Here’s My Story: Winning Over Down Under

Rabbi Pinchus Feldman

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After my wife and I got engaged in 1966, the Rebbe wished my father “Mazel Tov,” and then added: “They will be in Australia.”

My wife, Pnina, is from Australia – her father, Rabbi Chaim Gutnick, was a popular rabbi in Melbourne – but it was only after hearing those words that we knew our mission in life would be there.

Before the wedding, the Rebbe told me to take the requisite tests on Jewish Law in order to receive rabbinic ordination. I had actually already been ordained the previous year when I was a yeshivah student in Israel. Still, now the Rebbe wanted me to seek as many additional certificates of ordination as I could, which I did: From the yeshivah in 770, where I was studying at the time, from Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung of Montreal, Rabbi Berel Rivkin of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the foremost Halachic authority at the time.

The Rebbe also specified that our wedding should be in Melbourne, as a large, community-wide event tied to the opening of the local Yeshivah Gedolah.

In addition, at the wedding and each of the Sheva Brachot celebrations over the following week, I was to deliver a chasidic discourse, along with at least three in-depth Talmudic lectures overall. The Rebbe also wanted there to be one Sheva Brachot in Sydney. Ostensibly, this was because my wife’s grandfather, Rabbi Asher Abramson, was the head of the Sydney rabbinic court, but the Rebbe specifically requested that the event be held in a different synagogue – that of the “Yeshiva” community.

Now, at around that time, a few members of this community had written to the Rebbe with a request. Mostly Hungarian and Polish survivors, they had founded a small yeshivah – giving the community its name – and now they wanted a day school. Although they weren’t Lubavitchers themselves, they had seen the school founded by Melbourne’s Lubavitch community flourish under the direction of a young, charismatic American named Rabbi Yitzchok Groner. So, they asked the Rebbe to send someone who would likewise be able to connect with the younger generation in Sydney.

At first, the Rebbe didn’t respond to this letter, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t take notice of it. In fact, the Rebbe had a vision for Sydney that would start to unfold with this community.

Shortly after my audience with the Rebbe, I headed to Australia, where we followed all of the Rebbe’s instructions. There were 1,400 people at the wedding reception in Melbourne, with even more at the chuppah, and in the course of that week, I probably spoke thirteen times. For Shabbat, we went to Sydney.

When I had asked the Rebbe which chasidic discourses to say, he had specified: “You should teach something that a layman will understand. But if it’s a scholarly crowd, it should be something that will overwhelm them.” In other words, he wanted a discourse that would go a little over their heads and impress them.

Yeshiva had quite a few Torah scholars; some were even proficient in the entire Talmud. At the Sheva Brachot after Shabbat, I first delivered a Talmudic talk, followed by a discourse that articulated some deep chasidic concepts in the mystical language of Kabbalah. In addition – and as the Rebbe had specifically requested – we sang a traditional chasidic melody beforehand, as well as the “Four Stanzas” melody composed by the Alter Rebbe, the founder of Chabad, which is reserved for special occasions. The Rebbe was trying to accomplish some spiritual breakthrough, so it seemed, and indeed the whole scene was quite unlike anything the community had seen before.

Not long after, Yeshiva’s lay leadership reached out to me: Their rabbi was going away for a few months – could I fill in for him?

I asked the Rebbe – but got a clear no.

I was only twenty-two, and newly married. For the time being, the Rebbe had simply intended to make an impression – for the community to see whether this was the kind of rabbi that they wanted – while I continued my studies in Kfar Chabad, Israel.

After spending the year in Kfar Chabad, I received a call from the Rebbe’s secretary. The Rebbe wanted me to go to Australia immediately.

My sister-in-law was about to get married there but, with a newborn at home, we had not been planning to make the trip. Yet, while that was to be the official explanation, the Rebbe also had another motive for wanting me to go. The rabbi of Yeshiva had moved to Israel, leaving an opening. At the same time, the Rebbe asked my father-in-law – who was a trustee of Yeshiva – to encourage the community to take me for a trial period.

My father-in-law couldn’t believe that such a prestigious community would take a twenty-three-year-old Lubavitcher as their rabbi, but he did as the Rebbe asked.

Sure enough, I ended up coming to Sydney for a two-week trial. I delivered sermons, gave Torah classes to university students and older people, and managed to make a good impression. The various certificates of ordination I had collected also proved to be very important for showing a non-Lubavitch community that I was qualified for the job. Of course, this was the reason that the Rebbe had told me to collect them in the first place.

But after the trial, the community leaders still didn’t know what to do. They wanted someone who could communicate their values to the next generation but were struggling to come to terms with having such a young rabbi. Instead, they proposed dividing the job: I would head the new school, and they would find another rabbi.

But the Rebbe, apparently, had bigger plans. So, he advised us to inform them that they could have me as a rabbi, but if not, we should wish them well, and remain good friends. To my father-in-law’s astonishment, they agreed to take me.

Throughout all this time, the Rebbe instructed us not to say any of this in his name. In general, since it wasn’t a Chabad community, whenever I spoke or taught, I made sure to cite Torah sages from other communities – like the Chasam Sofer, Reb Chaim Brisker, the Bnei Yissaschar – without putting too much emphasis on the Rebbe’s teachings.

At one point, the Rebbe told me that when his father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe, was living in Poland, he published a number of chasidic discourses. But in some cases, he would have the title pages of these pamphlets removed before they were sent out, so they would also reach people who didn’t want to be associated with Chabad.

“For the moment,” the Rebbe told me, “you have to work without the ‘title page.’” That is, I had to be active without invoking the name of Chabad.

But slowly, over time, as members of the community learned more, and as new members came closer to Judaism, the whole community’s attitude toward Chabad was transformed, and most came to personally identify with the movement. We saw the wisdom of the Rebbe’s gentle approach in promoting the teachings, the message, and the work – and not the name – of Chabad.

To have an experience with the Rebbe is not only to come away impressed by his greatness; often, it is also to come away with a sense of one’s own potential for achievement. Somehow, the Rebbe was able to take this young man with little life experience and envision how he could help turn a community around and – through Chabad’s prominent spiritual leadership in Sydney – influence thousands of people.

Rabbi Pinchus Feldman was sent as the first Chabad emissary to Sydney, Australia, in 1967 and has served as the rabbi of the local Yeshiva Centre since then. He was interviewed in March of 2015. Today some 60 families serve as emissaries in Sydney and the surrounding region.