HaGaon HaRav Meir Tzvi Bergman attended the Bar Mitzvah of the Belzer Rebbe’s grandson on Tuesday evening and even delivered an emotional speech.

A delegation on behalf of the Belzer Rebbe had delivered an invitation to HaRav Bergman, one of the Zakeinei of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Degel HaTorah. The Rosh Yeshivah, who lately rarely attends events apart from gatherings of chizzuk for Torah and mitzvos, said that he feels he must attend the simcha out of a great debt of gratitude to the Rebbe for his steadfast support for his father-in-law, HaGaon HaRav Shach, z’tl.

HaRav Bergman told the members of the delegation that in his time, he also was a messenger on behalf of his father-in-law to the Rebbe and was even a participant in the negotiations for his support for the establishment of the Degel HaTorah party in the stormy election period of 1988. In that same year, HaRav Shach, z’tl attended the bar mitzvah of the Belzer Rebbe’s son, HaRav Aharon Mordechai Rokeach, father of the chassan bar mitzvah, an event that was the cause of much discussion on the background of the elections that took place that month and the establishment of Degel Torah.

HaRav Bergman spoke and related a devar Torah, saying that he questioned why a chassan is called to the Torah prior to his chasunah and his teretz was that just as a city is only considered a “walled city” if the wall is built prior to the city being built, when a chassan “builds” a home, the “wall” of Torah must be built first so that he’ll know that the Torah is the guardian of the home.

“I told this to the Rebbe many years ago and the Rebbe told me that the Shulchan Aruch paskens that even if they intended in their thoughts alone to build a wall but they ended up building the city first, it is considered to have the din of a walled city,” HaRav Bergman said. “I want to say about the Rebbe that all his siyata dishmaya was because the Rebbe built his kehilla and all his plans from the start were l’sheim Shamayim.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)