the feeling of Who’s Mitzvot he/she performs, the Point in his/her heart starts growing and showing its action.( the point in the heart- the understanding of possibility of another way of thinking, the way where we take into consideration the intrests of the whole Israeli people and all the creation, the point of a person belonging to Israel-Yashar Kel=straight to the Creator, the point of purposeful life and creation, the point that there is a Creator to this world). Rabash sais that to perfrom Mitzvot, one doesn’t need any motivation, that the ACTIONS themselves without any diraction and motivation are able to purify the wish to get, but it is possible only on the first spiritual level ( which is called Neffesh=Dommem deKdusha) as we see here, it is the action first of all, that should be done and then a motivation is added, and not as some wish to present that it is enough to have an intention, motivation, and the action of the Mitzvot aren’t important, whoever sais that, doesn’t understand anything in spiritual or is to busy to form an organization to boost his/her ego, and thus fooling the people to use their force and effort for his/her egoistic purposes, which have nothing to do with the Kabbalah, and explanations of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, there selfish and irresposible claims, as the claim of M.Laitman that the soul of Baal HaSulam leads him in each his step, are criminal both in spirituality and matirial world because it is fruad!!!. To behave for the sake of bestowing doesn’t mean to be a toy in the hands of others, to sacrifies your life to an egoist, who wants to demolish your will and call it bestowing, and if you don’t obey, they say that you are not able of bestowing and your ego is still very strong and you are as far from the spiritual worlds as you’ve been at the begining. The right way to check your ego influence is to see if a person who sais it to you is able to overcome his/her ego him/herself, when told unplesant things or confranted with the original texts which say on each page that the performence of the Mitzvot is obligatory, but they(Mitzvot) are the way to the spiritual and not the purpose, if the person is a real spiritualy lead one, he will work hard on the original texts and will consal not the soul of Baal haSulam but other living Ravs about this or that piont of discussion, but the one who always right and others are wrong, the one who is the only who knows the way and are not in touch with other Ravs, is very dangerous and deprevating person, because his purpose is to rule the minds and to suppress the will of people, he is a liar without honor, he will always find you explanations and ways out, that you will always be left to be blame or to think wrong. Again we want to stress that Rabash, citing Baal HaSulam writes that THE BEGINNING is THE PERFORMENCE OF MITZVOT as PURE ACTIONS even without any intention at all! So as we continue perform the pure actions of Mitzvot and purify the part in our wish to get that belongs to the Dommom level= just start doing something. Very often we sit amd dream about how it would be wonderful if we were this or that, but we don’t do even minimum to progress in that direction, the same here to speak about high spiritual level one should start with something at least be it putting Tfillin, Hafrashat Hallakh or any other Mitzva, but it should be taken and done regularly, and not when you feel like doing it. So if we start performing the Mitzvot as a pure actions without any intentions and motivations we build,sais Rabash, the 613 spiritual organs of our Dommem Partzuf, we are born in spiritual world and we have all the organs, now if somebody doesn’t make any of Mitzvot that he supposed to do, he will have a disabled spiritual body, because some of the organs=Mitzvot will be missing. Rabash again stresses that as a body has 613 organs the spiritual body has also 613 spiritual organs and if we learned to perform all the Mitzvot properly as actions we have already a spiritual body=soul which is built of 613Mitzvot=spiritual organs and we have our presence on the level of Neffesh deKdusha. So we may conclude that the period which is called LoLeShma is very important, because as a result of pure learning and performing Mitzvot we construct our first spiritual Partzuff and are born in the spiritual world! So, sais Rabash, we see that performing Torah and Mitzvot even LoLeShma purifies our heart. Next question is about the possibility to get to the level LeShma( for the sake of bestowing) and if it is only for the Chosen Individuals or there is a possibility for any of us to gain this high spiritual level, that by performing Mitzvot with the intention LeShma each of us can come to the equility of qualities with the Creator. The answer that Rabash gives is that though the wish to get is the creation of the Creator, which is a part of the Devine plan, but there is a way of its correction, which is given and is possible to gain, that the souls will be able to make the wish to get for the sake of getting in to the wish to get for the sake of bestowing. And again without any other speculations Rabash sais that the way which is given for this purpose is the way of Torah and Mitzvot ONLY!!! and sais that with the help of learningTorah and performing Mitzvot ANY OF US WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTION