Here’s My Story: Filling In The Blank

Mrs. Bassie Garelik

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My husband and I were sent as emissaries of the Rebbe, to Milan, Italy, in 1958. Beforehand, though, during a private audience with my husband, Rabbi Gershon Mendel Garelik, the Rebbe mentioned another Jewish community in the region that we should try to connect with. As he described it, there was “a shtetl near Milan of chasidim who are not learning Chasidut.”

The Rebbe was referring to the town of Lugano, just over the Swiss border, and in fact, not long after we arrived in Milan, I received an invitation to speak to the women of that community, who were having a gathering of some kind. As a result, I developed a relationship with this group of women, and whenever they would get together, they would ask me to come speak. I would share one of the Rebbe’s talks whenever I spoke, and so I felt quite proud that I was able to teach Chasidut to the people of this town that the Rebbe had mentioned to my husband.

In early 1965, the ladies of Lugano invited me to come for a Sunday. They asked me to give one lesson to girls during the afternoon and another lesson at night to the women. So, I decided to prepare two different classes; that way, if any of the girls from the afternoon class decided to also attend the night class, they would learn something new.

I gave the first class, which went wonderfully, and once again, I felt very proud of myself. Some of the girls even came back for the evening glass, so I was glad that I had prepared the second talk from the Rebbe. I spoke for about forty minutes, I think I delivered the talk well, and then I was finished.

The room was silent for a moment, before one of the ladies spoke up: “Keep going,” she said encouragingly. “Talk some more.”

As she said that, my mind went blank. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. It was truly strange: This was a period of time when a group of girls would come over to my home every single week to learn a talk of the Rebbe – so something should have been in my head. But I couldn’t recall anything. A minute or so passed, before they started to sing some songs instead, and then the event was over.

The train ride back to Milan was an hour-and-a-half long, and I cried the whole way. I was devastated. The fact that I taught two Torah classes in one day gave me no satisfaction. The fact that I was reaching out to another Jewish community gave me no satisfaction. All I could dwell on was that this group of women had asked me for more but I didn’t have any more to give. Here we are, begging for people to study some Torah, I thought to myself. But when they ask me to speak, I don’t have anything to say.

At around this time, I had been struggling to convince the local Milanese community to support the Jewish day school we had just started. People couldn’t even understand what we were doing. “A Rebbetzin doesn’t make a school; a Rebbetzin makes kugel,” was the sentiment. Frustrated by the lack of interest, I had written to the Rebbe: “I feel like my soul was sent down to this earth just to knock on doors and hear people tell me ‘no.’ If that is my purpose, then so be it, but it all seems like such a waste.”

With the story in Lugano, I felt so defeated that I began worrying whether I was the right person for the job. It wasn’t that I ever wanted to go back to New York or abandon our mission, G-d forbid, but it seemed that there was something wrong with what I was doing. If I wasn’t doing a good enough job, and I wasn’t being successful, maybe I wasn’t worthy of being the Rebbe’s emissary.

After feeling depressed for a couple of days, I sat down to write another letter to the Rebbe, describing exactly what had happened and how I was feeling. “Some of my classmates at Beis Yaakov were such smart girls,” I lamented. “Had the Rebbe sent one of them, who knows what she could have accomplished in my place.”

In reply, I got a beautiful full-page letter from the Rebbe, in English.

“In the literature of Chasidut,” the Rebbe wrote, the communal work with which we were involved is “classified and explained under two categories: ‘seeding’ and ‘planting.’ The difference is this: In the case of seeding, as for example, sowing wheat, the fruits take less time to appear than in the case of planting a tree.”

You can sow wheat, and it will grow quickly, but how precious is it? Meanwhile, if you plant a tree, it takes years to grow, but once it does, it will produce a multitude of valuable fruits year after year.

The same applies, wrote the Rebbe, to “the efforts and activities of a human being” and so, if “it sometimes takes longer for the efforts to come to fruition, this is no reason for discouragement; on the contrary, the reason may well be that it is a case of ‘planting,’ where the ultimate results will be infinitely greater.”

“In the light of the above,” he continued, “it is surprising to me that you should have any doubt about ability, or the success of your efforts, etc.”

The Rebbe’s explanation was wonderful, but then he added the following precious words: “It would appear as if you have doubts as to whether the one who gave you the assignment had made a wise choice. Surely you do not entertain such a thought, though in any case I would not consider it in any personal way, as far as I am concerned.

“However, if you are certain that the one who gave you the assignment has not made a mistake, then you should continue your work with certainty and with confidence, and with G-d’s help you will succeed.”

Reading this part of the letter, where the Rebbe wrote that he wouldn’t take it personally if I doubted his decision to make us his emissaries, I realized it wasn’t a statement I would expect from a Rebbe. The language was closer, more intimate, than that of a Rebbe to a chasid. They were, I realized, the words of a father to a child.

At the same time, Rebbe’s assurance that “surely you do not entertain” those doubts gave me much more self-confidence. He made it clear that if I was confident in him, that meant I needed to have confidence in myself.

These are struggles that every Chabad emissary has, but the Rebbe always has a way to offer comfort and support. Even when it seemed to me that I was accomplishing nothing, the Rebbe saw that I was doing important work. And he helped me understand that it might be some time before I see the results.

Knowing that success doesn’t come immediately is a tremendous help. I never had those doubts again.

Mrs. Bassie Garelik has served as a Chabad emissary in Milan, Italy, since 1958, along with her husband, Rabbi Gershon Mendel Garelik, who passed away in 2021. She was interviewed at her home in Milan in January 2009.