It was the summer of 1968, and my father had helped me get a part-time job at a charity called Ezras Torah. Founded in 1902 to help rabbis experiencing economic hardship, Ezras Torah had since expanded to become a general relief society, handing out stipends and assistance to anyone in need. My job was writing out checks, getting them signed, recording who received assistance, and other administrative tasks.

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Ezras Torah was close to the heart of the old Lithuanian Jewish community, which had historically been at odds with the chasidic community, and so I was very much in unfamiliar territory. When people came in and recognized me as a Lubavitcher, they would sometimes make a snide remark that could border on verbal abuse. “Oy vey,” one person said upon seeing me. “Those people have even reached here!” It bothered me very much, and eventually, I wrote to the Rebbe.

“I’ve been at this job for two months,” I wrote, “and I keep getting these jabs about being a Lubavitcher. Debating and fighting aren’t in my personality, so I keep quiet. But I feel that my silence implies that their criticisms are correct. I want to leave the job.”

The Rebbe’s answer was quick in coming. He wanted me to keep the job, and he advised me on how to handle the comments: “We are commanded by our sages to distance ourselves from even the trace of conflict. Therefore, you should remain silent.”

After that, my work experience changed. I continued to get those jabs, but with my instructions to stay silent, they went in one ear and out the other. The atmosphere at Ezras Torah suddenly became much more comfortable, even congenial, so I ended up staying there for the next few years. (more…)

As a young man, I came to the United States from Israel to study at the Chabad yeshivah in New York and to be near the Rebbe. However, after several years, my visa was about to expire and I was told that, once it did, I would have to return home. I did not want to leave, so I wrote to the Rebbe explaining my problem, but I did not receive a reply.

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Meanwhile, Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, the spiritual mentor of the yeshivah, got me a job as a Hebrew teacher at a school in New Jersey, which qualified me for a green card, and eventually for U.S. citizenship. Only a year later did I learn that the Rebbe was behind this solution to my problem. Even if he didn’t reply to my letter, he thought about me and asked Rabbi Jacobson to find a way to help me. So I knew then that my place was here, and that the Rebbe wanted me to stay.

In 1976, three years after my wedding, the Rebbe offered me a job looking after the central Chabad library, creating a catalog and organizing what was already an enormous collection, comprising some fifty thousand volumes. (Today it numbers more than a quarter million volumes.)

Toward that end, I oversaw a staff that was needed to inventory this huge collection, which included not only books but also handwritten letters and manuscripts. The first effort resulted in an old-fashioned card catalog, which even back then – in 1978! – the Rebbe wanted to put on a computer, but the technology was not yet sufficiently developed. Eventually, we got an expert to write a special program for us so the card catalog could be digitized, and we spent four years inputting all the entries. Today, of course, everything is on the web, where it can be accessed by anyone.

The other part of my job was editing new publications.

Among the first works that I edited was a book of the Halachic responsa (teshuvos) of the third Chabad Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek. Many of his rulings had already been published, but the library had acquired even more of his handwritten letters and notes, so the Rebbe asked me to gather them all together, edit them, and prepare a manuscript for print. (more…)

As a young, newly-married man, I was offered a position as one of the Rebbe’s emissaries. This was in 1977, a time when there were only a small number of us in existence – now there are thousands – and I was posted in Bergen County, answering to Rabbi Moshe Herson, who headed Chabad activities in all of New Jersey. The Rebbe gave his blessing, and I went off with great enthusiasm, setting up Jewish outreach programs and events.

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One of our first programs was aimed at encouraging girls to light Shabbat candles, which was a huge success with thousands of participants. Then, at Chanukah time in 1980, we decided to light a Chanukah menorah in Hackensack, the county seat. The town council gave us immediate approval, the fire department provided a “cherry picker” so we could reach the top of the menorah for the lighting, and we got a nice turnout. Each night, some important personage in the community was chosen for the lighting, plus we had joyous singing and dancing. It was a beautiful event, well covered by the local press.

As far as I was concerned, everybody was happy, but it turned out not to be so. A few months after, I got a call from a woman representing the Teaneck Jewish Community Council, an umbrella organization made up of the leaders of the various Jewish groups in Teaneck. I thought she was calling to invite me to stage a public Chanukah lighting ceremony in her town as well, but it turned out she was calling to protest such ceremonies. She said that the Teaneck Jewish Community Council had fought to prohibit any religious displays on public property, and they thought that Jewish symbols, in particular, should stay under the radar.

