Mivtzoim concert

. 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 admired, was Mr. Osias Zwerdling. At the time I met him, he was a spry “young man” of 97, and was looked up to by everyone, the city elders as well as the Jewish establishment, as the patriarch of the city. He escaped Europe as a fourteen year old boy and arrived in Ann Arbor, a Jew alone in a foreign country, who against all odds had to make it on his own while, based only on memories, keeping his pride in his Jewish identity intact. Not an easy feat in the early 1900’s. He definitely must have come from a very special breed and ancestry, for his moral compass was impeccable. Despite his advanced age, he relied on no help and took care of himself and did all his own errands in the city. Several times a week, he had a maid come in to do a general house cleaning, but that was all. To my embarrassment, whenever I visited him at home, he insisted on being a good host, getting up and personally bringing me refreshments of water and fresh fruit. There are two stories in particular which showed Mr. Zwerdling’s unwavering commitment to doing what’s right, even when it meant his standing up against relatives, friends and those whom he respected in the community.  I need to begin with an introduction to the first story. Rabbi Shemtov was in many ways a trendsetter for shluchim. In those days, the idea of a Jewish concert barely existed.  So it really was a very innovative idea of Rabbi Shemtov to make the first annual Jewish concert of Chabad of Michigan. He made it around the Chanukah season and brought in Chassidishe singers and dancers from New York. It became known as The Chanukah Chassidic Happening, and was the only annual Jewish concert in Michigan. It was held in downtown Detroit and attracted close to 3,000 attendees. In those years, it was truly an amazing accomplishment.    Every year, Rabbi Shemtov would try to promote someone or something unique as an added attraction to the concert. One year he couldn’t seem to come up with any idea and he turned to me for my input. Several months earlier, one of our mekuravim, a female university student, learning in Machon Chana – Gittle Wolnez – got married to a mekurav of Rabbi Nussy Gurary of Buffalo, New York who was learning in Yeshivas Tiferes Bachurim in Morristown, New Jersey – Dovid Lazarson. At the wedding, which took place on the bride’s home turf, in Michigan, the groom’s friends goaded him to take over the drummer’s place in the band. He did so, and was really fabulous. In those years, that kind of a thing didn’t happen. I was mesmerized just watching him play. So now when Rabbi Shemtov turned to me for an idea for the concert, I suggested that probably there were other mekuravim in Morristown as well, who together with Dovid, (who was still learning in Morristown,) could make up a band to play at the concert, showing the attendees, the actual “produce” that our yeshivas are producing. Rabbi Shemtov’s initial reaction was negative, thinking that they would not be professional enough. This was before any of the bands such as Ra’aya Mehemna; Megama; Piamentas; etc. came around. Not even Mordechai Ben David was on the circuit yet. I argued in favor of it, explaining that for sure these guys were professionals on the secular scene before becoming baalei tshuva. Rabbi Shemtov agreed to consider the idea, if Dovid would put together a band, make a tape and send it to us, so that he could listen to it and decide if it would be professional enough. I called Dovid, and after affirming that there were other great instrument players in the yeshiva with whom to put together a band, he made a tape of a band of four of them playing. After Rabbi Shemtov heard them in action, he agreed that it was a good idea. This was before any of them became well known. Dovid Lazarson, later to become well known as Dr. Laz, played the drums; Moshe Tanenbaum, later to become famous as Uncle Moishe, played guitar; Avrohom Levine, now an upstanding member of the Chabad community in Chicago, played accordion; and Moshe Schwartz now a melamed in Crown Heights, played the flute. Once it was decided to bring them, I came up with another idea -- that we should make a concert in Ann Arbor as well, for the university students. Rabbi Shemtov was not very keen on the idea. He was afraid that it shouldn’t chas v'shalom be a flop and a disaster. I told him that we can rent the Mendelsohn Theater, which seated 750. We would advertise both for the students and the permanent Jewish community. To get the Jewish community to come we would honor Mr. Osias Zwerdling. Rabbi Shemtov agreed that I could give it a go if Mr. Zwerdling would agree to be the honoree. I got Mr. Zwerdling to agree, so we went ahead with the plan. Thursday evening would be the Detroit concert, and the following Sunday would be the concert in Ann Arbor. Rabbi Shemtov was very worried that the hall would be empty and it would be a failure for the very first project that we did in Ann Arbor. To make matters worse, one of the Jewish deans in the university, who was almost like a son to Mr. Zwerdling and a very close friend of Mr. Zwerdling’s biological son, who himself was a big shot in Washington, D.C., together tried to get Mr. Zwerdling to back out of being our honoree at the concert. They said it would be an embarrassment to him because no one from the community would come and the hall would be empty. His response was that he gave his word and he always keeps his word.    The Thursday concert in Detroit was a great success, as usual. "The Morristown Moving Spirits," as we dubbed the group, were better than our wildest dreams and made a terrific hit. In fact, after the Morristown band performed, MBD, seeking more of a rock style drummer, asked Dr. Laz to stay and play drums for his performance as well.   