Boruch Dayan Hoemes: Reb Mottel Sharfstein, 88, OBM

With great sadness we inform you of the passing of Reb Mordechai Eliezer (Mottel) Sharfstein OBM, longtime resident of Crown Heights. He was 88 years old.

by Dovid Zaklikowski – Lubavitch Archives

Mordechai Eliezer Sharfstein “Mottel” was born in 1927 in New York, where his family had moved to in 1911. When the Rebbe Rayatz came to visit the United States in 1928, the Rebbe chose his father, Reb Avraham Zev, to use his shechitah and from that time on, the Sharfsteins became close to Chabad.

When the Rebbe Rayatz came to America, his parents, sent him and his brother Rabbi Zelig, to be there for that first Rosh Hashanah.

He began to study at the new Yeshivah in 1941. Once his father asked a bracha for his children to be studious learners. The Rebbe Rayatz told the father, “this I cannot give you a bracha, you have to want to be one on your own!”

Reb Mottel later followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Schochet. He later married Chana Zuber.

By nature he was a very shy person and he would keep out of the limelight.

The Rebbe once asked him to say a Maamar on his birthday. The Rebbe notices the reluctant reaction on his face. The Rebbe told him that there was a chassid of the Rebbe Maharash and he would have a hard time saying a Maamar in public… The chassid would first tell the maamar to the trees in the forest, then to the benches in shul and when he was ready publicly.

Reb Mottel concluded that at the end he did say the maamar, “my friends said that I repeated it good.”

He was well learned, had a very large library of Seforim and spent his time learning. Over the years he amassed a huge amount of stories that he heard first hand from chassidim and from what he saw with his own eyes.

He is survived by his wife Chana Sharfstein of Crown Heights, as well as their children Shterna Maline, Sruli Sharfstein, Seema Gersten and Raizel Feder.

The Levaya will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, 2:00pm at Shomrei Hadas and passing by 770 at around 2:45pm.

Boruch Dayan Hoemes

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5 Comments

  • BDE

    BDE He was a very special man. Loved learning and was accepting of people from all walks of life.

  • he is my neighbor

    May Moshiach come right away!!! We should never have to hear any terrible news like this again!! Amen.

  • declasse' intellectual

    any phone number to call during the Sheva week for us who do not live in the state?

  • malca b

    bd’e
    a very soft spoken, kind man.
    i happen to have met reb mottel on the bus that went and from manhattan in the mid 80’s. when he spoke all listened. he will be missed by all who knew him

  • Sterna Maline

    My dad was the kindest, gentlest, most intelligent person I knew. I still cry when I think that he is no longer in the same world I inhabit. When Mashiach comes, I hope I will be reunited with him again. In the interim, I will try to perform more mitzvos and be a better person so that his neshama will be elevated. Daddy, I miss you