Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson continues to inspire
LegacyPersonal reflections on the Rebbe

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson continues to inspire

On his 30th yahrzeit local Chabad community reflects on Rebbe's impact

Rabbi Mendy Schapiro receives a dollar from the Rebbe under the watchful eye of his father. (Photo provided by Mendy Schapiro)
Rabbi Mendy Schapiro receives a dollar from the Rebbe under the watchful eye of his father. (Photo provided by Mendy Schapiro)

July 9 — the third of Tammuz — marked the 30th yahrzeit of the Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

After more than four decades as the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Schneerson, or “the Rebbe,” as he is better known, left behind a legacy of writings, including letters, videos, hundreds of volumes of scholarship, Torah commentaries and 5,000 shluchim, or emissaries, leading more than 3,000 institutions serving Jewish communities in 100-plus countries on six continents.

And while there is no denying the international influence of the Rebbe — during his lifetime Schneerson met with dignitaries including New York Mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Israel Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin and many more — it was through personal connections with adults and children alike that he empowered generations of Chabad leaders who have carried his vision into the 21st century.

Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville Rabbi Mendy Schapiro grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was 10 when Schneerson died but met him several times. While he doesn’t have clear memories of the more intellectual activities —davening and farbrengens (gatherings) — that the Rebbe led, his memories are visceral.

“It was an honor to just look at the Rebbe and see the love and the passion for Yiddishkeit in his eyes,” Schapiro said. “It was the love for everybody that interacted with him.”

On Shabbat afternoons, after davening, Schaprio’s family would attend farbrengens to hear the rabbi talk on a variety of subjects.

“For me, it was the surrounding experience,” he said, “the vision, the sights, the atmosphere, the love, the unity, the power, the Jewish pride. You could literally feel the energy in the room.”

After Shneerson presented a deep talk on concepts in Judaism, he would shift to joyous, exciting songs, Schapiro recalled.

“You would get swallowed up in that feeling and energy,” he said. “I feel so lucky to have been a part of something like that.”

Like so many others who came before and after him, Schapiro received dollar bills from the Rebbe. Schneerson believed that when two Jews met it should benefit a third, and he spent hours on Sundays and special occasions handing out dollars earmarked for charity. Most who received the dollar bills would keep them as mementos and substitute other bills for charity.

Schapiro said that his family didn’t stand in line every Sunday, realizing how many people wanted to meet the Rebbe. Instead, they would visit on birthdays or special occasions.

“As soon as we got the dollar from the Rebbe’s hand, we would go out the back exit and my dad would take the dollar — he had a pen and would write down the date we received the dollar bill and he would swap it for another dollar,” he said.

Schapiro said after he became an adult and was married, his father gave him the original bills.

“Each one is a blessing,” he said. “Each one tells a story.”

Dollars weren’t the only currency handed out by Schneerson, though. He often distributed coins to children. Schapiro turned one of those coins into a necklace he and his wife gave their daughter when she became a bat mitzvah.

“That’s her prized possession,” he said.

Like Schapiro, Chabad of Squirrel Hill Rabbi Yisroel Altein grew up in Crown Heights on the same block as Chabad’s headquarters.

“I spent every Saturday davening. I spent years there,” he recalled. “Even as a little kid, I was probably, like, 8 years old, and would sit on my father’s lap when the Rebbe would speak for the farbrengen on Shabbos afternoon for hours.”

Altein’s father was one of the rabbis tasked with memorizing the Rebbe’s talks and recording them. He said the time they spent together listening to Schneerson was the greatest gift his father gave him.

“Somehow, he was able to sit there and concentrate with a little kid on his lap,” Altein said.

Altein credits those times with inspiring him to become a rabbi and work for the Jewish community.

He noted one moment in particular that taught him the importance of both learning and keeping the mitzvahs.

When he was 12, Altein took part in Chidon Sefer Hamitzvot, an international Torah competition, winning the New York leg of the contest and earning a trip to Israel. Before he left, the future rabbi was given a private audience with the Rebbe.

“The Rebbe gave me a broad smile, a second dollar to give to charity in Israel and told me, ‘It’s not enough to study the mitzvos — one has to fulfill them, too.’ He said it with a big smile, so as a 12-year-old, there was a reminder that it’s not enough to just study, you have to put it into action, too,” Altein said.