Now, I was young, energetic and stupid. Her argument only caused me to resolve to put up a Chanukah menorah in Teaneck. As a result, a big war ensued, which was not very pleasant, to say the least. But, in my defense, I must say that because I forced an examination of this issue, many positive things happened in the end.

As things got heated, the Rebbe was brought into the picture, and he responded in writing, explaining that this issue was not new. He noted that the constitutionality of public menorahs had been fully examined many years ago, that there was overwhelming support for the idea, and that, as a result, “gigantic Chanukah menorahs” stood on public property in Manhattan, in Washington, the nation’s capital, as well as Philadelphia, the birthplace of America’s independence, and many cities throughout the United States. (more…)

My mother was a member of the Schneersohn family, a descendent of the Alter Rebbe, the founder of the Chabad movement. On the other side, my father was from the famous Porush family that moved from Lithuania to Jerusalem many generations ago. Their wedding was an interesting one, with guests from both of these very different groups in attendance.

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I myself was born in Jerusalem, in 1936, but was raised in Seattle, Washington. At the age of fifteen, I went to yeshivah in Chicago, at the Hebrew Theological College – which later became known as Skokie Yeshiva – where my maternal grandparents lived.

In yeshivah, I took my studies very seriously. At the same time, I also became active with Bnei Akiva, the Religious-Zionist youth organization.

Now, Chicago had Jews of all persuasions. Most were not Torah observant, but they were all Zionistic, and so their children would join Bnei Akiva and learn about Judaism there. As a youth group counselor, I would help bring these children together every Shabbat, to sing songs, play games, and tell stories. We made Judaism a joyful experience for them and our three-week summer camp, Camp Moshava, had a tremendous effect on the children.

However, as I grew older and advanced at the yeshivah, it occurred to me that I might be spending too much time with Bnei Akiva. Rather than being a youth counselor, maybe I should be learning Torah the whole time! (more…)

I met the Rebbe when I was nineteen years old, not long after the death of my father in a tragic car accident. At the time, I was still coping with the aftereffects of that traumatic event and was confused about what course in life to follow. And then I remembered my father telling me when I was a small boy, “The Rebbe is a great leader of world Jewry, and if you ever find things too hard to manage, write to him or go to him for advice.”

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So, in December of 1976, I made the trip from Sydney, Australia – where I was born, raised and educated – to see the Rebbe in New York.

In preparation for the audience, I had written a two-page letter in which I detailed my situation in life and posed half-a-dozen questions for the Rebbe:

My number one concern was my mother, who’d had a hard time ever since my father was killed. The accident happened in front of her eyes and, as a result, she suffered a nervous shock, what today is called PTSD. So, my first question was what should I do to help my mother and if there were any words of comfort from the Rebbe that I could convey to her.

In reply, the Rebbe spoke for several minutes about the mitzvah of honoring one’s parents. He cited various instances where this subject is mentioned in the Torah, in the works of the Prophets and in the teachings of the Talmudic sages. Then he said, “When you return home, you should tell your mother that you came to see me and I advised you that the greatest comfort a mother can receive is to see that her son is following in the footsteps of his father and adhering to the tenets of Jewish law. When you do so, it brings comfort to your father’s soul and comforts your mother in her grief.”

My second set of questions pertained to my education and future livelihood. My father had owned a pharmacy, so I wanted to know if I should enroll in university and become a pharmacist – a path neither of my parents had favored – or learn in yeshivah? Or, since a number of people seemed to think I had a good singing voice, should I perhaps become a cantor (chazan)?

Before answering those questions, the Rebbe said, “I would like to ask you about the death of your father. I realize that you might find it somewhat upsetting, but I think it’s necessary for you to speak about this.” (more…)

As a young child in Pretoria, South Africa, I was blessed with the G-d-given talent of music. I started to play the piano at age five, although, due to the secular nature of my family, I was not introduced to Chabad melodies (known as nigunim) until later in life.

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This did not happen until my husband Michael, a dentist, began to care for Rabbi Mendel Lipskar, the Chabad emissary to Johannesburg, as his patient and our family became Torah observant. At the time – this was in 1978 – I was working toward my doctorate in music at the University of the Witwatersrand (better known as Wits).

