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Some thoughts on Chabad shluchim and their children, and my experience with them…

I’m a zeide living in Monsey. My family and I moved here 25 years ago. We raised our children here and, B”H, they are all married
with frum children of their own. But, if you would have known me when I was a younger man, those statements would have seemed preposterous
at the time. Raised in a secular family without a recognizable connection to any sort of Jewish identity, I was a classic candidate for being forever swallowed up by the culture within which I thrived. Reform Hebrew school consisted of raising funds to plant trees in E”Y, learning some Jewish history, being shown pictures of frum Yidden and told they were part of the past and no longer extent, and a bare-bones lessons in “Ivrit” to manage getting through a bar mitzvah aliyah.

Nonetheless, I had always contemplated some deep questions about life, and years later decided to approach the local Jewish “clergy” for advice. Without exception, none could provide satisfactory answers to what they suggested were esoteric questions that were beyond the pale of their belief systems. Apparently, I had reached a Jewish dead end. And then, something unexpected occurred. Having never noticed it before, I drove by a house with a menorah on the lawn and a small sign stating “Chabad Lubavitch”. My curiosity was peeked, and I decided to look into this place.

The result was my meeting and befriending a family, who was sent by the Rebbe to seek out lost Yiddishe neshamas off in the spiritually-barren suburbs. The Rav and Rebbitzin were welcoming and the kids were amazing. All of them treated me as if I was a newly-discovered cousin. Throughout the years that I lived locally to this special family, it was clear that the mission that the Rav was charged with was shared by the entire family. The children were happy and healthy and filled with enthusiasm. The suburbs, despite the lack of legitimate Jewish resources or a kosher environment did not seem to take its toll on these kids. They were very inspiring to me, and still are. The boys went on to be shluchim and rebbes; the girls into frum woman. Most importantly, the Rav provided me with answers that opened the doors to a new world of learning and experiences that, over a period of many years, slowly transformed my direction in life.

Had it not been for the Rebbe’s audacious risk to send his chasidim and their families out to near and far-flung places across the globe, I, my wife, my children, and my grandchildren would have never arrived at the lives we now live.

Dovid