Monthly Archives: March 2023

In the mid-‘70s, I was diagnosed with a murmur in my heart. A certain procedure had recently been developed for my condition, and the chief cardiologist at Miami’s Mount Sinai Hospital was going to perform it on me.

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I went into the hospital, and everything seemed to go very well. Since the procedure required general anesthesia and I was still out, the doctor informed my wife that I was in recovery. In the meantime, she went home to get some things. At the time, we lived just three blocks from Mount Sinai on North Meridian Avenue.

After enough time had passed and I was supposed to be out of recovery, she decided to call me in my room to ask me how I was. She called, and there was no response. So she hung up and tried again.

I was sharing the room with another gentleman, and eventually he woke up and picked up the phone.

“What’s going on with my husband?” she asked him. “Where is he?”

I was right next to him, sleeping.

“Well, wake him up.”

The guy tried calling out to me by name, but got no response. “Listen,” he told her, “your husband is not waking up.” (more…)

Gail Goldberg

My husband and I both grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in middle-class Jewish families. We dated in high school, reconnected again later on, and got married in 1965.

My first pregnancy went okay – for a while. But then we learned that the baby was not developing fully. The doctors didn’t know why, and all I know is that I went into labor, and had a baby that I never saw: It was a stillbirth at seven months.

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It was a depressing experience, but we were still newly married and still planned on having children. We moved, and a couple years later I got pregnant again. I had a new doctor, a new hospital, and we were also increasing our Jewish observance after joining a new synagogue with a wonderful rabbi. But that pregnancy also ended up as a stillbirth.

David Goldberg

By this time, we had moved to Washington, D.C., where we were both working for the CIA. The doctors had advised us against pursuing another pregnancy, as there was a potential risk for my wife due to some health problems she was experiencing as a diabetic, so we decided to try to adopt a child. We applied, and were placed on a short list. But when we decided to move back to Chicago, it turned out that this ended the adoption procedure we had begun in Washington, and we had to start over again.

In Chicago, whether by serendipity or Divine Providence, we ended up in the same neighborhood as Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Hecht, an emissary of the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, who also had a relationship with Gail’s brother, Roy. Since by this point we had become more sensitive to Halachic observance, I asked him about some of the relevant laws pertaining to adoption.

Rabbi Hecht looked at me and said, “Before you adopt, there is a rabbi in New York I’d like you to see.” (more…)

My wife and I got married in 1966 in Jerusalem. However, several years passed and we had not been blessed with children. We visited medical experts and professors but, after their consultations and tests, they all threw up their hands and explained to us that there was no chance that we would have children.

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Although I am not a Chabad chasid, I had for many years prayed in a Chabad synagogue and studied Chabad teachings. In 1973, I sent a letter to the Rebbe, in which I related what the doctors had told us, and asked that he bless us to have children. In the answer which I was privileged to receive, he said that he would pray for us at the resting place of his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe, and recommended that I have my tefillin as well as the mezuzot in our home checked to ensure “that they are all kosher in accordance with the law.”

Then, at the end of the letter, after his signature, he added: “P.S. Since at times G-d’s blessings for healthy children are held back as a result of a lack of meticulousness and care in observing the laws of family purity, and since a lack of knowledge leads to a lack of observance, you ought to verify all the relevant details with a rabbi, with the intention of observing them to the fullest.”

The years continued to pass and we still didn’t have children, but we never gave up hope. We had heard many stories about the Rebbe’s blessings, so my wife and I decided to make the trip to see him in person. We arrived in New York in the winter of 1981, fifteen years after our wedding. I immediately contacted the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Leibel Groner, who scheduled us for an audience with the Rebbe. At the appointed date, we waited until nearly 1:00 AM and then entered the Rebbe’s study. I felt tremendous excitement at seeing the Rebbe for the very first time.

When he inquired as to whether we had any children, I replied that this was precisely the reason we had come. I showed him some letters and reports we had received from our doctors which the Rebbe studied for some time. I remember the way he leaned forward and read them intently by the dim light of the lamp that stood on his desk. A few minutes after we had entered, a knock was heard and Rabbi Groner appeared at the door: Our audience was taking too long. The Rebbe paid no attention. He continued to study the doctors’ letters. (more…)

The first person to spot my artistic ability was my kindergarten teacher. A rowdy child growing up in 1940s Haifa, I showed little interest in the regular games. But, when she brought me some paper and colored pencils, I found myself.

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In school, the only thing that interested me was the ceiling; I could imagine anything on that empty white space. Biblical studies interested me least of all; our teacher was less concerned with the soul of the prophets and their messages, than with analyzing the text with the tools of biblical criticism, a kind of scriptural autopsy. When I was eleven, my father brought me to the artist and photographer Shlomo Narinsky. I would go out into the fields or the Carmel forest to paint, and then come to him once a week to receive his criticism and guidance.

After high school, I went to Kerem B’Yavneh, a religious Zionist yeshivah, where one day, a few friends suggested making a trip to Kfar Chabad. I didn’t know where that was, but I was curious. We went to a farbrengen there and the songs I heard that night captivated me; they came from the heart and penetrated straight into mine. This is what I have been longing for, I thought. Seeing the children with that pure look in their eyes alongside elderly chasidim was enchanting. I transferred to the Chabad yeshivah in nearby Lod where I was introduced to chasidic teachings. With them, I probed deep, I reached high, and I broadened my horizons. (more…)

When I was growing up in the ‘70s, my father would fondly recall the classes that his dean at Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, would give on the Tanya. He found them fascinating and he encouraged me to study the Tanya as well. But when I opened this seminal work of Chabad philosophy, all I saw were Kabbalistic terms that meant nothing to me. Nor was Chabad philosophy part of the approved curriculum in the yeshivah I was learning in at sixteen.

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One day, another student asked to speak with me in private. “Promise me that you won’t share this with anybody,” he began.

He revealed that once a week, somebody would come from Brooklyn – we were located in Upstate New York – to give a class. “I know that you’re open-minded and have an interest in Jewish thought,” he said, “so I’m inviting you to attend.”

“At 2:00 AM,” he went on, “we go out to a designated spot on a side road. Somebody picks us up and drives us to the location where we learn for a few hours, sometimes through the night. I can tip-toe into your room and wake you up on time.”

My curiosity was sparked. This student was a bright young man who took his studies seriously so I figured that if he found the classes interesting, then they probably were. (more…)