Thousands of Chabad Chassidim and other residents of Arad stood in the hot Negev sun Thursday morning waiting for eulogies to begin, gazing at the tallit-wrapped body of Rabbi Benzion Lipsker, the city's first Chief Rabbi and a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbinical Court of Israel. The rabbi, who died late Wednesday afternoon following a serious illness, is survived by his wife, four daughters and their families, including many grandchildren.
The funeral began shortly before noon in the courtyard of the Central Synagogue of Arad where Rabbi Lipsker reigned as spiritual leader. Many sobbed openly as they listened to eulogies delivered by Rabbi Lipsker's colleague in the Arad Rabbinate, Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yosef Albo, Mayor Gideon Bar-Lev, and others.
"He had a warm heart," Bar-Lev told Israel National News prior to the funeral, "a big heart. That was the most prominent thing about him -- his heart. It was huge."
Rabbi Albo described his colleague's dedication to his dual post as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, and emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. "He was a faithful messenger of the Rebbe, spreading Torah Judaism, teaching them to love the Torah," he said.
"You were connected to everyone, and every single one was connected to you," Isaiah Unger said directly to the body of the Rabbi lying before the podium. "There was no mechitzah, no barrier between you and others."
Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi of Kfar Chabad, head of the Chassidic sect's Beit Din (Rabbinical Court) of which Rabbi Lipsker was a member, also spoke, as did his son-in-law, Rabbi Yaakov Mendelsohn.
Ethnicity Didn't Matter
For more than 30 years, Rabbi Lipsker worked to bring spiritual guidance to a city wracked with the changes that come with periodic influxes of new immigrants from different lands. The faces of those who flooded into the courtyard of the Central Synagogue where he reigned as Spiritual Leader reflected that legacy.
"His weekly lesson on Tanya helped me get over my depression," Sara, a woman with a European accent told Israel National News. "For two years I went faithfully every week. It is eight years since I became a religious woman; I was depressed for 18 years, but no longer, all of it thanks to Rabbi Lipsker."
A second woman, Ruthie, of Middle Eastern descent, related how she, too, had attended Rabbi Lipsker's weekly Tanya (mystical Jewish learning) class, "but suddenly three weeks ago, it ended and we had no idea why. I saw him in the bank last week just before the holiday, and he looked so frail -- he said he was arranging money to build the foundation for the new synagogue; there wasn't enough money yet to do more."
"A tireless emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe," Rabbi Lipsker never stopped working on behalf of the Jews of Arad, regardless of where they came from, said his son-in-law, Rabbi Mendelsohn.
"It was impossible to walk home on a holiday with him," he said with the glimmer of a smile. "It could take hours on Sukkot. Every person he met, he would stop to offer him his lulav and etrog in order to ensure that he could have the merit of having performed the blessing properly."
Rabbi Mendelsohn -- whose wife, Chanie, is principal of the Chabad Girls' School, Ohr Menachem -- made a strong effort to strike an upbeat note. The rabbi was thinking of his congregation and the people of Arad right up until the end, he explained to the crowd, relating that his final words were, "I love everyone; I love them all!" Then he read the Shema, the central prayer of the Jewish faith, and closed his eyes, he told them, and sank slowly into a coma.
"The Rebbe sent you here, and you were a faithful messenger," Rabbi Mendelsohn said, his voice breaking. "When the Rebbe of Gur, Shlita, went to meet with the Rebbe, the Rebbe said to him, "You know my man in Arad? The Rebbe called you 'my man.' That's who you were. The Rebbe's man in Arad."
Rabbi Mendelsohn vowed to continue in his father-in-law's path, observing, "Chassidim don't say goodbye. We know that death is not an ending, not really. It is a passage, and we will see each other again, when the Messiah comes -- may it be soon!"
A Final Ta'alucha
With this assurance, mourners proceeded to travel with the rabbi's body in a final "ta'alucha" around the town -- the traditional Chabad procession in which the Chassidim walk to visit other Jews.
Each institution that he had founded -- the Beit Medrash and synagogue where the kollel (Rabbinical Studies center) convenes and the community prays, the Chabad girls' and boys' elementary schools, and the ORT High School where he had taught classes and conducted special Jewish outreach programs for decades, was given the opportunity to offer a final farewell to the rabbi who had given so much.
The procession then traveled to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, where Rabbi Benzion Lipsker was laid to rest near the graves of his parents.