BDE: Reb Avrohom (Alan) Bain z"l

Boro Park – Reb Avrohom Bain, who made the unlikely trip from a convicted bank robber to inspiring baal teshuva, was niftar suddenly Sunday morning. He was 56.

The levaya is taking now place at the Shomrei Hadas chapel on 14th Avenue and 38th Street. Bain did not have any close family, giving his the status of a meis mitzvah.

Bain led a tough existence, with several convictions for bank robbery going back to the 1990s. It was during his latest incarceration at the Otisville penitentiary that he resolved to turn his life around and he became a baal teshuva.

Shaul Roth of the Lecheiris organization that advocates for the religious needs of inmates said that Bain’s turnaround was complete, and that he inspired so many others with his newfound emunah and bitachon.

Bain began keeping all the mitzvos, davening three times a day and learning whenever he could.

Roth said that he was told on Chanukah of 2018 that Bain had been released. He dispatched two volunteers to collect him from Otisville, and they found him about to board the bus.

“When an inmate doesn’t have family to pick them up,” Roth said, “they normally give them a bus ticket to get home. He was so thankful and surprised that they came to pick him up. ‘What? You came for me?’ During the ride, the volunteers went out of their minds from the emunah that this person showed.”

The first thing he requested upon his release was how to light Chanukah lecht. He was in a halfway house and it was difficult to light over there.

Lecheiris helped him find an apartment and a job, and he immediately began seeking ways to boost emunah in Hashem amongst Yidden.

“A lot of people helped him,” Roth said. “They all would say that the emunah, the love and closeness to Hashem, that you get from Alan you can’t see it anywhere else. He would always say that the most important thing is to be a Yid.”

Alan recently requested a camera so he could record his life story. He wanted people to be inspired from his “from bank robber to baal teshuva” story. He was interviewed in Moment Magazine exactly one year ago.

“He was a very spiritual person,” Roth said.

Chessed Shel Emes was called and they arranged for kovod hameis.

Yehi zichro boruch.