Inspiring Good Deeds in Memory of Shluchim
What do you do when bad news just keeps coming? How can you make sense of one tragedy, one loss—and then another and another and another?
“I honestly don’t think there’s a way to make sense of it,” replies Rabbi Hirshy Minkowicz of Chabad of North Fulton, in Alpharetta, Ga. His wife, Rashi, passed away on March 11 at the age of 37, leaving behind eight young children.
“But,” he continues, “I think our approach is that even though we don’t understand all of G-d’s ways, we continue to move forward, and we know G-d has a master plan. … Our job is to try our best to continue spreading the light of Torah and Judaism, and bring G-d’s light into this world.”
That’s precisely what Chabad Shluchos [emissaries] around the world are determined to do with a new mitzvah project geared to honor the memory of both Rashi Minkowicz and Rivki Barber, a Chabad emissary in Australia who passed away on March 21 at the age of 49, leaving behind six children. It was the passing of the two young mothers back to back, along with other tragedies in the Chabad community—including the passing of Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, 59, of Lubavitch-Chabad of Illinois, and Rabbi Yisroel Baruch Butman, 55, Chabad shaliach in Nahariya, Israel—that made the emissaries realize something needed to be done.
“We started brainstorming through our tears,” says Leah Namdar of Chabad Lubavitch Sweden, “realizing that we had to take the power of this pain and transform it into positive action. We couldn’t just sit and cry; it was time to act.”
Together with fellow emissaries—Channa Hecht of Chabad of Brentwood in Los Angeles, Calif.; Goldie Plotkin of Chabad Lubavitch of Markham in Toronto, Canada; Yehudis Bluming of the Rohr Chabad of Durham/Chapel Hill and Duke University in North Carolina; and Matty Bryski of Chabad of the Conejo in Agoura Hills, Calif.—the women organized a global conference call where they and others around the world would participate in group prayers and listen to words of inspiration.
But it didn’t seem like enough.
Then Hecht remembered how inspired she was by Rashi’s devotion to her community’s mikvah—its ritual bath—and how the young shlucha had offered Hecht advice when the Brentwood community was building its own mikvah several years ago.
Co-organizer Namdar agrees, noting that shlucha Shterna Gruzman of Vienna also suggested that they focus on this mitzvah. “The Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] says in HaYom Yom: ‘Mikvah literally saves lives.’ ”
Indeed, Jewish law states that constructing a mikvah takes precedence even over building a house of worship. Both a synagogue and a Torah scroll—Judaism’s most venerated treasure—may be sold to raise funds for the building of a mikvah.
The women arranged another conference call with nearly 1,000 people and challenged each emissary to sign up a woman to visit the mikvah who does not regularly go. Despite the delicate nature of the issue—family purity tends to be a very private matter—the women began talking about the laws of mikvah with their communities. They discussed how it brings blessings to family harmony in the home and a freshness to marriage.
From the United States to Nigeria, from Israel to Australia and Columbia to the United Kingdom, in communities large and small, women began signing up to partake in the program.
By Passover, just a few weeks after their initial call, they had surpassed their original goal of “Mikvah 1,000.” As of last week, some 2,575 women were involved.
Campaign Moving Forward
Spurred on by the death of his mother, Rashi’s oldest child—14-year-old Mendel—is urging the creation of Rashi’s Campus, a center for Chabad in North Fulton that will contain a synagogue, programming center, classrooms and more. He is helping with the fundraising and has reached out to local politicians, including his state’s governor and congressional representatives.
According to Rabbi Minkowicz, he and his wife bought a 4.5-acre plot to develop as their Chabad center. “At the time, we just renovated the existing buildings onsite, but they’re old and rundown,” he says.
Not surprisingly, their first priority was to create a mikvah, which was built in 2008.
“Our goal was always to build a proper Chabad facility,” he explains. “The plans were pretty much already in place because we had tried in the past to have a capital campaign to raise money and build the center, but then the economy went bad. Now, after [Rashi] passed away, a new campaign was initiated by my son after the funeral, and we decided it’s time.”
Dubbed “Rashi’s Campus: The Chabad Capital Campaign,” the effort has so far raised more than $2.6 million ($1 million was already in place). The goal is to raise a total of $4 million. They have also received a challenge grant of $1.5 million if they get the needed funds.
As for the mikvah campaign, Hecht notes that the organizers are continuing to move their goal post; they now aim to reach 3,000 women as “a gift to the Rebbe, to answer the call and prepare the world to greet Moshiach.”
“Women get so inspired when they hear it’s a global initiative,” she continues. “Women who have not yet had the opportunity to learn the beauty of the Torah way of life are coming to the mikvah and getting others to come. It has gone above and beyond … and uniting Jewish women across the world.”
Namdar adds that “it’s incredible to see, literally, the global success of one woman at a time committing to this mitzvah grow into thousands.
“At the same time, it makes you realize we have just begun. These efforts are honoring the lives of dedication lived by the shluchim and Shluchos who suddenly passed away in their prime, and are fueled by an urgency that their passing awoke in us—to do whatever we can to bring Moshiach now.”
To learn more about the “Mikvah 1,000” initiative, visit: www.mikvah.org or contact your local Chabad House.
