Monthly Archives: March 2016

I was born in Holland to an Ashkenazi family whose ancestors emigrated from Poland. My parents were Holocaust survivors who went into hiding during the war years, and met and married after liberation. In 1964, when Rabbi Yitzchak Vorst founded Lubavitch of the Netherlands, they began their association with Chabad. And, through his influence, I went to study at the Chabad yeshiva, Tomchei Temimim, in Brunoy, France.

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After I completed my studies and got married, I was considering various ways of making a living. One option was to become a kosher butcher in Germany. Another was to become the director of a girls’ school in France. A third was to return to Holland – which is what Rabbi Vorst and my father were both pressing me to do – although there was no job for me there.

Unable to make a decision, I wrote to ask the Rebbe’s advice. His response –  “Speak with acquaintances in Holland” – suggested to me that this was where my future lay, since the “acquaintances” (my father and Rabbi Vorst) would only reiterate their opinion. But what should I do in Holland? Again I wrote to ask the Rebbe’s advice. This time, he responded that I should look for work in a place that offered “the best conditions.”

As it turned out, there was only one place in Holland that was prepared to offer me any conditions. But the job proved enriching in a way that I could never have imagined.

The rabbi of the small city of Amersfoort had passed away, and I was offered the pulpit. But it came as a package deal. I would have to become the rabbi of the community as well as the chaplain of the local psychiatric hospital, which was the only Jewish psychiatric hospital in Europe.

I had no interest in working with “crazy people” – that was the way I saw it at first. But when I learned more, I realized how wrong my original attitude had been. After nearly forty years, I am still there, and I wouldn’t give it up for the world. It is such a blessing to be able to be of service to people with serious problems – people traumatized by war, children with learning disabilities, innocent victims of mental and genetic defects. I feel enriched doing this work. This is what I consider the best possible conditions for any job. (more…)

The Rebbe shaped my life in many ways. He guided me regarding my marriage prospects, advised me on how to earn a livelihood, and set my rabbinical career on the right course. My gratitude to him is without measure, and I would like to take this opportunity to relate just a few personal examples that demonstrate his love and care for his chasidim.

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Back in the early 1950s, while I was still a student at the Chabad yeshiva in Brooklyn, I was in a quandary. People were constantly pestering me with dating suggestions, while my parents were reminding me every chance they got that I was now the right age for marriage. But I was not sure what to do. So, on my 23^rd birthday, which that year fell on January 8^th, I went to see the Rebbe for a blessing and asked him whether I should pursue any of the proposed matches. His answer to me was, “Why in the middle of the winter?”

He didn’t say “go forward,” nor did he tell me “it’s not for you,” he just hinted that I could wait until spring if I wanted to. When spring arrived I was selected, along with nine others, to go to Israel on a special mission. Shortly after Passover that year, terrorists had attacked the village of Kfar Chabad, killing five yeshiva students and one teacher, and the Rebbe sent us to help bolster the residents’ morale.

The Rebbe didn’t order me to go on this mission. He asked me, “Do you want to travel to Israel?” Truth be told, I didn’t want to go, because the journey was hazardous and I knew it would upset my parents, so I answered evasively, “If the Rebbe wants me to go, then I want to go.”

But that was not what the Rebbe wanted to hear, as he immediately made plain: “I am asking you.” So I said that I would go. This pleased him and he promised me, “If you go to Israel, you will find a marriage match.” (more…)

While I was studying at Yeshiva University – in YU’s rabbinical seminary, known as Yeshivat Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan – I became friendly with another student who was a Chabad chasid. He urged me to join a weekly group that was studying the Tanya, authored by the 18^th century founder of the Chabad Movement, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. At first I wasn’t interested, but he kept telling me how eye-opening the Tanya was and finally he convinced me.

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He was right – I found the material most absorbing. Previously, I had studied other classical works of Judaism, but I had never encountered any teaching like this in my life. As well, the teacher, Rabbi Berel Shemtov, was excellent; he explained this complex work in a most interesting way.

Then one day – I believe it was in 1954 – Rabbi Shemtov said to me, “Let’s go see the Rebbe.”

I demurred. “Why go see the Rebbe? What am I going to discuss with him?”

“You will see a great leader,” he replied, and before long he made an appointment for me.

I had previously been to a farbrengen, shortly after the Rebbe assumed the leadership of Chabad in 1951, but I hadn’t formed any kind of opinion about him. I remember that he spoke at length and that I didn’t understand everything he said because I was not familiar with the idioms of Lubavitch then.

But what I liked was that he related the topic – whatever it was, current events or another mundane matter – to Torah. That made a big impression upon me, because I had seen many Rebbes before, who modelled the way of G-d, but who didn’t relate the realities of modern life to Torah. (more…)

I am descended from a Misnagdic family – that is, from those who opposed Chassidism – and yet I am walking this earth because of a blessing from a Chasidic Rebbe, the Rebbe Rayatz, who was the Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch from 1920 to 1950.

This is what happened:

During the time that the Rebbe Rayatz was staying in Riga, Latvia, my grandparents were living on the outskirts of the city. In January of 1932, in the freeze of the winter, my grandmother went into labor with my mother, and things started to go wrong. She was rushed to the hospital where the doctors decided that it was necessary to abort the baby in order to save her life.

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My grandmother, Frieda Gisha, was unwilling to accept the doctors’ verdict but, fearing for her life, she asked her sister Leah to run to the nearest synagogue and pray for her. She said she would not make any decision until Leah returned.

So, in the middle of the night, Leah, my great-aunt, did just that – like her sister asked, she ran to the nearest synagogue and started praying. She went up to the holy ark, where the Torah scrolls are kept, grabbed onto the curtain and pleaded with G-d for the life of her sister and her unborn baby.

As she was praying and crying, a woman tapped her on the shoulder. Leah did not know who this woman was – perhaps the cleaning lady – but when this woman said, “Come with me,” she followed her.

Together they went to where the Rebbe Rayatz was staying at the time and asked for his blessing. They received it in writing, and I still have it – it is a treasured possession in my family. It says: “With the help of G-d, everything will go well. You will give birth to a healthy and living child.”

Leah took this blessing and rushed to the hospital, where she was informed that her sister had just been taken into the delivery room. A short while later Frieda Gissa gave birth in a totally normal way to my mother, Miriam, whom the doctors had recommended aborting.

Our family has kept the Rebbe’s note for these many years. It is preserved in a safe, and we take it out only when a relative is giving birth so she can take it to the hospital with her. I myself have a copy, and I carry it with me wherever I go. (more…)