Here’s My Story: Knocking On The Gates Of Trust

Mrs. Chaya Teldon

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I was born in “Motown,” as they used to call Detroit. Although my family was mildly Conservative, when we later moved to Oak Park, in the suburbs, I began attending the Chabad Hebrew school as it was close to our home.

I had wonderful, inspiring teachers there, like Rabbi Yankel Kranz, of blessed memory. They presented Yiddishkeit to me as a set table, and I was invited to partake and to learn, without ever being told what to do. I fell in love with it.

After Passover of 1969, while still in public school, I decided to make the leap and study in a Chabad girls’ school. As there wasn’t one in Detroit at the time, I wrote a letter to the Rebbe, sharing my thoughts and asking for a blessing to attend Bais Rivka, the central Chabad girls’ school in New York. I received the Rebbe’s blessing, but sadly, not that of my parents. They were shocked beyond belief.

However, after receiving advice from various parties, they reluctantly gave permission for me to transfer schools, confident that I would return home once I “got it out of my system.”

It was Friday — public school, Sunday — fly to New York, and then Monday — Lubavitch girls’ high school. As I walked into a 10th-grade classroom, 25 pairs of eyes turned to look at the new kid on the block: Me, a girl who’d been Lubavitch for almost 24 hours!

But I had encountered the truth, and by the time the school year ended, I was a full-fledged Lubavitcher girl, in every aspect.

That summer saw me as a counselor in Camp Gan Israel in Michigan, after which my parents had expected me to be “over it.” For the next school year, they expected I would continue my education at home. But I was adamant. “I’m not going back to public school,” I declared. As I had never defied my parents before, they were totally bewildered.

Eventually, we compromised. For my junior year, I would join the local Orthodox high school, Bais Yaakov of Detroit. That was fine with me, and I gladly accepted my role as one of the few Lubavitch girls there.

After that, with the permission of my parents, I happily returned to NY for my senior year, followed by seminary. Rabbi Kranz, G-d bless him, footed the tuition bill, in addition to paying for room, board, and transportation — for me, as well as for a few other Detroit girls who had come to study close to the Rebbe.

After completing my seminary studies, I stayed on in Crown Heights as a teacher in Bais Rivkah, and I began looking to get married. I was anxious to find my soulmate and together go out as Chabad Emissaries. What could be greater than that? But although a number of eligible yeshivah students were suggested, none of them were the right fit.

began to wonder what was going on. Am I doing something wrong? Of course, I was keeping “cosmically busy,” as I called it — working as a dorm counselor, assisting in summer camps, creating floats for the Lag B’Omer parades — but it all felt like busy work, distracting me from what I really wanted.

What does a chasid do at such a juncture? I put my heart’s desire as ink on parchment, and penned a letter to the Rebbe asking for a blessing to find my soulmate, and I placed it in my briefcase. At that time, I was renting a basement apartment from one of the Rebbe’s secretaries, Rabbi Binyomin Klein of blessed memory, so I was planning to hand him the letter to pass on to the Rebbe.

On my way home from teaching that afternoon, about to cross the street near 770, I saw the Rebbe, in his car, stopped at a red light. Instead of looking ahead or down into a book, as he often did, the Rebbe was looking directly at me. I froze. I was holding my briefcase, with my letter in it, with one foot off the curb, ready to cross the street, but I didn’t budge. I couldn’t. A few moments passed, the light changed, and the Rebbe’s car continued on.

Rabbi Klein was driving, and he also noticed that something unusual had happened. “What was that?” he asked me when I saw him that evening.

My letter had been signed, sealed, and, for all practical purposes, I felt the content and the request it contained had already been delivered. All I had to do was hand in the physical letter.

Rabbi Klein gave the letter to the Rebbe, and shortly thereafter, I received an answer. The Rebbe pointed me to Shaar Habitachon (Gate of Trust), a section from the classic work of Jewish philosophy Chovot Halevavot, about cultivating a sense of trust in G-d. The Rebbe suggested I study it “two or three times,” adding that “it can also be found in English.” That implied that I really needed to study this work and absorb it. The Rebbe wanted me to understand that G-d had not forgotten about me. I think he was telling me that there was someone out there for me to meet. I just had to be patient and believe.

I’d love to tell you I met my husband immediately after this, but that was not the case. When I finally met the young man who eventually became my husband, Tuvia was a tall, skinny, scholarly yeshivah student. I thought he was too quiet, too brainy, and too straight-laced for me.

At one point, I wrote to the Rebbe about some of my nagging doubts. The Rebbe replied very clearly: “Speak with him directly, and hear what he has to say.” If I shared my concerns with this young man, we could discuss them together, and then I could make an informed decision.

That wasn’t so easy to do.

“I shared with the Rebbe some things that are bothering me,” I began the next time we met. Tuvia invited me to share what was on my mind. But I was embarrassed to be so direct. We had met in a park that day, and for a few minutes, we walked up and down the path, in total silence.

“It’s okay,” he eventually said. “I have patience.” I was impressed with that.

I finally shared what I had told the Rebbe, and listened to his response. I thanked him as he dropped me off at home, and then the ball was in my court. I thought about it and realized that my future husband didn’t need to be louder than I was in order for me to look up to him. He was everything I wanted, just in a quiet package. Thank goodness he had the patience to wait for me until I came around.

Thank G-d, we’re now going on 50 years! The Rebbe urged me to keep my trust in G-d front and center, strong and present, and I’m still at it. It’s a lifelong process.

Mrs. Chaya Teldon co-founded Chabad of Long Island together with her husband, Rabbi Tuvia Teldon, in 1977. She has continued to serve in that role since, as well as lecturing around the world. She was interviewed in December 2025.