building on shlichus

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 deadline, that if we did not come up with the money, he would put it on the market for sale. This was a disaster because once it would be sold, we would lose our accreditation and with three years to get new accreditation the school would basically be closed. The deadline came and went with no relief in sight. At that point, I pretty much basically resigned myself to the fact that any day the school would be closed.  Long before we opened the school, we had bought a piece of property to build a shul and Chabad Center in the center of town. We made a big beautiful groundbreaking and were getting ready to focus on building. It was at that juncture in time that there was a push for us to open a school. We were misled into believing that money would be available for us if we would do so. Putting the building of the shul on the “back burner,” we opened the school. Once the school opened, we found out that we had been misled about the funding. To close the school, leaving Jewish children without their expected chinuch was not an option, so we just continued “limping along” financially, for many years.  Now that it seemed that the school would be finished, I felt that rather than wallowing in sadness at our loss, we should focus on positive action and see if we could restart our shul building project. I called our architect and asked how much would it cost to build the shul at that time. Originally it was going to cost us $250,000. Now he said it would cost around $750,000. I asked how about if we build in phases, how much would the first phase cost? He said, “$250,000.”  Now, when we bought the property, (a miracle story in its own right,) Mr. Moshe Tabacinic gave us $50,000 and promised another $50,000, when we would actually begin building, for naming the building after his father. I felt that to raise $200,000 ($50,000 we already had a pledge) for a building project was doable, and perhaps I could get even a little more from Mr. Tabacinic. I called him (he lived in Florida) and told him that the shul project was back on the front burner and I would like to meet with him. He gave me a date (from the secular calendar) and I checked when it would be on the Hebrew calendar. It was ג' תמוז. I had wanted to be Gimel Tamuz in New York, so I asked if we could perhaps meet a day before or after, but he said that was the only opening he had. I accepted it, feeling that my personal desires must take a back seat to the needs of the moisod. Besides, I figured, Gimel Tamuz is a yom segulah and therefore good things would happen.  As I was driving to the appointment, on Gimel Tamuz, on I-95 South, just 10 minutes away from Mr. Tabacinic’s office, my cell phone rang. It was my wife and the architect calling from Crimea. The architect told me that he made a mistake with his quote and the building would cost $900,000. I asked, “and how much for the first phase?” “That is for the first phase,” he responded, “the entire building would be $1,600,000.” Incredulously, I asked, “Whoa, how does one make such a mistake?” He explained that over the past three months there had been a major building boom in our city, (something I had already heard about,) and this caused prices to shoot up four times as much. After I hung up, I realized my whole upcoming appointment was in shambles. There was no way I could undertake such a project at this time. Being five minutes away, I couldn’t cancel the appointment either, and I definitely had no idea of what to say to Mr. Tabacinic. With tears in my eyes, I looked up to Heaven and said, “Ribono Shel Olam, the Rebbe writes in today’s Hayom Yom (of Gimel Tamuz) that the krechtz of a Yid over his material needs is already a very high level of teshuvah; how much more so a krechtz over his spiritual needs. If this is the case, for the individual’s needs, for sure the krechtz for the community’s needs has to be so lofty that the Rebbe couldn’t even write about it. Ribono Shel Olam, accept this as my krechtz!”  By this time, I reached his office building, parked the car and went up to meet with him, without a clue as to what I could possibly say. As I entered the office, Mr. Tabacinic immediately shook my hand with a smile, took me into his conference room and said, “So, what’s the story with building the shul?” I told him, “until 10 minutes ago, this was what I was going to say…” I then went on to explain how I was ready to focus on building the shul in three phases. That the first phase was going to cost $250,000 which after he gives his remaining pledge of $50,000 would leave me to have to raise $200,000 which I believed doable. “However,” I continued, “ten minutes ago, I got a call from my architect who told me that it would cost $1,600,000 to build the building.” Mr. Tabacinic asked, “what about just building the first phase?” “That would be $900,000,” I replied dejectedly. He saw by my tone that it was not happening. So he said, “You know rabbi, now that the building is going to cost so much, I don’t believe that I should hold you to the deal we made that for my $100,000 donation I should get the rights for naming the building. So I will let you keep the $50,000 that I already gave you, as an unconditional donation. Release me from my commitment for the other $50,000 and sell the name on the building to someone else for a lot more money.” This I definitely didn’t want to hear -- that I am about to lose his $50,000 commitment.  He then continued, “I heard that you are also having difficulties with the school, so if you agree to release me from my $50,000 commitment for the shul, I will give you $200,000 towards the school.” Knowing that $200,000 was not going to save the school, I sadly replied, “to buy the school building the owner is asking $316,000. Perhaps I can knock him down to $250,000, but definitely not less. So, unless you are willing to give $250,000, unfortunately, I can’t accept your proposal.”  I really didn’t mean to be so chutzpa’dik, I was just stating a fact. Subconsciously, I noticed the look of incredulity on his face at the chutzpa of my turning down his $200,000. But as he looked at my face, he realized that I wasn’t acting chutzpa’dik, I was just overwhelmed with reality. He thought for a moment, and then quietly said, “ok, I will give you $250,000.” I looked up at him in wonder and said, “Mr. Tabacinic, you realize we are talking about cash, right? They don’t accept mortgages.” “I know,” he responded, “negotiate with him, and if he accepts your $250,000 cash offer, tell me where to send the money and I will do so.” After thanking him profusely, I left the office, thanked Hashem for the tremendous miracle, and the Rebbe in whose merit the miracle was wrought, and immediately called my wife and told her what happened in the merit of Gimel Tamuz. I told her to go immediately, together with the director of the school, to the owner of the building and tell him that we were ready to give him $250,000 USD in cash for the building. He agreed and Mr. Tabacinic immediately wired the money and the school was saved.  I just want to add that my wife, may she be blessed with health and long life, was one step ahead of me, she immediately wrote a heartfelt thank you letter to the Rebbe and ended it with the words “Thank you, but Rebbe, please remember, we still need the $1,600,000 for the shul.”  To receive Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the week via Whatsapp add the number 513-456-7595 to your phone contacts, and then send a text to with the message "Join".  Support Rabbi Lipszyc's work by Donating at https://chabadcrimeaorg.clhosting.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/2511910/jewish/Crisis-Relief/lang/en or sending checks to: Chabad of Crimea World Friends, 1601 Union St, Brooklyn, NY 11213