Rav Avraham Matisyahu Friedman of Stefanest
The second Rebbe of Stefanest, a grandson of the Ruzhiner Rebbe, revered across Romania as a hidden tzaddik and a worker of miracles.
Biography
Early years
Rav Avraham Matisyahu Friedman of Stefanest zy"a, the second Rebbe of Stefanest, was a grandson of Rav Yisroel of Ruzhin, the Ruzhiner Rebbe. His father, Rav Menachem Nochum, was the fourth son of the Ruzhiner and the first Rebbe of Stefanest. Rav Avraham Matisyahu was his only son, born on the eighth day of Chanukah in 1847 in Sadigura.
At his bris, his grandfather the Ruzhiner Rebbe gave him the second name Matisyahu, after Matisyahu the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) of the Maccabees.
In 1862 he married the daughter of Reb Yitzchok Reich of Reisha. After eleven years the marriage ended in divorce, and they had no children. He then married his cousin Sarah Zipporah, a daughter of Reb Yosef Mansohn of Berdychiv, who had been widowed by Reb Aharon Schorr of Berdychiv. Rav Avraham Matisyahu adopted her three children, but the couple had none of their own.
Torah and leadership
Rav Avraham Matisyahu was twenty-one when his father passed away in 1869. He was reluctant to take his father's place, but after much pleading, and with the approval of his uncle Rav Avrohom Yaakov Friedman, the first Rebbe of Sadigura, he agreed. He led the chassidim for sixty-four years.
He was known as one of the hidden tzaddikim of his generation, and thousands of followers and admirers came to him. Chassidim relate many stories of the miracles he brought about.
His influence over Romanian Jewry was immense. Jews and non-Jews alike revered him. When he visited Bucharest each year, the shops closed in his honor and tens of thousands of people came out to welcome him. At his tish (the Rebbe's table) he never spoke; his presence alone filled the room with deep reflection and awe.
Three of the ten synagogues in Stefanest stood in the Rebbe's courtyard, and the presence of his court made the town one of the most important Chassidic centers in Eastern Europe. The Rebbe also looked after the needs of many devoted chassidim who cut themselves off from the world to serve Hashem. Among those who stayed at his court for months or even years were Rav Chaim Zanvl Abramowitz, the Ribnitzer Rebbe, and Rav Eliezer Zusia Portugal, the first Skulener Rebbe.
Later years and passing
Rav Avraham Matisyahu passed away on 21 Tammuz 5693 (July 15, 1933). His funeral, held in the city of Iași, drew fifty thousand mourners.
Having no children, he had invited his sister's son, Rav Menachem Nochum of Itskani, to come to Stefanest and succeed him. Rav Menachem Nochum, however, passed away a month before the Rebbe.
Legacy
The Rebbe's kever in Romania became a place of pilgrimage for Jews and non-Jews alike. Thousands came on his yahrzeit, and thousands of prayer notes, written in Hebrew, Yiddish and Romanian, were left in his ohel.
In 1968 Dr. Joseph Brayer, the former av beis din (head of the rabbinical court) of Stefanest, who in 2006 was rabbi of the Tiferes Avraham Matisyahu Synagogue in the Bronx, New York, began a plan to bring the Rebbe's remains to Eretz Yisroel. In 1969 the Rebbe was exhumed under the direction of Dr. Moses Rosen, Chief Rabbi of Romania, and brought to Israel, where he was reinterred in the Ruzhin plot of the Nachlas Yitzchok Cemetery. It is told that witnesses who are alive today testify that his remains were found as whole and fresh as on the day he passed away.
His kever in Israel is again a holy site of tefillah, visited by thousands each year, especially on his yahrzeit. Back in Romania, Orthodox Christian peasants continued to light candles and leave prayer notes at the Rebbe's empty ohel, hoping that he would still plead on their behalf.
Stories
The Rebbe's Spoon
Chassidim relate that a chossid once came to the Rebbe in tears. His daughter had fallen ill with typhus and was in a desperate state, with only hours left. Nothing short of a miracle could save her.
The Rebbe handed him the spoon he used for his own breakfast each morning, together with a piece of his bread, and told him to feed the girl the bread with that spoon. For days she had been unable to swallow or eat anything. Yet she readily took the Rebbe's shirayim (the leftovers from a Rebbe's meal). A few days later she was well again, and she lived to a ripe old age.
The spoon was passed down from generation to generation and remains a family heirloom to this day.
Family & talmidim
C:
No children of his own; he adopted the three children of his wife Sarah Zipporah from her first marriage: