Williamsburg, NY - Tragic Death Of Yaakov Neuman Touched Entire Klal Yisroel, Eliciting Sympathy From A Blind Man

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Williamsburg, NY - This story was Reprinted with permission from Mishpacha magazine as Rabbi Mordechai Kamentzky describes his spur-of-the-moment shivah call to the grieving family of Yaakov Neuman, a”h, the small boy who fell down an elevator shaft in Williamsburg

I never intended to go. And I was surely not prepared for the experience. I was in the office of the yeshivah when I received a phone that a particular person who I had been trying to meet with for weeks would have an hour window of availability starting in about fi fteen minutes. I quickly calculated that I could make it to his offi ce on the Lower East Side in about thirty, leaving me a half hour with him. So that is where and why I went.

The meeting went well and I turned around to head back to Hewlett. But the detour I took etched my soul with a mournful medley with overtones of hope in an emerging background.

Having grown up in the Five Towns, my father taught me (among many other things) how to navigate the way back home from the Lower East Side through the streets of Bedford Stuyvesant, not a particularly welcoming neighborhood. And always, before I approach the Williamsburg Bridge, I flip on the traffic report to see whether the BQE and other highways in the area have already transformed from freeways into parking lots. But the newsman was not talking about stalled cars or fender benders. For the umpteenth time they were detailing how the New York City Housing Authority was using some mumbo jumbo to describe an investigation into the tragic death of a five-year-old chassidic boy in Williamsburg.

I stared at the Bridge as I took in every word. Flashbacks of tragedies and tzaaros exploded in my mind as I recalled so many instances where total strangers banded together as brothers. Tefillos for captured soldiers, volunteers to search for missing children and elderly men, and consolers in the face of otherwise anonymous tragedies. I remember going through my own personal trials when total strangers would approach me with a warm embrace, mentioning that they have us in mind, citing the names of those ill complete with mother and child.

As I heard the tires grate on those metal grids and make the eerie noise that always reminds me that in life we are always suspended over unknown waters, I asked myself a simple question. Why was this particular tragedy being blasted over the airwaves and plastered in the pages of the New York Times? Why had what I thought was a personal tragedy become a public spectacle? I took it personally. Maybe they want me to know. Maybe it’s because they want the world, or at least all Yidden, to share

the pain. I decided that my trek across that bridge would not end in Hewlett without a stop in Williamsburg. I would be menachem avel. But the yetzer hara has the ability to play mind games with even the best intentions. So as I navigated the exit ramp, I began to fi gure to myself. Am I doing the right thing? Should I go? They don’t know me. Am I infringing on a personal tragedy? Am I being the same yenta as the newscasters, except just dressed up in a beard, black suit, and tie?

I turned on to Roebling and parked the car in front of Gottlieb’s, the iconic deli and restaurant, home to the gastronomical urges of generations of midweek cholent eaters. I figured that in case I decided to turn around, I could always console myself with a pastrami on rye.

And then, in Eliezer-esque fashion, I decided to test myself and make a final decision. I did not know where the family lived, at that point I did not even know the name of the family. I turned to the first Jew I saw, clearly a Satmar chassid, and asked, “Where are they sitting?” As if the family were the only family in the world, the man knew exactly what I was talking about; he knew why I was there and he did not look at me strangely.

With doleful eyes, he directed me to Clymer Street a block away and sadly said one word, “70.” I made the fi ve-block trek thinking about tragedy. I knew that nothing I could say would bring solace to a grieving family.

They surely did not need an American Litvak talking hashkafah with them. I remember hearing how a great Rosh Yeshivah was menachem avel to a family who had lost a child. He sat quietly for an hour as tears streamed down his eyes. No explanations. No shmooze. Just pure unadulterated hishtatfus in pain. I wished I was able to do that but I was interrupted as my line of vision caught what must have been the vigil of another camera and video crew selling ads of a family’s personal tragedy.

There were cops and firemen, maintenance workers from the Housing Authority scurrying to and fro in their efforts to rebuild the Humpty- Dumpty of a murderous machine. There were a number of chassidishe men and women milling around in front of the building. And there was me.

