Tribute to Rabbi Aryeh Lasky

a good air shabbos to everyone this week a few days ago we lost a very special with average hussit rabbi arya lasky during my years in the yeshiva in the 70s and 80s let me tell the islam let me tell you a little bit of history i'm not sure people really know about his history arye was born in michigan i believe in grand rapids east grand rapids michigan his parents lived there his father was a known photographer in the city they weren't at the time religious they belonged i believe to a reformed temple and that's the way arya grew up until his teenage years 15 16 or so 17. joseph berman today of a boynton beach a 73 year old man i spoke to him yesterday he told me that he met arya in the conservative shul on rosh hashanah in the early 70s he himself was becoming religious at the time and this was the own this was a shul nearby and he didn't want to go to reform so he thought conservative is an upgrade he'd go to the conservative place everything was fine meanwhile he sees that there's a choir goes up to the bema mixed with men and women this he couldn't tolerate anymore and he decided is going to a classroom upstairs in this building which was already an old building they were building a new building at the time but the services was and was still in the old building he went into a classroom and he was daving and he was at the point of melech el yoin in the khazrasashats and he hears from another room someone not crying but shouting and praying loud so he go he thought he was the only one that escaped there meanwhile he goes into another classroom and he sees this teenager and he's praying with in english at the top of his lungs and he's totally into it he says hello how are you and he talks to him for a few minutes and he sees that this young man is very very con interested in yiddish kite and he's interested in prayer and he says to him you know you should go to chabad they'll feed you and he told me yesterday he meant i'll feed you spiritually but it sounds good because khabad feeds you anyway you come you're invited to a meal and that's the last that he knew of him years later when arya would come back to his parents to the community he saw yosef because yosef was one of the three people who opened helped bring rabbi yosef you'll see weingarten to grand rapids 43 years ago so he yosef was one of the first three balabatham who made it happen so when arya would come back he saw suddenly he has the word rabbi he got smikha and so he and so he saw his development over the years arya i knew him was an intense person but that intensity was with a focus a few examples and here we see a very important the kudu very important point that intensity intensity does not mean bad intensity could means can mean focused and and fully involved and you realize you don't have a minute to waste time is short time is moving the clock's moving like i told you once the vote of the adultered episode of moishe repeated the name of his father a slave that said time is moving dalton many times would speak with a sing song so anyway arya had that in him when he was in new york he was introduced to the wednesday hour release time that bakaram students go to the public schools and take the children out and they learn with that with them yiddish kites etc for an hour a week aria was someone who was totally involved and he developed a connection with many children and he had in his briefcase he had all the paraphernalia all the things that you needed for release time and uh some friends told me when they went on release time and they didn't have the last minute they you know because you're in yeshiva learning and then all of a sudden you have to go to for a few hours on wednesday afternoon to to help to to teach you the shaking or me still in in public school you give them an opportunity you need some of the you know you need the the sit there the hummus this paper that paper arya had it all in his in his briefcase so they know if they go to harya they'll have it his connection with the children was so much that he would take pictures of bar mitzvah boys having their aliyah and the upstairs schuler 770 with the rebbe standing right there that would always get the third aliyah and uh the boy would usually get the second aliyah they would ask the kohanim to leave i believe anyway and he would take pictures i have to understand the room is very very it's not very large and it's packed so you couldn't really shoot from the right side left side you had to kind of shoot right right from the front of the beamer kind of the beam is separating you the bar mitzvah boy and under the photographer and arya would do that so there were many hasidim who were bothered by it and then they told him to stop and they told him this is not what the rebbe wants and it's a disturbance you know you have a camera although he didn't you know he did he he didn't have the flash he was able to there was already didn't you know you didn't need a flash but still it's like a camera in your face and he got and and after a while he said maybe they're right so he wrote to the rebel letter and he showed this to my friend robert brentwood california a very good friend of mine and barack told me that he saw the letter he saw the actual letter because arya showed it to him and