A few years later, my husband and I traveled to New York to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and it was a very special and profound experience for us both. My husband was seeking advice as to whether to continue his dental practice or to turn his attention to public health by founding a new department in this discipline at the university, and I was seeking blessings for my family and my career.

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the electricity that I felt when I, along with my husband, entered the Rebbe’s study. Nor for the surprise. He was a combination of a grandfatherly, loving, nurturing human being but, at the same time, he was this very holy man, a true tzaddik. And I remember the experience of meeting him as being somehow other-worldly.

And yes, meeting such a person was a formidable experience which made me feel overwhelmed. And I think that after meeting the Rebbe, a person can never be the same again. This meeting and his blessings impacted me and my family forever after.

The Rebbe first answered my husband’s question – blessing him to pursue a career in public health – and then he asked us about our family. We spoke about our three daughters, also mentioning that I was pregnant with our fourth child. The Rebbe blessed me to have an easy delivery, and then he asked, “Have you brought photos of your children?” We had, and we were deeply moved how long the Rebbe studied the photos – not just looked at them – with loving care. (more…)

I don’t know of any Jewish leader who publicly taught Torah as much as the Rebbe did. It was our great fortune that we heard the Rebbe speak at his public farbrengens for thousands of hours: On the Talmud, on chasidic thought, on the philosophy and ideology of Judaism, on Rashi’s commentary on the Torah, on mysticism, and even on worldly affairs – which were, as the Rebbe would show, also connected to the Torah.

However, while previous Chabad Rebbes would write or publish their own teachings, the Rebbe did not. Instead, all his public remarks were recorded by a team of chasidim, known as chozrim, or “reviewers,” led by

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the scholar Reb Yoel Kahn. Later, another team would prepare a particular talk, or “sicha,” for publication and submit it to the Rebbe for review. Instead of a word-for-word transcript, one such sicha might even be prepared from multiple talks on a given subject that the Rebbe had delivered on different occasions. After appearing intermittently in the previous two decades, in the ‘70s, these talks began to appear on a regular basis, before every Shabbat, in the form of a pamphlet known as a “likkut.” This system stopped and started a couple of times, but over the years, the Rebbe edited and gave out one thousand or so of these talks, and now they have been published in the thirty-nine volumes of Likkutei Sichot.

Likkutei Sichot contains countless in-depth explanations of a vast range of Torah subjects, but it is even more than that. Learning these talks is like putting on the Rebbe’s glasses; they give a sense of his perspective on the world. Through learning Likkutei Sichot one comes to a different understanding of their connection with G-d, a deeper insight into the Torah, on what it means to do a mitzvah and the purpose of creation.

Now, there were many Torah scholars who worked on these talks over the years, chief among them Reb Yoel Kahn and in 1972, I also became involved, along with Rabbis Leibel Kaplan and Leibel Schapiro. Then, from 1973 until 1992, Rabbi Leibel Altein and I were the main people working on Likkutei Sichot.

On Shemini Atzeret of 1977, during the traditional hakafot dancing, the Rebbe had a massive heart attack. Somehow – even the doctors later said they were unsure quite how – the Rebbe managed to complete the service, go outside to the sukkah to make kiddush, and walk upstairs to his room. A couple hours after that, at about 5:00 AM, he then had yet another heart attack. (more…)

My earliest memories of the Rebbe come from when I was a little girl, still in elementary school. Back then, the Chabad community in Crown Heights, where I grew up, was quite small, and so children had a great deal more access to the Rebbe than they did in later years.

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During farbrengens on Shabbat, we would play in the alleys near 770 while the Rebbe was speaking, so as not to disturb others, but we would come inside when the chasidim began singing. On one occasion, we were playing outside when the Rebbe came out and turned toward his home. Seeing him coming, we all lined up on the side, and as the Rebbe passed us, he stopped to say Gut Shabbos to each girl with a big smile, while patiently waiting for each to say Gut Shabbos back to him.

After that happened, we realized this was an opportunity, so we made sure to be in that spot after every Shabbat farbrengen to catch the Rebbe coming out and to bask in the special attention he gave us.