In addition, at that concert, we had a very unique live stage display for the Rebbe's Shabbos Candle-Lighting Campaign. One of our mekuravim, Mrs. Rus Krieger, (her amazing story will be told at another opportunity,) in her pre-Torah days had been a professional entertainer. She volunteered to organize this live stage display to promote mivtza neshek. And what an amazing job she did. Ford Auditorium, where the concert was held, had a beautiful fully equipped stage with all types of professional lighting and had three sets of massive ceiling to floor curtains, each one set a number of feet behind the next. The concert was divided into two parts with an intermission between them. Just before the break, the auditorium was totally darkened and intro music began to play for the song “My Mother’s Shabbos candles.” Yossie Korf (the then 12 year old son of Rabbi Avrohom Korf of Miami Beach) did a most beautiful and moving rendition of the song while the first curtain slowly opened up to the scene of a family (Rabbi Yisroel Polter’s) standing around a Shabbos table with Mrs. Freida a”h Polter and her daughters yblcht”a lighting the Shabbos candles. As the song continued, the second curtain slowly opened to the scene of three tables with about 9 women and girls all lighting candles. The song came to its finale as the third curtain finished opening to 5 more tables and still more women and girls lighting their candles. The entire tableau was so incredible and moving, that there was an audible gasp from the entire audience.  Then it was announced that there would be a twenty minute intermission and the audience was invited to please visit the tables set up in the hallway. There was a beautiful neshek table with free candlesticks and brochures for women who wanted to begin lighting Shabbos candles. My wife had made a cake dummy of a Shabbos table complete with a very realistic lacy tablecloth, candlesticks with Shabbos candles, challahs peeking out from under their cover, and accurate down to the tiniest details like the wee slices of carrots on the gefilte fish. One of the women in the community had made a large revolving display of a woman and girl lighting Shabbos candles. There was another table encouraging men to commit to putting on tefillin. And there was a third table with a display of Jewish homes made from milk cartons with the various mitzvos which the Rebbe was encouraging people to take upon themselves, such as kosher mezuzos, Jewish books, tzedaka, kashrus, etc. and cards for encouraging everyone to commit to any of the mivtza’im. The line of women who wanted the candlesticks so they could start lighting Shabbos candles was so long that even though we had a large number of them, the supply ran out, and we had to send them afterwards to the remaining women! There was no question that the unusual large number of commitments that were signed was a direct result of that awesome stage display just before the intermission.   As far as the ticket sales for the Sunday concert in Ann Arbor, they weren’t going so well. As of Friday morning, only seven tickets were sold!  I knew that unless I came up with some wild idea and a miracle to boot, I was going to have one big disaster on my hands. So I went over to Dovid and told him that I needed him and his band to help in a big way. I asked them to come with me to Ann Arbor, after Shabbos, and stand on the busiest corner and that they “should play up a storm” to ignite interest among the students to come to the concert. Dovid spoke it over with the others and B”H they all were game. Rabbi Itche Meir Kagan a”h and his wife yblcht”a also agreed to come. So right after Shabbos we all headed out to Ann Arbor to try to literally “drum up” business. Well we got to the busiest intersection of the university (State & Hill streets) and were about to set up when it began to pour -- what you would call a real “rained out game.” No body was in the street. As the band was reloading the instruments into the car we were looking around for students who could tell us where we would find other students. Finally we found out that there was a newly released movie with great ratings that everyone was waiting to see. It was called Paper Chase and it was making its debut that night in the university theater. It was such a hit that the university opened up all four theaters into one big room and all the seats were sold out. We immediately rushed there, and approached the manager and asked him if he could delay the movie for five minutes and let our band do a short concert teaser. He refused, and we noticed that he was wearing a pro-Arab pin on his lapel, so we figured it wasn’t happening. But then G-d stepped in. The projector broke and the manager needed something to keep the students from getting disgruntled, so he turned to us and said “ok you’re on for five minutes.” All four band members rushed onto the stage and really gave it all they had. After five minutes they stopped and the students started clapping wildly and yelling “more, more!” We looked at the manager standing in the back and he motioned, go on! So the band started up again and Rabbi Kagan and I, wearing our long black kapatoss ran down the aisle, jumped up onto the stage and started dancing. The place was rolling. A few of the male college students even joined us on center stage! After another five minutes we stopped, and again everyone was yelling for more, but we then told them that if they wanted more, tomorrow, Sunday at 1:00 p.m., this band, “The Morristown Moving Spirits,” would be performing at the Mendelsohn Theater. We then packed up and started walking towards the exit in the back. Dr. Laz got a good laugh when he reminded the students that "Michigan comes from the Yiddish word meshigenah." Since it was quite late, the manager had already dimmed the lights and started the projectors rolling while we were still walking towards the back. As was usual in movie theaters, before the start of the main feature, they showed previews of an upcoming film. We heard the loud sounds of war planes taking off, when suddenly there was an eruption of laughter throughout the theater. It was so unexpected, that we all turned around to see what caused the laughter. We were bowled over when seeming to be coming out of the screen were the words TORA, TORA, TORA! We later learned that it was a preview of an upcoming Japanese war movie. But the irony of its timing was not lost to anyone in that theater. The Kagan’s and the band returned to Oak Park, while I went to Hebrew House to hang out until after the movie and try to get a feel of the response to our spur of the moment advertisement. The response was mostly positive, although some of the students in Hebrew House were very embarrassed about what we did. The real results, however, came in the next day, when the Morristown Moving Spirits played to a standing room only audience. Rabbi Shemtov was quite relieved and actually praised me for the success. The mayor of the town presented Mr. Zwerdling with the key to the city in addition to the plaque presented to him by Rabbi Shemtov.  There was a large showing of the locals as well, honoring him.  I, of course, knew the truth, that once again Hashem had performed a miracle for the Rebbe’s shluchim. 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