Here’s My Story: The Walk of a Lifetime

Mr. Robert Kremnizer

Click here for a PDF version of this edition of Here’s My Story, or visit the My Encounter Blog.

Sometime in the late 1980s, I was among a group of Chabad donors who were granted a private audience with the Rebbe. He gave us blessings, spoke words of Torah, and urged us to spread this message outward. He said, “It is important that when all of you go back, you share with everybody what you have heard and what you have learned here.”

I took that to heart. I understood the Rebbe to be telling us that we may think we came to New York for financial reasons, but what we were really there for was to take what we have heard and plant it wherever we go out in the world.

Because his message had such an impact on me, I took pains to apply it. As a result, I set in motion a chain reaction which I could never have anticipated.

Shortly after my return to Sydney, Australia, where I live, I had to accompany a business client to court where he was represented by a notable attorney, an extremely right-wing gentile, whom I shall call BR. The case was delayed for an hour, so BR and I took a walk to pass the time. As we were strolling, BR asked me, “I hear that you’ve just come back from New York — were you there on holiday?”

I was about to answer “yes” when I remembered what the Rebbe had said about sharing his message with “everybody.” So, even though I anticipated a negative reaction, I closed my eyes and said, “No, I went there to see my Rebbe.”

There was silence, and then he asked, “What’s a Rebbe?”

Now I knew that I had a decision to make on how to answer that question. And I resolved to answer it in a way that would make a difference. So, I explained about the power of the Rebbe’s blessings, which prompted more questions from him. Indeed, the hour passed with me talking about the Rebbe. After that, we returned to court where BR won the case.

When I got back to my office, there was already a message from him that he wanted to talk to me some more. In the conversation that followed, he said, “Listen — would this holy man of yours give one of his blessings to a gentile?” I responded that I didn’t know but would inquire.

Now why did BR need the Rebbe’s blessing? As I learned, after the death of a child, his wife became pregnant again. When she did, she became so clinically depressed that she could not get out of bed. She reacted in this severe way because she was already 40 and terrified of giving birth to a deformed child; also, she was an actress and feared losing her looks and career. BR wanted a blessing for his wife’s recovery.

Iasked Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, the Rebbe’s emissary in Sydney, what I should do. Was it proper for me to give this man the Rebbe’s contact information? Rabbi Feldman responded, “Don’t try to be the Rebbe’s censor. Just give this man the address and let him write. The Rebbe will look after himself.” So that’s what I did, but I warned BR that the Rebbe doesn’t always respond because he gets so much mail and so many requests.

When I said that, there was silence on the other end of the phone, and then he said, “Dear boy, I’ll write on my Queen’s Counsel letterhead, and of course I’ll get a reply.”

I didn’t say anything to that, but I thought, “Good luck!”

About ten days later, I got another phone call from BR. He said, “Dear boy, just to keep you in the loop, I thought I would tell you — as a matter of courtesy — that of course your Rebbe replied to me, and I want to thank you for the introduction.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic,” I said. “I don’t want to be intrusive, but would you mind telling me the content of the Rebbe’s answer?” He said, “No, no, no, dear boy, I’m very happy to tell you. The Rebbe said that my wife and baby would be alright and there was nothing to worry about. We also got a blessing that the baby would be born at the proper time.”

Then I made a big mistake — I asked, “How is your wife?” There was silence at the other end of the phone, and then he said, “My wife jumped right out of bed and is fine. But how can you ask such a question? Wasn’t that what was going to happen when the Rebbe gave a blessing?”

That was the first part of the chain reaction that I am describing. The second part came when I told this story to my son-in-law, Dovid Bleier, who responded with, “I bet BR is a Jew.” I said, “Impossible. He is an Anglo-Saxon Christian!” But Dovid insisted that he would be proven right.

I wasn’t about to argue with my young son-in-law, who is obviously nowhere near as wise and clever as I am. But a couple of months later I had another case with BR and, afterwards, we stopped to have a couple of drinks. After a second glass of Scotch, he was feeling quite relaxed and he told me, “You know, dear boy, I actually have some Jewish blood.”

I was very surprised, and so I quizzed him about his lineage. As it turned out his maternal grandmother was Jewish, which of course meant that his mother was Jewish, and which made him a Jew, according to Torah law. I tried to explain this to him, but he wasn’t buying it. Nevertheless, he ended up reading some Torah books I gave him, and he came to embrace his Jewish identity to some extent, even if minimally.
And that brings me to the third part in this chain reaction.

I have a Jewish friend in Sydney whose wife was undergoing IVF treatment because she couldn’t get pregnant. She had to be hospitalized for this procedure, and she came to share a room with a gentile woman, who just happened to be Mrs. BR. When Mrs. BR learned what my friend’s wife was being treated for, she asked her, “Are you Jewish?” My friend’s wife became defensive and answered quite aggressively, “Yes, I’m Jewish! What of it?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” Mrs. BR said. “It’s just that there’s a holy man in New York called the Rebbe. And if you are Jewish, I don’t understand why you’re having this treatment without first asking him for a blessing.”

That entire chain reaction came from the Rebbe’s advice to spread the Torah message to “everybody.”

Mr. Robert Kremnizer is an attorney practicing law in Sydney, Australia. He is also the author of ten books on Chasidut, including a collection of first-hand experiences with the Rebbe entitled Australian Encounters. He was interviewed in August 2017.