When I visited New York in 1975, I made it a habit to pray in the synagogue at 770, the Chabad Headquarters. One day during the evening prayers, the Rebbe looked over the crowd during Kaddish and his gaze fell on me. I immediately lowered my eyes, but a few moments later when I looked up, the Rebbe was still looking at me. And, until the end of Kaddish, the Rebbe didn’t take his eyes off of me for a moment.

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This obviously got me thinking why the Rebbe was looking at me like that, and the very next day my question was answered when I was summoned to the Rebbe’s office.

Rabbi Mordechai Hodakov, the Rebbe’s secretary, told me that the Rebbe wanted to know whether I had done the three things that he had instructed me to do the year before. I was asked to submit my reply immediately in writing.

I cannot say what these three things were as they involved private matters, but I can say that they were connected to my subsequent assignment to establish a Chabad presence in Eilat, the Israeli resort on the Red Sea.

Later, I had a private audience in which the Rebbe told me, “When you arrive in Eilat, you will find someone there who will help you.” These words were a bit mysterious, but I knew better than to ask questions. I understood that the Rebbe had his ways of arranging everything, and that my job was mainly not to get in the way. (more…)

Our second child, Yossi, was born a perfectly healthy baby, but all that changed when he was only eleven months old. At that time, in the second half of 1977, the Ministry of Health in Israel had received two faulty batches of the DPT vaccine which normally protects a child against diphtheria, pertussis (also known as whooping cough) and tetanus. And, unfortunately, Yossi was one of the last kids to get this vaccine from the bad batch before the authorities realized there was a problem and stopped using it.

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Sadly, he became blind, deaf and very hyperactive. Overnight, our lives had been turned upside-down.

I had been ordained as a rabbi and I thought that the rabbinate would be my future. But now it became apparent that it wouldn’t be.

Because we couldn’t get what we needed in Israel, we came to New York seeking medical intervention. My uncle, Dr. Hershel Samuels, was the co-director of the orthopedics department at Maimonides Medical Center, and he put us in touch with several top neuro-ophthalmologists. From them we learned very quickly that Yossi’s optic nerve was damaged, and he would never see again.

As doctors in the US were being very helpful and forthcoming, we decided to stay on, and I began working in the computer field. (more…)

While I worked in New York with the Jewish Agency for Israel, serving as director of the department of Torah education and culture in the United States and Canada, I often visited Chabad headquarters to participate in the Rebbe’s farbrengens. Since I and my colleagues were recognized as senior representatives of the State of Israel, we were invited each time to sit near the front where the Rebbe and other distinguished chasidim would sit.

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On the eve of Simchat Torah of 1973 – which fell two weeks after the start of the Yom Kippur War – I came with my friend Dr. Shlomo Levin, then consul in charge of religious affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in New York. Since we were from Israel, the holiday had already ended for us, but we still came to join the celebration and see the Rebbe.

In the days that had passed since the outbreak of the war, I had been busy organizing public events – such as pro-Israel rallies of Jewish students outside the UN building – but I had also been quite depressed by the bad news coming from Israel. Still, I knew that if there was any place where I could hear an uplifting message and gain some encouragement it would be at the Rebbe’s farbrengen.

When Shlomo and I entered the synagogue, it was already packed with thousands of chasidim. Despite the crush, as soon as the Rebbe noticed us, he signaled that we should approach him. Although the hakafot – the dances with the Torah – were about to start, the Rebbe began speaking with us about the situation in Israel. (more…)

As a Chabad emissary in Vancouver, I made it a weekly habit to visit the electronics business of two of my supporters and friends – Carl Stein and Ben Tessler – in order to study Torah with them. During those sessions, the conversation often turned to the Rebbe and the power of his blessings.

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It so happened that they had an in-house lawyer, a Jew named Brian Kershaw. One day in 1976 or 1977, Brian asked me, “Does the Rebbe bless non-Jews as well?”

“Of course,” I replied.

“My wife is sick,” he said. “And I would like you to ask the Rebbe for a blessing for her recovery.”

So I wrote a letter to the Rebbe, giving her name and her father’s name, as that is the custom when requesting a blessing for a non-Jew. (When requesting a blessing for a Jew, the mother’s name is always provided because, according to Jewish law, a person’s Jewish identity is determined by the mother.)

A week or ten days later when the letter arrived in New York – this was before the advent of fax machines – I received a phone call from the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Binyomin Klein, with the message: “The Rebbe would like to know her mother’s name.” (more…)

My parents – Rabbi Meir and Sima Itkin – were part of a group of Lubavitch chasidim who escaped the Soviet Union after World War Two and came to the United States at the direction of the Previous Rebbe.

As our family awaited permission to immigrate, we stayed in Paris. I was a baby at the time, but I remember the story being told of the visit by the Previous Rebbe’s son-in-law – Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the future Rebbe – who came to escort his mother to America. You can imagine the excitement of the refugees at his arrival, with everyone rushing to meet him.

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My father told me later that Rabbi Schneerson realized the need of the chasidim to connect with the Rebbe through him, and so he took the most personal thing that each person owns – his name – and spoke about it. To my father he said, “Your name, Meir, comes from ohr meaning light. You will light up the world.” This short conversation set the stage for my father’s lifelong attachment and devotion to the future Rebbe.

To both my father and my mother, the Rebbe was everything. He epitomized the philosophy they believed in, the values they held dear, and most importantly, the love that united all Jews. And whatever he said – or even hinted at – was of utmost importance to them; they followed his directives to the letter.

