[15:54, 7/20/2018] Rabbi Lipszyc Weekly Story: Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week #60
Still looking for a sponsor. To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-7595
[15:56, 7/20/2018] Rabbi Lipszyc Weekly Story: Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week #60
Still looking for a sponsor. To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-7595 While in Michigan, in the 1970’s, a friend asked us to invite over for Shabbos a friend of his -- a precocious teenage girl that had a lot of questions about being Jewish. We’ll never forget the first Shabbos she spent with us. I hadn’t been feeling well that evening, so I went to sleep and she stayed up to speak to my wife. They were sitting on the couch, with Leah responding to her questions and telling her about how frum families live for hours. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, Leah said she was going to say Shema and go to sleep. The girl asked her what Shema was, and when she told her about it, and that we say it every night before going to sleep, she asked her to say it with her – word by word, since she didn’t know how to read Hebrew. Leah tried to say the beginning and the first paragraph or the first three paragraphs, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted on saying every single word of the long prayer – about six pages – which resulted in their getting to bed at 4:00am!
The next morning, when she saw that my very young daughters were able to daven and read from the siddur in Hebrew, she decided that she too wanted to learn the Hebrew alphabet and daven in the original Hebrew. Not wanting to “bother” me, she asked my daughters to teach her to read. My young daughters were delighted and taught her exactly as they had learned in cheder. After they finished teaching her the Hebrew alphabet (the next day) they started teaching her the nekudos (the vowels.) Realizing that her name Yehudis somewhat rhymed with the word nekudos, they would call her Yehudis Nekudis. Yehudis loved it, and that name stuck
After spending quite some time with her, trying to answer her general questions, I got her to agree to begin learning Chumash and Rashi with me, as well as Tanya. Although she argued a lot, and didn’t necessarily automatically accept everything I would say, she took to it like a fish to water. As she learned all about our rich heritage, she began to keep the mitzvos she learned about. Yehudis was an extremely sharp girl, and within a couple of years she realized that she must go off to yeshiva for a complete Torah education. One summer she went to the program at Bais Chana in Minnesota. Although geared for college age students, she fit in and held her own. After she graduated High School, she went off to Crown Heights to Machon Chana for a year. She became a totally dedicated chassidishe girl with hergeishim that constantly surprised her mashpi’im and left me and my wife basking in true Yiddishe, chassidishe nachas. For Shabbosim and yomim tovim she would get herself invited to very chassidishe homes, such as the homes of Rabbi & Mrs. Laibel Groner (the Rebbe’s gabbai,) Rabbi & Mrs. Sholom and Faigy Jacobson, and of course most often to my sister and brother-in-law, Rabbi & Mrs. Shmuel Spalter. The famed mentors of the baal tshuva girls, Rabbis Manis Friedman of Bais Chana in Minnesota; Shlomo Majeski of Machon Chana in Crown Heights; and Eli Friedman of Machon Alte in Tzfas, sang her praises to me over the years.
