Signature of the Tzaddik Nistar Rabbi Yosef Woltuch on the ma’amar Kinyan HaChayim. Surviving Remnant, Munich (1947?)

Signature of the Tzaddik Nistar Rabbi Yosef Woltuch on the ma’amar Kinyan HaChayim. Surviving Remnant, Munich (1947?)

The pamphlet “Kinyan HaChayim”, maamarim in Yiddish by the Admor Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson, on tshuva and prayer. 32 pages. Very good condition.

The title page is stamped by the Tzaddik Nistar Rabbi Yosef Woltuch. Rabbi Yosef Woltuch was a descendent of Rabbi Yehiel Michal of Zlotchow. In his youth he lived in the Old City of Jerusalem, and every day he would sneak into the Beit El kabbalistic yeshiva, study the ways of the kabbalists, and sleep very little. His minhag was to lay next to the graves of tzaddikim and he merited wonderful visions and sight of the souls of tzaddikim. However, he would take care not to go to Rashbi’s tomb on Lag B’Omer because of the numbers of people who went. It is said that during one of his prayers to bring about the Geulah he merited seeing Rachel Imenu wearing black clothes.

Despite his suffering he worked for Hashem with happiness and excitement. In Iyar 1983 he told a student that if Hashem willed it he would settle in Jerusalem and he went with two students to daven at the graves of tzaddikim in the Galilee. When he left Meron he told them that he didn’t feel well. They continued to the Idra cave to pray, and he told them again that he didn’t feel well. He asked for some soda water, so they repaired to Tzfat to buy him. When Rabbi Yosef finished the blessing over the soda, he fainted, was taken to the hospital in Tzfat, and passed away.