Chabad of the South Hills co-Director Batya Rosenblum is another Crown Heights transplant who davened each Shabbos with the Rebbe at 770 Eastern Parkway. She especially was drawn to his blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

“It’s very hard to describe the tremendous awe that filled the entire 770 shul,” she said. “We’re talking about people from all over the world — planeloads from Israel, France and England, many different places, who all came to participate in the High Holiday season.”

It was, she said, like a recharging of a person’s spiritual battery for the year.

Before Schneerson blew the shofar, Rosenblum recalled, he placed bags filled with thousands of letters asking for blessings on the bimah.
“When he did blow the shofar, it wasn’t a loud blast,” she said. “It was almost weak, but it was so powerful. You had to strain your ears to hear it. There were thousands of people, all so silent. There was a feeling of, literally, a channel with the questions and troubles and issues of people around the world directed to heaven through the blowing of the shofar.”

In addition to dollars, she received a letter from the Rebbe for her bat mitzvah. It hangs framed in her home next to a similar letter received by her husband, Rabbi Mendy Rosenblum.

“It very much showed the Rebbe’s interest in everyone,” she said. “He was in tune with all the good deeds and important things of a little girl or little boy or teenage girl and what they were up to.”

Despite living in Pittsburgh, Rochel Tombosky met Schneerson several times.

Rochel Tombosky shares a moment with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. (Photo provided by Rochel Tombosky)

“Even at 14 or 15, the Rebbe looked me straight in the eyes,” she recalled, “giving me his undivided attention and a heartfelt blessing for success. If someone of such profound significance could see my worth and invest his time in me, I believed in myself as a result.”

Tombosky was able to manifest that belief, creating GIFT, a nonprofit whose mission is to foster intergenerational community volunteerism and connection, bridging the gap between seniors, university students and the wider community.

The Rebbe’s mission, she said, wasn’t to create followers; it was to create leaders.

“It was how many people can I bring to their fullest potential and then they can touch hundreds and thousands,” she said.

One of those leaders inspired by Schneerson is Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, head shaliach of Western Pennsylvania and the rabbi of the Lubavitch Center of Pittsburgh. He said his relationship with the Rebbe began in 1965 and was just as often personal as it was spiritual.

“When I got married in 1975, I went to the Rebbe’s office to receive a blessing,” he said. “Then, on a continual basis, we had the opportunity to write to the Rebbe on any personal issue or note that I wanted to write about or get advice from the Rebbe on.”

Schneerson, he said, would personally respond, an effort Rosenfeld considered extraordinary considering the national and international figures the Jewish leader was corresponding with regularly.

The Rebbe’s advice eventually influenced Rosenfeld’s decision to become a rabbi and where to serve the Jewish community. He remembered that once Schneerson asked for volunteers to move to Israel with their families. Rosenfeld applied but was told by the Rebbe to move to Pittsburgh instead.

“He felt that our place in the world to make a lasting effect on in the best way possible was Pittsburgh,” he said. “When the Rebbe said something, we thought, ‘Of course, this is the way it is.’ We had no second thoughts. When he said I should go to Pittsburgh I felt, ‘Here we go. Now I know where I should be and now, I know I have to do the best I can to have the right effect on the community in whatever way possible.’”

Schneerson, Rosenfeld said, inspired and directed people in the way they should live their lives. Three generations have been motivated by the Rebbe’s vision, Rosenfeld said, pointing to his children and grandchildren who have all learned from the Rebbe’s teachings.

In Pittsburgh, one of those rabbis inspired by the Rebbe without ever meeting him is Yitzchak Goldwasser, rabbi at Chabad of Greenfield.

Despite Schneerson’s death three decades ago, Goldwasser said, Chabad is bigger today than ever, with emissaries worldwide.

The Rebbe’s message, he said, continues in three important ways: Through relationships with people who knew and were taught by the Rebbe; by the writings and teachings left behind by Schneerson; and by the new generation of Chabad leaders.

While the Rebbe had no children, Goldwasser said, he “now is through each and every one of us. We no longer have the luxury to be spoon-fed or be held by the hand and guided in every decision. We have to go out and be and promote the Rebbe’s mission.”

That sentiment was echoed by Rosenblum.

“The Rebbe empowered us,” she said, “to go out and be an ambassador for good. We continue the work. He empowered every person to be the best you can be and to make a difference where you can, to affect someone without any title or official group. You don’t have to be a spiritual leader. If you know an aleph and someone doesn’t, you teach them that.” PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

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