mikva in michigan and more

Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week. No Sponsor this week, did you know, for a donation of $100 you can dedicate the Story of the Week in honor of your loved ones? As mentioned earlier, when we moved to Southfield, Michigan, the plan was to make a minyan for Shabbos. The whole week I would daven at the Chabad shul in Oak Park, where the main enclave of shluchim was, and Fridays I would make telephone calls to get a minyan for Shabbos mornings. Unfortunately, most of the time it was not enough and Shabbos mornings I would have to go knocking on neighbors’ doors to ask them to make up the one or two men lacking for the minyan.  The Oak Park of Chabad community was 6 miles away. We started the minyan in my house at the end of Elul and for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur  we rented an auditorium in the local public elementary school about ¼ mile down the road from my house (both were on the same main road.) Although normally I was very careful to go to the mikva before davening every day (including Shabbos,) those first few Shabbosim, I did not have my “inner GPS” working, so I had no clue as to where I could go. However, for Rosh Hashana I could not picture myself blowing shofar without mikva, so I canvassed the neighborhood for a neighbor with a swimming pool. B”H I found one right around the corner from my house. The first day of Rosh Hashana it was pouring rain, so you can imagine the surprise on my non-Jewish neighbor’s face when I knocked on his door in the wee hours of the morning and asked if I could use his outdoor pool for a short Jewish ritual. He looked out at the sheets of rain falling and gave me a strong look as if asking “are you kidding me?” When he saw that I was serious, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say “go ahead,” but he didn’t move to let me into the house. I asked how do I get to the pool and he pointed to the fence on the side of the house and said there was a door in the fence that would lead me around the house to the backyard, where the pool was.  It was obvious this man wasn’t going to let this weird looking guy with a beard, who wanted to use an outdoor pool in pouring rain, into his house.  Of course, I noticed that he was watching me from his window, so I tried to be as discreet as possible as I went “skinny dipping.”   As I left, I stopped at his front door to thank him and to ask him if it would be alright for me to do the same the next morning as well. He assured me that I was welcome to just go to the back again the next morning. However, the next morning, as I was getting ready to go skinny dipping again, I saw his entire family – him, together with his wife, at least two daughters and I think at least one son – standing by the window watching. So I kept my towel wound around my waist and slipped into the pool with the towel. Of course, after that, I wasn’t able to dry myself before getting dressed, since the towel was soaking wet!  I stopped by his door and thanked him again while assuring him that I wouldn’t need the pool again. From then on, I would walk every Shabbos morning the 12 miles to and from Oak Park to go to the mikva. During the winter it was cold and dark, but I didn’t mind. People walking along the roads, especially by a highway, in the suburbs, at that time, was not a regular sight, so a number of times neighborly people (and at least once even a police cruiser) stopped to ask where I was headed and offered me a lift.  My house was sandwiched in between two non-Jewish neighbors. One was a Christian Arab and the other I am not sure. We got along fine with them. One day, I received notice of a complaint to the city against me. When I checked who had signed the complaint, I was surprised to learn that it was neither one of these non-Jewish neighbors who directly bordered my property, but rather Jewish neighbors around the corner. When I asked the non-Jewish neighbors if they knew what the complaint was about, they told us that the Jewish neighbors around the corner had tried to get their support by asking them to also sign the complaint, but they had refused, saying that they found us to be quiet and pleasant people whom they had no complaints against. So one night I went over to the neighbor who signed the complaint and asked him directly, what the problem was and why he had signed the complaint. He was shocked that I would just come over and ask him directly. Then he blurted out, “I didn’t buy a $60,000 house to have a synagogue in my back yard!” I told him that it is not a synagogue; all week I go to synagogue in Oak Park and only on Shabbos morning do I have a minyan of people since I don’t drive on Shabbat. He said, “Then go live in Oak Park!” I asked him incredulously, “are you saying that I can’t choose the neighborhood I want to live in?” He said, “sure you can live here, but walk to the synagogue in Oak Park.” In surprise I said, “But that’s 6 miles away!” To which he argued, “So what, your grandfather in the old country would walk farther than that!” He was totally flabbergasted when I responded with a smile and wave of the hand, “why are you mentioning what my grandfather did, I am a modern American Jew!” In the end, we made peace, and the complaint was dropped. I don’t believe that he ever learnt that I had been walking back and forth to Oak Park every Shabbos to go to the mikva.  The rabbi, of one of the two conservative synagogues in the area, had twin boys of bar mitzvah age, and they also began coming, from time to time, to our minyan. Their father considered himself a Torah observant Jew (he didn’t drive on Shabbos, although he used a microphone,) and was quite annoyed with me for starting this minyan. So he started speaking against me. Especially weekly during shalosh seudos. The people coming to my shachris minyan continued going to his synagogue for mincha, shalosh seudos and maariv on Shabbos afternoon. So he began to harass them that they should not be coming to me. One of the less tactful congregants retorted, “But your own sons go there!” He obviously stopped their future affiliation with us, claiming that they were embarrassing him and they have an obligation of kibud av. Once, he actually came to our house and schlepped out one of the twins (who had joined us for a Shabbos meal.) Today, one of the twins is a completely frum yeshivishe yid, and his twin considers himself modern orthodox. I don’t claim credit for that, but perhaps I (or at least some of my wife’s awesome cooking,) may have had some lasting effect? J 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