The Touching Mitzvah at Rabbi Tzemach Cunin’s Funeral

Sarah Barth, a resident of Beit Shemesh in Israel and founder of B’Yachad B’Osher which offers marriage education workshops, conferences and advocacy work, writes the following:

In a previous article on COLlive.com titled My Aunt and Chabad of Brentwood, I wrote about my aunt Miriam bas Rachel Leah z”l that is buried in the Mount Olive Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles.

The fact that she is buried there is a ness gadol, and is solely attributable to Rabbi Baruch and Rebbetzin Channa Hecht.

I must admit I had never heard of the Mount Olive Memorial Park Cemetery and little did I know how much it would play a part in my life. I traveled 2 times from my home in Eretz Yisrael to visit it during the course of the year – for the funeral, the unveiling and the first yahrzeit of my aunt.

Each occasion was coordinated and accompanied by Rabbi and Rebbetzin Hecht, who made each family member in attendance aware of the significance of each of the milestone events during the course of the year of avelut with warmth and compassion and in typical style of Chabad neshama nurturing!

But the greatest full-circle of the commemoration was when the aveilut was completed and it happpened under the most extraordinary circumstances – during this very time of intense mourning of the loss of Rabbi Tzemach Cunin and his burial in the same Mount Olive Memorial Park.

Who else than shluchim of the Rebbe and a sister and brother in law of Rabbi Tzemach and daughter and son in law of Rabbi Shlomo and Miriam Cunin would have the presence of mind and mesirat hanefesh to take the time to coordinate and bring over a minyan over to the gravesite of my aunt to say kaddish?

This act of extraordinary chesed is all the more poignant because the day of my aunt’s yarzheit was torrential rain and although we visited the grave, it was impossible to get a minyan.

So in the midst of grieving for Rabbi Tzemach in one area of Mount Olive Cemetery, at another area of the most unlikely burial place of my Aunt was a minyan gathered to say Kaddish and complete the year.

This act is the legacy of Gimul Tamuz and Yud Beit Tamuz, and a testimony to the Rebbe’s directives in sending the Cunin family and especially to the hasgacha pratis that my Aunt moved where the Chabad of Brentwood became her extended family in the most unimaginable ways.

My aunt is now surrounded not only by my beloved teacher of chitas, Rabbi Yehoshua Gordon z”l, but now in the company of Rabbi Tzemach Cunin z”l. May the Moshiah come now mamash to unite us.