Monthly Archives: October 2013

MAX COHEN: In April 1991, a powerful cyclone struck Bangladesh, killing close to 140,000 people and leaving 10 million homeless. I was due to travel to Bangladesh on business shortly thereafter, and I didn’t know what to do. The Sunday morning that I was to depart, I heard the news that there was another cyclone aiming for the area that very day. I immediately called one of my textile suppliers over there, but he assured me that this cyclone was due to hit a hundred miles down the coast, and there was nothing to worry about.

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But I have to say I was worried just the same. I had called the Rebbe’s office several times, but that hadn’t had a chance to pose my question to the Rebbe – should I make my trip to Bangladesh? I was sitting on the flight from Manchester to London – where I’d be catching the flight to Bangladesh – and I was weighing the situation. I didn’t have a blessing from the Rebbe, and I knew that everybody back home would be worried sick. So by the time I arrived in London, I had come to the decision that I was not going to travel any further.

I found a phone box and I called my in-laws to re-assure them, and that’s when my father-in-law told me that he had just gotten a phone call from Dovid, my brother-in-law – who at the time was a rabbinical student at the Chabad Headquarters in New York – that the Rebbe had given a blessing for my trip.

So, I immediately took my luggage and checked in for the flight to Bangladesh, and then I called Dovid who was waiting in New York to tell me the details.

What Dovid told me absolutely blew my mind. He said that the Rebbe was handing out dollars for charity, as was his custom every Sunday morning, and that he decided to enter the queue and ask for a blessing for my trip. Their conversation went like this: (more…)

I was 14 years old in 1945, when I was liberated from the Gunskirchen Concentration Camp in Austria, having also spent time at Auschwitz and Mauthausen. After some months, I was reunited with my older brother Berel, and we both ended up at the Pocking DP Camp, where we awaited immigration to America.

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At Pocking we met a very special person – Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, whose son had married Chaya Mushka, one of the daughters of the Rebbe Rayatz. She had heard that we were going to Brooklyn, and she came to see us. She was still waiting for her papers, and she didn’t know when she would be permitted to travel. She had a slow, soft way of speaking. She asked us if we would be so kind as to take a letter to her son. We asked, “Who is your son?” She said, “His name is Menachem Mendel. You’ll ask at the Chabad Headquarters. They’ll point out who he is.” Of course, we agreed. We had no idea at the time who she was introducing us to, or that her son would become the next Chabad Rebbe.

It took a while before we were permitted to board the boat for America, but we finally arrived on these golden shores. At the first opportunity, we went to the Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway with the letter from Rebbetzin Chana. There we asked to see her son, Menachem Mendel, we learned that he was the son-in-law of the Rebbe Rayatz. He was pointed out to us. I remember that he wore a double-breasted gray suit, and a gray hat with a black band. We spoke to him in Yiddish, and we gave him the letter from his mother. He opened the letter and began to read it. From what I could see, it was not a long letter, but he took a long time with it. Too long, it seemed to me. I finally said to Berel, “What is he reading so much?” I did not understand that this letter was precious to him, as he’d had no communication with his mother for many years because of the war. (more…)

My father was a very unusual man. Although he was quite successful in his business and quite prosperous, you wouldn’t know it by the frugal way he lived. The bulk of the money he made, he gave away – and we found out only after he passed away how much that really was. He gave because he thought it was his duty to do so. He believed that this is why he was given certain advantages –everything that happened to him, happened for a purpose; there was no coincidence. He lived his whole life this way – he had no real worries because he trusted in G-d, and when he needed advice, he got it from the Rebbe.

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The Rebbe was an integral part of his life, and there wasn’t anything that happened to him or his family that my father didn’t tell the Rebbe about.

There came a time when I was 16 years old – I had finished high school early and was ready for college – that I decided I wanted to go to a school away from home, away from Chicago. In particular, I settled on Stern College in New York. My father’s response to this was to send me to see the Rebbe. He said that, after I talked with the Rebbe, the decision would be made if I would be allowed to go or not.

I wasn’t happy about it – in fact I was resentful. I didn’t understand what this was about. I mean, if I wanted to go to Stern College, why shouldn’t I go? My friends had gone? I really didn’t grasp the significance of having an audience with the Rebbe.

My father bought me a plane ticket and I was sent to New York by myself to see the Rebbe.

My father told me not to sit in his presence but, as soon as I walked in the door, the Rebbe invited me to sit down. He immediately put me at ease. I began to feel that that he really cared about this matter – he asked me why I wanted to go to Stern, what I hoped to accomplish by it, what attracted me to that particular school. I had not given very much thought to any of this, because my main motivation was getting out of the house and living on my own. (more…)

In the early 1980s, I arrived in Brooklyn to celebrate the final days of Sukkos with the Rebbe. It was the morning of Hoshana Rabba, the last of the festival’s “intermediate days.” That morning the Rebbe was handing out the traditional “lekach,” honey cake, in his sukkah, and people were lined up to receive a piece of cake and share a quick moment with the Rebbe. Standing ahead of me in line was a young fellow, dressed hippie-style in sloppy jeans and sporting an unkempt bush of hair. Standing behind me in line was a distinguished Satmar chasid, a Rosh Yeshiva in the Satmar yeshiva in Williamsburg.

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As the unkempt fellow approached, the Rebbe asked him, “Where are you going to be tonight for the hakofos?” – referring to the traditional dancing with the Torah.

The man answered, “I have no plans to be anywhere for hakofos tonight or any other night.”

“It would be my great honor and privilege,” the Rebbe replied, “if you would attend hakofos tonight with me in the synagogue.”

The fellow thanked the Rebbe for his invitation, but remained noncommittal. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and walked away.

I was next in line. I received my lekach from the Rebbe without incident. Just behind me was the Satmar chasid. As he approached the Rebbe, I turned back, and I heard as the Rebbe addressed him: “I see that you’re wondering why I’m pleading with this fellow to come to hakofos tonight. What connection do I have with  him?

“The answer is clearly articulated in the book Tehillah L’Moshe.” (more…)