One of the proudest moments I had from her, was with the following story: Every year on Purim, the girls in Machon Chana would prepare a beautiful shalach manos for the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. Three girls would be chosen by goirel to personally bring it to the Rebbetzin’s house and present it to her personally on behalf of all the girls and staff of Machon Chana. One year, Yehudis was one of the three girls zoiche begoirel, (who won the lottery.) She was a big believer in zrizim makdimim le’mitzvos, (when a mitzvah comes your way, do it right away, don’t delay,) so she wanted to go immediately after hearing the megillah in the morning. However, the other two girls, said they had important errands that they had to run first and therefore wanted to do it in the afternoon. Since she was the minority view, she unhappily agreed, but stipulated that they shouldn’t dare go without her, since she too had some errands to run. They promised to wait for her. Unfortunately her heel broke when she was on her way, and hobbling along on the broken shoe, she came back a few minutes late. She was horrified to learn that the two girls had taken one of their friends as the third girl and went to deliver the shalach manos to the Rebbetzin without her. She refused to give up her zchus, given her by the goirel, and quickly put together a shalach monos of her own. She then ran to the Rebbetzin’s house. When she knocked on the door, the bochur who helped in the house answered the door. She tried explaining that she had shalach manos for the Rebbetzin and had been one of the girls chosen by goirel to give shalach manos to the Rebbetzin in person. But the bochur refused to allow her entry. She began to wail brokenheartedly that it was her right, but the bochur wasn’t moved. Suddenly the Rebbetzin was at her side. She shooed the bochur away, put her arms around Yehudis and brought her into the house. The Rebbetzin sat down with her on the couch, the entire time with her holy arm around the crying girl’s shoulders, and listened patiently as Yehudis told her the entire story. The Rebbetzin took the meager shalach manos, and thanked her profusely. The Rebbetzin sat with her for quite a while, first until Yehudis calmed down, and then asked her about her personal story. When Yehudis afterwards came to my sister’s house to join us for the Purim Seudah, she told us all the whole story. My nephews and nieces were horrified, how did she dare do such a thing, and take up the Rebbetzin’s holy time. But I was beaming with nachas, that she was ready to break protocol because she had such a strong hergesh not to give up her rightful zchus. I am sure that it also brought much nachas to both the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin.
After spending time in Crown Heights, Yehudis went to Eretz Yisroel to continue her studies in Machon Alte in Tzfas. After a year in Tzfas she returned to Detroit to visit her mom. As she stepped off the plane onto the tarmac, she felt like she was starting to lose her balance. Several days later, at a friend’s chasuna, without any warning, she lost her balance and collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital. At first the doctors thought she had an inner ear infection, but as she deteriorated to the point where she was “like a vegetable,” unable to move, the doctors realized it must be something much worse. All types of specialists were called in, yet none could figure out what the problem was. One “good” thing that came out of this, was that while performing all kinds of tests on her, the doctors found that unrelated to this loss of her motor skills, she was in the very early stages of Hodgkin’s disease, and they were able to treat it and cure her. There was no way they ever would have caught it in those early stages had she not been being tested every which way. However, as thankful as we were to HKB”H for this miracle, the real disease was eluding the biggest specialists. Finally, the doctors came to the conclusion that it was a certain very rare viral complication associated with Hodgkin’s, which had no known cure.
Meanwhile, our family went to the Rebbe for Simchas Torah. In those years already, when the Rebbe gave out lekach on Hoshana Rabbah, the gabba’im only allowed visitors from overseas to get on line. However, when the woman in charge of the line heard about Yehudis’ condition, she allowed my wife into the line so that she could ask the Rebbe for a bracha for Yehudis. The way the women’s line went was that the women would come from the street, go in a single line, passing in front of 770, (directly opposite the Rebbe’s sukkah.) The line would continue till the big sukkah, where it would make a u-turn and return to pass by the entrance of the Rebbe’s sukkah, where the Rebbe would be standing and giving out the lekach. As my wife walked past the sukkah the first time, she was trying to formulate her thoughts and her wishfor Yehudis’ recovery. But as my wife came around the u-turn and was in front of the Rebbe, she found herself nearly speechless. The Rebbe gave my wife lekach, and she said “It isn’t for me. It’s for Yehudis Shoshana bas Chaya Rochel.” To which the Rebbe responded “Lupo,” her last name. He then said “L’shana tova u’mesukah,” and added something in Yiddish. My wife’s Yiddish was very basic, and she didn’t understand what the Rebbe had said, so she asked “what?” He again repeated the same thing. She was so embarrassed that she didn’t understand, almost wishing the ground would just swallow her up, but she felt it was imperative to understand what the Rebbe had said. So she asked a second time “What?” The Rebbe, who until that day had always spoken to her in English, asked her “What language should I speak? Angliski? Fransuski? Russki?” This was very interesting on its own, since my wife spoke English, two daughters would later learn in France and speak “Fransuski,” and we, of course, later went on shlichus to Crimea and would learn “Russki,” which the Rebbe referred to here using the Russian language names! The Rebbe then continued: “A good and sweet year,” (which my wife had, of course, understood,) and your wish for your friend will be fulfilled.” Leah immediately ran to the phone booth on the corner and excitedly called Yehudis’ mother in the hospital in Detroit to share with her this story. But before she could say anything, Yehudis’ mother excitedly told her news. The doctors hadn’t wanted to tell her mother that she had only a 5% chance to live. However, just 5 minutes earlier (as Leah finished speaking to the Rebbe about Yehudis,) they came to her and said that there was an amazing turnaround, and they are now giving her a 95% chance to live. They had sent a culture of the virus to California for further examining, but it had totally disappeared! However, what they were not yet telling her, was that they fully expected her to live out her life “as a vegetable” – unable to move or speak – as nobody had ever recovered from her illness. B”H the doctors didn’t inform her mother of their negative prognosis. Meanwhile hearing this terrific turnaround of her chance for survival, Leah shared with Yehudis’ mother what had just transpired by the Rebbe. There was no question in any of our minds, that we were now going to see a complete recovery. Since there was no more that the doctors could do, the hospital sent her home in the care of her mother, and sent her for outpatient therapy, to perhaps help her with her motor skills, teaching her to feed herself again, etc.
