Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week
59. We already told the story of how, while trying to get Rabbi Shemtov to open a Chabad House on the campus of U of M in Ann Arbor, Rabbi Kagan a”h and myself agreed to help with the fund raising. There’s a joke told that the Czar of Russia once wanted to personally experience how the different groups of citizenry actually lived their lives. So together with his wife they went out incognito and took up the different types of jobs that were available to the citizens. As they were finishing of this project, the Czar said to his wife that there was still one area that they didn’t experience. In answer to his wife’s inquiring glance, the Czar said that he was curious as to what it was like for the schnorrers to constantly be begging for money. The Czarina, perturbed, asked, “and how long do you want to be doing this?” The Czar seeing her reluctance answered, “just for 30 days, my dear.” And so the Czar and Czarina, dressed in rags and tatters went around begging for money and food for 30 days. At the end of the 30th day, the Czarina happily cried out “finally these horrible 30 days are over!” To which the Czar responded, “let’s just finish this block.” Once Rabbi Kagan and I agreed to help with fund raising, there was no way Rabbi Shemtov was going to let us off the hook. This now became part and parcel of our job description. It seems that G-d agreed with Rabbi Shemtov, because we were quite successful in our efforts. As also told in a previous story, in the 1970’s shluchim didn’t go flying around the country as seems to be the case nowadays. However, Rabbi Kagan and I had heard that many fundraisers would go to Florida during the winter season to do fundraising there. So we brought up this idea to Rabbi Shemtov, that we too should go visit our supporters who were in Florida for the winter. Rabbi Shemtov would not buy into that. He didn’t believe that they made more money there, but that they were just using it as an excuse to spend time in Florida themselves. On the other hand, we argued that maybe they would try that for one or two years, but if they were doing it year after year, they must have found it financially worthwhile. As we were pressing him to let us try it, Rabbi Shemtov turned to me with a challenge. I had just connected up with a totally new supporter, who seemed to be a potential for much larger gifts. In my first meeting he gave us $2,000 and pledged another $2,000 for the following year. So Rabbi Shemtov challenged me, “If you are willing to ask the doctor for $100,000, I will agree for you both to go.” In those years, Rabbi Shemtov himself had only gotten $75,000 from his biggest donor, to have his name on the dining room/restaurant of the newly acquired Chabad House of Ann Arbor. I laughingly responded, “I don’t mind asking him, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll agree.” To my surprise, Rabbi Shemtov agreed that we give it a try. We bought the cheapest tickets in coach and went to the airport. After checking in and getting our assigned seats, we waited for boarding. Suddenly, we were summoned to the desk by the agent. She asked us to return our boarding passes, and when asked why, she explained that they had overbooked in the coach section and since they had open seats in first class they would rather give them to the two rabbis travelling than two just regular passengers. We both felt that this was definitely a good omen for the success of our “maiden voyage.” Since first class comes with free drinks, we said l’chaim to each other and farbrenged. It was the fourth night of Chanukah, when we went to see our friend the doctor in his winter home in Florida. We asked him for $100,000 for Chabad activities in Michigan, as we told Rabbi Shemtov we would. He said he had to think about it and that we could call him the next evening for his answer. As we continued talking with him we learned that he shared his Hebrew name with the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel ben Chana. Furthermore his Hebrew birthday was the 5th night of Chanukah, the next night, when we were supposed to call him for his answer. So we told him that in that case, instead of calling him, we would come back and say l’chaim with him, to which he agreed. The next morning I went to the bakery owned by my good friend Rabbi Meshulem Weiss a”h and asked him for a rush order to make a fancy birthday cake. He not only agreed to do it, he refused to accept payment for it. We then went to one of the Judaica stores and bought a beautiful silver menorah and had it gift wrapped with a nice birthday card. Of course we also bought a fancy bottle of mashke and we were all set for an impromptu birthday party. After all that, the doctor told us he would not give us the $100,000 we asked for, but when he would get back to Michigan in two months he would give us $90,000. After we left his house, we tried calling Rabbi Shemtov with the news, but couldn’t reach him. We tried all the next day, and still couldn’t reach him. Finally, when we got to the airport and were waiting to board the plane to return to Michigan, we finally reached him. When he heard the news, he was ecstatic (he really hadn’t believed we’d had a snowball’s chance in Hell, to get that kind of a pledge,) and he gave us permission to stay in Florida for an extra couple of days. I retorted, “you low life, you couldn’t tell us that before we came to the airport? What kind of ‘grubbe yugen’ do you think we are that we would go back to the city, just to have a vacation from shlichus?!”
