Rabbi Tuvia Blau
In 1962, I had the great fortune to travel from the Holy Land to the Rebbe for the High Holidays and have a private audience with him. I had exchanged several letters with the Rebbe since coming close to Chabad as a young man, but this was the first time in my life that I would be meeting him in person.
Before leaving, my teacher and mentor Rabbi Moshe Weber asked that I tell the Rebbe about a certain yeshivah student from Jerusalem who had gone to study in 770 and who, despite years having passed, had not yet managed to marry. The assumption was that the Rebbe was unaware of this situation, so I was asked to solicit the Rebbe’s blessings and assistance on his behalf.
When I mentioned the name I had been given, the Rebbe immediately responded: “When it comes to finding a match, one has to look at what is important, and not at trivial matters. This fellow, however, is looking at the most trifling of trivialities; what’s the surprise that he hasn’t found anyone?”
Now, the yeshivah student in question had been unaware of our intervention, and when I met him afterwards, I asked why, despite his relatively advanced age, he was still single. As he had it, it was because the matchmakers were suggesting to set him up with some girls of Sephardic descent, and he thought they wouldn’t be right for him. This, apparently, was what the Rebbe meant by “trivialities.”
Later, this fellow married an American, a woman who had come from a family that was not religious. Unfortunately, they were ill suited for each other, and the marriage was short lived. But about a year later, he met and married another woman – from a Sephardic family – with whom he set up a Jewish home and enjoyed many long, happy years together. (more…)