The doctor in Ann Arbor saw her several times that year. Meanwhile Yehudis made slow but steady progress. She slowly got back her full motor abilities. For her one year appointment, she actually walked into the doctor’s office, albeit with a cane. The doctor’s mouth literally fell open. This was when the doctor told them that when he had said (a year earlier) that the percentages had turned completely around from a 5% chance to live to a 95% chance to live, he had meant as a “vegetable.” In the entire history of this disease there had never been a case of a survivor. The doctor told Yehudis and her mother that since he was making a study of her case he would wave all his fees. To which the mother, (not yet a Torah observant Jewess,) asked him “And to what do you attribute her recovery, doctor?” He replied that honestly, he didn’t know. So she said that she attributed her daughter’s miraculous recovery to G-d. And the doctor/professor replied “Yes, that’s a very distinct possibility.” Yehudis totally regained her health and today she has B”H a large family – a wonderful husband, children and grandchildren. 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
Still looking for a sponsor. To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-7595
[15:56, 7/20/2018] Rabbi Lipszyc Weekly Story: Rabbi Lipszyc's Story of the Week #60
Still looking for a sponsor. To Sponsor the story of the week, Contact Mendy at 513-456-7595 While in Michigan, in the 1970’s, a friend asked us to invite over for Shabbos a friend of his -- a precocious teenage girl that had a lot of questions about being Jewish. We’ll never forget the first Shabbos she spent with us. I hadn’t been feeling well that evening, so I went to sleep and she stayed up to speak to my wife. They were sitting on the couch, with Leah responding to her questions and telling her about how frum families live for hours. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, Leah said she was going to say Shema and go to sleep. The girl asked her what Shema was, and when she told her about it, and that we say it every night before going to sleep, she asked her to say it with her – word by word, since she didn’t know how to read Hebrew. Leah tried to say the beginning and the first paragraph or the first three paragraphs, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted on saying every single word of the long prayer – about six pages – which resulted in their getting to bed at 4:00am!
The next morning, when she saw that my very young daughters were able to daven and read from the siddur in Hebrew, she decided that she too wanted to learn the Hebrew alphabet and daven in the original Hebrew. Not wanting to “bother” me, she asked my daughters to teach her to read. My young daughters were delighted and taught her exactly as they had learned in cheder. After they finished teaching her the Hebrew alphabet (the next day) they started teaching her the nekudos (the vowels.) Realizing that her name Yehudis somewhat rhymed with the word nekudos, they would call her Yehudis Nekudis. Yehudis loved it, and that name stuck
After spending quite some time with her, trying to answer her general questions, I got her to agree to begin learning Chumash and Rashi with me, as well as Tanya. Although she argued a lot, and didn’t necessarily automatically accept everything I would say, she took to it like a fish to water. As she learned all about our rich heritage, she began to keep the mitzvos she learned about. Yehudis was an extremely sharp girl, and within a couple of years she realized that she must go off to yeshiva for a complete Torah education. One summer she went to the program at Bais Chana in Minnesota. Although geared for college age students, she fit in and held her own. After she graduated High School, she went off to Crown Heights to Machon Chana for a year. She became a totally dedicated chassidishe girl with hergeishim that constantly surprised her mashpi’im and left me and my wife basking in true Yiddishe, chassidishe nachas. For Shabbosim and yomim tovim she would get herself invited to very chassidishe homes, such as the homes of Rabbi & Mrs. Laibel Groner (the Rebbe’s gabbai,) Rabbi & Mrs. Sholom and Faigy Jacobson, and of course most often to my sister and brother-in-law, Rabbi & Mrs. Shmuel Spalter. The famed mentors of the baal tshuva girls, Rabbis Manis Friedman of Bais Chana in Minnesota; Shlomo Majeski of Machon Chana in Crown Heights; and Eli Friedman of Machon Alte in Tzfas, sang her praises to me over the years.