he wrote maybe maybe he should stop but he also wrote that you know sometimes two three years later he goes and you know he's with with uh with the bar mitzvah boy as that he becomes a teenager and he keeps a connection with him and he sees that this picture that he made of him standing next to the rib of getting the aliyah is prominently displayed in the in the boy's room and out of all the pictures this is the the picture because ari arya would blow up the picture and frame it and give it to the boy and if he framed it i think he did whatever he gave the boy the picture as a mascara as a gift a memory should have a memory of this mental event and and the rebbe in those days wouldn't really write back a full-page letter he would answer and underline and make notes on your letter and there ever underlined that he should continue doing this and that it's important and that he can continue continue seeing the growth of these children etc then the rabbit just added one thing why do you need to take a picture of me why must i be in the picture which everyone knows that that's really not a not saying don't do it it's it's it's an approval you know the rebel was just making him feel good now you have to understand this is a about the shiva was about the shiva at 1617 comes into lubavitch and and and gets this recognition from the rebbe is totally involved with with with um with wednesday hour with release time gets where he began to morristown another you belchuva yeshiva for uh for balichuva and then into 770 he becomes one of the boys i believe it was with him that he once approached the rebel and asked today but what name his sister should have because she doesn't have a jewish name so the rebbe asked him what's her english name karen he said karen so did i ever said no kevin is a good name and the rabbit gave him a name for his sister on the spot kevin he later after he married he moved and off right after but he was in los angeles and while my son was in some in the elementary school in fourth or fifth grade he was the teacher in the first grade and he was a very very down to earth very loving and practical with the children the children really loved him the last 20 years or so he moved back to the to michigan to detroit and he was very involved in the aid of there and community things here is a a yid a hussaid married had nine children has nine children who turned his life around because he was looking for meaning he was looking for purpose and he had a a hole in the summer i've spoken to my friends about this you know there is you know if you grow up from you grow up in lubavitch and grow up in a normal you know way in yeshiva in a community okay it's expected it wasn't expected with him and you could see from the from from 1617 when he began his trooper when he began his his that his neshama he had a very high nusham and all of the issues that that were to the right and the left including people who bothered him who weren't respectful didn't matter because he stayed focused and this joseph berman did a tremendous thing for him he gave him those few words try chabad and he didn't push him and he didn't follow up he just threw an idea into him and this teaches us that to say to uh to to a yid to a youngster try lubavitch try khabad try rabbit try see this try tighter you never know what the result of those few special words will do if they're coming from the heart everyone knows that after a person passes away then the shaman returns on high and we those left behind need to do things for that neshama if we really care about them so one of the great things and important things is tzedakah is helping someone who leaves a family of nine although some are older might some might be married i believe nevertheless there's children there's grandchildren there's a wife there's an almana so everyone should be mistaken to have i think a gofundme fund charity fund they've opened to give to dhaka whatever you can to to to support the family and simultaneously to continue his message of of yiddish akinder you know it used to be that the campground isro and the release time and the rallies was mostly for not from children definitely not laba's children well things have changed but the truth is things have not changed there's said i remember the fabregas there's thousands and thousands of children that are not yet from rabbi yaakov would say you want to run ashley to timbuktu you want to run here there you have to go california china here there what about good old brooklyn with which has the most amount of jews the new york area and there's thousands and and tens of thousands of yiddish children that are in public school we need to get them into a yeshiva we need to give them an exposure to tater that's true today as it was then with all the yeshivas and the talmud traders it's all great but still trust me in every public school there's a lot of yiddish in there so hashem should help that in this house of that we remember him as a hosted a shamayim a london and a a yid who was so dedicated to the rebels in jonim to the abster and is the shamrock have an aliyah is the shama should benefit from all the mice i'm taking the good deeds that we will do this year in particular we for his neshama may we all have maximum the simphof with the coming of mashiach now