In the late 1950s, at a time when the Iron Curtain was almost impenetrable, I served as the first secretary of the Israeli Embassy in Moscow. While officially I was playing a diplomatic role, I was actually tasked by the Israeli government with creating a link with the Jews trapped in the USSR.

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During those harsh times, I and my colleagues at the embassy tried to contact Jews throughout the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union, meeting primarily in synagogues – wherever they existed – as well as in safe houses maintained by the Chabad underground. We realized, of course, that we were taking huge risks with our own safety and with the safety of those whom we met, because at that time the practice of Judaism was considered a nationalistic activity and therefore an act of rebellion against the Communist regime. Even to possess a Hebrew Bible or a Jewish prayer book was viewed as anti-Soviet. Why anti-Soviet? Because the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish prayer book both speak about the yearning for Zion. To yearn for Zion was to deny that the Communist state was a paradise on earth.

We, the Zionists of the Israeli Embassy, were indeed guilty of this crime. We did want the Jews of the USSR to identify with the Jewish nation. We did want these oppressed people to awaken to their right as Jews to return to their ancestral homeland. And we knew that our work was illegal from the Soviet perspective. Still, even though it was dangerous, we persevered. We distributed thousands of miniature Jewish prayer books and miniature Hebrew bibles – so as to make them easier to hide – as well as other religious and non-religious articles, such as Jewish newspapers and calendars. (more…)

I was born and educated in Jerusalem, becoming ordained the fourth-generation rabbi in my family. With the encouragement of my mentor and teacher, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Chai Uziel, the chief rabbi of Israel, I went to serve initially as rabbi in Lima, Peru. After more than eight years there, I moved on to serve the Sephardic community of Seattle, Washington, arriving in that city at the same time as the Chabad chasid, Rabbi Sholom Rivkin, who served the Ashkenazic community. We became very friendly and studied Torah together on a daily basis.

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But I had no contact with the Rebbe himself until 1961, when a movement began in the United States to ban kosher slaughter on the grounds of animal cruelty and a law to that effect was proposed in the state of Washington. Of course, this would pose a huge problem for Jewish community, so when this law came up for a hearing in the state legislature, I joined two other rabbis in addressing the lawmakers. My colleagues spoke very diplomatically, explaining that kosher slaughter is, in fact, a great deal kinder to animals than other methods. But when my turn came, I was much more blunt. I said, “My native language is Hebrew, however I will ask you just one question in the language that I am still learning to speak: You talk about cruelty to animals, cows and sheep, but where were all of you when six million Jews were butchered, among them a million children who were burned and went up to heaven in the crematoria like sacrifices. Where were you then? Why didn’t you speak about cruelty then?”

The members of the legislature gave me a standing ovation, and the next day newspapers quoted my words. The proposed law was cancelled, and I received many letters of support from American rabbis. Among them was also a letter with blessing from the Lubavitcher Rebbe; subsequently, I received an invitation to visit the Rebbe next time I was in New York. (more…)

After being appointed the rabbi of the religious kibbutz, Sha’alvim, I founded a yeshivah there. As part of my position as the head of Yeshivat Sha’alvim – which grew rapidly, becoming a large regional educational institution – I traveled frequently to the United States on fundraising missions.

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The first time I traveled to the United States, in the early 1960s, my father – Dr. Falk Schlesinger who ran the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem – told me that I should visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe, whom he knew from his years in Berlin before the war. Of course the Rebbe remembered my father and received me warmly.

I met with the Rebbe a number of times over the years. Our conversations were always very enjoyable and, when we were talking, I felt that nothing else existed in the world. In the Rebbe’s room there was a bell that his secretaries would ring when a private audience had exceeded the allotted time. When it happened repeatedly during my first visit, I grew anxious, but the Rebbe calmed me, gesturing with his hand as if to say, “The ringing is meant for me, not for you, and I can decide when to end.”

Whenever I visited him, the Rebbe would invite me to sit down and the first item that he would bring up was the current course of study in my yeshivah. He would then proceed to discuss the topic we were studying, quoting a broad range of Talmudic sources. Of course, every time I came to America, the yeshivah was studying a different tractate of Talmud, yet the Rebbe was able to expound with ease on any topic. This made a very big impression on me. (more…)

While I was studying in the Chabad yeshivah in 770 Eastern Parkway, I came down with polio. This was in 1955, the same year that the Jewish doctor, Jonas Salk, introduced the polio vaccine, but it came out too late for me. I caught a bad case of the disease, which started as a cold, but it progressed from there.

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Polio, for those who are too young to remember, was a contagious disease that has since been totally eradicated in the Western World, but it used to kill a lot of people. It disabled the muscles, so the afflicted person could not walk or even breathe, and the standard form of treatment then was to put the sick into an iron lung and hope for the best.

