Hundreds of Hasidim and religious community figures gathered Wednesday night at the Great Beit Midrash of Shbet Halevi in Bnei Brak’s Zichron Meir neighborhood to celebrate the wedding of the rebbe’s granddaughter. The bride is the daughter of Rabbi Avraham Eliezer Wosner, and the groom is a grandson of the Shaatz rebbe, the son of Rabbi Yishachar Dov Moskowitz.
The Shbet Halevi court said this was the first time since the dynasty was founded that a family wedding was held inside the main study hall on Rabbi Dessler Street. The venue was chosen as part of an effort to reduce wedding expenses for the rebbe’s descendants and set an example for followers, as is done in other major Hasidic courts.
Ahead of the wedding, the rebbe instructed organizers to observe strict halachic rules because the celebration would take place inside the sanctity of the study hall. He ordered that women not enter the hall at any point during the celebration, including during the traditional mitzvah dance, when the women and bride were to remain only in the nearby lobby and outer foyer. He also required a proper partition, in line with the strict laws of separation, between the ark and the honored eastern table. He reminded organizers of his grandfather, the late posek Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, who had linked a previous tragedy involving burned Torah scrolls in the Vizhnitz study hall to disrespect for the holiness of a beit midrash. He further asked the musicians to perform only sacred melodies whose sources are from God-fearing singers.
During the event, an unexpected political moment unfolded against the backdrop of the large drivers’ protest that was paralyzing roads across the country. One of the official protest signs, bearing the words “Enough,” was brought into the wedding hall, and the rebbe himself took the sign and held it aloft before the crowd. He used it while leading the assembled guests in song, especially during “He is our King and we are His servants.” The celebration, attended by dozens of rabbis and rebbes as well as hundreds of Hasidim, ended in the early hours of the morning after the rebbe’s mitzvah dance before the bride.
