Rav Meir Bransdorfer

Why this Blog Post?


I knew that Rav Meir was a gaon and tzadik, a Dayan on the Bais Din of the Eida Charedis and a Posek. These things I knew. When I found out he was a mohel, and Hashem blessed me with my twin boys Zisha and Melech (named after the two holy brothers the Rebbe Reb Melech of Lizhensk and his borther the Rebbe Reb Zisha of Anipoli) I needed a mohel. Since I already knew those things about Rav Meir I called his son and arranged for him to be the Mohel, and circumcise my sons and bring them into the covenant of Yisroel on Erev Shabbos Sukkos.

After I recently learned and recieved semicha in issur veheter from HaRav Don Channen Shlita of the Shulchan Aruch Project / Pirchei Shoshanim I decided I wanted to be tested by Rav Meir. This never happened as he was tragically niftar, but not before I had made the acquaintance of his son, who follows in his famous father's footsteps.

This is part of his story and their story which I now will share with you...on this website and blog dedicated to the memory and Torah of HaGaon Tzadik veKadosh the Holy Rav Meir Bransdorfer Zatzal author of Kenah Bosem.

This is not a biography but an intro:

I met Rav Moshe Bransdorfer on my last trip to Mezibuz in the Ukraine. I was travelling there as part of a group with great thanks to my latest sponsor who helped print Noam Elimelech in English for the third printing (keep buying it! Part II is in the works) and for the Kedushas Levi in English project.

More on that here http://chassidusonline.com/

Anyway I was staying and sleeping in the same room, and we sat next to one another during the Shabbos meals next to the tzion of the Holy Baal Shem Tov zy"a. We began to talk, I explained how his father was the mohel for my two boys, and was told that his father had performed close to 10,000 bris milahs!!!! (thats not an exageration btw).

During Shabbos we spoke about the challenges of the Rabbinate, I was at the time serving as the Rav in Kehilas Ahava veSimcha in RBSA, and was discussing with him different things. He was in turn sharing his own dilemnas with me. His father (who was still alive at the time we met) had entrusted him and other students with the mission of being round the clock Poskim. Rav Meir believed that a Rav and posek was totally batel and kafoof to the tzibur. This means that he must make himself available round the clock 24 hours a day seven days a week, on Shabbos on YomTov etc. His father would say: "After 120 years when a Jew comes up to heaven before the Bais Din shel Maalah, the heavenly court they will ask on such and such date and such and such time you did such and such, why did you not follow the Halacha? Why did you not do what the Shulchan Aruch says? The jew would respond that he did not know the Halacha. Why did you not ask a Posek or a Rav? It was Shabbos, It was YomTov or simply there was no one to ask would be the answer!" Rav Meir said that his mission for Rav Moshe and the other poskim is: never let that story take place, prevent that scenario from being true. Be the poskim and Rabonim, be there for Jews to ask, day and night.

Wow what a mission!

But Rav Moshe and his Heichal Hora'ah is in a small cramped location above a small shul in Meah Shearim section of Jerusalem, the holy city. And if Chazal say that Hashem has only four cubits dalet amos of Halacha in this world the same is accurate and can be said for Rav Moshe's operation. His own house must serve as the location for answering shailos at night when the heichal Horaah office is closed and with a small rented apartment of 3 bedrooms from himself and his family he is forced into the hallway and street to answer delicate personal questions.

I hope that anyone who believes in this mission and is reading this can help, I am not taking any cuts or getting paid to tell you this, but I think its an important institution for your maaser money or donations to consider.

Rav Meir not only raised and taught his Rav Moshe, he highly endorsed the Heichal Horah which I will tell you more about in subsequent postings

Here is a letter he signed and wrote, promising that those that help the heichal horah of my dear friend and colleague Rav Moshe Bransdorfer to build and expand his home and heichal horah will be sent children health and livelihood and success in all his endeavors, a Tzadik decrees and Hashem fulfills what more could you ask for than the blessings of a Talmid Chachim who was one of the Poskei HaDor?

More posts follow here:
http://brandsdorfer.blogspot.com/