Becoming A Baba

Rav Pinchas Abuchatzeira, the eldest son of the murdered Baba Elazar, is taking over his fathers former position.  Rav Pinchas is going to be accepting the crowds of people who seek advice and blessings.

I don't know what makes a person into a "baba". I don't know what turns a 36 year old avreich into someone who can give advice on the entire gamut of worldly and spiritual concerns, along with giving blessings. I imagine it is a combination of genetics, siyata d'shmaya, the support and blessings he has received from the gedolim he has been visiting and perhaps some of it is from what he has seen his late father do over the years.

According to Kikar, Rav Pinchas has begun accepting the crowds, but he has changed some of the rules of kabbalat kahal. One thing in particular that he changed was how the line to get in would work.

When Baba Elazar was giving the brachas and advice, it could take many hours of waiting for the average person to get in. While waiting with the crowds, and I went to him once and waited until the wee hours of the morning so i saw this firsthand, all sorts of other people came and got ushered in quickly to the rav's room. Some of them took just a few minutes and others took a long time. The people who were ushered in quickly ahead of those who had been waiting for hours were rich people and other important people. I don't blame anybody in particular for the favoritism showed, some say it was on orders, some say it was the gabbaim.

One of the new procedural rules under Rav Pinchas is that nobody has priority. People who come for a bracha will all be equal. They will sign in on a form when they come and they will be taken in according to the list. He told his gabbaim he does not even want to know who is in the waiting room so that he should not have to be distracted from the person who has come to talk with him.

This is a rule that is going to endear him to the regular people. While waiting all those hours, watching other people get rushed in, one can get frustrated and upset with the system. This first change is one that many people are going to like. Is it going to cause a drop in donations and financial support? It might not matter, considering his estate is estimated to be worth around 600 million NIS according to recent reports. Either way, to me, this is a wise first decision. I wish him well and much success in his new undertaking.