A Life of Torah and Devotion

In Memory of My Father
R’ Avraham Dovid ben Ze’ev Heller ZT”L

My father, was born to his parents, Ze'ev and Chaya Heller, in 1944.

He grew up in Boston, where he attended Maimonides School. As a young boy, he became very close to R' Margoliyos and R' Leib Haiman, who had a great influence on him and were the reason he went on to learn at Yeshivas Chaim Berlin.

It was there that he developed his Hashkafah, his way of learning, and his way of living as a G-d-fearing Oved Hashem.

In 1965, he came to Eretz Israel learn in Bnei Brak under the influence of Rabbi Ella Waintrub he found himself in Yeshivas Slabodka in Bnei Brak.

While learning in Slabodka, he met my mother, who was also studying in Bnei Brak at the time, at the Beis Yaakov of Rabbi Wolf. They traveled back to the United States and were married in 1967. A month after their wedding, they returned to Eretz Yisrael.

They first lived in Bnei Brak for one month and then moved to Yerushalayim, where my father learned at the Brisk Kollel.

As the children were born and the family began to grow, my father went north to a small village called Segev to run a Kollel. He remained there for three years, until Ohr Sameach had asked him to return to Yerushalayim and become the Av Bayit of the Yeshiva.

And so he returned to Yerushalayim to become the Av Bayit at Ohr Sameach, as well as teaching and later taking on responsibilities in the management of the Yeshiva.

The Ohr Sameach years were some of the most meaningful years of his life. He had many talmidim and was deeply involved in the kiruv movement of the Yeshiva. He was the man the boys approached for anything they could think of. They knew they could turn to him.

I will never forget one story from those days.

This was a time when not everyone had a telephone. My mother was due to give birth, and my father could not be reached. She went herself to the hospital, and after giving birth she called home and asked me to run down to the Yeshiva and tell my father that she had just given birth to a baby boy.

Not only was I so happy to have a new baby brother, I was even happier to hop down the hill and run up the stairs to where my father was in the middle of giving a shiur.

When I reached the door, I suddenly became confused about what to do. I didn't want to disturb my father's teaching Torah, but at the same time, I couldn't not give him the message my mother had asked me to deliver.

Before I could decide what to do, a young Yeshiva bachur by the name of Bill was about to go inside. He saw me standing there and, since he wasn't used to seeing one of us waiting at the door, he asked if there was anything urgent that I needed from my father.

I answered, "Nothing urgent! Just tell my father that my mother had a baby boy."

He ran into the room without even knocking on the door and gave my father the loudest and happiest "Mazel Tov!" I had ever heard. I can still remember how genuinely happy he was.

After the Ohr Sameach years, as more and more of us came into the world and my father needed something that would better support his growing family, Rabbi Hanoch Teller helped him find a position managing Rabbi Moshe Meiselman's Yeshiva, Toras Moshe.

He remained there for several years, until R' Yonason David asked my father to come and manage Yeshivas Pachad Yitzchak.

My father became very much a part of the Yeshiva and was especially happy to connect with R' Yonason David, the son-in-law of R' Yitzchak Hutner.

At the young age of 69, while still working at Pachad Yitzchak, his neshamah returned to its Creator, with his family surrounding him and accompanying him with niggunim, tefillos, and the words of Ani Maamin.

May we be zocheh to carry with us his Yiras Shamayim, and to be Ovdei Hashem as he was.

This article is by: Rachel Greenblats & Devorah Glicksman (Heller)