One of the proudest moments I had from her, was with the following story: Every year on Purim, the girls in Machon Chana would prepare a beautiful shalach manos for the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. Three girls would be chosen by goirel to personally bring it to the Rebbetzin’s house and present it to her personally on behalf of all the girls and staff of Machon Chana. One year, Yehudis was one of the three girls zoiche begoirel, (who won the lottery.) She was a big believer in zrizim makdimim le’mitzvos, (when a mitzvah comes your way, do it right away, don’t delay,) so she wanted to go immediately after hearing the megillah in the morning. However, the other two girls, said they had important errands that they had to run first and therefore wanted to do it in the afternoon. Since she was the minority view, she unhappily agreed, but stipulated that they shouldn’t dare go without her, since she too had some errands to run. They promised to wait for her. Unfortunately her heel broke when she was on her way, and hobbling along on the broken shoe, she came back a few minutes late. She was horrified to learn that the two girls had taken one of their friends as the third girl and went to deliver the shalach manos to the Rebbetzin without her. She refused to give up her zchus, given her by the goirel, and quickly put together a shalach monos of her own. She then ran to the Rebbetzin’s house. When she knocked on the door, the bochur who helped in the house answered the door. She tried explaining that she had shalach manos for the Rebbetzin and had been one of the girls chosen by goirel to give shalach manos to the Rebbetzin in person. But the bochur refused to allow her entry. She began to wail brokenheartedly that it was her right, but the bochur wasn’t moved. Suddenly the Rebbetzin was at her side. She shooed the bochur away, put her arms around Yehudis and brought her into the house. The Rebbetzin sat down with her on the couch, the entire time with her holy arm around the crying girl’s shoulders, and listened patiently as Yehudis told her the entire story. The Rebbetzin took the meager shalach manos, and thanked her profusely. The Rebbetzin sat with her for quite a while, first until Yehudis calmed down, and then asked her about her personal story. When Yehudis afterwards came to my sister’s house to join us for the Purim Seudah, she told us all the whole story. My nephews and nieces were horrified, how did she dare do such a thing, and take up the Rebbetzin’s holy time. But I was beaming with nachas, that she was ready to break protocol because she had such a strong hergesh not to give up her rightful zchus. I am sure that it also brought much nachas to both the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin.
After spending time in Crown Heights, Yehudis went to Eretz Yisroel to continue her studies in Machon Alte in Tzfas. After a year in Tzfas she returned to Detroit to visit her mom. As she stepped off the plane onto the tarmac, she felt like she was starting to lose her balance. Several days later, at a friend’s chasuna, without any warning, she lost her balance and collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital. At first the doctors thought she had an inner ear infection, but as she deteriorated to the point where she was “like a vegetable,” unable to move, the doctors realized it must be something much worse. All types of specialists were called in, yet none could figure out what the problem was. One “good” thing that came out of this, was that while performing all kinds of tests on her, the doctors found that unrelated to this loss of her motor skills, she was in the very early stages of Hodgkin’s disease, and they were able to treat it and cure her. There was no way they ever would have caught it in those early stages had she not been being tested every which way. However, as thankful as we were to HKB”H for this miracle, the real disease was eluding the biggest specialists. Finally, the doctors came to the conclusion that it was a certain very rare viral complication associated with Hodgkin’s, which had no known cure.
