Back in the late 80s, when I lived in Miami Beach, our Chabad Shul was in the back basement of the Cadillac hotel. We had a steady crowd every morning and evening of about 15 to 25 people who Davened (prayed) with us while upstairs, there was another minyan (Ashkenaz) that had about 25 or 30 older men on a regular basis during the winter months and about 15 or so the rest of the year.

Cantor David Werdyger was an important part of that upstairs minyan. I would see him all the time and we would always exchange pleasantries as I was a friend of his son, Mordechai the famous Jewish pop singer, and we had come to know each other over the years.

During the holiday of Succos in 1987 – at the height of hurricane Floyd – my mother fell ill with heart issues and I was lucky enough to catch the last flight out of Miami before they closed the airport. The next few days proved very tragic for our entire community as shortly after I got to see my mother in the hospital she passed away and within a few days after two more parents of prominent members of our community also left us orphans.

Chabad chassidic custom is that during the year following the death of a Parent the adult male children take to leading the daily prayers in Shul, requiring a minyan (10 adult males) for each mourner. Some Shuls have enough congregants to make this easy – we did not.

Upstairs Shul Area

Most times we were able to divide into two groups but almost never three. Quickly it seemed that the task fell to me to assemble this second, later, group to make a minyan for myself by making a second service after the first had finished and try to get another 10 people to attend but it was extremely difficult. Many times I would attend the first round of double services hoping that there would be enough for the third minyan but I found myself without most of the time. I would then go upstairs and ask a few of the older gentlemen if they would please come join my rag-tag minyan and thank G@d most of the time we were able to make a minyan – but only for a few days… That’s when Reb Dovid stepped in. One day as I was scrimping together my make-shift minyan Cantor Werdyger came over to me and said, “Elli, why don’t you just come daven with us? We’d be happy to have you take over and lead our minyan!”

“But we have differences in the order of our prayer books?”, I asked.
“Not a problem”, he replied, “we will follow your lead!”

And from the next morning on, for the entire year of mourning, I led the services in honor of my mother’s memory with the “Upstairs Minyan”.

I will never forget the kindness that he showed me, the “Ahavas Yisroel” (Love of a fellow Jew), and Chessed (kindness) that emanated from every pore of his being. This man who survived the Holocaust, worked for Oskar Schindler, came to America and built up the Jewish music business – which his sons and grandsons still dominate today – recorded over 50 albums, this unassuming man with one single selfless act comforted me and made my sorrow just that much easier to bear by giving me one less thing to worry about.

Although I hadn’t seen him in many years I still considered him a close friend. I shall miss him very much.

Click Here for the Official Obituary 

Cantor David Werdyger OBM