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For Rabbi Lamm’s 1st yahrtzeit, words of thanks [video]

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One of Rabbi Lamm’s grandchildren, Dr. Jonathan Lamm, sings Rabbi Lamm’s favorite song, V’Li’Yerushalayim Ircha, at first yahrtzeit event at the Beis Haknesses of North Woodmere.

The widow of Rabbi Maurice Lamm spoke about consolation and thanks on Sunday night, at a shiur to mark Rabbi Lamm’s first yahrtzeit.

“Thank you so much for helping me through a terrible time,” Rebbetzin Shirley Lamm said at the Beis Haknesses of North Woodmere. “After 61 years of marriage, it’s really hard to let go.”

Rabbi Lamm was a best-selling author of popular works on halacha and hashkafa, including The Jewish Way of Death and Morning, which  sold over 1 million copies. He was also a pulpit rabbi and an acclaimed professor.

Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz, mora d’asra of the North Woodmere shul, spoke warmly of Rabbi and Rebbetzin Lamm as members of the shul.

“His Torah shel ba’al peh was so precise and clear,” said Rav Yehuda Kelemer, mora d’asra of the Young Island of West Hempstead, who delivered the yahrtzeit shiur. “He knew how to translate the Torah for a modern generation.”

Addressing Rebbetzin Lamm and her children, Rav Kelemer said, “I am the product of the Torah of your husband and father.

“He was a master in halacha and a master of addressing issues that so many rabbanim kept away from,” and he did so with great humility and in words that were poetry.

“He gave Torah as Matan Torah was originally given and those memories will never dim as we recall his illumination, his chachma, his wisdom, for many years to come.”

Sp many people have gone through the tragedy of the death of someone close, he said. “Rabbi Lamm writes so elegantly that you will not resolve that problem of death in the world but you will address it.” 

Mrs. Lamm recounted her husband’s difficult final months.

“The Hatzalah boys became part of my family,” she said. “With respect and love and worry they carried him out to the ambulance 15 times, maybe more.”

In his final moments, 25 or more of his grandchildren crowded into his hospital room and sang songs and hyms of Yerushalayim.

“While each of us asked mechila, the singing kept going on,” she said. “As he took his last breath, the singing never stopped. We sang him to Gan Eden.”

Finally, “he would no longer be in pain, he would be in peace, Hashem would take care of him,” she said.

At the Beis Haknesses on Sunday, one of the grandchildren, Dr. Jonathan Lamm, sang Rabbi Lamm’s favorite song, V’Li’Yerushalayim Ircha, and many of those in attendance sang along.