So it was no accident that they bought the house at 760 Eastern Parkway, as close as one could possibly get to the Rebbe’s headquarters at 770. My father had considered another property at first, not on the main street but a few blocks away where other religious families lived, but the Rebbe asked him, “Don’t you like me as your neighbor?” So that was that. (more…)

My father was one of the founders of the Tiferet Yisrael yeshivah in Jerusalem, which functioned under the leadership of the Rebbe of Boyan, a branch of the Ruzhin chasidic dynasty. And I was one of its first students.

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During my years in that yeshivah, I became very connected to the Boyaner Rebbe and, in 1969, I decided to visit him in New York. To get there, I joined a charter flight of Chabad chasidim who were traveling to the Lubavitcher Rebbe just before the High Holidays, and as member of their group, I was invited to meet with their Rebbe. I accepted that invitation and so did a friend of mine.

My friend went in first. Afterwards, he told me that the Rebbe asked him for his name, and after he answered “Barzel,” the Rebbe remarked, “Barzel? Twelve years ago, someone by the name of Barzel visited me. Are you related?”

Indeed, his uncle, Rabbi Ezra Barzel, had visited the Rebbe in the past. When my friend later told his uncle what the Rebbe had said, the man was shocked. “In the twelve years that have gone by since I visited the Rebbe I hadn’t written him, spoken to him, or seen him. So how did he remember me after all these years, during which he must have met thousands of other people?” (more…)

While serving as a religious officer in the IDF in the early 1970s, I was privileged to meet Rabbi Yisroel Glitzenstein, one of the Chabad emissaries in Israel. Among his many functions, Rabbi Glitzenstein was tasked with arranging religious services for soldiers and he offered to bring Chabad chasidim to IDF bases which were under my responsibility. Of course, I happily accepted his offer.

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And so it came to pass that every two or three weeks Rabbi Glitzenstein would send over groups of students from Chabad’s Toras Emes yeshivah in Jerusalem, to conduct Shabbat services at IDF bases where I would put them up. They would teach Torah and enthusiastically sing and dance with the soldiers.

We especially enjoyed their visits in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, when the army wouldn’t let the soldiers go home very often because of security concerns, and the Chabad students made Shabbat very special for everyone.

At a certain point, Rabbi Glitzenstein asked me to submit a report to the Rebbe, so shortly before Purim of 1975, I wrote a letter describing these activities and noting that they left an indelible impression on the soldiers. I also expressed, on behalf of all the officers, our gratitude to the Chabad chasidim who took the trouble to regularly visit us and our deep appreciation for their dedication.

Two weeks later I received the Rebbe’s reply: (more…)

While doing outreach work on college campuses as a Chabad emissary in the Los Angeles area, I began running into missionaries who were trying to convert Jewish students to Christianity. Also, the Chabad House where I worked was getting phone calls from parents whose children had converted, so I had to learn how to respond.

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After dealing with a few cases like this, I wrote to the Rebbe asking for a blessing to actually begin counter-missionary activity. I received an immediate answer that the Rebbe was giving me his blessing and that he would pray for me at the resting place of the Previous Rebbe. Rabbi Leibel Groner, the secretary who communicated the Rebbe’s message, told me that this was out of the ordinary since, in the past, the Rebbe had not encouraged this kind of work. I felt very honored, and I threw myself into counter-missionary activity with all my strength. And, over the years, I have seen the fruits of my efforts as many people who had been snared by missionaries or by cults made their way back to Judaism.

One of the earliest cases that I dealt with concerned a family that needed help because one of the sons had gotten involved with a Christian group. He was totally unwilling to communicate with anyone – he was unresponsive to any overtures from them or from me. So I suggested to the parents that they write to the Rebbe for advice. (more…)

In my younger days, I worked in the field of special education for many years, mainly with teens with criminal backgrounds. Because of my work, I was invited in 1964 to participate in the first course in criminology offered by Bar Ilan University, where I studied with other criminal justice professionals, including juvenile court judges, police officers, probation officers, etc.

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As part of my criminology studies, I won a scholarship for a year of advanced training in the United States. While there, I decided to use this opportunity to meet with a few leaders of American Jewry, in order to ask them questions which were on my mind as a young Israeli Jew.

I especially wanted to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe because of my family connection. Like him, I am a descendant of the Alter Rebbe, the 18^th century founder of the Chabad Movement, although unlike him, I trace my family tree through the Alter Rebbe’s granddaughter, Rebbetzin Menucha Rochel Slonim, who came to Israel in 1845 and settled in the city of Hebron.

When I called the Rebbe’s secretariat and asked for an appointment, I specified that I didn’t want to see the Rebbe as a chasid – just to introduce myself, ask for a blessing and leave; I wanted to have a proper conversation with him, without being pressed for time. (more…)

The first time I became aware of the Lubavitcher Rebbe was during the Six Day War of 1967. I was six years old then, and my mother told me excitedly: “We received cake and wine from the Rebbe!”

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These gifts were accompanied by a letter, which I still have, blessing and complimenting my father, General Chaim Herzog, on his actions at that time. My father became very famous, before and during the war, as the national commentator, speaking three times a day on Israeli radio to calm the people and explain the situation facing the nation.

When the cake and letter from the Rebbe arrived, I asked my mother: “Who is the Lubavitcher Rebbe?” and she told me. Afterwards, I came to hear the Rebbe’s name frequently, as we would receive letters of good wishes from him before various Jewish holidays.

I first met him in 1977, two years after my father was appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, when we were invited to join Chabad for Simchat Torah celebrations. (more…)