Grieving Community Transforms Dinner into Joyous Honoring of Boy’s Life

More than 500 people packed a Long Island banquet hall to honor a Chabad-Lubavitch center and its emissary couple who had worked tirelessly for almost 15 years to strengthen Jewish life in Nassau County, N.Y. But the couple, Rabbi Zalman and Chanie Wolowik, was noticeably missing.

The Wolowiks, directors of Chabad of the Five Towns, were observing the traditional mourning period – known as shiva – for their nine-year-old son Levi, who had tragically passed away just two nights before.

If the March 1 dinner’s organizers and honorees had had their way, there might have been no event at all. Some wanted to cancel, while others spoke of postponing the gala affair to some time after the traditional 30-day mourning period. But the Wolowiks would have none of it, and sent a note to the community urging everyone’s participation.

“I did not feel I would be able to celebrate,” related Tamar Pewzner, one of the evening’s honorees.

“We were all trying to push it off or to cancel it,” echoed Debbie Werner, another honoree. “People were saying they weren’t in the mood, that they would be going straight from the funeral to the dinner.”

Community members, who all share an individual and personal relationship with the Wolowiks, she said, “wanted to mourn with them.”

Nevertheless, the Wolowiks “felt that it was the right thing to go ahead with the Chabad dinner,” said Faivish Pewzner, a health executive.

The rabbi specifically asked Pewzner “not only to be happy,” but, in keeping with the joy inherent in the current Jewish month of Adar, “to increase in joy.”

Article continued at Chabad.org