Monthly Archives: November 2017

As a kid, I used to love reading books. In fact, I opened my own home library at the age of seven. And that’s when it started. One morning, I just got up and I could not open my eyes. In a panic, I ran to the bathroom to try to put some water on my eyes, but that didn’t help. My eyelids were glued shut.

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My father – who himself was a doctor at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem – took me to the emergency room and, after a series of tests, they discovered that I was suffering from a very rare eye disease – in a nutshell, I was allergic to the sun.

From then on, for several years, when I woke up every morning, my eyes were glued shut. I would have to apply various creams and solutions to open them again. This took a long time. I had to get up at about 6:00 in order to open my eyes by 7:30, when I would have to get ready for school. I had to do this morning after morning.

My father sent me to every eye specialist he knew. But nothing any one of them tried helped. My sun allergy meant that any exposure to the sun would cause my eyes to swell up, and I would feel a sharp pain like someone jabbing me with needles. Besides that, my eyes were always itching and tearing.

I had to wear special sunglasses prescribed especially for me and, wherever I went, curtains had to be drawn the entire time I was in the room. At school, I was subject to mockery for a long time, though after a while the kids got used to me and my unusual appearance. (more…)

My story begins in 1972.

At that time, I was a gutsy but confused young student who had recently been arrested and briefly imprisoned by the South African police and was standing trial for anti-apartheid activities. I also fancied myself as something of a spiritual activist promoting a particular Indian meditation technique. As well, I had begun to investigate a more inspired form of Judaism than the mediocre Jewish education I had received which ended with my Bar Mitzvah.

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And that is when Rabbi Mendel and Mashi Lipskar arrived as the Rebbe’s emissaries to South Africa. I began receiving weekly Shabbat invitations to their home and to the homes of other members of the then tiny Chabad community. The warm atmosphere and the rich and wholesome environment in which their children were being brought up inspired me and modelled the type of home that I, in due course, hoped to establish.

After a while, Rabbi Lipskar suggested that I and a friend of mine spend a year or two in yeshivah. He wrote to the Rebbe, who responded that my friend should go to yeshiva immediately. I, however, was told to complete my undergraduate degree and then study in yeshiva in Kfar Chabad under Rabbi Zalman Gafne. But for Rabbi Lipskar’s suggestion – and the Rebbe’s endorsement – it would never have entered my mind to attend a yeshiva.

Rabbi Lipskar also suggested that I ask the Rebbe whether my meditation technique was compatible with Judaism. The Rebbe wrote back, recommending that I embrace Jewish prayer instead:

“It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the benefit you will get from the observation of tefillah three times a day is a true and lasting benefit, and incomparably greater to any benefit that one can find in strange pastures, G-d forbid … (more…)

I was born in India to a Persian family. But when I was two, we moved to England, where I was educated and lived until age eighteen – that’s when I got married and moved to Italy. And it was there that I was introduced to Chabad.

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My connection with the Rebbe begins in 1977, when my husband, Benyamin, took ill.

He had been travelling to the Far East on business and, when he returned to Milan, I noticed that he wasn’t well. At first, he insisted that nothing was wrong until one morning he woke up paralyzed from head to toe. I took him to the hospital where they kept him for a whole month, and he still couldn’t move – he couldn’t even chew. He could only swallow soup, which I would have to bring to him daily.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong, and they kept doing tests and telling me, “Signora, until we find out what’s wrong, we cannot help him.”

I was beside myself with worry, and I confided in Rabbi Moshe Lazar, who was the Rebbe’s emissary in Milan. He asked very gently, “Would you like a blessing for Benyamin from the Lubavitcher Rebbe?”

I’m ashamed to say now that I thought then, “How can a man in New York help my husband here in Milan?” But I figured what harm can it do? So, I gave his Hebrew name “Benyamin ben Esther.” I certainly didn’t expect anything to happen.

The next day, I walked into the hospital with my pot of soup and almost dropped the whole thing on the floor, because there was my husband walking towards me – no longer paralyzed, not in need of crutches, just walking normally! (more…)

I am a descendent of an illustrious rabbinic family, and the son of a rabbi who served the South African Jewish community for most of his life. So it was clear to me from an early age that I, too, would become a rabbi. I was educated at the Gateshead Yeshivah in England, and also at Kfar Chassidim and Mir Yeshivah in Israel, where I received my rabbinic ordination.

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However, as soon as I entered the rabbinate of South Africa, I became concerned about retaining my intellectual independence – something I am fiercely protective of – while serving as a community rabbi at the will of a synagogue’s board of directors. Therefore, I believed that I also needed to secure an independent source of income. And so I first went to work for an international commodities trading company, and later I founded the leadership consulting firm that I currently lead.

At about that time, an opportunity arose to join a company of commodity traders in Johannesburg, and this is what I did, as well as establishing a Torah study academy known as Beis Hamedrash Kesser Torah. This Torah academy along with Chabad and Kolel Yad Shaul became involved in the South African Baal Teshuva Movement – the movement for young people to return to their Jewish roots and Torah observance. (more…)

Although I received a religious education as a child, I pursued secular studies in university, and it was not until I got married that I became seriously interested in Judaism. After a time, my wife and I moved to Stamford Hill, which is the Chassidic neighborhood of London, even though we were not Chassidic then. In fact, both of us were involved in academia – she as a lecturer in psychology, and I as a Ph.D. candidate in Jewish history and Hebrew literature.

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Then, in 1968, while at University College London, I became acquainted with Rabbi Shmuel Lew, the emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who had just been appointed student counselor. He found me a study partner for my Talmudic studies, and he introduced me to Chassidic teachings.

The first time I met the Rebbe was in 1973, when I came to spend a month in New York. I had written a long letter to the Rebbe in which I asked his advice regarding my future: Should I continue with my studies at University College and finish my doctorate? Or, should I transfer to Jews College (now London School of Jewish Studies) and get rabbinic ordination? Or, should I go into business?

When the Rebbe read my letter, he answered: “You should finish your doctorate.”

“But there is so much ‘apikorsut’ (heresy) that I have to read and write about,” I protested.

At that the Rebbe said, “You should write all the footnotes you need.  And then” he added with a big smile, “you should do Teshuvah.”

The Rebbe also warned me not to get involved in comparative religion. He said that Jewish thought or Chassidic thought should not be compared with any other philosophy. And later I realized the wisdom of that. (more…)