קאווע שטיבל

[left]Jewish Messenger, June 16, 1876

DEATH OF RABBI HALBERSTAMM.
RABBI CHAIM HALBERSTAMM, the renowned Chassidim Rabbi of Sandec, father of the recently deposed R. Halberstamm, who was convicted for pronouncing an excommunication, died last month.
A newspaper of Pesth writes of him: the Rabbi of Sandec is no more. This news will pass to-day through the entire Galicia, and will, everywhere between the Vistula and Dniester, fill the pious Jaws with mourning. Such sympathy as R. Chaim Halberstamm finds with his Chassidim, such despair as the death of the old man of eighty-seven years calls forth among his adherents, will never be caused among the occidentals for the most popular person. During a period of sixty years, he was accounted a mythical or mystical person, and the reverence shown to him, by far surpassed the measure of respect for any living being. He reigned with a mighty power over his people, for he kept their minds under enchantment, and understood them better than any despot of spirits during the middle ages. He labored without external means and without degrees, and therein lies the secret of his power. As destructive and lamentable to the progress of Judaism in Galicia as the retrograde movements of Chassidism, of which R. Chaim Halberstamm acted as its highest representative, we must not confound his opinions with the reputed Rabbis that performed miracles. At the commencement of this century, the news spread over all Galicia, of a boy fifteen years of age who surpassed in Talmudical lore and ingenuity, all his contemporaries. The boy soon became an admired scholar, and when he had hardly reached this twentieth year, he was called as Rabbi to Sandec, and filled that office until a few years ago, when he resigned it in favor of his son.
The conviction of the latter caused mush grief to the old man, and a few days before his demise he said to his surrounding friends that he would not live long after his son entered the prison door. With this Rabbi, one of the strongest pillars of Polish Chassidism is broken down. This destructive outgrowth from the bosom of Judaism, need not have assumed such dimensions and anti-progressive character, if it had always remained in such impure bands, as it originated from. Chassidism only dates from the end of the last century, and as it is destitute of every high moral idea, it has no future. Only the spiritual despotism of R. Chaim, the mighty charm of his personal appearance could support and revive the empty religious phantoms.
He held an incredible authority over the Talmudical ignorant Chassidim. Sandec, his residence, was the centre of the whole movement. There, at all times, several hundreds of his adherents assembled, from all parts of the world, remained for a longer or shorter period to profit by his teachings and to participate in bliss of his wisdom. Before Now Year’s day, the pilgrimage of the “good Jews” appeared endless, and during the whole month New Sandec shel-tered three to fourteen thousand pilgrims, who came to spend the holidays with the Rabbi. They brought him much money and his income was estimated at 70,000 gulden yearly. He together with his family, lived very modestly, and the rich donations did not remain for a long time in his hands. His surroundings consisted of poor people, who changed all the time, but always counted several hundreds. They formed his bodyguard, and had to be supported. He did not perform his morning service before he had distributed among the poor eighteen gulden – eighteen in Hebrew expresses “life” some times he was short of money, and the amount had first to be procured.
The day was passed most of the time amidst prayers and interviews. The dinner lasted about three hours, although only soup and meat formed the meal, as rest of the time was occupied by a lecture before several hundred persons. Then he gave audiences, mostly for people in distress, to whom he gave advice. Late in the evening till midnight he lectured again, and after the close of the lecture, he commenced to live “for himself.” He had to be left alone, while he performed his midnight service, and only through a window could he sometimes be seen in the lighted room where the small, sickly and lame man, clothed in white, would yet at the third hour after midnight continue at his devotions. At last he stepped into a cold bath to purify his body, and thereby ended his daily work.
In such a way this man lived to the end of his days, and to his last hour he preached to his adherents what they did not understand. He was an ascetic, wandered in the labyrinth of the Cabbalah, and the only ides which he manifested during life and always expressed was, “be benevolent and support the poor.” His great income want for the largest part to the needy, as he only spent it in charity and was noting else than Grand-Almoner of the needy Jaws of Galicia.[/left]