59. We already told the story of how, while trying to get Rabbi Shemtov to open a Chabad House on the campus of U of M in Ann Arbor, Rabbi Kagan a”h and myself agreed to help with the fund raising. There’s a joke told that the Czar of Russia once wanted to personally experience how the different groups of citizenry actually lived their lives. So together with his wife they went out incognito and took up the different types of jobs that were available to the citizens. As they were finishing of this project, the Czar said to his wife that there was still one area that they didn’t experience. In answer to his wife’s inquiring glance, the Czar said that he was curious as to what it was like for the schnorrers to constantly be begging for money. The Czarina, perturbed, asked, “and how long do you want to be doing this?” The Czar seeing her reluctance answered, “just for 30 days, my dear.” And so the Czar and Czarina, dressed in rags and tatters went around begging for money and food for 30 days. At the end of the 30th day, the Czarina happily cried out “finally these horrible 30 days are over!” To which the Czar responded, “let’s just finish this block.” Once Rabbi Kagan and I agreed to help with fund raising, there was no way Rabbi Shemtov was going to let us off the hook. This now became part and parcel of our job description. It seems that G-d agreed with Rabbi Shemtov, because we were quite successful in our efforts. As also told in a previous story, in the 1970’s shluchim didn’t go flying around the country as seems to be the case nowadays. However, Rabbi Kagan and I had heard that many fundraisers would go to Florida during the winter season to do fundraising there. So we brought up this idea to Rabbi Shemtov, that we too should go visit our supporters who were in Florida for the winter. Rabbi Shemtov would not buy into that. He didn’t believe that they made more money there, but that they were just using it as an excuse to spend time in Florida themselves. On the other hand, we argued that maybe they would try that for one or two years, but if they were doing it year after year, they must have found it financially worthwhile. As we were pressing him to let us try it, Rabbi Shemtov turned to me with a challenge. I had just connected up with a totally new supporter, who seemed to be a potential for much larger gifts. In my first meeting he gave us $2,000 and pledged another $2,000 for the following year. So Rabbi Shemtov challenged me, “If you are willing to ask the doctor for $100,000, I will agree for you both to go.” In those years, Rabbi Shemtov himself had only gotten $75,000 from his biggest donor, to have his name on the dining room/restaurant of the newly acquired Chabad House of Ann Arbor. I laughingly responded, “I don’t mind asking him, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll agree.” To my surprise, Rabbi Shemtov agreed that we give it a try. We bought the cheapest tickets in coach and went to the airport. After checking in and getting our assigned seats, we waited for boarding. Suddenly, we were summoned to the desk by the agent. She asked us to return our boarding passes, and when asked why, she explained that they had overbooked in the coach section and since they had open seats in first class they would rather give them to the two rabbis travelling than two just regular passengers. We both felt that this was definitely a good omen for the success of our “maiden voyage.” Since first class comes with free drinks, we said l’chaim to each other and farbrenged. It was the fourth night of Chanukah, when we went to see our friend the doctor in his winter home in Florida. We asked him for $100,000 for Chabad activities in Michigan, as we told Rabbi Shemtov we would. He said he had to think about it and that we could call him the next evening for his answer. As we continued talking with him we learned that he shared his Hebrew name with the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel ben Chana. Furthermore his Hebrew birthday was the 5th night of Chanukah, the next night, when we were supposed to call him for his answer. So we told him that in that case, instead of calling him, we would come back and say l’chaim with him, to which he agreed. The next morning I went to the bakery owned by my good friend Rabbi Meshulem Weiss a”h and asked him for a rush order to make a fancy birthday cake. He not only agreed to do it, he refused to accept payment for it. We then went to one of the Judaica stores and bought a beautiful silver menorah and had it gift wrapped with a nice birthday card. Of course we also bought a fancy bottle of mashke and we were all set for an impromptu birthday party. After all that, the doctor told us he would not give us the $100,000 we asked for, but when he would get back to Michigan in two months he would give us $90,000. After we left his house, we tried calling Rabbi Shemtov with the news, but couldn’t reach him. We tried all the next day, and still couldn’t reach him. Finally, when we got to the airport and were waiting to board the plane to return to Michigan, we finally reached him. When he heard the news, he was ecstatic (he really hadn’t believed we’d had a snowball’s chance in Hell, to get that kind of a pledge,) and he gave us permission to stay in Florida for an extra couple of days. I retorted, “you low life, you couldn’t tell us that before we came to the airport? What kind of ‘grubbe yugen’ do you think we are that we would go back to the city, just to have a vacation from shlichus?!”
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