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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Rabbi Moshe Feinstein's guidance, as told in this story, is to care personally and practically for a young orphaned relative and for a grieving mourner, even when the normal customs seem to conflict. The story centers on Rabbi Feinstein taking in his orphaned nephew Mickey Sosin in Cleveland, then advising him on how to handle his mother's sudden death just before his wedding. The narrator presents it as an example of extraordinary personal concern.
Key Points
- Rabbi Feinstein, the Rosh Yeshiva of Telshe, agreed to take in his nephew, Mickey Sosin, after the boy's father died and his mother asked for help raising him in Israel; he promised to treat the boy as his own child.
- Mickey was raised in Cleveland and studied at Telshe and other yeshivas, and became engaged to a local girl.
- When Mickey's mother died of a heart attack days before the wedding, Rabbi Feinstein advised him not to attend the funeral, but to begin sitting shiva immediately in Cleveland so the mourning period would end in time for the wedding.
- Rabbi Feinstein then called Mickey person-to-person to make sure the bride's Shabbos celebration would not be embarrassing, asking a friend to send flowers to the kallah in Mickey's name.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: When a mourner (avel) is about to get married, shiva can be started right away in the place where the mourner is, counting the day of the death or burial as day one, so the seven-day period ends before the wedding. Mickey was told to skip his mother's levayah (funeral) and begin sitting shiva in Cleveland. Mickey, as an avel, should not buy flowers himself; instead, a friend should buy flowers for the kallah and deliver them in his name for Shabbos, so she has a bouquet like other brides on the custom of gifting flowers.
- The story is from Rabbi Paysach Krohn's account, which he says he heard from Mickey Sosin and Mickey's son.
- The narrator explains that a "person-to-person" call was an older telephone practice: it was billed only if the intended person answered, and it signaled that a call was serious.
- The narrator says the mother had come to America only rarely and had planned to attend the wedding, which made her sudden death especially painful.
- The narrator notes that Rabbi Feinstein's concern extended to a bride's feelings, even while he was guiding a grieving family through halachic questions.
Bottom Line
The story shows Rabbi Feinstein's willingness to take responsibility for family in need and to find halachically sound solutions that still allow a joyful wedding to proceed on time.
