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Boruch Dayan Hoemes: Rabbi Yosef Wineberg, OBM

With sadness we inform you of the passing of Rabbi Yosef Wineberg, devout chossid of the Frierdiker Rebbe and the Rabbe, at the age of 94. Reb Yossel, as he was affectionately known, was the author of Lessons in Tanya, a multivolume commentary on the fundamental work on Chabad philosophy written by the Alter Rebbe, which was personally edited by the Rebbe.

Rabbi Wineberg was born in Poland on in 1917. He was a survivor of Nazi Germany’s bombardment of Poland. The Germans murdered his entire immediate family, including his mother, five brothers, and two sisters.

He first met the Previous Rebbe in 1934 when he was a student at his Yeshivah in Warsaw. He joined the Previous Rebbe in late 1935 when he moved the Yeshivah to Otwock, Poland. At the time, and until the period leading to the war, almost 300 students attended the Yeshivah. As a Yeshivah student, he was one of among several students who reviewed the Previous Rebbe’s Ma’amorim for publication.

He accompanied the Previous Rebbe when Nazi Germany first attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. He was one of the few students that stayed with him throughout the thunderous attacks, since most of the students left Otwock to join their families.

Reb Yosef fled to Vilna and then to Shanghai for the duration of the war. He was reunited with the Previous Rebbe in 1944 when he arrived in the United States.

Shortly after his arrival, he joined the Previous Rebbe in his efforts to establish Chabad’s worldwide headquarters in America. At the Rebbe’s direction, Rabbi Wineberg served as one of Chabad’s emissaries and traveled to South Africa, South America, and other countries in order to raise funds to develop the new American headquarters.

At the behest of the Seventh Rebbe, Reb Yossel would deliver a weekly Shiur in Tanya over the radio, which the Rebbe would attentively listen to in his study. These Shiurim were later adapted into the several volumes of ‘Lessons in Tanya;’ originally in Yiddish, and later Hebrew, English and several other languages.

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7 Comments

  • Bdh

    I will forever remember his hartzige voice while davening during slichos and the yomim noraim.

  • y.l.

    rabbi weinberg obm was not in shanghai for the duration of the war as he came to montreal as one of the 9 shluchim of the frierdiker rebbe in 1941

  • Moshe

    The Rebbe extensively edited the Radio Tanya Shiurim of Rabbi Wineberg (I believe before the broadcasts). He certainly had many directives from the Rebbe as to what to include in each broadcast. When I was growing up in the Lameds, he dedicated the last few minutes of many Motze Shabbos broadcasts (on radio station WEVD) with things the Rebbe had said on shabbos during the Farbrengen about shlemus hooretz and Mihu Yehudi. He was a chazzan on the yomim noroim in 770, and his warm voice with chassidishe heart captivated all of us.

  • Deeply saddened

    Lessons in Tanya helped to make me a chassid and for that alone I am eternally grateful. Rabbi Wineberg a”h has fathered beautiful and chassidishe children who are brilliant, staunch and devoted shluchim to the Rebbe. How will they and how will we cope with the loss of another great chassid. His children should only know revealed good always.

  • Kanar Family, London

    Boruch Dayan Emes

    This was a chossid par excellence. No words, except that his dear children should know that the legacy that their father has left will reverberate ad sof kol doros biz Moshiach vet kummen b’korov mamash.