The day before Pesach began, R’ Shlomo Rechnitz of Los Angeles enabled the simchas Yom Tov of thousands of avreichim of the Mir Yeshivah in Israel, who before the most expensive Yom Tov of the year, haven’t been paid their monthly Kollel stipends for Shevat and Adar.

Thanks to a generous $3 million donation by R’ Rechnitz, one of our generations’s biggest supporters of the Torah world, the avreichim received their stipends and a special Yom Tov bonus right before Pesach began.

This is the second time this year that R’ Rechnitz contributed to the Mir right before Yom Tov when the yeshiva found itself unable to finance the monthly stipends of the avreichim.

Earlier this year, after Rosh Hashana, R’ Rechnitz donated a large sum to pay the Kollel stipends of the avreichim in time to finance their Sukkos expenses. As another Yom Tov approached, the Mir avreichim not only hadn’t received their monthly Kollel stipends for months but many of them were in dire financial straits due to the fact that their wives were on unpaid leave due to the coronavirus crisis.

When Rechnitz was informed of the situation, he said he couldn’t enjoy his Yom Tov knowing that thousands of Mir avreichim were in dire straits and informed the Mir Roshei Yeshivah that he is financing the Shevat and Adar Kollel stipends for each avreich as well as a Yom Tov bonus.

For the first time, the distribution of the Kollel stipend checks wasn’t carried out in the Mir yeshivah offices. The checks were distributed at centralized points in various neighborhoods in the day or two before Yom Tov. A massive logistical operation was required to print the thousands of checks and organize their distribution in the short remaining amount of time before Yom Tov began.

R’ Rechnitz’s donation to the Mir was in addition to his funding of the Kimcha D’Pesacha in Kiryat Sefer, which he undertakes every year, providing for over 5,000 families in cooperation with the Kiryat Sefer municipality.

This year, due to the difficult financial situation in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, R’ Rechnitz also financed the Kimcha D’Pesacha Oneg Shabbos and Yom of Rav Efraim Stern for over 14,000 families.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)