What Was Rav Shimshon Weiner’s Last Request?
JERUSALEM (VINnews) — For 40 years, Rabbi Shimshon Weiner, a prominent resident of the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in Jerusalem, walked every Shabbos to the Kotel Ha’Maaravi, the Western Wall, situated about 4 km from his home. In winter and summer, rain and sunshine, Rav Shimshon would go to the Kotel faithfully and pray there, even when he was in advanced years. Rav Shimshon’s son Akiva directs the Center For Taharas Hamishpacha (family purity) which renovates and establishes Mikves in hundreds of communities in Israel.
Last week, the 82-year-old Rav Shimshon succumbed tragically to coronavirus, despite being in robust health previously. The next night, Rav Shimshon appeared to his daughter in a dream and asked her to pay his debt to the Or Yosef sale.
The daughter asked her mother whether he owed money to Or Yosef. The mother answered that just a week before his passing, he had returned from Or Yosef’s sale and said in passing that “I think they made a mistake on the bill and I owe them 10 shekels.” She added that she thought he had managed to pay the difference.
Akiva Weiner added that on the day of his death their father had asked his children a number of times to contact Or Yosef and they didn’t understand what he meant. After his death, they found that he had dialled eight times from his cellphone on the day of his death to Or Yosef. “He must have felt what we didn’t know at the time, that these were his last hours on earth.”