Celebrating the Rebbe, 70 years on

JORDAN MOSHE

Chabad rabbis and members of the Johannesburg Jewish community gathered in Sandton on Sunday morning to mark 70 years since the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, assumed the leadership of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.

Nando’s founder, Robbie Brozin, said, “Every time I visit New York, I visit the ohel (grave) to get a brocha (blessing) from him.”

While in New York 15 years ago, Brozin decided to visit Schneerson’s grave for his father, who was ill at the time. “A driver arrived to take me to the airport from my hotel,” he recounted. “He was a very grumpy individual, and I tried to convince him to make two stops – first at a deli for a white-fish bagel, and then at the ohel.”

After successfully convincing the driver to stop for the bagel (buying a sample for him in the process), Brozin tried to arrange the second stop.

“He just wasn’t interested in going there,” said Brozin. “I offered him money, and after some negotiating, he agreed to take me there for $100 (R1 491). He asked me why I wanted to go there so badly, so I explained to him that it was for a blessing from a very significant rabbi for my father.”

At this point, the driver became completely silent. “He just stopped talking. He completely dried up. We arrived, I got out to visit the ohel, and he still didn’t say a word.”

After visiting the grave, Brozin returned to an entirely unexpected sight. “I came back to find him sobbing,” he said. “I asked him what the problem was. He said to me, ‘When you got out the car, I could think only how good a son you are to your father to honour him this way. I thought then how good a father he must be to you to have you do this for him. I haven’t spoken to my own son in 20 years, and I decided to call him while you were visiting the grave. We had the warmest conversation we’ve had in years. I don’t know what this place is, but it brought blessing to my life.’”

Brozin believes that this story shows the power of the Rebbe’s brocha.

“The driver said his life had been changed,” Brozin said. “The Rebbe always thought differently. He talked about bringing light to a dark world, the very essence of Chabad. His brocha and vision is something we all live with today.”

Rabbi Moshe New, the head of the Montreal Torah Centre, also illustrated the unique character of the Rebbe and the Chabad movement he inspired.

He cited an article that had been in the Israeli media in which the author, American Orthodox Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, questioned (after an encounter with a Chabad Rabbi) why only Chabad goes to such great lengths to embrace Jews all over the world.

“Rabbi Poupko asked, ‘Didn’t I learn the same Torah that he did? Wasn’t I also taught that loving your fellow Jew is the great principle of the Torah? Why is he doing this, and not me? Why is it more the responsibility of Chabad than of any other Jew?’”

New illustrated Chabad’s uniqueness with an anecdote related to him recently by Dovi Henig, a shaliach (religious emissary) who had been posted with his wife in Chengdu, China, by Chabad.

“Soon after they arrived, an Israeli consulate was established in the area,” New said. “Henig and the consul became very close, and one day had a conversation about how it happened that Israel chose to open a consulate in Chengdu.

“The consulate and other diplomats had discussed where to open new branches in China. The official in charge said to look at where Chabad had opened, saying that where a Chabad house stood, they would open a consulate.”

It was then that Henig revealed an astonishing twist that had brought him to Chengdu. According to New, Henig had arrived in Chengdu to find that the promised welcoming party was conspicuously absent at the airport. When he inquired where it was, he discovered that he’d arrived in the wrong city in China. However, this made no difference to him.

“Dovi said, ‘We’ve arrived in Chengdu. We are the Rebbe’s shlichim (emissaries), and this is where we will stay’,” said New.

“Dovi never met the Rebbe, but if you wake him up in the middle of the night and ask him who he is, he will say he’s the Rebbe’s shaliach,” said New.

“How is this possible that young men and women go to all four corners of the globe with a sense of commitment? They’re not martyrs. It’s a privilege for them. The fulfilment of a dream. They consider themselves personal emissaries of the Rebbe.”

He related another anecdote, this one set in Israel just after the war of 1967 at a time when the Rebbe encouraged people to lay tefillin.

“A story is told of a train travelling across Israel, and in one cabin sits an Orthodox rabbi,” said New. “An officer alights in uniform, and the rabbi sees him. He approaches him, and asks if he wants to put on tefillin, but he declines. At the next stop, a Chassid boards the train. Many believe it to be Rabbi Mendel Futerfas, a survivor of the Russian gulags. “He has a brief conversation with the officer, and the office puts on the tefillin. The other rabbi observes this, approaches the officer, and asks how the Chassid has succeeded where he failed.

“The officer replies, ‘When you asked me to put on tefillin, you were saying, ‘Put on tefillin because you are Jewish. When he asked me, I felt he was saying, ‘You’re Jewish, so you have an opportunity to put on tefillin.’”

New said both anecdotes illustrate the impact of Schneerson’s legacy and teaching.

“What the Rebbe has taught is this: I’m Jewish, and I don’t need tefillin to be Jewish. Instead, it’s a mitzvah (commandment) that enables me to express my Judaism. It liberates my true self.”

He thus returned to Poupko’s original question, saying, “Why does Chabad do all this? Why does it inspire shlichim? The answer is the Rebbe. He makes people feel.”