Here’s My Story: Growing In Confidence

Rabbi Shabtai Slavaticki

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I grew up in a religious home, very distant from Chabad. But while studying at Jerusalem’s Kol Torah yeshivah in the 1960s, I began attending a secret class on chasidic thought, and as those teachings sank in, I started to get involved.

From time to time, I would visit the yeshivah in Kfar Chabad to take part in farbrengens led by the renowned chasidic mentor Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Kesselman. Those gatherings made a strong impression on me, as did the yeshivah students themselves, who showed such love for their fellow Jews, especially in the way they welcomed us guests from other yeshivot.

Eventually, I began thinking about transferring to the Chabad yeshivah in Kfar Chabad. Aghast, my father sent several rabbis to dissuade me, which made me doubt whether it was the right decision. I decided to ask the Rebbe.

I wrote a detailed letter recounting all of this, and in his response, the Rebbe circled the part where I mentioned my doubts and wrote: “Based on this – stay and do not change.”

It was precisely those words that ultimately prompted me to transfer. I realized – contrary to what others had claimed – that the Rebbe wasn’t bent on bringing people into Chabad at any cost. He actually cared and thought about me. If I had doubts, regardless of their origin or validity, he preferred that I not make the move. So I stayed, until eventually, I felt confident that transferring was right for me. When I wrote to the Rebbe to say that my doubts had disappeared, I received his blessing to go to Kfar Chabad.

A few years later, I went to study in the Rebbe’s presence, in New York. I arrived in 770 one afternoon before Passover of 1973, shortly before the Mincha prayers. A few months earlier, my mother had passed away following a severe illness. Although someone in his year of mourning traditionally leads the prayers, because I suffered from a severe stutter, I sufficed with reciting the Kaddish; reading along with others helped ease my impediment.

Still, as I prepared for that first Mincha with the Rebbe, I felt terrible about being unable to lead the prayers. So, not wanting the Rebbe to notice, I stood in the northwest corner of the synagogue; he generally faced the other direction after the prayers, or so I was told.

As I lifted my eyes up after reciting the final Kaddish, I saw the Rebbe looking at me. I immediately lowered my gaze, waited a few seconds, and looked up again. But the Rebbe was still looking straight at me, with a gaze I will remember all my life. Finally, he gave me a slight nod and turned to go. “Welcome,” he seemed to be saying. “I understand, and you don’t have to feel bad. I’m with you.”

When I had the honor of a private audience with the Rebbe later that year, on the occasion of my twenty-third birthday, I prepared a long letter in advance, listing all of my questions and issues – among them my stutter, which bothered me deeply. When, late at night, I finally entered his room, the Rebbe quickly leafed through the pages of my letter, before responding in detail to each question, in order, without looking at it again.

Regarding my stutter, the Rebbe gave me two suggestions: First, to strengthen my trust in G-d. As I understand it, this doesn’t just mean having faith, but recognizing that if I have some deficiency, it’s because G-d wants me to discover a new, inner strength that will compensate for it.

Secondly, if I ever get stuck on a particular word, rather than trying to force it out, I should choose a different word – express myself in a different way. I took this as a life lesson: When we run into some obstacle, rather than trying the same method again and again, we should look for a new path to reach our goal.

Another question I asked was about my shlichut, my mission in life. If it was going to be Jewish outreach, I felt that I needed to be learning now about how to be a positive influence on others and how to present the fundamentals of Judaism.

“Right now you are a yeshivah student,” replied the Rebbe. “Your mission now is to study Torah diligently, and to engage in heartfelt prayer.” In other words, you must live in the present. Thinking about the future will only distract you from your current mission. When the time comes, you’ll see what your life mission is.

Over time, my father – despite his previous opposition to Chabad – saw that I was continuing to study Torah seriously, and he began to draw closer to the Rebbe himself. While I was in New York, he even came for a private audience.

During the audience, my father asked for a blessing to marry off his two children: myself, and my sister who was about ten years older than me and still unmarried. The Rebbe looked him in the eye and said, “She will marry. He will marry. But you need to worry now that you will marry.” That is, he strongly encouraged my father to remarry, following the passing of my mother.

At the time, the Rebbe didn’t think I needed to get married just yet. “What do you want from him?” he asked my father. “He is busy learning Torah!” But in time, I did get married, and so did my sister. My father, however, didn’t appreciate the Rebbe’s advice.

“I should get married?” he wondered after the meeting. “My children should!”

Years later, when he saw how hard being alone could be, he remarked to me: “Now I understand what the Rebbe told me.”

In that same audience, the Rebbe also urged my father to increase the time he set aside for Torah study. My father objected. He already had a regular study session in the morning and another one straight after work. “I don’t have time for more!”

Now, my father happened to be a very talented food chemist, with several patents to his name, and although he never mentioned this in that audience, the Rebbe responded with an analogy from chemistry.

“Every chemist knows,” the Rebbe said, “that even a tiny addition to a mixture can significantly change the entire composition. The same applies in spirituality. Going beyond your habit and your nature by adding even a little extra Torah study has the power to influence your whole day.”

When the Rebbe gave me the advice about my stutter, I followed it, and although it helped somewhat, it did not change me or resolve the issue. As the Rebbe understood, stuttering is generally not a physical issue, but a psychological or an emotional one; it’s in your head, a result of looking at yourself a certain way.

But the Rebbe continuously encouraged me to go beyond my limits, as a yeshivah student, when I became a Chabad emissary in Antwerp, Belgium – after I got married – and later on as well.

Initially, our work in Antwerp was very challenging, but in time, things opened up. I began to work on the problem with my speech, and thank G-d, today I have no difficulty speaking or giving classes – things I hadn’t dreamed of before. We understood that we had to believe in ourselves and our abilities – just as the Rebbe believed in us.

Rabbi Shabtai Slavaticki has served as a Chabad emissary in Antwerp, Belgium, since 1977. He was interviewed in the My Encounter studio in July 2018.