Mivtzoim

⁠⁠[15:33, 8/17/2017] Rabbi Lipszyc Weekly Story: ⁠⁠⁠Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week Sponsored in honor of Chaya Avigail's birthday To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-759 As mentioned earlier, my official “job” was to disseminate a weekly publication called “A Thought for the Week.” There were already a number of shluchim in Michigan when we moved there. Rabbi Berel Shemtov, may Hashem send him a speedy recovery, was, of course, the head shliach. Rabbi Yaakov Kranz a”h was rabbi of the Mishkan Yisroel shul in Oak Park. Rabbi Shimon Lazaroff yblcht”a was in charge of the summer overnight camp – one month for girls, one month for boys. Rabbis Yitzchok Mann and Betzalel Gottlieb worked on a very unique pushka project which eventually built up to a point that 50% of the Detroit Jewish community had a Chabad pushka in their homes. This was before the Rebbe began the pushka campaign. Rabbi Yitzchak Kagan a”h was principal of the shul's Hebrew school, and he also was the editor of the publication “A Thought for the Week,” which was my responsibility to distribute throughout North America.  There were also numerous other members of Anash living there, such Rabbi Moshe Polter a”h – a teacher in the local Bais Yaakov; Rabbi Yisroel Polter yblcht”a – a local shoichet; Rabbi Noach Silver a”h – who ran a local shlacht hois; Rabbi Lieberman yblcht”a – principal of the local Yeshiva Day School; as well as the well-known patriarch of the Avtzon clan – Reb Meir Avtzon a”h. All of them lived in Oak Park a suburb of Detroit which pretty much was the enclave that housed the whole Torah observant community.  Some of the Conservative synagogues and Reform temples had already begun to move further out into Southfield, which was then becoming predominately Jewish. There were a handful of Sabbath observers who also moved to the far end of Southfield, where there were two very large Conservative synagogues. Since they considered themselves Orthodox, they were uncomfortable being viewed by their peers and acquaintances as having switched to conservative. They approached all different groups, including Young Israel, trying to entice them to help them open up a branch in their neighborhood. When all else failed, they turned to Lubavitch to establish an Orthodox shul in their neighborhood. This was taking place just as my wife and I were moving to Michigan to take up our new shlichus. Although the original plan had been for us to do as all the other shluchim and Anash in the community, which was to rent an apartment in a mostly Jewish complex a couple of blocks from the Chabad shul, Rabbi Shemtov threw out the idea to me, asking if I would be willing to move into a totally different neighborhood than the rest of Anash? I answered that I am not afraid of undertaking any new projects. And so at the last minute, instead of moving to Oak Park, we moved to Southfield in an area about 7 miles away from the general frum community.  This was in fact the beginning of Chabad of Michigan’s outreach expansion. Of course the shluchim were already working with many not yet Torah observant Jews living away from the frum environment. The plan was that I would buy a house in that neighborhood and the basement would house the printing press and the other equipment for running the distribution of "A Thought for the Week," and the garage would be made over as a shul. Throughout the week I would be working full time on distribution of the publication and on Fridays I would work on putting together a minyan for Shabbos morning. It didn’t quite go as smoothly as it sounded in theory.  The first problem was the printing press. Let me tell you about this interesting machine. The U.S. government had commissioned the building of 6 very special printing presses, each costing $1,000,000. This was in the 1960’s, when a million dollars was considered real money. The machine was high class and was designed to be able to either print two colors on one side or one color on two sides. It was also to be able to print and cut the paper into 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper at the speed of 100,000 copies an hour. By the time the machines were ready, the government realized they had no use for them. So they were willing to practically give them away for nothing, just not to have this embarrassment sitting around. Rabbi Shemtov heard about it and managed to buy one for a mere $1,000, figuring that it was just perfect for printing "A Thought for the Week." So figuring, “how could he possibly go wrong when buying a $1,000,000 printing press for just $1,000,” he bought it sight unseen.  The press was in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I was moving at that time from New York to Michigan. The original deal was that Rabbi Shemtov would pay 50% of the cost of my move, whichever method I would choose, (whether I would fly and hire a moving company to move my furniture, or if I would move my furniture myself using a U-Haul truck.) In the end Rabbi Shemtov offered to cover the entire cost of the move if I would pick up the printing press and bring it by U-Haul together with my furniture. I agreed. The plan was that early Friday morning, I would rent a large U-Haul truck, and drive to New Brunswick.  There the warehouse employees would load the one ton printing press onto the truck. I would then drive back to Crown Heights, and park the truck for Shabbos. Motzai Shabbos, my family and friends would help me load up our furniture and belongings, and I would get a good night’s sleep and early Sunday morning I would drive off to Southfield, Michigan. What actually happened was the following. Early Friday morning, as planned, I rented the U-Haul truck and started driving towards New Brunswick, NJ. The truck didn’t get one mile from the U-Haul center before it broke down. Two hours later, I was back on the road in another U-Haul truck. This time I made it onto the Williamsburg Bridge where the second truck broke down and basically blocked the Manhattan bound bridge to traffic. Three to four hours later, in yet a third exchanged U-Haul vehicle, I was once again on my way to the warehouse in New Brunswick, only to get stuck in very heavy traffic. I barely made it to the warehouse in time for them to load and secure the press onto the truck before candle-lighting time. I had no idea where I was in relationship to a Jewish community where I could spend Shabbos. I had no food, no Shabbos clothes, nothing. I asked the manager of the warehouse to let me leave the truck in the warehouse for Shabbos and I would pick it up Saturday night (which being late July or early August, was quite late.) He agreed and I had to entrust all my belongings to a complete stranger. He gave me directions to the only synagogue in town that he knew about, (which turned out to be Conservative,) and was an hour and a half walk to the other end of town. Of course, as I suspected, by the time I got to the synagogue, it was late at night, the synagogue was closed and it was dark, with the streets totally empty.  