Rabbi Michael Shtigel Z”l
תשי”ז – תשפ”ה
A special figure in the landscape of the ZAKA Volunteers Monument was Rabbi Michael Shtigel Z”l. A man of Eshkolot, a close associate of the great men of Israel, and doing charity and kindness with all his heart and soul.
He was one of the lions of the pack in the Ponevezh Yeshiva and a favorite of the yeshiva heads, headed by Rabbi Eliezer Menachem Men Shach Zt”l and Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky Zt”l.
In all his adult years, he was a man of true charity, who engaged in true charity. He was also honored to be counted among the Kadisha friends who dealt with the purification of Maran Ha-B’i Ezri, and he always recounted with longing that he was blessed with the purification to deal with his left hand, since in his final years he was honored to place tefillin on him.
In the last years of his life, he suffered terrible suffering and accepted it with love, and he would even collect Torah verses in the virtue of accepting suffering with love, in order to strengthen others in this, and he would call it handing out “candy.”
He loved kindness and pursued kindness, he would leave Tel Hashomer Hospital after treatment, he would take people from the station to Bnei Brak, when they asked him where he was going, he would answer where you needed to go, when they insisted he would say, “Do you want me to bury a donkey?” The people would be stressed by the answer. Then he would explain: It is written that if a person does kindness and does not finish, they bury him like a donkey, and he would take them home like that.
One day, a friend approached him and said: There is a Jew from Ramat Hasharon who wants to give a car for a person with a family full of children, on the condition that he also does kindness with him at least once a week. He agreed to accept the car and since then he has started volunteering at ZAKA. After a few years, he received a message on his pager, about a death at an address in Ramat Hasharon, the address was familiar to him, after remembering, he picked up the phone to the friend who brought him the car, asked him, “Did the donor of the car pass away?” He was shocked and replied: I don’t know. Michael went to the address, and when he arrived, the family was surprised, “Rabbi, where did you know to come from?” He told them, “Ask who brought me, the kindness of your father who gave me the car made me come here to have the privilege of doing a final favor with him.” He was loved by his friends, served as a role model and example for a son and a wife who also dedicates his time to kindness, did everything quietly and without saying anything. It is a pity that David is lost and not forgotten. Michael, the late, will forever be remembered as one of his special figures who was a member of the ZAKA organization. He left behind him generations of righteous and blessed people, as his son, Yavlehat’a Avraham Yitzhak, continues his path and is currently on the command staff of the organization. Zaka.
