Monthly Archives: November 2021

Until the late 1970s, the Tanya, the central work of Chabad chasidic philosophy, had been printed less than 100 times since its original publication in 1796 by the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman. But in 1978, the Rebbe launched a special Tanya printing campaign, announcing that he wanted the Tanya to be printed in any country where it had not yet been printed. Since then, there have been 7,530 editions, thank G-d, and we’re still going strong.

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The purpose of printing the Tanyas, as the Rebbe explained it, is to help bring Mashiach, by disseminating the teachings of Chasidism – “spreading the wellsprings outward,” in the traditional phrase. But, instead of those springs just bringing water to some far places, printing a Tanya in a new city was a way of spreading the “fountainhead” itself. A place where the Tanya was being printed would become the source from which the wellsprings of the Torah would flow out further.

He gave a few general instructions regarding the master text, specified that each print run should have at least a thousand copies, and also said something very significant: Printing Tanyas would be a channel to draw down blessings for the year ahead.

As a member of the team responsible for publishing the Rebbe’s teachings, I had worked on a commemorative edition of the Tanya, in honor of the Rebbe’s 70th birthday, a few years earlier.

Now, with this campaign, I became much more involved. On the morning before Yom Kippur of that year, just over a month after the Rebbe announced the printing initiative, we got a call from Rabbi Leibel Groner, the Rebbe’s secretary, who told me that the Rebbe wanted us to print a Tanya that very day and to submit it to him before Yom Kippur began – that meant we only had about ten hours! It was impossible. We started calling some printers, but they laughed when we told them what we wanted. (more…)

The first time I went to Crown Heights, in 1973, it was a disaster. I had grown up in San Diego, connecting with Chabad as a student at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), but going from the beaches of La Jolla to Brooklyn, New York, was just too much for me at the time.

So, I went back to UCSD, unsure about my Judaism and unsure about my own life. After about a year, I had a better sense of who I was and what I was looking for, so I decided to go back to New York. I’m going to go again, and give it another try, I thought to myself.

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My parents were not supportive of the idea, to say the least. We belonged to a Conservative synagogue, but our interest and involvement fell away after the Bar and Bat Mitzvah years.

“You know what, Mom,” I suggested, “come along with me and see what it’s all about.”

My mother was from New York and always missed the city, but she was horrified at the idea. Still, I managed to convince her to come with me for the weekend of the “Encounter with Chabad,” when we would have an opportunity to meet the Rebbe.

My mother was very impressed with our hosts and felt very warm towards the other people we met over that Shabbat. But she wasn’t comfortable with the whole religious scene. When we had to wait for hours to meet the Rebbe, she was not happy. But she was a real trouper and she joined me.

We were told to prepare a little note with our names so we could hand it to the Rebbe. My mother’s name is Carol, but her Hebrew name is Chaya. She was always very proud of it – it means “life.”

Eventually, we were allowed into the Rebbe’s office and my mother handed her note to him. He read through it, and then looked up at her. “You have another name, don’t you?”

My mother started to stammer, “Uhh… yeah.” (more…)

I remember standing at the Rebbe’s farbrengen, a fifteen-year-old on a visit to New York. During that winter night of 1965, I found myself holding onto the chain link fence overlooking the back of the main synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway, straining to hear, hanging on to every word.

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The Rebbe was presenting a teaching on the conclusion of the Talmudic Tractate of Makkot, and he was discussing the story of Rabbi Akiva laughing at the sight of the Holy Temple in ruins.

As the Rebbe portrayed the episode, Rabbi Akiva’s personal background set him apart from his fellow sages. Whereas his colleagues were elite members of the Jewish establishment, Rabbi Akiva was a baal teshuvah who had struggled to come closer to Judaism later on in life. “Rabbi Akiva said: I am the proof!” the Rebbe explained, paraphrasing the sage. “My character now is the result of all the hardships I have suffered. I exemplify how utter ruin can lead to ultimate redemption!”

The Rebbe’s voice was filled with emotion, and as he spoke, I couldn’t believe my ears. I had never before heard Torah presented with such a multidimensional perspective. With a deep understanding of the biographies of the people in these stories, the Rebbe analyzed who they were as individuals, their interpersonal dynamics, and how this related to their teachings. This unique method of Talmudic study led the Rebbe to ask questions that no one else asked, and to give answers that no one else answered. (more…)

In 1978, a neighbor called me up and told me that a couple he knew was coming to America from Israel, for the woman to have open-heart surgery. We had a spare room in our apartment, so he wanted to know whether we could accommodate them.

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“Absolutely,” I said.

The couple, Amos and Madlin Agiv, were in their twenties and they had been married for two years. She was a high school teacher and he was studying engineering in Beersheva, and they had been saving up for this trip for some time. There had been a problem with a valve in her heart ever since she was a girl, but it had recently gotten worse after an infection, and needed to be repaired. In Israel, this was done by replacing the damaged valve with a plastic one, but she was still young and wanted to start a family, and there were concerns whether these plastic valves would be able to hold up in childbirth. So, they found a doctor in Texas who would do the surgery using a similar valve from a pig’s heart.

Before going out to Houston, though, they decided to spend some time in New York. During that time, we hosted them and made sure to help them feel at home.

One day, I saw that he was very sad, so I went over to him and asked, “Amos, ma yesh? What’s the matter?”

The matter was that, in the middle of their trip, they had discovered that Madlin was pregnant. They had actually been looking forward to having children, but in her state, giving birth could be very dangerous. So the doctor they saw in New York told her that she had to go through an abortion, and that it had to be done right away. (more…)