Inspiring a Nation with stories

Dedicated in the zechus of a refua sheleima for Dovid Chaim ben Michal Tovit, Yosef ben Freida Malka, and Yitzchok Meir ben Naomi Chaya who are in need of your tehillim! 38. As mentioned earlier, Rabbi Kagan and I worked on the college campuses with the students. It bothered us very much that we didn’t actually have a Chabad House on the campuses. We were especially upset that there was not a Chabad House in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. At that time (in the 1970’s) U of M had one of the largest Jewish student bodies in the country.  There were 6,000 Jewish students out of a total of 45,000 students. Rabbi Kagan and I began badgering Rabbi Shemtov that we needed a full time Chabad presence on that campus. One time, as we were really getting on his nerves, he angrily shot back, “it’s easy for you to talk, but I’m the one who has to come up with the money for such an undertaking.” Until then, Rabbi Shemtov was the main fundraiser and Rabbi Kagan and I did ...

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week #37. Sponsored in honor of the birthdays of Hindy, Miriam Devora & Boruch.    Generally speaking, Rabbi Shemtov had a good understanding of what the Rebbe’s approach was in different situations. One example was when the Rebbe spoke about doing a certain project (unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what it was,) and we were all excited and wanted to implement it the very next day. Rabbi Shemtov cautioned us not to jump into it, we first need to hear clarification from the Rebbe as to what he wanted us to do. This sounded really crazy to the rest of us, as the sicha seemed very clear cut. In fact all the other shluchim throughout the United States immediately began to implement this project, the very next day, according to what seemed to be a clear cut hora’ah. Several days later the Rebbe publicly addressed the issue saying that all those who acted with alacrity, meant well but completely misunderstood ...

. Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week Sponsored in honor of Mendy's Birthday                                                                                                                                                              A university town is usually full of transient inhabitants, for the most part students, who are there only for the four years or so of their studies. However, during my bi-weekly trips to Ann Arbor, I also got to meet some of the permanent inhabitants of the town. One of the most unique and impressive, and a man whom I greatly respected and ad...

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week Sponsored in honor of Levi and Perel Krinskys birthdays. As I mentioned earlier, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. I spent my time at the tefillin stand. In the evening, at around 6:00 p.m. I had a shiur in Hebrew House. During the two hours in between, I would drive up and down the streets to see if I could meet more Jewish students. One time, while driving around, I noticed a small side street, which I had never seen before.  It was just one block long. I turned into it, with my window rolled down, as it was early spring, and I heard someone yell out, "Hey Rabbi, how about singing a nigun, (a Chassidic tune, usually without words,) for us? I stopped short, and pulled over to the side to park. I looked up at six Jewish students, three boys and three girls, sitting on the steps to a small house. I retorted, "You think a nigun is just sung? First we have to create an environment and then the nigun can flow." Whe...

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week Sponsored in honor of Adina Perel's Birthday                                                                                                              My strong point seemed to be starting new places and projects. Rabbi Shemtov would then bring someone else to maintain and further expand them. In the early 1970’s, I started going to university campuses. Rabbi Kagan a”h would go once a week to give shiurim in several universities – Wayne State, University of Michigan, Grand Rapids, etc. I would take one university at a time and spend all day there getting to know and build deeper relationships with individual students. There were many amazing stories...

⁠⁠⁠⁠ 15:33 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠[15:33, 8/17/2017] Rabbi Lipszyc Weekly Story: ⁠⁠⁠ Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week Sponsored by his children, in honor of Rabbi Lipszyc's 70th Birthday. A short story, but powerful. One of the projects, in Michigan, that I was involved in, albeit only for a couple of years, was the pushka campaign. This was years before the Rebbe proposed a pushka campaign as part of the 10 Mivtza’im.  The way our campaign worked was that women and girls would call a list of Jewish homes and Jewish owned businesses, (there were 20,000 Jewish families living in Detroit and its Suburbs,) and ask if they would agree to take a pushka into their home and/or business. If they agreed, the pushka would be mailed the same day, addressed to the person spoken to (Mr. or Mrs.) so that they received it within a day or two and would remember receiving the call and agreeing to have one sent.  A rabbi would personally come, three times a yea...

In honor of Gimel Tamuz I put in this miracle story, not in the regular chronological order. Sponsored In honor of Gimel Tamuz: We were already shluchim in Crimea for a number of years and had B”H accomplished much but had much more yet to do. We had a Jewish Day School Bais Menachem and although scholastically quite successful, a number of our students won national recognition, but our financial situation left a lot to be desired. The law of the land was, that the official school accreditation was connected with the building which housed the school. If the school ever moved, it would have to apply for new accreditation which took three years. It was to prevent this future problem, that when we found the right school to rent we rented it with the option to buy, at a cost of $316,000 U.S. dollars.  With our financial woes, years went by and we did not have the funds to actualize our option to buy. The owner did not want to wait any longer, so he gave us a deadlin...

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week, Sponsored in memory of Bentzion Keller In the previous story, about the acquisition of the Farmington building, I made mention that when Rabbi Shemtov, having been told by the Rebbe to discuss it with anash, brought the matter to the Chabad membership, and that Rabbi Lieberman (not to be mistaken for Mr. Lieberman, the Labor Zionist lawyer) was against it, based on how would the Torah observant community view such a partnership. Rabbi Shemtov dismissed his concerns, replying “why should we worry about what others say?  In other words, why do we have to reckon with what the general Orthodox community has to say, they always have had complaints with whatever Chabad did. Although, I also was not in favor of his proposal, (for different reasons,) I generally agreed with Rabbi Shemtov’s reply to Rabbi Lieberman’s worry about the Orthodox community’s reaction. I also felt it was questionable whether we shou...