Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Berger, a veteran educator and one of the senior Chasidim of the Vizhnitz community, died Sunday morning in Bnei Brak. He was 80.
Rabbi Berger was born on 19 Cheshvan 5707 (1946) to Rabbi Avraham Yehuda Berger. He married the daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Damen, a prominent Belz Hasid, and the couple settled in Kiryat Vizhnitz in Bnei Brak.
For more than fifty years, Rabbi Berger worked in Jewish education as a mashgiach (spiritual supervisor) and teacher at the Talmud Torah Ruzhin. His wife served for decades as principal of the Vizhnitz girls’ school. Together they shaped generations of students in the Hasidic tradition.
He was widely known for the intensity and emotion of his prayer.
His health had declined in recent weeks, and a week ago he suffered a stroke from which he did not recover. He died two days after his 80th birthday.
He is survived by his wife; his sons, Rabbi Yaakov Menachem, Rabbi Mordechai Dovid, Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yirmiyahu Berger; his sons-in-law, Rabbi Naftali Beigel and Rabbi Yosef Breuer; grandchildren; and his brother-in-law, the well-known Belz composer Rabbi Yirmiyahu Damen.
The funeral will leave at 12:30 p.m. from the Chalisa study hall on Matisyahu Street in Bnei Brak. It will pass the main Vizhnitz study hall in Kiryat Vizhnitz before continuing to the Vizhnitz cemetery.
Tehei nafsho tzrurah bitzror hachaim.
