For close to twenty years, during the 1960s and 1970s, I was stationed in New York, serving in a senior position with the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.

During one of these years – I believe that it was in the end of 1967 – a few of my colleagues at the Israeli consulate in New York invited me to join them on an excursion to Brooklyn. They explained that they were going to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s synagogue to participate in the celebration of Simchat Torah there.

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“Who? What? What is this about?” I asked, but they assured me that it would be a very nice, festive event. “Can I bring my wife?” I asked, and to my delight they said that she could join. I was so totally unprepared for where we were going and what was going to happen.

When we got to Chabad Headquarters, we saw a big commotion. It turned out that the hakafot – the dances with the Torah – had not yet begun, but a farbrengen with the Rebbe was taking place, and it seemed that the place was too small to accommodate the thousands of chasidim who had shown up. However, our visit had been arranged in advance, and seats had been saved for us inside.

We were led into the big hall where the excitement was palpable – the crowd was singing with great joy, and the Rebbe was beating out the rhythm on his table. (more…)

During the fast of Tisha B’Av in 1958 my mother – Chaya Sarah – became very ill. She was a very pious woman who felt deeply the pain of this day when we mourn the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and she would recite the lengthy prayers called Kinot with tears in her eyes. As she was praying, she experienced a terrible headache and suddenly lost her sight.

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She was home alone in New York at the time because my father, Rabbi Yechiel Michel Charlop, was in California, and I was visiting my in-laws in Buffalo. But she had the presence of mind to grope for the phone and call a friend whose son was a neurosurgeon.

The son, Dr. Sheldon Katz, rushed right over, and so did I as soon as I was notified of what happened. Meanwhile various specialists were consulted; they were not sure what was happening to her – maybe it was a stroke or a ruptured aneurysm – but, whatever it was, she was likely hemorrhaging and her condition was grave. An operation to stem the blood leakage was required, but she might not survive it.

In the end, they managed to engage the services of Dr. Morris Bender, a world-renowned expert and chairman of the neurology department at Mount Sinai Hospital, who reached my parents’ house before midnight. His prognosis was less bleak than that of the other doctors and he was against immediate surgery, but he insisted that she be hospitalized so that various tests could be administered. (more…)

When I graduated high school, the members of the Jewish community in Indianapolis, my hometown, offered me a free trip to Israel. They thought that a kid like me – who received only a minimal Jewish education and whose parents were minimally observant – needed a boost to stay Jewish. And it so happened that I came to Israel, along with another two hundred kids like me, right after the end of the Six Day War of 1967. We spent two months touring, and wherever we went, we saw happy people. This made an impression on me because, back home, I rarely saw people who looked so happy.

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Why were these Israelis so happy? They told us that for six months they had lived in fear of their Arab neighbors who loudly declared that they planned to push every Jew into the sea. And then, in six short days, Israel overcame all of them and recaptured vast amounts of territory, all with minimal casualties.

As a result of this experience, I decided to remain in Israel and study at Hebrew University. During this time, I was also very strongly influenced by a foray into yoga as a religious practice. I liked the idea that one should lead a simple life, be a vegetarian, and not harm other living beings. This was an idea that ran counter to the American capitalist ideal – which seemed selfish in comparison – that one should make a lot of money and buy a lot of beautiful things.

I began to practice yoga meditation – to think about the soul, about the Creator, and about helping others. After a few months, I began feeling a new sensation, which I came to identify as happiness. I was happy because every day I was doing good things. Every day, I didn’t feel the lacks and frustrations that come from craving possessions like money and fancy cars.

I also spent a lot of time wandering around the Judean desert near Jerusalem, where I would see the beauty of nature that G-d created. So my belief in G-d became very strong. Crediting all this to yoga, I considered going to India for more in-depth study. (more…)

I was raised in Kfar Chabad, Israel, in a family of dedicated Lubavitchers. After completing my yeshivah studies, I served as a paratrooper in the IDF. This was in 1989, and I was stationed deep in Lebanon, in a place that was swarming with terrorists.

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Imagine my astonishment when – just before going out on a dangerous military mission – I called home and heard my father tell me that he had received a telephone call about me from the Rebbe’s office in New York. Apparently the Rebbe had wanted to ensure that I would properly celebrate my birthday (which falls on Chanukah) and fulfill all the customary birthday observances.

I knew that two years prior, after the passing of his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, the Rebbe announced the “Birthday Campaign,” calling on everyone to use his or her birthday – which is like a personal Rosh Hashanah – as a day of introspection, of taking on good resolutions, and of having a farbrengen with friends.

But how did the Rebbe know that my birthday was coming up? It had been nearly two months since I started serving in Lebanon, during which time I hadn’t visited home and hadn’t written to the Rebbe.

The next day I called home again to discuss what to do regarding my birthday, only to hear my father give me even more astonishing news: The Rebbe’s office had called again to say that the Rebbe decided to give me a set of tefillin as a present.

Now I was totally shocked. Two phone calls from the Rebbe’s office in two days’ time! A present from the Rebbe! But why tefillin? I already had tefillin which my father bought for me at the time of my Bar Mitzvah. (more…)

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…)