First Person Encounters

Read a firsthand account of how an encounter with the Rebbe on Chol Hamoed Sukkot changed a family forever.

We may have been the first openly Torah-observant Jews to visit from outside the USSR in 70 years!

Malki’s words were hard for me to accept. I strongly felt this was an opportunity we couldn’t afford to miss.

We couldn’t understand why there was a need for us to meet yet another rabbi. We were rather satisfied with the acquaintance of Rabbi Shemtov.

I followed along in my prayer book as the service progressed, on high alert for the arrival of the inspiration that was surely imminent. Maybe on the next page? Woven between the notes of the next melody? But alas, I left feeling … the same.

I wished I could have the chance to kiss the Torah. It was impossible. I was just too far. I clumsily stretched out my arm. Suddenly, the Rebbe stopped.

Having travelled around the world in my work as a China scholar, I have had many encounters that were deeply transformative. None, however, match the subtle, enduring change enacted by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, whom I met only briefly three times in my life.

The idea of writing a letter requesting the Rebbe's blessing – and then praying to G-d at his gravesite - seemed almost absurd. I felt I had a much bigger chance of success if I just worked on my resume and interviewing skills some more.

I got straight to the point. “Rebbe, I have heard that many miracles come from this room. Please give my daughter a blessing that she should be cured!”

Solar energy pioneer Yaacov (Jack) Hanoka, who held patents for 56 of his inventions and was known for his passion and optimism in finding alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, passed away at the age of 75.

One day, after another round of my incessant questioning, the teacher suggested, “Why don’t you write a letter to the Rebbe requesting a private audience?”

The Rebbe thought deeply for a few minutes and said, “Keep looking. To sit here, and not look, and say there is nothing out there, is placing a limit on G‑d’s creation. That you can’t do!” . . .

Flying across Grenada, I receive instructions from the Pentagon to call Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn.

Sitting on the stairs outside the Rebbe’s office, I found myself daydreaming, asking myself, “If I had unlimited time with the Rebbe, what would I ask him?”

The Rebbe told me, “You are very different from each other. Remove him from your agenda.”

The Rebbe explains to a London diamond dealer why his investment in education is so important.

I started looking around the Rebbe’s room to find the box of toys. I figured thousands of kids came through this room—there must be toys somewhere.

The Rebbe asked about my uncle. I responded by saying that he was well, thank G‑d, and had just retired. The Rebbe shook his head. In Yiddish, he said, “Retired—what does that mean?”

The Rebbe's relationship with an international chess champion; the Rebbe's spiritual take on the "Game of Kings"; and the chassidic "kings" who enjoyed the game.

Although I was at peace about my situation, it was still reassuring to hear from someone of the Rebbe’s stature that there is a role for every woman, whether a mother or not, in Judaism.

He said an artist needs inspiration, that you have to wait for a certain thing to come down--he called it the 'holy spirit'--and for him putting on tefillin gave him his inspiration for the day...

No one knew how to tell me the news, and so, although I knew the truth in my heart, for those agonizing minutes I kept on hoping. Hoping that it was just an accident . . .

A glass inventor tells of his experiences with the Rebbe in France before and during WWII.

The Rebbe himself had no children, yet he gave so many people blessings for children. Who are the Rebbe’s children?

Question: How did you become a rebbe?
Answer: What do you do if they put the key in your pocket and walk away?

I take a look, and you have three hundred people in white shirts, because in those days most people wore white shirts. And in the middle is sitting a guy with a black beard, earlocks, a black hat and a black suit.

My father saw himself as a young child, sitting on his grandmother's lap. "Liuvu," she was saying to him, "anytime you are in trouble, the one who can help you is the Lubavitcher Rebbe." This was the first time he had ever heard of the Rebbe

I will forever attribute the first step of my restoration to sanity and self-respect to one man who, with unfathomable intuition and faith in humanity, made a selfless, precise therapeutic intervention in my spirit, and demanded neither my soul nor my bankbook as recompense . . .

"There's an old man in Brooklyn," the Rebbe said, "who thinks about you and invites you to come back on your 20th anniversary." To Greene, he seemed more like a loving uncle than the spiritual leader of the Jewish world...

I had never seen such a strong bond and commitment in my life. The mere mention of his name would make their eyes sparkle. I never thought that I would be able to admire and respect someone so much...

