RABBI  ISRAEL D. ROSENBERG, ztl.

by Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg                 

  It was another Shavuot morning, over seventy years ago, in the Polish town of Levertov, and the Levertover Chassidim waited. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, but the Rebbe, Rav Moshe Yechiel Elimelech Rabinowitz did not emerge from his room to daven. Finally a delegation of Chassidim gathered the courage to seek the reason for the delay. "The final niggun we sang last night was a depressing one," explained the Rebbe. Before we can start this morning we need a new melody - an uplifting one, to set the mood for receiving the Torah. Call in Srul Duvid, di Kleineh Itcheh Motteh." And so astonished Chassidim found themselves approaching thirteen year old Yisroel Dovid, son of the Rebbe's assistant Yitzchok Mordechai, with instructions to extemporaneously compose a Niggun Shel Simcha. Only once the boy had composed that niggun, taught it to the assembled Chassidim and led them in dance, did the Rebbe begin the Tefillah. Israel David Rosenberg has been weaving melodies into the fabric of Jewish life ever since.