Monthly Archives: April 2013

I don’t remember how old I was, maybe thirteen years old, when I caught a very bad case of bronchitis. There was a danger of pneumonia and my parents and grandparents were terrified. I guess in Europe, if someone coughed, it meant tuberculosis or worse, and they were beside themselves.

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I did have a terrible cough and it took a very long time for it to get better. I don’t remember this part so clearly, but I do remember we went from one doctor to another and I was given one antibiotic after another. Nothing seemed to work.

All the coughing made me hoarse – first a little, then very, very hoarse. It became harder and harder for me to speak, until one day I stopped speaking altogether.

We went to all kinds of doctors who had all kinds of theories, but the bottom line was that I could not talk and they could not help. Sometimes when I think back, I wonder: Perhaps it was psychological?

And then my parents took me to the Rebbe. We went in as a family, with my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, squeezing into the room until you couldn’t fit a pin in! Everybody received a blessing and then the Rebbe said, “All of you please go out, I want to speak to her alone.”

I was astonished and stunned that everybody had to go out and that I was going to have a private audience with the Rebbe.  I remember being in such awe of him.

As soon as everyone left I remember feeling completely comfortable and calm, as if I was there with my own grandfather. And he spoke with me as if we were on the same level. (more…)

A few weeks ago, we interviewed Mr. Yankel Shiffman in our studio in New York.

Mr. Yankel Shiffman

Mr. Shiffman currently lives in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. When Yankel was only 15 years old, his father became very ill. The doctors said that he didn’t have much time to live. So together with his father, mother and grandmother, they went to the Rebbe for a bracha and advice. Yankel stood in the back of the room while the Rebbe wished the family well. As they were walking out of the room, the Rebbe asked if Yankel could stay in for a few minutes to talk. The Rebbe then told him, that according to nature, his father wasn’t supposed to live and there will be a time when he will be depressed, but as a Jew, even when things get tough, he must always believe in G-d. The Rebbe then pulled out a Gemorah Brochos and together, they learned line by line, the story of Chizkiya on his deathbed. The Rebbe then told him to learn the Gemorah together with his father.

He learned the Gemorah with his father a few times and a couple of months later his father passed away. It was only then, did Yankel realize why the Rebbe learned the Gemorah with him. Those few minutes, Yankel told us, kept him going even in the darkest of times. We heard about this story because Yankel was visiting the Ohel asking the Rebbe for a bracha because of a difficult situation he is currently going through. A very powerful story.

Interview in NY Studio

Three or four months after I started studying in kollel, the rabbinical seminary where young married men go to study for a year or two, I was asked to see Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Aizik Hodakov, who was the head of the kollel and the Rebbe’s chief secretary. Rabbi Hodakov told me that he had a special mission for me that would take priority over everything else I was doing, even over my studies.

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The mission involved helping a young, seventeen year-old girl who was experiencing great emotional difficulties with teenage issues – rebelliousness, religious confusion, her home situation – the typical things that trouble teenagers. In her case though, these problems were quite severe. The Rebbe had taken an extraordinary personal interest in helping this girl through this stage in her life, and I was recruited to do what needed to be done.

For three or four months, I spent fifty percent of my time working on this issue. I didn’t do a single thing without consulting Rabbi Hodakov, who in turn would consult with the Rebbe and relay the Rebbe’s instructions how to deal with each particular situation.

This young girl often wrote to the Rebbe directly, and when the Rebbe responded, I was instructed to discuss his response with her. What I want to describe is one particular exchange that was absolutely extraordinary. (more…)

Rabbi Mottel Deitsch

With much gratitude to Hashem, the My Encounter with the Rebbe team is proud to announce that they have hit the milestone of 50 interviews conducted in our studio in the heart of Crown Heights! A special thanks to Haysha and Bassie Deitsch of Crown Heights for graciously donating the studio space. These testimonies would simply not have been recorded but for their generosity.

Interviews conducted in-studio feature a significantly reduced cost-per-interview, allowing us to conduct more critical interviews at a faster pace. Individuals from various backgrounds have been coming through the studio to share their encounters with the Rebbe – a number of them, many of them over the age of 80!

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In the late 1970s, I asked the Rebbe for a bracha to open a kosher restaurant, Mintz’s Buffet, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. At the time there was nothing glatt kosher there. They only had “kosher style.” The only real kosher place was Meal Mart on the West Side, and aside from that, there was nowhere an observant Jew could eat.

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When I first opened and people saw the glatt kosher sign and then saw that I was wearing a kippa, they said, “Young man, you’re wasting your time and money in this place. You belong on the Lower East Side.” But I said, “I appreciate your interest and advice but the success of the business depends on G-d.” dairy

The restaurant became a huge success. I did a lot of take-out and a lot of catering. People would often ask me for ice cream, to which I would reply, “The food is fleishig, so in the same meal we can’t have ice cream.” They said, “Okay, then we’ll buy our own ice cream.”

That’s when the seeds were planted in my head. I started to do research and finally decided to make non-dairy parve ice cream which I could sell with a fleishig meal. I read an article about tofu. I didn’t even know what tofu was at the time, and I went to Chinatown to buy it.

I started experimenting with it but at first I had little success and whatever I made, I had to throw out. During this time, whenever I met with the Rebbe I would mention what I was doing, and he would say to me, “You have to have faith. If you have faith in G-d, you can do wonders.” So I kept trying. (more…)