Fallacious arguments flew away like frightened bats as we toned the walls of our hearts to prepare for an all-out war -- fairly fought, wind against wind

"Now that you have interviewed me," said the Rebbe, "I'd like to interview you. Unless you have any objections?"

"When a Jew in Miami," the Rebbe said to me, "sees pictures of Jews at the Western Wall wearing tefillin, he gets an urge to put on tefillin himself."

He made of each Chasid a "rebbe," made each Chasid feel that responsibility and love for every Jew, made each Jew sense her or his own greatness and holiness.

An artist relates his personal encounters with the Rebbe, beginning from the age of 15

Who was William Guttman, driving a cab through Manhattan on the night shift? Finally I asked him, as he had asked us, "Are you Jewish?"

It was a meeting without preliminaries or conclusion. He said few words and did not encourage me to necessarily become part of his community, yet the meeting redirected my life.

I was quite nervous as I took my place on line in front of the Rebbe's door. I had of course heard the Rebbe speak in public, but this was different, I told myself. This is yechidut...

A spur-of-the-moment visit to Rabbi Menachem Schneerson's tomb brings unexpected and astonishing results.

In his reply the Rebbe wrote: “Do you think it is right that a Jew who put on tefillin yesterday for the first time in over twenty years should wait another six weeks for you to buy him a pair of tefillin?”

I simply had no more talk left in me. I had spent hours casting about for some suitable activity that could serve as a replacement for the speaking, but thus far, I had come up with nothing.

The Rebbe said, "Build a college in Yeroham. It would transform the image of Yeroham as a town that people longed to leave to a place where people from across Israel and abroad would come to live and learn."

To my great surprise, the Rebbe asked me about my very personal plans, about my dating to get married.

We were supposed to be back home in New York by now, but a heavy snowfall there made it impossible for any planes to land...

My introduction to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in London, UK, and how my meetings with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, evolved.

I purchased a dilapidated old house with a wonderful view overlooking the Old City. My intention was to reconstruct it, in the anticipation of one day moving to Israel. Of course I assumed that the Rebbe would approve.

Tthe Rebbe turned to my wife and asked her, "How is the women's section?"

The Rebbe told me a lesson from bookkeeping, "You should be aware of the importance of bookkeeping in Jewish thought..."

"A rabbi recently said to me," the Rebbe, of righteous memory, told me in a 1972 audience, "that the only solution for Jews in small communities in England, is for them to move to Israel."

We discuss the salaries, women leadership and the purpose of the new building.

The Rebbe discusses with my daughter the issue of her attending art school.

The Rebbe explained to me that when having a positive influence on children, “Sometimes informal contact is more important than formal schooling.”

In my second audience with the Rebbe, I mentioned that a relative of mine was dating a non-Jew...

The author of "My Encounter with the Rebbe" describes highlights of the events that he took part in with the Rebbe, including eating the holiday meals with the Rebbe and a private audience.

Rabbi Eliezer Zusia Portugal, the Rebbe of Skulen, had connections that would enable him to arrange the escape from Romania, at the cost of $2,000 per family

The Rebbe then drew his prayer shawl up over his head, enveloping the podium and its contents as well. He lowered his head onto the podium, meditated, prayed, and wept—appealing to the Almighty to bless all the Jewish people everywhere with a good and happy new year...

Our problem – and it is a common one these days – was that although we owned extremely valuable property, we suffered from an acute cash flow shortage, mainly because we were heavily overdrawn in the bank, with interest at over 20%!

Throughout the time we spent at 770, there were strong arguments and counterarguments continuously going on. The subject matter was the health of our Rebbe...

We chose to have the audience on the first night. Five hundred people were expected that evening; one of the Rebbe's aides predicted that our appointment would be very late—maybe around 3 a.m...

It was one of the Rebbe's aides calling from 770. He informed me that the Rebbe was very worried because he had not heard from me...

I would like to record several of the episodes that I remember. There are many other and greater episodes, yet according to my understanding, it is the small incidents that reveal the greatness and the loftiness of his soul.

You'll find Chabad followers spreading out everywhere.

During the engagement period, I continued to be pestered with occasional waves of doubt and fear—not based on anything tangible, just phantoms in my mind.

What mattered to me was my broken arm. And at that moment, that was all that mattered to the Rebbe as well.

When he gazed at me so long ago, did the Rebbe see the long line of my ancestors, clamoring to return through me? By the strength of his gaze, did he give us all the ability to come back?