I was taken to the Kingston Avenue Hospital, which no longer exists, but back then was the chief hospital for contagious diseases. I was put into an iron lung, which looked something like a large water boiler, with only my head sticking out. This iron lung did the compression work of my paralyzed chest muscles and thus got oxygen into my body. But I was very, very sick.

The doctor who was taking care of me had an arrogant way of speaking and he told my father and brother, “G-d knows if he’ll live out the next twelve hours.”

Hearing that, they went to the Rebbe and told him what my prognosis was. But the Rebbe just made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “He’ll outlive the doctor,” he declared. And he gave me many blessings for recovery.

I lasted longer than the doctor’s prognosis of twelve hours, but I continued my confinement in the iron lung. My yeshivah colleagues – Kehos Wiess, Mottel Zajac and Berel Baumgarten – had been instructed by the Rebbe to visit me every day to make sure I had kosher food and to put tefillin on me. When the doctor saw them, he said, “Don’t bother with him … Just let him die in peace.” They reported this to the Rebbe who told them the same thing he told my father and brother, “He will outlive the doctor.” (more…)

In 1963, while serving as a member of the Kiryat Ono Regional Council, I came to the United States on a mission to raise funds for the development of our town.

The history of Kiryat Ono dates back to the late 1930s when it was just a small settlement, but in the early 1950s a refugee absorption camp was established near Kiryat Ono for Jews emigrating from Iraq, Romania, Yemen and North Africa. Eventually the camp and the town merged, becoming a city largely through the efforts of the Regional Council which led a building and development effort. However, if our goals of establishing institutions that would serve our community were to be met, a great deal of money was needed.

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Once in the United States, I traveled to Los Angeles where I met a few representatives of the Landsmanshaftn – social organizations of Jewish emigrants from European countries. They contributed to the Jewish settlers in Israel, whose situation in those early years was difficult and who subsisted largely on donations from Jews living abroad. Afterwards, I went to New York, and I asked to meet with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, as per instructions from Mr. Yaakov Cohen, the head of the Regional Council. The purpose of the meeting was to request the Rebbe’s assistance in establishing a religious school in Kiryat Ono.

My family was not Torah observant, but my younger son had decided to become religious; he started wearing a yarmulke and keeping kosher, and he even expressed a desire to study in a Torah day school. But at that time, there wasn’t even a real synagogue in Kiryat Ono and prayer services would be held in an apartment repurposed as a shul, and certainly there was no yeshivah. This was the situation despite the fact that many of the residents were religious or traditional, and they would surely have utilized such services if we had the funds to provide them.

Mr. Cohen asked me to meet the Rebbe to ask for his help with this matter. He had a relationship with Lubavitch dating back to his close friendship with the Rebbe’s brother, the late Reb Yisroel Aryeh Leib Schneerson. They met years earlier when they worked together in the Bloomstein book store in Tel Aviv, and they had kept up a connection until Reb Yisroel Aryeh Leib’s passing ten years prior. (more…)

I grew up in a typical Jewish-American family – we were not completely Torah observant, but we were traditional. Although I attended a Jewish after-school program, I had no interest in Judaism whatsoever, and right after my Bar Mitzvah, I breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.

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My older brother Reuvain, who became religious while in college, tried to influence me, but my ears were closed. At that time I thought of Judaism as superficial and overly focused on social networking, and I was not interested in listening to anything he had to say. But when I was about to enter college – and the Vietnam War draft was hanging over my head – I started to ask questions about the meaning of life, looking to religion for answers. That is when I recalled the one thing of Judaism that still remained with me – the Shema prayer, which declares the unity of G-d – and I turned to my brother who provided me with profound, thought provoking answers to my questions.

Reuvain, who had joined Chabad in Crown Heights, influenced me to enroll in Hadar Hatorah, the Chabad yeshivah for searchers like me, so that I could see if I wanted to become religious.

When I first entered yeshivah in 1971, I was eighteen. And a few months later, for my nineteenth birthday, I merited to have a private audience with the Rebbe, as was the custom in those days.

In advance of the audience, I wrote a letter with my questions and requests and, among them, I asked the Rebbe to help me fix what I described as “my black past.” I wanted to elevate myself, to advance spiritually, and so I felt I needed a way of repairing my past behavior. (more…)

My ancestors were Ger chasidim from Poland, but my father did a favor for the Previous Rebbe of Lubavitch back in Europe and later, once they both immigrated to America, developed a relationship with him. As a result, my brothers and I were sent to Chabad schools, and we became Lubavitchers.

