[COMMUNICATED]We need your help to save our boys, Shalom Binyomin, “Benny” and Yehoshua Natan, “Josh”. Benny and Josh were diagnosed with a devastating, fatal disease called Canavan Disease two and half years ago. Their diagnosis changed our lives forever.
Canavan Disease is a progressive brain disorder caused by a genetic mutation that affects children. Children with Canavan Disease are unable to sit, stand, walk or talk. As degeneration progresses, many children will lose the ability to swallow, develop seizures, and experience blindness. Children with Canavan Disease often don’t live past age 10.

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Rav Simcha Scheinberg released a moving video this week in support of a family member in crisis. The family member is an unnamed talmid chacham, a father of a large family of children, whose wife has become very ill with cancer. The family is now struggling to afford their most basic expenses. This stress is compounded by the fact that they have a son who is getting married next month, and nothing has been arranged for the simcha due to a lack of funds.
 
Rav Scheinberg’s message was as follows:

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The world is in a chaotic place. When faced with health crises, social unrest, and financial instability, it is natural to feel a sense of helplessness. Some, however, manage to rise above this sense of helplessness and fight, against all odds, to make an impact on the world. Few exemplify this trait more than Rabbi & Rebbetzin Mentzer, of Jerusalem.

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Just a few days remain until the holiday of Shavuos, and the global community has begun to prepare. Many have prepared their grocery lists, planned where they will be ordering their flowers from, and even decided which seforim they will be learning. Rav Chaim Kanievsky will be dedicating some of his precious time on Shavuos to one particular cause, and recommends others do the same.
 

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Baruch Hashem, the hospitalizations and deaths R”l in our kehillah have been on a downward trend for weeks, but the Coronavirus crisis’ effects are felt stronger than ever by so many families. 
All too many of our friends and neighbors in the greater Lakewood area have not had a proper income – or, even worse, incurred steep losses – for some two months now. Two very expensive months. The debts are mounting. The tension is palpable. 

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Rebbetzin Kolodetsky, daughter of Rav Chaim Kanievsky and spiritual leader in her own right, released the following video address this week on behalf of members of her extended family. Her brother-in-law, Rav Yaakov Kolodetsky, was a talmid chacham who passed away due to COVID. He left behind 10 children, 3 of whom still live at home. Those close to the family have become extremely concerned for the wellbeing of the widow & 3 children.
[VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION BELOW:]

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The world lost another giant last week, with the passing of 59-year-old father of 12 Rabbi Refael Schoenfeld. Schoenfeld was famous throughout Israel for his volunteer work with ZAKA and the Cheva Kadisha. He dedicated his life to giving others a proper Jewish burial. It was with tremendous pain that his colleagues buried him after his life was taken by COVID-19.
 
More pained than the countless families who had benefited from Rabbi Schoenfeld’s chesed, however, was his own widow and 12 children. They have anxiously awaited his return from the hospital since last month, and have now had to accept that their father is never coming home.
 

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No words can describe the pain that one family has been through in the last month. Rav Elimelech Biderman puts it beautifully and powerfully with this message, translated from Yiddish:
“Some people acquire the World to Come in one hour. 
I want to tell you about something that can split even a Jewish heart of stone.
Nebach, it’s a tragedy – a father and mother gone, only 2 days apart. 
We know what Chazal say about an orphan, especially one orphaned from both father and mother. 
“Chap arein” (Grab) this mitzvah! Acquire your portion in the World to Come in one hour. 
The Vilna Gaon writes that nothing protects from sorrow more than charity. 
Charity saves from death. 

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Menachem Blau may only be 4 years old, but he’s had more experience with hospitals than most have in a lifetime. That’s because he was born with a rare condition which causes cysts to grow in his throat. Thus began an exhausting cycle in which, every few months, his parents have needed to bring him in to have a surgery so that he can continue to breathe. He has since had a shocking 26 surgeries. His parents have heroically juggled this process together with raising 6 other children.