A Beard and a Newspaper Clipping

by Rabbi Asher Zeilingold, Clear Vision

In the late 1970s Phil Moncharsh, who befriended Rabbi Gershon Grossbaum and other Lubavitchers, began to attend Adath Israel on Shabbos. 

He had grown up in a family with little connection to Judaism. When he met Rabbi Grossbaum, a spark was ignited and he began to slowly grow in his observance. He sent his children to the local Chabad camp and later to the local Jewish day school. In 1983, seeing that all the Lubavitchers grew their beards, he began to grow his too. 

He was a representative for a shoe company in the Twin Cities, and as he began to grow in his observance, some of the managers took issue with it. At first, they protested him wearing a yarmulke, so Mr. Moncharsh wore a toupee. Finally, he just wore his yarmulke. But when they wanted to promote him to company representative of the Upper Midwest, they said that his beard and head covering made him look unkempt and he would need to give it up. 

He approached me with his dilemma, explaining that he wanted to advance, but he did not want to shave. I did not know what to tell him, but advised that he write to the Rebbe. It was 1983, and I was going to New York for the Lag BaOmer parade, and said that I would deliver a letter to the Rebbe when I was there.

Shortly before returning to St. Paul, I asked the Rebbe’s secretary if there was a response. He asked and the Rebbe said he would immediately write one before I left. The Rebbe wrote that Mr. Moncharsh should tell them that having a beard was compatible with looking distinguished in today’s society. 

“Even the mayor of St. Paul,” the Rebbe wrote, “who is not Jewish, has one,” and if the mayor of a capital city can have a beard, so can he. “The way to see what is good for the business,” he continued, is “to test his success [with his new dress code] and they will see that on the contrary it did not recede, but rather grew.”

The Rebbe wrote that if that does not work, he can wear a hat, and in regards to his beard he should discuss with a rabbi what to do and “what he should tell his children,” about not growing a beard. 

I could not fathom how the Rebbe knew that our mayor, George Latimer, had a beard. Then I realized that I had submitted a newspaper clipping about our dinner, and Mr. Latimer was in the photograph. It turned out that the Rebbe had not just glanced at the clipping, but actually read the caption under the photo and noticed that the mayor had a beard.

The Rebbe’s advice worked. Mr. Moncharsh repeated it to his managers in Ohio, and he was permitted to grow his beard and cover his head.

An excerpt from the forthcoming book Clear Vision: Living by the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Guidance, available at ClearVisionBook.com