As I entered the locked building, I heard someone say in my direction “11 B.” They knew why I was there. I thought I was alone. I thought I’d be an anomaly. I walked into the building and saw two elevators. One was guarded by a strip of yellow tape, poorly placed like a band-aid on a gushing wound. The other waited silently as if to tempt its riders: “Try your luck with me.”

As I stood nervously by the other elevator, I realized that I was not alone. I was not the only one who decided to enter this community to share in this tragedy. A broad-shouldered young man with a large, white, crocheted kippah serugah with a colorful border was standing there as well. He was holding the arm of another young man. We looked at each other, but only one of them looked back at me. The other one didn’t — he was blind. They too felt a need to come, and the blind man, Lavi Greenspan, was holding a shopping bag.

Suddenly I did not feel uncomfortable. Suddenly I felt that only the souls of the consolers talk to the souls of the bereaved. There are no curled peyos, no long bekeshes, no upturned hats, no kippot. There are just neshamos.

I know Lavi well. He calls me every Thursday night and we share divrei Torah. He is a special young man, who was featured in these pages. I did not realize how special he was until I saw him in action.

We all walked in to a room, the polo-shirted Mizrachi youth leader, Lavi Greenspan, and me. I noticed some squinting among the Satmar men who occupied the Misaskimlabeled chairs. The father, a distinguished and strong yungerman sat stoically on the small chair, nodding as we entered as if we were all old friends, visitors to his home in joy as well. He gave no hint of discomfort toward the knitted kippah or to the large man whose clouded eyes would soon tell the secrets of life that know one has ever seen. You see, the rest of the story has nothing to do with me.

It is all about the encounter between this blind young man and a grieving family. Lavi entered the room and sat down directly in front of Yaakov Newman’s, a”h, father. The only divide was a small wooden table appropriately stickered with the ubiquitous Misaskim label, a cup of cold coffee on it. Lavi’s friend guided him as his hands reached out toward the father’s. He grasped them strongly.

“I am blind. I had a brain tumor as a teenager. I lost my vision, but I manage. I cannot know your pain. All I know is that the Ribono shel Olam is crying with you and Yaakov is up in Shamayim smiling and reaping the beauties of the Ribono shel Olam’s Shechinah.” Through his blind eyes, Lavi went on to paint a tapestry of emunah while repeating the concepts we all know and struggle to see while we battle with our own personal questions. Olam HaBa. Techiyas hameisim. Mashiach. Nechamah. Geulah.

Through those eyes he described what he felt that father needed to see. He then asked for the other children and rummaged through his shopping bag giving them candies and goodies to sweeten the bitterest moments of their lives. The Satmar men in the room looked at him in wonder. He said what he had to say with a confi dence of faith that made his blind eyes sparkle.

Then the man turned to me. As I mentioned that I had a grandfather who lived for a while in the project, my mind fl ashed back to a time when I was about Yaakov Newman’s age. I would visit my grandparents in the projects not too far away on Bedford and Taylor. I remember the fear I had in entering the then-new elevators, unaware that in forty some odd years they would be a deathtrap for another five-year old boy.

He shook me back to the present when he asked me my name and nodded in the recognition of its familiarity. But I had not much more to say. Lavi had spoken for all of us. He and his friend left with a shower of blessings and hugs as if these mourners were his lifelong friends. And they were. I sat there quietly for a few more minutes and then openly prayed the ordained blessing of nechamah and slowly got up. I stood to walk toward the ladies section to offer the brachah and, fearing that I may be breaching protocol, turned back toward the door.

I stood there with Lavi, eleven stories above the tragedy and waited. My impatience and distrust convinced me to walk down the stairs instead of taking the only remnant of a wounded elevator system.

I left the building before the elevator reached the lobby. On my way out I saw a young man dressed in a very stylish three button polo shirt. He was crisply dressed, sporty and looked quite affluent. I foolishly mumbled, “11B?” He looked at me as if this was the only place to be on a Wednesday afternoon. “Of course.” I was curious. Was there any affiliation or was this just another Jew who felt compelled to follow his heart and share the pain of a distant cousin?

I turned my palm up and slightly moved my hand back and forth as if to say “Shaychus?” “This is a tragedy for Klal Yisrael and so I came.”

I walked away knowing that in a great way we are all like Lavi. The love for Klal Yisrael blinds us from seeing any outward differences among us. And so we come.