Monthly Archives: July 2016

I grew up in a non-chasidic background and interestingly enough, I married a girl from a Lubavitcher family. From the beginning, she asked me to accept Chabad customs and the Rebbe’s directives upon myself. For a while I resisted – I would keep my own customs while she kept hers. For instance, on Passover, she would eat hand-made matzah while I ate mine machine-made; she would keep her matzah dry, while I would dip mine in liquid.

Then, one day I decided to consult a rabbi – not chasidic – who actually told me that I should listen to my wife. As a result of his advice, I began conducting myself according to Chabad customs, except that I would not pray with the Chabad liturgy. The 18^th century founder of the Chabad Movement, the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, published a prayer book based on the Sephardic text used by the Ari, the great 16^th century Kabbalist.

Click here for full-color print version

My wife suggested that I ask the Rebbe about this. I agreed and, in 1962, wrote him a letter: First, I asked, was it permissible for chasidim to change their prayer liturgy – wasn’t one obligated to follow familial custom?  Second, how was it possible to know who was greater – the great chasidic master, the Alter Rebbe, or the great opponent of chasidic ways, the Vilna Gaon? Underlying my question was the thought that if such a great Torah scholar as the Vilna Goan was opposed to Chasidut, then why should I delve into its teachings?

I never received an answer to my letter, but about eight months later, I met the Rebbe in person for the first time. During our visit to New York, my wife and I were able to have two private audiences with him – one long meeting upon our arrival and a second, shorter, audience just before we left.

As our first audience was coming to an end, as we were turning to leave, the Rebbe stopped us, “One moment. I still owe you a reply to your letter.”

I stopped, surprised that, so many months later, the Rebbe still remembered it.

“Regarding your first question,” the Rebbe began. “If people had never varied from familial ways, the Chasidic Movement would never have been founded. However, Chasidism was not meant to nullify or change anything; rather its founder’s purpose was only to reveal new dimensions in Judaism that weren’t well known in those days.

“As for your second question, the Vilna Gaon’s opposition to Chasidism was based on the fact that it was an anomaly to him, and he was worried that it would lead to a deterioration of Torah observance. But now – over two hundred years later – you can see for yourself that this has not been the case. If I would ask you ‘How does a chasid look?’ You would describe to me a Jew who sports a beard, prays at length and fulfills mitzvot scrupulously. Had the Vilna Gaon foreseen how the Chasidic Movement would develop, he would certainly never have opposed it in the first place.” (more…)

I was born in 1938 in Poland, right before the Second World War broke out. During the war I was hidden with a non-Jewish family, and only with G-d’s help did I manage to survive. After the war my mother located me and – with no home left to go to –placed me temporarily in an orphanage near Paris, headed by Rabbi Zalman Schneerson, a Lubavitcher chasid who worked tirelessly to locate Jewish children hidden in Christian homes during the war.

It was there that I received my Jewish education and was taught how to read Hebrew and how to pray. One day, in 1947, we were told that we were expecting an important visitor, and we were to dress in our finest. When he arrived I remember that he was a tall man and very distinguished looking. He spoke to each one of us – one by one – thirty children in all. He asked us our names and then quizzed each child with an easy question, such as: “What blessing do you make on an apple?”

Click here for full-color print version

When my turn came, he asked me: “When do we recite the thanksgiving prayer, Hallel?” I answered correctly that we recite it on the holidays and at the beginning of every month.

A few months later the orphanage received a package of large prayer books as a gift from the mysterious visitor. The gift was greatly appreciated, because we only had small books which were not easy to read.

It was not until later, when I immigrated to New York, that I learned who the illustrious visitor was – Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the cousin of the orphanage’s administrator and future Lubavitcher Rebbe. At the time, he had been in France arranging documentation for his mother, who was then residing in Paris.

Several years after these events, I ended up leaving my mother in Paris and enrolling in the central Lubavitcher yeshivah in Brooklyn One day I received a message from Rabbi Leibel Groner, the Rebbe’s secretary, that the Rebbe wanted to see me. “At eight this evening, you have an appointment for a private audience with the Rebbe,” he said.

I was extremely nervous; I couldn’t fathom what the Rebbe might want from me. When I entered the room, the Rebbe must have noticed my anxiety because he immediately assured me that nothing bad was going to happen. Then he explained the reason why I was summoned: “I received a letter from your mother, asking my advice whether she should move to America or not. And I would like to ask you some questions before I advise her.”

The Rebbe first wanted to know where she lived now, and I answered that she was residing in the home of my non-observant sister and her husband, keeping house for them, cooking, cleaning and watching their child while they were at work.

The Rebbe asked, “When your mother cooks, may I assume that the food is kosher?” (more…)