Here’s My Story: Learn From The Americans!

Mrs. Channa Arnold

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In 1957, I had just graduated from elementary school in Israel when my mother passed away. Our family was devastated, and as the oldest child, this meant that I had to take on a lot of extra responsibility in the home.

For a time, my father was so upset that he didn’t write to the Rebbe. But the Rebbe wanted to know how we were managing, so my father’s friend would write to him with regular reports on what was happening with our family.

Years later, this friend mentioned to the Rebbe the name of a fellow he knew from the local synagogue in Bnei Brak. The Rebbe encouraged him to suggest him for me, as a potential match for marriage. We met shortly afterward, in 1960.

After our first date, we had some doubts, and the Rebbe sent a letter to my father, urging us to go out again. Not wanting to pressure me, my father didn’t show me the Rebbe’s letter, but we spoke, and I agreed to meet with my future husband again — and the rest is history.

When we were ready to become engaged, my husband mentioned that the Rebbe was quite particular that the obligation for Jewish women to cover their hair after marriage was best fulfilled by wearing a sheitel — a wig. Was this something I would be able to do?

I had no intention of doing so. “None of my friends wear a sheitel,” I told him. “I’ll be embarrassed to do it, and they’re going to make fun of me! I’ll cover my hair, of course, but not with a sheitel.”

With that, I said that I would writemto the Rebbe my reasons against having a sheitel. “I’ll do exactly what the Rebbe wants me to do, but you’ll see — he’s going to side with me,” I predicted.

Well, I did do what the Rebbe wanted me to do, but not as I had expected it.

I got the Rebbe’s reply in the middle of the night. My father actually worked in the local post office, and all of the letters that came from the United States to our area. would go through him.

He didn’t know that I had written to the Rebbe, but when he saw that I had received a letter from 770, he brought it straight over as soon as he had finished his night shift. I think it was 3:30 AM.

I still remember that night. “Go wash negel vasser,” my father said, instructing me to wash my hands, as one does after waking up. “I have something here for you.” Shaking — I had promised that I would listen to whatever the Rebbe said — I began to read.

“Regarding your question of whether to wear a wig, rather than sufficing with a hat or headscarf: the need for this has been explained in several places,” began the Rebbe. “We see plainly that wearing a hat or even a headscarf leaves part of the hair uncovered, if only for a brief period of time, which means that one has transgressed this serious prohibition, as per Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim chapter 75.

“The importance of this matter can be further inferred from the greatness of the reward for fulfilling this commandment in the fullest measure, and in the words of the holy Zohar: ‘She is blessed with everything — with blessings from above and blessings from below, with wealth, with children, and with grandchildren.’

“As for your concern that people may laugh at you,” the Rebbe continued, “even among American youth, lately one can feel a sense of respect precisely for those who stand firm in their convictions… while those who are swept along after the majority without any inner stability are regarded with mockery and contempt…

“And another clear and simple point: G-d Almighty fills ‘the heavens and the earth,’ and is with a person in every place and at every time. This is not the case with other people — even those in one’s closest circle — who are not always nearby. Therefore, is it conceivable that one should not be ashamed, G-d forbid, before the Holy One, blessed be He, and yet be ashamed before a human being of flesh and blood?!”

That final line, about being ashamed before a mortal but not before G-d was the clincher, and the next day I went out to order a sheitel.

More than that, that line became a motto in my own life, and something I tell young women when I teach pre-wedding classes. After that letter, I was never embarrassed of other people again.

Shortly after our marriage, my husband and I moved to the United States, and we used to come to see the Rebbe once a year. We would always ask for his blessings, and I would specifically request a blessing for my father.

One year, early on in our own marriage, the Rebbe cited the verse in the Book of Bereishit, “It is not good for man to be alone.” He thought my father should remarry.

He said to me: “Hasn’t it already been seven years since your mother passed away?” I was floored that he knew exactly what was going on with my family — I myself had to calculate how many years had passed since my mother’s passing.

In that letter about the sheitel, the Rebbe cited the Zohar in saying that I would be blessed with children and grandchildren for adhering to this mitzvah. But after six years of marriage, I still had not become pregnant.

At that time, I was in constant correspondence with the Rebbe, and I requested a personal audience. I took the letter along with me and, in the audience, I held it up before the Rebbe.

“Rebbe, I have a promise!” I declared. “It says black-on-white that I’m going to be blessed with children. I’ve done my part, and I want the Rebbe to give me a blessing that, im yirtze Hashem — literally, if G-d wills it — I should have children!”

My father was always amazed how I had the chutzpah to confront the Rebbe that way, but I was always taught that you have to ask for a blessing, and so I did.

The Rebbe smiled at me. He could see how nervous I was.

I had said all of this in Hebrew, but he replied in Yiddish: “Don’t say, ‘if G-d wills it’ — instead you should say, ‘with the help of G-d’ (b’ezrat Hashem). Because He does want, and He will help!”

Thank G-d, I eventually became a mother to eight children, and now I also have many grandchildren.
Eventually, we moved to Los Angeles, where I became a teacher in Cheder Menachem, a Chabad boys school, teaching Chumash to first-graders.

During one private audience, though, the Rebbe told me to tell stories to my boys in the morning, explaining that stories of chasidim and tzadikim (righteous people) have a special power to imbue children with a reverence for Heaven. And so before we start our studies, I would tell them stories. It came to the point that there were boys who would cry when they came late to class because they had missed the story — but I would tell it to them during recess so they wouldn’t miss out. And of course, I would sometimes tell them stories about the Rebbe himself.

Mrs. Channa Arnold was a Judaic-studies teacher in Los Angeles for over forty years. She was interviewed in September 2011.