The Haredi world has been abuzz on Sunday, although not for the obvious reasons of conscription to the IDF or other hot-button issues.
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Rather, it is the fact that after decades of waiting, at the ripe age of no less than 88, Rabbi Tzvi Kushelevsky, head of the Heichal Torah Yeshiva in Jerusalem, is now father to a son. The baby was born healthy at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.
Video: Heichal Hatorah yeshiva rejoices / Credit: Hamechadesh
Some in the Haredi world have already begun waxing poetic about this being an event that is comparable to Abraham, whom the Bible says was 86 when he became a father to Ishmael.
Rabbi Kushelevsky was widowed several years ago, and remarried in 2018 to his current 56-year-old wife. Their wedding, by the way, took place on Tu B'Av in the study hall of his yeshiva, without music and with only a hundred people in attendance – just a week after the match was finalized.
After it became clear that the delivery went smoothly and that the head of the yeshiva had become a new father at an exceptionally advanced age, celebrations began at his yeshiva over the good news. Menachem Kolodetsky from the Hamchadesh website documented how the students danced outside the yeshiva building in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem.
The Haredi press was especially excited by the news. Moshe Weisberg from the Bechadrei Chareidim website noted that this was an exceptionally advanced age, adding that "some will say that since Abraham our forefather, who was blessed with Isaac our forefather at the age of 100, there has not been such a historic birth." When the yeshiva head's firstborn son will have his bar mitzvah, added Weisberg, Rabbi Kushelevsky will be 101 years old.
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