The Mysterious Guest at a Midnight Funeral

Rabbi Eliyahu Klar, a respected Torah scholar who lives in the Givat Shaul neighborhood of Jerusalem, shared a story with Yated Hashavua that he says changed the way he sees life—and death.

Three years ago, his father, Rabbi Avraham Moshe Klar, fulfilled a dream he had held onto for nearly a lifetime. After raising his family and living in Argentina for almost 80 years, he finally moved to the Land of Israel. “All his children and grandchildren were born and raised in the diaspora,” says Rabbi Klar, “but my father longed to spend his final years in the Holy Land.”

He moved into the Shomrei HaChomot nursing home in Jerusalem, and from the very first day, there was something everyone noticed: wherever he went, he carried the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. This little book of Jewish law, written by Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, was his constant companion. He didn’t just study it every day—he lived by it, shared it, and taught it to others.

“He and the Kitzur were like best friends,” his son said. “You never saw one without the other.”

Then came the night of 27th Nisan 5780. Rabbi Avraham Moshe Klar passed away at age 87. It was during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Funerals were brief and small. The family wanted to follow the Jerusalem custom of burying the deceased on the same day, and a late-night funeral was scheduled at 1:00 a.m., leaving from the Shamgar funeral home.

But a problem arose—one that caused the family real pain.

Jerusalem tradition holds that the children of the deceased do not accompany the body to the cemetery. That meant Rabbi Klar, the only son, stayed behind. Two of his sons-in-law were Cohanim and not allowed to enter the cemetery. A third son-in-law was still stuck in Argentina due to lockdowns. The grandchildren also did not accompany the body. In total, only four close family members were present.

They needed ten men for the burial service (minyan). But they had only nine.

“We were stuck,” Rabbi Klar recalled. “The members of the Chevra Kadisha—the burial society—were unsure how to continue. One suggested maybe they could break protocol and join the group to complete the minyan, but it was late and uncertain.”

And then, from the shadows, an elderly man—perhaps around 70 years old—stepped forward.

He had been standing quietly nearby during the funeral. “I’ll go with you,” he said simply. “I’ll come to the Mount of Olives.”

The family was surprised. Who was this man? At such a late hour, during a global pandemic, why was a stranger volunteering to travel all the way to the cemetery?

They tried to discourage him. “You don’t need to trouble yourself,” someone said politely. But the man wouldn’t back down. He insisted. “I want to go with him,” he said.

He was quiet, but firm. Someone gently asked if he knew the deceased. “I’m a relative,” he said.

They didn’t recognize him, but they appreciated his determination. He got into one of the family’s cars and rode with them to the Mount of Olives.

The funeral proceeded. Ten men stood at the burial site. The body was laid to rest with dignity and the prayers were said.

Afterward, as the group began preparing to return, the stranger stood silently to the side. One of the relatives approached him and asked: “What’s your name?”

“Ganzfried,” the man replied.

The son-in-law’s heart skipped a beat. The name was completely unfamiliar to the family—but hauntingly familiar for another reason.

During the car ride back, the son-in-law quietly asked another relative: “Do we have anyone in the family named Ganzfried?”

The relative froze. “Ganzfried?” he said in shock. “Is that what he told you?”

He immediately jumped out of the car, searching the area where the man had gotten out. But he was gone. Vanished.

It hit them like lightning. Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried was the author of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, the book Rabbi Avraham Moshe Klar had studied every day for over seventy years. The book he carried with him everywhere. The book that shaped his life and guided his every action.

“When I heard the story,” Rabbi Klar says, “I was overwhelmed. It felt like Hashem had sent a heavenly escort to honor my father at his burial. A message, showing how beloved his devotion was.”

And his devotion was real.

When Rabbi Klar was a boy, his father had told him the story of his bar mitzvah. Growing up in Argentina in the early days, there were no Torah schools or yeshivas. But one rabbi—Rabbi Ze’ev Greenberg—worked tirelessly to teach Torah to the Jewish immigrants who had arrived in South America. He gave young Avraham Moshe a gift that would define the rest of his life: a copy of the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.

“This book will be with you always,” Rabbi Greenberg had told him. “Study it. Live by it. It will guide you in all areas of Jewish life.”

And he did. For seventy-four years, Rabbi Avraham Moshe Klar learned from that very book every single day—until the day he passed away.

He used to say: “I can’t say much. I just know Psalms and the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch.” But what he lacked in words, he made up for in example. He didn’t just learn the laws—he lived them.

At his 80th birthday celebration, when asked to speak, he simply quoted from memory some of the laws in the Kitzur and humbly added: “That’s all I know.”

He had learned the book dozens of times, always returning to it. Even when he moved to Israel, it was in his carry-on bag. At the nursing home, it sat beside his bed like a trusted friend.

And even after being robbed—when he and his wife lost all their life savings to thieves disguised as charity collectors—he stayed calm. “The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch says everything Hashem does is for the good,” he said. “Perhaps this is a divine gift, to help us reach the Holy Land just like our forefather Yaakov, who also left his wealth behind.”

His wife, who was married to him for 65 years, once said: “I never heard him speak badly about anyone. And if someone else did, he’d pretend not to hear. He always said, ‘The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch doesn’t allow it.’”

He followed even the strictest opinions in the book, even when other rabbis had more lenient views. “That was just who he was,” his son said. “A man who lived with Hashem in front of him at every moment.”

And so, perhaps it makes perfect sense that on the night he was buried, a man named “Ganzfried” appeared from nowhere to complete the minyan and accompany him on his final journey.

“I asked great Torah sages whether we should tell this story,” Rabbi Klar said. “They said it’s a mitzvah. People should hear it and be inspired. They should know what it means to live a life of quiet dedication, to be a Jew who walks humbly with Hashem—and who, even after 87 years, is never alone.”