Rabbi Shabtai Slavaticki
I grew up in a religious home, very distant from Chabad. But while studying at Jerusalem’s Kol Torah yeshivah in the 1960s, I began attending a secret class on chasidic thought, and as those teachings sank in, I started to get involved.
From time to time, I would visit the yeshivah in Kfar Chabad to take part in farbrengens led by the renowned chasidic mentor Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Kesselman. Those gatherings made a strong impression on me, as did the yeshivah students themselves, who showed such love for their fellow Jews, especially in the way they welcomed us guests from other yeshivot.
Eventually, I began thinking about transferring to the Chabad yeshivah in Kfar Chabad. Aghast, my father sent several rabbis to dissuade me, which made me doubt whether it was the right decision. I decided to ask the Rebbe.
I wrote a detailed letter recounting all of this, and in his response, the Rebbe circled the part where I mentioned my doubts and wrote: “Based on this – stay and do not change.”
It was precisely those words that ultimately prompted me to transfer. I realized – contrary to what others had claimed – that the Rebbe wasn’t bent on bringing people into Chabad at any cost. He actually cared and thought about me. If I had doubts, regardless of their origin or validity, he preferred that I not make the move. So I stayed, until eventually, I felt confident that transferring was right for me. When I wrote to the Rebbe to say that my doubts had disappeared, I received his blessing to go to Kfar Chabad.
A few years later, I went to study in the Rebbe’s presence, in New York. I arrived in 770 one afternoon before Passover of 1973, shortly before the Mincha prayers. A few months earlier, my mother had passed (more…)