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I was nine years old when I first saw the Rebbe up close. It was just before Yom Kippur, and he was giving out lekach, honey cake, as was his custom. I stood in line and got mine, but as I started walking away, the Rebbe called me back and handed me an extra piece. He said, “Your brothers were here, but they forgot to get cake for your father.” I was astonished – how did the Rebbe know who I was, who my father was, who my brothers were? How did he notice, with so many people waiting in line, that none of us asked for a piece of cake for our father, probably assuming that the other brother had done so?

In fact, this is exactly what happened, and when I got home my brothers were there arguing with each other because of this misunderstanding. However, it all turned out well because the Rebbe was paying attention and anticipating that my father would miss his piece of lekach. This is how deeply and personally he was connected to each of his chasidim.

That was my first encounter with the Rebbe which took place in 1956 when I was nine years old. Four years later, I had my first personal audience – on the occasion of my Bar Mitzvah. At the time, I was struggling to learn the maamar, the Chasidic discourse, as is the custom. My father was very ill then and I had no one to teach me, so I was having a difficult time with it.

When I came into the Rebbe’s office with my mother, the Rebbe asked me, “Have you started learning your maamar yet?”

“Yes, I’ve started,” I answered. “I didn’t get very far, but I started.” (more…)

During my childhood, my father traveled from Israel to the United States frequently and was away for long periods of time. That is when my uncle, Rabbi Moshe Weber, would take over, educating me and guiding me like a father. He served as the spiritual mentor of Chabad’s Toras Emes yeshivah, which was then located in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Meah Shearim near our home. As a young boy I was very influenced by the lively atmosphere in this yeshivah and became friendly with some of the students.

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I was nine years old the first time that I wrote to the Rebbe. I had been sent to study in Bnei Brak, in a Torah academy affiliated with the Ponovezh yeshivah, and I began to question whether I belonged there. Although I wasn’t unhappy, I felt separated from the Chabad way of life to which Rabbi Moshe had introduced me. So I decided to write a letter to the Rebbe, expressing that I liked Chabad very much and that I wanted to be in touch with him. I wrote in innocence, like a child who was trying to make contact with an uncle, and I wrote in secret, not telling anyone about it.

This was because my father – who was a G-d-fearing and learned Jew – wanted to bring me up in a neutral way. He didn’t oppose my having a connection to Chabad; indeed, he had some sort of connection to the Rebbe himself. But he did not want me to become a chasid and, throughout the years, there was friction between us because of this.

As my Bar Mitzvah approached, I wrote to the Rebbe again. At this time I wanted to grow long peyot – the distinctive sidelocks that the chasidim in Jerusalem wore – but I knew that my father wouldn’t like the idea. My father was visiting America then, and not knowing how huge America was, I asked the Rebbe in my letter to please tell my father, if he happened to see him, to allow me to grow long peyot.

My father returned just before my Bar Mitzvah, and I noticed that he was a bit upset and didn’t have much to say to me. Later I found out that my father visited the Rebbe on Motzaei Pesach, following the Passover holiday. During Kos shel Brachah, when the Rebbe distributed wine from his cup, the Rebbe told him, “If your son wants to be careful in his observance of the mitzvot, you should allow him.” (more…)

For two years, from 1973 to 1975, I was privileged to study – along with a group of young Georgian Jews who had immigrated to Israel – at Tomchei Temimim yeshivah in Brooklyn, not far from the Chabad Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.

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Some years earlier, the Rebbe had sent his emissaries to Soviet Georgia to support the Jews living there, and then when these Jews immigrated to Israel, they settled in Chabad neighborhoods and studied in Chabad yeshivahs. But because of the hardships of earning a living at that time, there was a high dropout rate, and many students left yeshivah as teenagers in order to go to work. To remedy this, we were invited to come study close to the Rebbe for a few years.

I was just fourteen at the time and being so far away from my family was very hard on me, but I must say that we were well taken care of. We felt that the Rebbe was personally interested in us; this was evident in the special attention he showed to our group. He saw in us the future of the Georgian community, and we felt his love and care.

Every Shabbat we would come to the Rebbe at 770, as well as for every farbrengen. And it was during the farbrengen at the end of Passover 1974 that something most unusual took place.

As was customary, the Rebbe made Havdalah to demarcate the end of the holiday and gave out wine from his cup – the kos shel brachah – to every person present. This usually took a very long time, considering the size of the crowd, but I stood close to the Rebbe, and so I was among the first ones in line. When I approached him, the Rebbe raised his eyes and looked at me, saying with a smile, “Send this wine to your father.”

I was baffled because I would always do that – I would save a bit of wine from my cup, mix it with a bottle of wine that I bought and send it to my father in Israel with someone going there. I didn’t understand why I suddenly needed to be reminded. (more…)