Here’s My Story: Chabad of the Front Lines

Rabbi Zev Sirota

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

I was raised in a Torah-observant family in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where I attended religious schools through junior high school. But when I expressed the desire to continue my studies in a yeshivah, my parents objected. My father, an immigrant from Russia, wanted me to have a proper college education that would lead to a proper career so, as a compromise, I enrolled in Yeshiva University, which offered both secular and religious studies and which had a campus near our home in Washington Heights.

While at Yeshiva University, I first encountered Chabad. This was in 1954, when a bearded young man approached me and explained that he was from Lubavitch. Berel Shemtov was his name, and he had a few books with him – they were copies of the Tanya, the seminal work of Chabad philosophy authored by the Alter Rebbe in the 18th century – and he invited me and several of my colleagues to join a weekly group to study it. He only spoke Yiddish, so we had a hard time communicating with him, but we joined the class, and for a few weeks we studied in the evenings in one of the empty classrooms.

But when the university administration found out, they objected and the class was stopped. Berel reported this to the Rebbe who advised him to speak directly to the YU dean, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik. Berel did just that; Rabbi Soloveitchik gave us his total approval and the class resumed.

After two years of Tanya studies, I was on fire spiritually – I felt as if I had acquired a new soul – and I wanted to quit YU in order to enroll in a Chabad yeshivah. Of course, my parents were not happy about this, and my father wrote to the Rebbe complaining: “My son wants to stop his secular learning. What is going to become of him?”

The Rebbe responded, “B’shum panim v’ofen nit – Under no circumstances” should I quit college. His opinion was that I should complete my studies, earn my diploma and use that diploma to spread Torah.

So I stayed at YU, and only after my graduation in 1958 did the Rebbe agree for me to enroll in the Chabad yeshivah. I studied there until I got married in 1961, when I became one of the founding members of the Chabad kolel in Crown Heights, where married men study Torah full time.

Fast forward to 1970, when Russian Jews began coming out of the Soviet Union and immigrating to Israel. By then I had my rabbinic ordination, and I was among the emissaries whom the Rebbe sent to Nachlat Har Chabad – the Chabad enclave in Kiryat Malachi – to do outreach work with the new arrivals.

I was appointed principal of the school in the village – which included a kindergarten, a boys’ and a girls’ school – and, in that role, I was able to impact many young lives. This was only possible because I had followed the Rebbe’s advice and received a college degree. The school was a government school – known as mamlachti dati – and I could never have qualified for this position without advanced credentials.

After two years as an educator, I realized that to be a full-fledged member of Israeli society, I had to serve at least a minimal amount of time in the IDF. I completed basic training, and although at my age I was required to do only six months of duty, I was selected for an officers’ course, which meant I had the option of staying in longer. Of course, I asked the Rebbe’s advice, and he said to go for it.

When he said that, I was reminded of his earlier advice – to complete my diploma and use it to spread Torah. Now I would do so with my promotion to officer. Because I was a rabbi, I was appointed to be the chaplain of a very large unit based on the front lines in the Sinai Desert (as this was in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War). In this role, I was able to spread Torah to thousands, just as the Rebbe had envisioned.

Among my many activities as chaplain, I conducted prayer services, I led kiddush on Shabbat and holidays, and I both gave a class on the Torah reading of the week and published a flyer explaining the Torah reading and its present-day implications for an IDF soldier defending the Land of Israel. This flyer was very popular and was printed in the thousands. Not only did the soldiers study it, but some even used it to teach others. It was spiritual advice that they all clearly needed.

When I finished my tour of duty, I had to make the decision whether to stay on or return to teaching, but the Rebbe advised, “Where you are successful, that’s where you should stay.” So I stayed in the army for fourteen years total.

During that time, I also served in Lebanon, after Israel gave back the Sinai to Egypt and war broke out in the north.

While in Lebanon – this was between 1982 and 1985 – I was put in charge of identifying the remains of soldiers who were killed in battle – and many died in that war; more than 650. It was also my task to give spiritual support to the soldiers, and because of this, I was constantly in correspondence with the Rebbe. I also received many blessings from him to be safe from danger.

I felt that the Rebbe was guiding my every step throughout my time in the army, as he had done from the time in my youth when he first advised me to stay in college and use my education to spread Torah, which I have done to the best of my ability ever since then.

Rabbi Zev Sirota is retired from active service in the IDF and living in Brooklyn, where he continues to spread Torah. He was interviewed in April 2024.