Tefillos for Rabbi Kalman Sperka

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siddurDear Matzav.com readers,

I am writing this to ask you to please daven for my brother, Chaim Kalman Shammai ben Dena, Rabbi Kalman Sperka, among all of us in need of a refuah.

My brother, Rabbi Sperka, is a vessel of pure Torah in our less than pure world.  He learns virtually all the time, in all circumstances – as he has done since he was a boy.  He is a mechaber seforim and a rosh chabura in Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim where he has learned for the past 23 years.  Men who’ve learned with him in Long Beach or in the Mir Yerushalayim struggle to express the exceptional and orderly intensity of his lamdanus and hasmodah.  Those closest to him, his family and b’nei chaburah, know and feel how his actions and middos reflect a crystal clear internalization of the learning he has persistently amassed since he started learning Gemorah as a boy.

A little over a year ago, my brother became very sick.  A week after his wife gave birth to their ninth child, ka”h, Reb Kalman was hospitalized.  His body had stopped processing nutrition.  Weakened and in terrible pain, he stood at 6 feet tall and weighed 90-something pounds.  He had given shiur in the Mir Yeshiva the day before he was admitted.

Reb Kalman is in the hospital again, now.  After a year of treatments, he is dealing with a frighteningly serious prognosis and is once again weak and in pain.  He continues to learn with his devoted chavrusahs (who come every day to learn with him in the hospital) with a depth and intensity that, according to his chavrusahs, is remarkable even for them, who are well, bli ayin harah.  With mesiras nefesh, he dresses and davens three tefillos a day b’tzibur in the hospital ward one floor up from the oncology ward where he is being treated.

I am begging you to include Chaim Kalman Shammai ben Dena in your tefillos.  He is my brother, a husband, son, father, and himself, a Yiddishe neshama.

But it seems to me there is something else going on here.  Someone who is as “kulo Torah” as Reb Kalman serves as a shield for us and our children in this spiritually dangerous world of 2010. At the levaya of the Chofetz Chaim, zt’l, R’ Simcha Zissel Levovitz zt’l said that Hashem sometimes takes people away when we do not appreciate them.  Maybe Hashem wants to push us – us, the people who know Reb Kalman, or the people who are reading about him now – to think into this?

Perhaps we can bring ourselves to be able to say, “Ribono Shel Olam.  I feel we need this person here with us.  Klal Yisroel needs his Torah because his Torah strengthens ours, and I plead with You to give him health and strength to allow his Torah to be mashpiah on our world.  This is what is important to us!”

Perhaps we can think about the critical need for every talmid chacham’s limud HaTorah? Maybe in this way we can bring forth the unbridled rachamei Shomayim my brother needs.

Maybe, if we think about this, Hashem will give us back Reb Kalman, healthy and strong.  And maybe, if we believe this, He will let us keep the shmira of the limud HaTorah of Chaim Kalman Shammai ben Dena.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}


8 COMMENTS

  1. Perhaps one of the biggest zechusim we can use to help Chaim Kalman Shamai be Dina have a refuah sheleima is to actually live how the Chofetz Chaim tells us to-hevei dan es kal adam l’kaf zechus. The next time someone does something that annoys you, instead of reacting negatively, as so many of us automatically do, perhaps take ten seconds to think of one positive reason why the person did what he did. You’d be surprised at how your whole outlook on things can be changed-and best of all, it probably was just the reason you thought it was!

  2. R’ Kalman is indeed an incredible talmid chacham – a mentch – and a Shtik Torah. May he have a Refuah Shleimah. I remember when his first sefer was published – i purchased it even though I wasn’t learning the Masechta just to be able to support this choshuvah yungerman who puts me and so many others to shame with his hasmadah and ahavas hatorah.

  3. Perhaps we can all be mekabel to learn a Halacha or two each day in his zechus, as if we strengthen how we live as jews (which only can be done through the learning of Halacha) it will be a zechus for him to be strengthened and go on to a refuah Shelaima B’Karov.

    We can do it B’Chavrusah or via joining one of the many Halacha Yomi sites such as dailyhalacha.com, halachafortoday.com, halachos.com, or similar websites.

    Doesnt matter how we do it, just do it!

    May he have a refuah Shelaima B’karov.

  4. Thanks for bringing this public,although I left Yerushalayim 4 years ago the picture of R’Kalman learning with hasmada flashes through me. Hashem should have rachmunus on him and all of Klal Yisroel. Refua Shleima

  5. There are few people like him I remember clearly when he was in Long Beach he was learning Yevamos on the top of each daf was a small tally marks of how many times he learnt that particular daf
    Talmide Chachomim Marbin Sholom
    People Like Reb Kalman Increase the Peace

  6. COULD SHAYA OR 1 OF THE BROTHERS CALL ME AT 216-323-5294. IKNOW YOU FROM DETROIT AND WANTED TO TALK TO YOU. HATZLOCHO AND REFUA SHLEIMA

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