Here’s My Story: My Childhood Heroes

Rabbi Moishe New

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

I was all of ten years old in 1967, when the Rebbe sent the first group of six yeshivah students from 770 – “the bochurim” as we called them – to Australia.

There were venerable chasidim in Melbourne, my grandfather Reb Isser Kluwgant among them, but they inhabited a different world than us kids, and we didn’t personally relate to them or aspire to adopt their way of life. We loved and respected them, but they were distant.

And then along came these American boys, like a breath of fresh air. They were young outstanding Torah scholars who taught Torah at the yeshivah from morning to night and spoke in the synagogues on Shabbat. But beyond that, they brought Judaism to life for us, making it something we wanted to be a part of. They emanated joy, along with a deep fulfillment, and there was an innocence about them; they were wholesome and whole.

They also had a certain aura about them, a sense of something beyond our world. Later I understood it was the aura of 770, the fact that they were chasidim of the Rebbe. And so we were fascinated by them. We scrutinized their mannerisms, the way they spoke, their gestures – we absorbed it all. The Rebbe knew this would happen, which is exactly why he sent them.

Had these bachurim not come to Australia, it is quite possible I would have remained observant, but that I am a chasid and a shliach is a direct result of their influence and inspiration.

Living in Australia meant that when I eventually did travel to the Rebbe in 1975, for the month of Tishrei, I was able to have a private audience with him. I was nineteen years old at that time, and although yeshivah students were no longer able to meet with the Rebbe as they used to, a visiting student coming from overseas still could.

Going to see the Rebbe is a moment of deep truth and teshuvah. There’s no hiding or posturing, and you can express your deepest frailties and struggles. But, rather than being judged, you were guided. Maybe you felt a little embarrassed, but you were safe.

A few days before, I prepared a letter with some questions I had. Writing as a young, idealistic, yeshivah boy – I wish that I was as concerned today by the things that concerned me then – I described certain struggles that I had, seeking the Rebbe’s guidance and blessing. After considerable thought, I also decided to illustrate one of my challenges in the letter, as succinctly as I could, and then submitted it to the secretary’s office. Normally, when you entered the Rebbe’s room, your letter would be there in an ordered pile, and he would glance at it before answering your questions.

The night before, I had written an additional note listing the names of my family members and a particular request for the Rebbe’s blessing for each of them. After some deliberation, I discarded the note with the requests. I figured the Rebbe knows better than me what blessings they require so I simply listed their names instead.

On the day of the audience, as is customary, I fasted and immersed in the mikveh before the morning prayers, and again that evening. That night, when the appointed time arrived, I entered the Rebbe’s room.

The Rebbe asked me to please hand him a letter from the yeshivah faculty. Every student was supposed to bring a sealed envelope with a letter from his yeshivah testifying to his academic and spiritual progress as they saw it. I was caught off-guard, as I hadn’t planned on speaking to the Rebbe, but I started to mumble an answer – one of my teachers had planned on giving me the letter in New York, and I had forgotten to ask for it – and the Rebbe let it go.

The Rebbe then read the note I had handed him, and looked over at the pile of letters on his desk. My letter was supposed to be at the top of the pile. He took the wad and thumbed through it like a deck of cards, but it wasn’t there. Meanwhile, one of the secretaries began opening the door – the audience was already inordinately long for a boy of my age.

“At any rate,” the Rebbe started, looking up at me. He then referenced my letter from memory, including the specific illustration I had spelled out, and responded to my questions with instructions and blessing for success.

The audience seemed to be over so I began to reverentially back out of the room. But the Rebbe looked up at me again, and added with a warmth that was palpable, “May Hashem fulfill all your heart’s desires for the good.” I immediately sensed that the Rebbe was referring to the requests for blessings for each of my family members that I had originally intended to submit, but did not.

My second private audience was in 1980, once I was engaged. It was a beautiful experience, in which the Rebbe blessed me and my wife-to-be to have a home that radiates the light of Torah. Some time after our wedding, I mentioned to my wife that I had found something a little odd.

The Rebbe began the audience by telling us, “Since you both speak Yiddish, I will talk to you in Yiddish.” I wondered why the Rebbe had said that; Yiddish was my first language, and the school my wife had attended in Montreal taught in Yiddish. I compared notes with some friends, and the Rebbe hadn’t opened with this introduction for them.

It was then that my wife revealed something to me.

“Before our audience,” she said, “I had been afraid the Rebbe would ask me a question.” Her Yiddish wasn’t as good as her English, and so she was worried that she wouldn’t answer perfectly and would be embarrassed. She became preoccupied with this fear, and it threatened to overshadow the joy and excitement that would normally accompany one about to receive the Rebbe’s blessing for one’s marriage and future life.

But then, she said, we came in and the Rebbe said those words: Since you both speak Yiddish, I’ll speak in Yiddish. Just like that, the fear drained away from her, and she was able to melt into the moment.

Some people might chalk up these stories to the Rebbe being a seer, a mind reader, but it is much deeper than that. For the Rebbe, the Jewish people are all one great spiritual body. The heart or mind of that body is able to feel and to remember what is important to a young boy visiting him in the middle of the night. And he could feel the tension of that girl, and then say the right words to relax her in the most natural way. That’s a Rebbe. If it’s important to you, if you struggle with it, then the Rebbe feels it too.

Rabbi Moishe New is the rabbi of the Montreal Torah Center Bais Menachem Chabad Lubavitch. He and his wife Nechama have been serving as Chabad emissaries since 1981.He was interviewed in August 2023.