By COLlive reporter
Photos: Menachem Cohen/COLlive
A memorial event was held in Crown Heights Sunday in honor of the first Yartzheit of Rabbi Avraham Lieder obm, the founder of the Ahavas Chesed organization.
Family and friends gathered to remember the man who dedicated his life to care for and help others as the director of the organization which assisted so many people for decades.
Dudi Farkash, a volunteer and donor to Ahavas Chesed, MC’d the event. He described Rabbi Lieder’s love and care for every Jewish person, even those who had passed on and he was organizing a funeral and burial for them, which was always done with dignity and honor.
A patient who had been helped by Rabbi Lieder spoke about Rabbi Lieder’s assistance when he had to undergo serious surgery.
He recounted how a nurse in the hospital told him, “Rabbi Lieder affects every employee in this hospital,” he said. “When they watch him do what he does with sincerity and dedication, and love for people he never met before, it makes us want to do a better job,” he said.
Rabbi Lieder’s son Naftoli Lieder recited a Siyum in his father’s memory.
Guest Speaker Rabbi Simon Jacobson compared Rabbi Lieder’s total dedication to doing chesed and helping others to Avraham Avinu.
Rabbi Lieder was one of our “living examples that are meant to teach us and guide us to in some way be a little less self-absorbed… But the fact is, we have the capacity, even if not 100 percent emes, to be total chesed. And every time we do, we change the current of self-absorption. When we reach out to someone else – that is what changes the world.
“From Avraham Avinu and on, that is what distinguishes us as a nation of Chesed,” he said.
“Rabbi Lieder is a distinguished member in this link who did not give in to the trend of people just taking care of themselves, but lived an entire life of Chesed,” he said.
Rabbi Dovid Lieder also spoke about his father’s love for his family and dedication to helping others.
The event was streamed live on COLlive.com for the worldwide community to participate.
Ahavas Chesed is continuing the work of Rabbi Avraham Lieder, under the leadership of his son, Rabbi Dovid Lieder. The services we provide include assisting needy individuals with medical referrals, medical equipment and supplies, hospital bedside visits, food coupons for hot meals, emergency financial assistance, medical transportation to hospitals and doctors’ visits, Blood Drives and Convalescent Plasma Drives, home healthcare, and Shabbos taxi services.
VIDEO Full event replay:
May we all learn from his ways of kindness
No wonder his name is Avraham, like the Chesed Avraham Avinu did…
Can’t believe it’s been a year…