My father, Rabbi Yehoshua Pinson, served as the gabbai who oversaw the function of 770 for about thirty years, and though some might think that his position gave us special access to the Rebbe, the opposite was true. My father knew first-hand how much was constantly demanded of the Rebbe, so he made sure not to bother him with our family’s needs.

In fact, the first time I ever had a private audience with the Rebbe was in 1974 when I became engaged to my husband, Rabbi Boruch Yurkowicz. This should have been a happy occasion, but it was overshadowed by the recent passing of my mother, Rebbetzin Lieba Pinson.

The period of time after I lost my mother in a tragic car accident was particularly hard. I was left alone with my father in the house, and then my older sister, who had three little children and was pregnant with her fourth, moved in with us. We were not getting along, because she was very moody, and I was really confused and hurt by everything that had happened. (more…)

I first met him at the entrance examination I took for the famed Mir yeshivah of Jerusalem in 1967. Rabbi Nochum Partzovitz, or simply “Reb Nochum,” as he was known, was the head of the yeshivah. His style of scholarship was characterized by tremendous depth alongside meticulous attention to the language of a given Talmudic passage or commentary, to arrive at its true meaning. Thus he made a name as one of his generation’s greatest Torah geniuses, and crowds thronged to hear his lectures. In my third year at the yeshivah, I was able to hear them myself.

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At around this time, Reb Nochum was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease. Still, despite his condition, he continued teaching as before. In the winter of 1971, he traveled to New York to visit some specialists there.

While there, he was hosted in the Boro Park home of Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Lazerson, a longtime friend who had been his study partner during the Second World War when the Mir yeshivah was evacuated and relocated to Shanghai, China. In America, Lazerson had become an ardent chasid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He would attend every one of the Rebbe’s farbrengens, rain or shine, and even on Shabbat, he would make the long trek from Boro Park to Crown Heights.

Rabbi Lazerson helped set up an appointment with the Rebbe for Reb Nochum and his wife and even accompanied them on the visit.

As soon as they entered his study, the Rebbe rose to greet them, and once they were seated, he asked: “Do you remember me?”

“Where would I know the Rebbe from?” asked a surprised Reb Nochum.

“Do you recall the time my father-in-law visited your parents’ home?” It was in 1932, and the Previous Rebbe was traveling to the Lithuanian town of Landarov (today Lentvaris), for the wedding of his youngest daughter, Shaina. On his way, and as a gesture of respect, he visited the rabbi of the nearby town of Trakai, Rabbi Aryeh Tzvi Partzovitz – Reb Nochum’s father. (more…)

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My family belonged to the Karlin chasidic group. However, that didn’t stop the Chabad yeshivah in Lod, Israel, from appointing my father, Rabbi Yisrael Grossman as dean, in 1956. That was how our connection with the Rebbe began. My father would report to, and receive instructions from, the Rebbe regarding the yeshivah. As a young man, I also wrote to the Rebbe, and I received a wonderful letter in reply encouraging me in my Torah studies.

Following Israel’s miraculous victory in the Six-Day War, the country experienced a dramatic spiritual awakening. I had the great merit of visiting the Western Wall on the day of its liberation, and while standing there, I thought: What can I do to express my thanks to G-d? I decided then to devote my life to bringing other Jewish people closer to their faith – something that the Rebbe frequently advocated for, especially through the tefillin campaign he launched before the war to encourage more Jews to perform this commandment.

I was also close with the Rebbe of Lelov, another chasidic dynasty, and around this time, he asked that I move from Jerusalem to Bnei Brak to head a Torah institution there. Our apartment in Bnei Brak happened to be on top of the Dubek cigarette manufacturing plant, and I noticed that the factory workers would come too early in the morning – and stay too late – to have a chance to put on tefillin. After receiving permission from the factory manager, I began coming to the plant several times a day, during their breaks, to help the workers lay tefillin. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was very happy when I informed him of all this, and he encouraged me to continue.

Then the Lelover Rebbe had another idea for me: “Maybe you should go to Migdal Ha’emek, and see what you can do for the young people there.”

Migdal Ha’emek, a northern development town that had been founded a decade earlier to house new migrants, was facing significant challenges in terms of employment, the local economy, and juvenile delinquency. I didn’t even know where it was on the map, or how the Lelover Rebbe had heard of it, but I didn’t ask questions. I got up and moved there.