is able to turn his/her wish to get into the wish to get for the sake of bestowing. But what is very important to know, sais Rabash that we have to remember, that this Torah and Mitzvot way is given up to our choice and may not be ordered to any body without his/her own wish, that is way there are people who are on very high spiritual levels, and there are who move very slowly, becuase everything depends on how much you understand and want to get corrected, but any who chose the way of Torah and Mitzvot will finaly come to the correction, and even those who didn’t, will have to come to the completion, but as we already mentioned several times, that way of expiriences is very painful and full of suffering, which are uncompearable with a small discomfort of our ego when we decide to go the way of Torah and Mitzvot.Rabash sais that nobody will ever be pushed away from the Torah way, be he/she successful or not, this way finaly will lead to the purpose! Rabash explains that each who start to learn Torah and perform Miravot starts LoLeShma, because we are created with a very strong wish to get, which thinks only about its own intrests, and at the begining we don’t understand what’s the use of doing something if it isn’t for my own gain from it, and thus there is no chance that one of us will start learning Torah or perform Mitzvot if we try to do it straight for the sake of bestowing. Rabash cites Rambam to show the order of performing Mitzvot The Sages sais a person should always perform the Mitzvot even if it isn’t for the sake of bestowing, because out of performing loLeShma, one finally will come to perform LeShma, for the sake of bestowing, that is why we teach children and women, and simple people ( children, women ,simple people are the spiritual levels which each of us passes on his way of spiritual growth)slowly, slowly to perform the Mitzvot our of Awe, and for getting prise , till they get a certain level of understanding and catch the essence of this Wisdom, we start revealing them the secrets one by one and train them in great comfort to perform the Mitzvot our of Love= leShma. So sais Rabash, we see out of Rambam’s explanation, that each of us should come LeShma the question is how much time it will take for each of us, in short the difference is only in the amount of time and not in the result itself. One more question which is asked in this article is if a person feel that he is in the direction of performing the Mitzvot leShma, if he feels that he is coming to this high level,and if he should try to influence others to join him in the ascend to the spiritual levels together with him, or he shouldn’t try to influence others. The answer which is given sais, that in general the difference is as between a religious and non-religious person, if a religious person feel that he is able to help the non-religious to come to learn Torah and perform Mitzvot, then his duty is to do all possible to make this person to begin to learn Torah abd perform Mitzvot and to bring him closer to the Creator and it is a great Mitzva for the religious person, and the meaning of Mitzva is that we do it weither we like it or not, it is as teaching somebody something, at the begining we want to do it very much, but when we see that it takes time we loose our intrest and may abandant it all together, but in Mitzva you may not stop helping just becuase you’ve lost the intrest, because you are doing it as an order of the Melakh=King and not as your own wish. The same with the way leShma if you see that a person is on a rather high level to begin to understand the principles of bestowing, and to concieve the bestowing as a form of existence, you may try to explain him/her that there are high levels of serving the Creator and it is called performing the Mitzvot LeSHMA, BUT WE SHOULDN’T TAKE ANY PERSONAL INTREST IN IT, AND SHOULD DO IT AS A MITZVA, WE MAY NOT SEE IT AS OUR QUALITIES TO BRING THE PEOPLE TO TORAH ADN MITZVOT AND MAKING THEM TO PERFORM IT LESHMA, BUT TO KNOW THAT WE ARE CHANNELS OF THE CREATORS WILL, AND WE SHOULD DO IT AS RAMBAM TAUGHT US, WITHOUT PRESURE AND COMPULSION. What is absoulutly prohibited, sais Rabash is lecturing the person on what he/she has to be, and how he/she should learn Torah or perform Mitzvot or behave him/herself and so on, it comes out of our wish to control somebody and to make the choice for them and it has nothing to do with Mitzva, but is a pure expression of our egosentric wish to make everybody to think, behave and live the way we think is right to do it. Rabash sais that we all want each other to go the true way, the way of Torah and Mitzvot leShma,but the problem is that this uncontroled wish brought us to a lot of disputes,agueing and even quarreling and sometime,G-d forbid, hate, be it between relegious and non-religious, or between different ways between relegious people themselves(for ex. Hassudim and Litaim, and between Hassidim of one trend and Hassidim of another trend), that each of them thinks that only their way is right, and tries to talk in to their way all the others, and forget that the unity with the Creator is the main goal, and the details in performing Mitzvot are the secondary, axillory standarts, and may change depending on the spiritual level of the person or a group and their understanding of the importance of performing Mitzvot exactly as Hallakhah.