Monthly Archives: December 2017

I grew up in Crown Heights where my father, Morris Milstein, operated a well-known drugstore – Milstein’s Pharmacy – at the corner of Troy and Lefferts.

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Although my father attended the morning prayers every day, he was not a religious man – that is, he did not wear a yarmulke, and his pharmacy was opened seven days a week.

Back then, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, pharmacies were not what they are today. The medicines did not come packaged in bottles ready to be taken – they had to be prepared with a mortar and pestle, and I remember my father physically grinding chemicals to make tablets and capsules.

My father basically functioned as a doctor with people coming to him for medical advice, and he practically lived in that drugstore, where my mother also worked.

Even though we were not Lubavitchers, over time, my father developed a strong friendship with the Rebbe, and my mother with the Rebbe’s wife. (more…)

I met the Rebbe for the first time in 1969, when I was fourteen years old. Back then, I was living and learning in London, in a small Lubavitch school, but I wanted to learn in a real yeshivah, and so I asked the Rebbe if I could do that. The Rebbe approved and I went to the Lubavitch yeshivah in Brunoy, near Paris. Eventually, I transferred to the main Chabad-Lubavitch yeshivah in Crown Heights, New York, where I lived and learned for close to ten years.

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In 1980, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, who was the Chabad emissary in Australia, approached me about joining other young married men in staffing his kollel post-graduate learning group in Melbourne.

I wasn’t very keen on the idea but, since he had come to me, I felt that it was worth considering. I had also received two other proposals so I decided to write to the Rebbe and request his advice. In my letter, I listed all three of my options with the invitation to Australia last, and I asked the Rebbe which option I should choose.

Two weeks passed, but I received no reply. Meanwhile, Rabbi Groner was anxious to know whether I was coming or not. “What do you want from me?” I responded, “I wrote to the Rebbe but I got no reply!”

Rabbi Groner apparently followed up with the Rebbe, who replied that the interested parties should ask again. I wrote again and, on that same day, we received the Rebbe’s answer. He had crossed out the other two potential destinations I had put forth, and underlined “Australia” as the place where I should go. (more…)

I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, in the middle of the Great Depression, in a Jewish environment that was predominantly Reform. But, when my father passed away in 1943, right after my Bar Mitzvah, I began to attend the local Orthodox synagogue in order to say Kaddish for him. Then, after the year of mourning ended, I continued to participate in the minyan. As well, I started keeping Shabbat – which was a challenge when I had to miss playing with my team in a basketball tournament, but I persevered.

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In 1949, Rabbi Zalman Posner, a Chabad emissary, came to town and ignited within me an interest to seriously study Torah texts. At that time I was attending Vanderbilt University, where I was also seriously studying philosophy.

And that is where my story begins.

Through the intercession of my mentor at Vanderbilt, Professor Arthur Smallion, I was accepted to Harvard University for graduate studies in philosophy. But I wasn’t sure that I should go there – a university in Edinburgh, Scotland, had also accepted me and that exotic location appealed more to me. Meanwhile, I decided to spend my summer vacation of 1952 at the Chabad yeshivah in New York.

While there, I had my first audience with the Rebbe. (more…)

I was born in 1941 in New York to a Lubavitch family. I was nine years old when Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the Previous Rebbe, passed away, but it wasn’t till I turned ten that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson became the Rebbe and formally took over the leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch.

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What I remember about him from that time is that he was always busy. He wasn’t a person who would sit around and chat. He was always doing something. When I saw him walking in the street, his mouth was always moving, as he recited words of Torah. He never wasted a moment.

The other thing I remember is that he refused to stand on ceremony. Although he was not yet the Rebbe, people were already treating him as such and – out of deference – trying not to shake hands with him. But he wouldn’t have it, and he’d extend his hand to them. I remember that once, on a Shabbat during the period between the previous Rebbe’s passing and his formal acceptance of the leadership, he gave me his hand, but I wouldn’t shake it. He said, “What is this? You also?”

“I’m working on being a chasid,” I responded, and he broke out in a wide smile. At that moment my connection to him began, and I became a chasid of the Rebbe. From then on he took a serious interest in me, shaping my learning as well as my life.

In 1952, the Rebbe gave Chanukah gelt to people who were studying Chasidic teachings. The Rebbe called my father into his office and asked him if he was learning Chassidic teachings with me. My father wasn’t, and he justified himself by saying, “But he is still a young boy.” The Rebbe didn’t accept that. He said, “You must teach him,” and he suggested that we start with a discourse from Likkutei Torah entitled Adam Ki Yakriv, which is a customary entry point into Chasidic philosophy. He also gave my father a silver dollar which I was to receive after learning the discourse. (more…)