It was 1968, and I was arriving straight from the religious hothouses of Mea She’arim and Bnei Brak. When I innocently inquired about the local yeshivot, people didn’t know what I was talking about.

“So where can I find the teens?” I asked.

“At the discotheque,” they said.

I had never heard the word before. Was that the name of a yeshiva? I went, and soon found out: Those disco clubs were like Purim in the middle of the year!

I found that I connected quickly with the young people in these places, and they began calling me “the Disco Rabbi.” Then, after hearing that some of the teens at the discos had relatives at the nearby Shatta prison, I began visiting there, eventually launching a successful prisoner rehabilitation program.

All the while, I made a point of reporting on my youth and prison work to the Rebbe, knowing how much he valued it. He, in turn, inquired after every detail, and always wanted to know what was going on.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that to make a real revolution, we needed a new educational institution for children who came from rough homes and needed extra care. Even after I was appointed rabbi of Migdal Ha’emek in 1970, I held on to this dream, despite not knowing where to begin such an undertaking.

In 1972, I was invited to come to the United States for a fundraising trip, and I finally met the Rebbe in person. Before my audience, I wrote a note for the Rebbe detailing everything that happened since my arrival in Migdal Ha’emek. Among other things, I shared some doubts about my rabbinical appointment: Was it a mistake to have taken on this burden? Was I even worthy of it?

The Rebbe began by discussing my doubts about being a rabbi. He quoted a Talmudic story which says that it is predestined whether a person will take up a rabbinic or leadership role. Thus, if I had been made the rabbi of Migdal Ha’emek, clearly it was meant to be.

As a rabbi, the Rebbe went on to say, my first responsibility should be the laws of Family Purity. With that, he encouraged me to make sure the local mikva’ot (ritual baths) were Halachically sound and – no less important – beautiful. A mikvah has to be spotless, properly maintained, and staffed by younger women; that way, noted the Rebbe, the new generation of women would have someone they can comfortably communicate and identify with, to help them observe this mitzvah.

I was amazed at how this great Rebbe had such practical and straightforward solutions to complex issues. He spoke about the benefits of educating boys and girls in separate institutions – not from a religious standpoint – and about strategies for upholding kosher standards in local food establishments. He knew the spiritual state of Migdal Ha’emek as if he had been there himself.

In that audience, I also mentioned my dream of founding a new educational institution that would bring young people closer to Judaism, while keeping them away from crime and giving them a chance for a better future. The Rebbe listened with great interest when I told him about some of my successes in this field. He gave me many blessings and promised that if I did found such an institution, I would see further success.

When we eventually did lay the cornerstone of the Yeshivat Migdal Or, as we called it, I informed the Rebbe, and he immediately sent a telegram with amazing blessings. The next year, I visited him, and when I told the Rebbe that we had sixth to eighth-grade classes, he encouraged us to keep on expanding, and then added a surprising suggestion: “There are new housing units that were just built around your property – you should try to buy them.”

I was taken aback at first; we scarcely had enough funds for our own institution. But, with a bit of gall, I approached the housing authorities who oversaw those buildings and managed to purchase the entire adjacent street – which ultimately allowed us to expand our yeshivah.

The Rebbe followed the development of these institutions all along the way. In honor of the fundraising dinner we made each year, the Rebbe would send us a special letter expressing his love for the work of Migdal Or, while urging others to support it. Before the dinner, I always visited the Rebbe, and afterward, his secretary, Rabbi Leibel Groner, would call to ask how it had gone.

On one occasion, I was at one of the Rebbe’s public gatherings with Shaul Amor, the mayor of Migdal Ha’emek at the time. Migdal Or had become quite large by then, even though there had been some opposition to this growth, but the Rebbe told the mayor that one Migdal Or in the city wasn’t enough!

The mayor, who happened to be having some foot pain at the time, then asked the Rebbe to bless him with a full recovery.

“A public figure like yourself must be healthy,” responded the Rebbe. “You don’t have time to be ill! Your task is to spread Torah in the city and to help Migdal Or expand. When you are healthy, the whole town will be healthy!”

Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, founder and president of the Migdal Or institutions, has served as rabbi of Migdal Ha’emek since 1970. He was interviewed in his home in May of 2012.