Monthly Archives: April 2015

Back in the 1940s, when I was a student at Yeshiva Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan, the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University also known as RIETS, I became involved in a Chabad educational program, although I myself was not a follower of Chabad. It came about by chance. I had gone to do some weightlifting at the gym and another fellow there who happened to be a Chabadnik suggested that I get involved in their Released Time program.

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The Released Time program – which allowed public schools to release students for religious studies off the premises – was very popular in the 1940s with something like 2 million kids involved. It is still operational. All religions took advantage of Released Time, but Jewishly, it was Chabad’s bailiwick.

At the time that I was part of it, Released Time was chiefly funded by the Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education administered by Rabbi J.J. Hecht. Later, after 1951, when the Rebbe became the Rebbe, he expanded the idea considerably under the slogan taken from the Book of Proverbs, “Yafutzu maynosecha chutzah – Let your wellsprings flow outwards.” Also, Chabad’s Kehot Publication Society started putting out books and pamphlets aimed at the Released Time kids. I remember The Story of Chanukah and The Story of Purim and The Story of Passover which were very captivating for young children and sold for only 20 or 25 cents a copy.

My yeshiva, RIETS, was not in favor of the program. My teachers didn’t try to stop me but I was given the message that my time would be better spent learning Torah and turning to education only after I completed my studies.

I saw it differently. My motivation was simple – these kids needed Jewish outreach very badly. Once, when I was conducting a Released Time class, I gave the students a quiz for a special prize. And I asked them, “What is the name of the son whose father was asked by Hashem to offer him up as a sacrifice?” And one of the children responded with the name of the founder of Christianity. (more…)

My name is Chaim Jacobs. I was born in England and brought up in a traditional family in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of London. We lived on Cranwich Road, which just happened to be the Lubavitch Street in London. The Rebbe’s emissary, Rabbi Bentzion Shemtov, lived on that street, and at 89 Cranwich Road, there was a Lubavitch Hebrew school. From the age of 5, I attended evening and Sunday classes there. This is how I and my whole family became involved with Chabad Lubavitch.

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Later, I learned in the yeshiva at the Chabad Headquarters in New York, where I had the privilege of watching the Rebbe in action up close.

While I was in yeshiva, on the Shabbos before the start of the month of Sivan – which fell on June 3, 1967 – the Rebbe spoke about the situation in Israel. At this time, there was a tremendous crisis in the Middle East, because a few weeks earlier, President Nasser of Egypt had evicted the United Nations’ peacekeeping force and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba. Israeli ships could not come in and out of Eilat, and the crisis was becoming more and more serious every day. Quoting the Talmud, the Rebbe said that the verse, “The nations of the world see that the name of G-d is upon you, and they will fear you” refers to tefillin, and that this must be publicized to the Israel soldiers.

The next day, on Sunday, the Rebbe fasted, and on Monday – June 5^th – the Six Day War began. I remember how excited everyone was to hear that, on the first day of the war, Israel had destroyed the entire Arab Air Force – military planes of Egypt, Syria and Jordan were out of commission; they never even got a chance to take off.

On the second day of the war, following the Rebbe’s directive, I and several other yeshiva students went out to ask non-religious Jewish businessmen to put on tefillin. We visited shops in the area of Kingston Avenue, Empire Boulevard and Utica Avenue, saying to every person we met, “Let’s help Israel to victory.” There wasn’t one man that morning who refused to put on tefillin. Everyone was so inspired by the victory that Israel was achieving. (more…)

At the outset I would like to say that I am not a chasid. My family came from Lithuania, so my background is Litvish and Misnagdish – meaning that my forebearers were opposed to chasidic ways. My mother came from Kovno, Lithuania, and my father came from Lomza, Poland, but he studied in the famed Slobodka Yeshiva, which was located before the war in the suburb of Kovno. And that’s where he met my mother.

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My father came to the United States during World War One, in 1916, and eventually he brought over my mother and my three older siblings. He was offered a position as a rabbi in Canton, Ohio, and later became a rabbi in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he stayed until he retired and made Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael.

Growing up in small towns like Canton and Bridgeport was a challenge. Obviously, we were a minority among minorities because very few of the Jewish people living there were Torah observant and, certainly, the vast majority of the people in the community were not Jewish.

I went to public school, populated mostly by Italian and Irish kids, and I had to cope as best as I could with trying to find friends. I managed to have some Jewish friends and to forge an uneasy kind of a friendship with my non-Jewish schoolmates.

In 1938, I enrolled in Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, which I attended for the next six years. I was ordained a rabbi and I started working first as a teacher in a Jewish day school and then as a rabbi – first in Hartford, Connecticut, then in Saratoga Springs, New York, and then in Far Rockaway, New York, where I have been for the past 60 years.

As a rabbi, I became involved with Iggud HaRabbonim, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, which should not be confused with the Rabbinical Council of America. The Iggud HaRabbanim is a much more conservative organization and has taken much more conservative positions on Jewish issues, such as Mi Hu Yehudi – who is a Jew according to Jewish law. This issue was of great importance to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and it was in this context that I came to meet him in the late 1950s. It proved a very special encounter. (more…)

I’d like to describe my audience with the Rebbe back in May of 1971. But first I want to say a word about my background.

My parents were both Jewish refugees who fled Germany in 1939. They came over on the proverbial last train and made it to England. They were married in 1945, and established a Reform Jewish home.

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I was born in London and, in the late 1960s, I attended Manchester University where I was introduced to Hillel House, which was my first experience with the Torah observant lifestyle. After university, work took me 20 miles outside of London to Surrey, where I was introduced to Jewish mysticism. I was really quite excited about it. I felt there was something really deep and meaningful behind all of this. My quest to know more brought me in contact with the Chabad-Lubavitch UK organization.

Before long, I was invited for Shabbos at the local Chabad House. I really enjoyed the free-wheeling atmosphere of the place, and I felt this was the form of Jewish observance that fitted me best. I went back again and again for Shabbos after Shabbos. And, in May of 1971, I joined a group of very excited Lubavitchers traveling to New York to meet the Rebbe.

I remember that we all assembled in the hallway of Chabad Headquarters at about midnight and we waited. While we waited, we recited Psalms. Eventually, my turn came – I believe it was at 4:30 a.m. So, it was quite a long wait.

I had my question written out on a piece of paper – something about Kabbalah – and when I was finally ushered into the Rebbe’s office, I handed it to him. The Rebbe answered my question and spoke to me for 40 minutes. Then I left. (more…)