Meanwhile, our family went to the Rebbe for Simchas Torah. In those years already, when the Rebbe gave out lekach on Hoshana Rabbah, the gabba’im only allowed visitors from overseas to get on line. However, when the woman in charge of the line heard about Yehudis’ condition, she allowed my wife into the line so that she could ask the Rebbe for a bracha for Yehudis. The way the women’s line went was that the women would come from the street, go in a single line, passing in front of 770, (directly opposite the Rebbe’s sukkah.) The line would continue till the big sukkah, where it would make a u-turn and return to pass by the entrance of the Rebbe’s sukkah, where the Rebbe would be standing and giving out the lekach. As my wife walked past the sukkah the first time, she was trying to formulate her thoughts and her wishfor Yehudis’ recovery. But as my wife came around the u-turn and was in front of the Rebbe, she found herself nearly speechless. The Rebbe gave my wife lekach, and she said “It isn’t for me. It’s for Yehudis Shoshana bas Chaya Rochel.” To which the Rebbe responded “Lupo,” her last name. He then said “L’shana tova u’mesukah,” and added something in Yiddish. My wife’s Yiddish was very basic, and she didn’t understand what the Rebbe had said, so she asked “what?” He again repeated the same thing. She was so embarrassed that she didn’t understand, almost wishing the ground would just swallow her up, but she felt it was imperative to understand what the Rebbe had said. So she asked a second time “What?” The Rebbe, who until that day had always spoken to her in English, asked her “What language should I speak? Angliski? Fransuski? Russki?” This was very interesting on its own, since my wife spoke English, two daughters would later learn in France and speak “Fransuski,” and we, of course, later went on shlichus to Crimea and would learn “Russki,” which the Rebbe referred to here using the Russian language names! The Rebbe then continued: “A good and sweet year,” (which my wife had, of course, understood,) and your wish for your friend will be fulfilled.” Leah immediately ran to the phone booth on the corner and excitedly called Yehudis’ mother in the hospital in Detroit to share with her this story. But before she could say anything, Yehudis’ mother excitedly told her news. The doctors hadn’t wanted to tell her mother that she had only a 5% chance to live. However, just 5 minutes earlier (as Leah finished speaking to the Rebbe about Yehudis,) they came to her and said that there was an amazing turnaround, and they are now giving her a 95% chance to live. They had sent a culture of the virus to California for further examining, but it had totally disappeared! However, what they were not yet telling her, was that they fully expected her to live out her life “as a vegetable” – unable to move or speak – as nobody had ever recovered from her illness. B”H the doctors didn’t inform her mother of their negative prognosis. Meanwhile hearing this terrific turnaround of her chance for survival, Leah shared with Yehudis’ mother what had just transpired by the Rebbe. There was no question in any of our minds, that we were now going to see a complete recovery. Since there was no more that the doctors could do, the hospital sent her home in the care of her mother, and sent her for outpatient therapy, to perhaps help her with her motor skills, teaching her to feed herself again, etc.
The doctor in Ann Arbor saw her several times that year. Meanwhile Yehudis made slow but steady progress. She slowly got back her full motor abilities. For her one year appointment, she actually walked into the doctor’s office, albeit with a cane. The doctor’s mouth literally fell open. This was when the doctor told them that when he had said (a year earlier) that the percentages had turned completely around from a 5% chance to live to a 95% chance to live, he had meant as a “vegetable.” In the entire history of this disease there had never been a case of a survivor. The doctor told Yehudis and her mother that since he was making a study of her case he would wave all his fees. To which the mother, (not yet a Torah observant Jewess,) asked him “And to what do you attribute her recovery, doctor?” He replied that honestly, he didn’t know. So she said that she attributed her daughter’s miraculous recovery to G-d. And the doctor/professor replied “Yes, that’s a very distinct possibility.” Yehudis totally regained her health and today she has B”H a large family – a wonderful husband, children and grandchildren. 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
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