I walked around trying to find anyone who could perhaps direct me to the rabbi’s house. I found two elderly women sitting on their porch, so I approached them. They became frightened of a young bearded guy approaching them and quickly ran into their home, slammed the door and locked it. I knocked on their door but they refused to open it. Finally after I begged them to just tell me where the rabbi of the synagogue lived they gave me his address and directions. B”H it was just a couple of blocks away. I went up to the house of the rabbi and was somewhat surprised to hear the television blasting away. I knocked on the door, but due to the noise of the blaring T.V. it took some very loud banging until the door was opened by a young fellow in his underwear, who looked like a teenager. I asked if his father was home, and in a surprised response he asked “my father?” I said “yes, the rabbi of the synagogue.” He angrily and haughtily responded “Iam the rabbi!” Oops, my bad. I explained that I was stuck there for Shabbos and had no place to stay. He replied that I obviously would not be comfortable in his home, instead I should go to the home of the gabai of the synagogue and he gave me his address.  By the time I got to the gabai’s house it was already after 11 p.m. I was a bit nervous knocking on his house so late at night, but when he opened his door and he saw a Jew with a beard standing there his face literally lit up like a lantern. “Come in, come in,” he exclaimed with such an obvious pleasure. “What a z'chus to have a Lubavitcher in my house!” he said without my saying a word. He spoke perfect Yiddish and was obviously himself a Shabbos observer. After I explained what had happened to me, he was only too glad to have me stay in his home. He explained that he recognized that I was a Lubavitcher from my dress, and he was well aware of all different types of Torah observant and Chassidic Jews. He made me feel very comfortable and grateful when he said that he understood that I would be hesitant to trust his personal level of kashrus, since I didn’t know him, so he put out a box of matzos and OU tuna fish, for me to eat a Shabbos seudah. [In those years this was the staple of food wherever Chabad bochurim travelled.] I davened kabbolas Shabbos and maariv, made Kiddush over the matzoh and enjoyed a Shabbos meal of matzoh, tuna and fresh fruit, but I especially enjoyed the friendship of a very special elderly Yid. We spend most of the night talking. He explained in a somewhat embarrassed way how he ended up the gabbai in the Conservative synagogue. Originally, that synagogue had been an Orthodox shul. But as the elderly people moved or died out and their children became less observant, they voted to align themselves with the conservative association. Personally knowing the parents and grandparents of this new generation it broke his heart, and he decided that against all odds he was going to stay on (they congregants all loved him) and try to pass on whatever Yiddishkeit he could to their children. I had no doubts that the Rebbe had much nachas from his dedication. He was in fact in constant contact with the Rebbe and showed me that he kept a picture of the Rebbe constantly by his side.  In the morning, of course, he had to go to the Conservative synagogue (I realized with much mesiras nefesh) but he showed me that just around the corner from the synagogue was an orthodox shul. I thanked him profusely, and told him that in all probability I will not be returning to him after davening. It was a sizeable orthodox community, and to my surprise they too recognized that I was a Lubavitcher. After davening, when they heard of my adventure the night before, they explained that they thought that I was a guest of Dr. Yaakov Hanokah a”h who lived just a short distance away in Highland Park. Of course I knew who Dr. Hanokah was, I just didn’t know that he was in such close proximity. So one of the congregants took me over to his house. You can imagine the surprise when I walked into Dr. Hanoka’s house in middle of Shabbos, seemingly out of nowhere. We farbrenged, and all in all my Shabbos, which started off in what seemed as a disaster turned into such a delightful experience for everyone.  After Shabbos, Dr. Hanokah drove me over to the other side of town where I met up with the warehouse manager who gave me all of my belongings and the truck, and I was on my way back to Crown Heights without any further incidents B"H. By the time I got back home, the family and friends who had volunteered to help me load up the truck were a bit annoyed that we were starting so late, but they were real troopers and stuck with me to get the job done by about 4 a.m. Sunday, after I davened Shachris, and ate something I was on my way. The trip to Michigan was uneventful (at least I don’t remember anything special about it.) However, when we unloaded my belongings we found that despite the care with which the workers in the warehouse had secured the heavy printing press, during the trip it had shifted and the corner of the press had actually broken through the wall of the truck leaving quite a gash in it. When we got to our home, it was obvious that there was no way that the enormous press was getting to make it through the door into my home, and very definitely not downstairs into my basement as planned. Thus it had to be put into my garage which became the printing room. [It took a few months and a reworking of my electricity into a three-phase system until we could actually get the press to work.] Meanwhile, this changed the plan for the house entirely. We now had to use the living room and dining room as the shul and the kitchen and family room became the women’s section.  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