The following letter was submitted to TLS by R’ Shlomo Green, the employer of Sam Biskin Z”L:

This past Thursday night at 1:20 AM I received a text message. It read. “Just wanted to let you know that our Sam has passed away.” I quickly responded “Sam Biskin?” The response I got shook me. “Yes.” A minute later I was on the phone with Bill who had sent me the text.

Bill was Sam’s stepfather and he was crying. Between his sobs I was able to put together the story. Sam, who was just 32 years old, had gone into his room at around 12:00 AM. A few minutes later Bill heard banging on the walls. He rushed into the room and saw that Sam was having a difficult time breathing. He called 911 and the dispatcher gave him instructions over the phone on how to help Sam until the police arrived. When they did arrive it was already too late and they pronounced him dead. It was then that Bill sent me the text.

Arriving at the house at around 1:45 AM, I found the detectives not allowing anyone into the room. When I asked what the procedure was, I was informed that they would be taking the body to a morgue and then transferring it to a lab for an autopsy. At this point I called Meir Lichtenstein who is a member of the Township of Lakewood to see what he could do to help.

Sam was born to a Jewish Mother and was welcomed into the Lakewood community with his mother and three siblings when he was about 10 years old. He went to the Lakewood Cheder for two years and then to Betzalel Hebrew Day School. During that time, his mother remarried and Bill became a father to him. Sam lost his mother to lung cancer when he was 17 and he took it very hard.

I met Sam about five years ago. He was living with his stepfather, Bill, and had minimal contact with his siblings (his two brothers have no connection to yiddishkeit and his sister is married with two children and has a frum home).

Sam worked for me as a cashier in Super Stop Supermarket but he was so much more than a cashier. Our customers gave him a tremendous amount of chizuk and this brought him to begin lighting Shabbos candles every Friday night. He also expressed a desire to begin putting on tefilin but he didn’t know where his tefilin were that he had gotten at the time of his Bar Mitzvah. A new pair of tefilin was arranged for him by Rabbi Nissenbaum and he was careful to put them on each day and recite the first passuk of Shema.

When Rabbi Lichtenstein realized that this was a yiddishe neshama, who most certainly would want a kosher kevurah, and he started pulling strings as only he knows how to do. At 2:45 AM I got the call notifying me that the Chevra Kadisha of Lakewood was on the way and the order was given that only Jewish people should handle the body.

By 3:10 AM Rabbi Ehrman and Rabbi Parnes from the Lakewood Chevra Kadisha were at the house and they transferred the body to Kimball Medical Center.

Bill and Rabbi Lichtenstein then put their heads together to find Sam’s frum sister who is living in Flatbush, and at 6:30 AM Rabbi Lichtenstein called her to notify her of her brother’s petirah. She requested that he be buried near their mother in a Jewish Cemetary in Freehold, approximately twenty minutes out of Lakewood.

Releasing the body from the hospital with proper burial papers took until about 12:00 PM Friday, and at that point I also got a phone call that the men who were supposed to dig the kever couldn’t make it with the tractor until 3:30 PM. Shabbos was at 4:13 PM.

This is where Misaskim Chaveirim of Lakewood stepped in. They sent about 10 chaveirim members to immediately start digging the kever without a tractor.

At 12:30 PM I got another phone call, This was to inform me that I would need to bring money with me to the cemetary to pay for the plot upfront.

At the same time, Rabbi Tendler was giving the go ahead for the taharah assuring me that it would be done for no charge as this was truly a meis mitzvah.

I then called a successful businessman in town, who wishes to remain annonymous, and told him the story, asking him if he could help with a donation to cover the cost of the plot. His response to me was “I am pledging $500- however, I’m giving you the whole amount that you need for the kevurah and if you get other donations you’ll let me know.” Within ten minutes I had the money that was needed for the plot.

My son who was home at the time with some friends heard what was going on. They immediately put down $400- cash which covered the cost of the aron, and then proceeded to call The Lakewood Scoop to please post the situation with the information about the kevurah and where to call to donate.

We got to the cemetary at about 1:30 PM and the aron arrived at about 2:00 PM. While we were waiting for the aron, more and more people were coming and many were giving me donations of $100-, $200-, $360-, and even more. By the time the aron arrived there were well over one hundred people there.

Being that it was so close to Shabbos, I spoke for just a few short minutes and then a former classmate of Sam’s from the Cheder, Rabbi Shneur Olshin, spoke as well.

We all helped lower the aron into the kever and cover it. Tehillim and Kadish were recited and everyone breathed a sigh of relief knowing that Shmuel Alexander ben Avraham was zocheh to a proper Jewish burial all according to halachah.

We got home around 45 minutes before Shabbos and not until Motzaei Shabbos were we able to add up all the various donation that had come in. I am very proud to say that I am a member of such a special klal that raised close to $15,000 – in such a short amount of time!! We are now able to pay back all those special people who were willing to wait for their money or even to volunteer their services at no charge. I will be able to pay that special individual who came forward and offered to say Kaddish for this neshamah for the next eleven months. We will be able to pay for a matzeivah and perhaps make a donation to a shul or cheder so that there will be an everlasting memory of our dear friend.

We will Im Yirtzeh Hashem be making a siyum mishnayos and shloshim seudah, Motzaei Shabbos, January 3rd, at 8:00 PM at River 978. Tehi Zichro Baruch. (You can reserve Mishnayos online here).