Lessons In Emunah

In Spite Of Myself

The year was 1994, two weeks before Passover. Mariasha, who had just turned two, lay next to her mommy (my wife, Esther) on the couch, sucking her pacifier. Mushkie and Nechama, ages four and three, were lying on the rug, coloring in their Passover Haggadahs.

“I told the cheder that next Friday is my last day teaching nursery,” Esther said. “Do you think it’s proper to write the Rebbe at this time? You’re going to need to make a lot more money.”

A week earlier, on the 27th day of Adar, the Rebbe suffered a second stroke. Uncannily, the first stroke occurred exactly two years earlier, to the day. Ever since that first stroke, despite his terrible paralysis, there was one story that kept reassuring me that the Rebbe was somehow above these physical limitations.

The story had taken place before Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the Rebbe, when he and his rebbetzin lived as a young couple in Paris. It was at the beginning of the war, before the Nazi invasion of Paris. A family friend, Rabbi Yehudah Liebush Heber, was uncertain whether to stay in Paris where he earned a decent living or emigrate to an unknown future in the United States. Rabbi Heber asked the Rebbe for his advice, and the Rebbe suggested that he send a telegram to his father-in-law, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (now known as the friediker, or previous, Rebbe) in Warsaw.

Contact with Warsaw was virtually impossible by phone, mail or telegram. Rabbi Heber expressed surprise, and vividly recalls the Rebbe’s reaction: “You have no idea what a Rebbe is. The letter and telegram need not be delivered in order for the Rebbe to know the question. And the Rebbe’s response need not arrive in order for you to receive your answer.”
From 1950 onwards, when the Rebbe assumed the mantle of leadership, it was clear that the Rebbe also operated on the same elevated plane. And, even during the two difficult years after the first stroke, the Rebbe expended every ounce of his strength and love for his fellow man to guide us with a nod of his holy head and an upward movement of his non-paralyzed arm. This recent stroke, however, left the Rebbe laying in a coma.

I looked at my children and my wife, who was due with another child. I felt like a self-centered beggar writing to the Rebbe, earth and heaven tugging at his life – while self-absorbed me pleaded, “give me, give me, give me.” But I was desperate and, deep down in my soul, it was not for me or my family, but rather it was G-d’s desire that we work in this world, make a dwelling place for His presence, and stay connected to a righteous leader. So, at the beginning of Nissan, during my wife’s ninth month, I requested the customary blessing for an easy delivery and a healthy baby, and then added in embarrassment: “For the sake of my wife and daughters, and the ability to celebrate Passover and Torah and mitzvos in a beautiful manner, may the Rebbe please bless me with ample parnassa (livelihood).” I mailed the letter to the Rebbe’s office at 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York.

A couple of days later, Roz Durkin of Arc Medical Personnel called me at my job at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. “Mr. Jacobs, a year ago you completed an application at our agency. There’s a great opportunity at Sandoz that we think will be perfect for you.”

Ms. Durkin told me about a temporary clerical position in the biostatistics department at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, now known as Novartis. A year earlier, I had done a six-month temp job in the consumer products group at Sandoz, fielding complaints and writing letters to customers who wanted coupons for the reformulated Triaminic cough syrup or to tell us that a spouse spent the whole morning looking in auto part stores for Gas-X, an intestinal gas reliever.

I had left Sandoz and took a temp job at SmithKline, writing stability reports because I wanted to head towards scientific or medical writing. “Ms. Durkin, I don’t want my career to go backwards.”

Ms. Durkin was not swayed by my argument. “Granted, it’s clerical work,” she said, “but you’ll be working with statisticians. What’s more, because of your background, we talked them into paying you $12.50 an hour.”

“$12.50 an hour?” My heart sunk. “I was getting that much before my last pay raise. I need another 25% on top of that.”

“Let me check with them to see if they’re willing to go higher,” Ms. Durkin said, refusing to give up so fast.

The next day, Ms. Durkin called. “Tzvi, they want to interview you. How does next Wednesday look?”

The Jewish calendar on my desk pulled my eyes straight to the day. Next Wednesday, the 11th day of Nissan – the Rebbe’s birthday! Oh, good, I’ll get onto the Sandoz campus and, after the interview, visit my old buddies in the consumer products building, and perhaps give them shmurah matzah. This handmade matzah is expensive – $12 a pound – but the Rebbe asked his followers to give others this soul-saving matzah. What better present to give the Rebbe on his birthday.

When I came home, I told Esther that I agreed to go for the interview. “You better go. Today was my last day at nursery, so you better pray that it goes well.” The pressure was on.

The following Saturday night, just after midnight, I drove Esther to the hospital. At 3:30 a.m., a nurse called me into Esther’s room and handed me a precious little bundle wrapped in a soft blue blanket, with wispy brown hair, big brown eyes, and a dimple on her cheek. Another daughter! We named her Chana, after Rebbetzin Chana, the Rebbe’s mother. On Tuesday morning, I drove Esther and baby home. That night my wife, daughters and I celebrated the Rebbe’s birthday with our bundle of joy.

The next morning, I went to Sandoz for my interview. Dr. John Lambert, head of the biostatistics department, said that they were busy working on a new drug application for an improved version of Sandoz’s blockbuster drug, Sandimmune, a life-saving drug that prevents rejection of organ transplants.

“Its chemical name is cyclosporine, right?” I asked.

“Yes, exactly,” Dr. Lambert said. “I’m impressed that you know the name.”

“Well, I just wrote a story that involved this drug.”

“You just wrote about it?”

“Yes, a friend of my parents recently received a kidney transplant. The surgeon said that before Sandimmune, the majority of transplants were rejected by the recipients.”

“I’d love to read the story,” Dr. Lambert said. “It’s uncanny that you just wrote this story.”

“Yes, it is. My mother pushed me to write it.”

After meeting the chief statistician, Dr. Dar Shong Wong, and other key people in the department, Dr. Lambert brought up the topic of pay. “I understand that you want to make more than your current pay. How’s $18 an hour?”

“Sounds good,” I said. The number sounded good to me. “But frankly,” I said, still feeling nonchalant about doing clerical work, “two more dollars an hour would be better. It’s an agency job, so I have to pay for my own health insurance and so on.”

After the interview, I drove to Building 701 and visited at least a dozen Jews that I knew in the building from the previous year. I gave them shmurah matzah and the Rebbe’s birthday issue of L’Chaim Magazine. Joe, a marketing maven, was especially happy to see me. “Tzvi, that matzah you gave me last year was the hit of our Passover seder. What did you put in it? Everyone was drawn to it. They didn’t stop eating it until every crumb was gone.”

That afternoon, I returned to my desk at SmithKline and received a call. “Tzvi, it’s Roz Durkin. I have great news for you. You’ve got the job! And not only that, Dr. Lambert’s offering to pay you the amount you asked – the higher amount.”

“Wow, Baruch Hashem, thank G-d.”

“You should know that’s twice the amount that they were originally offering to pay someone. You must have an angel praying for you.”

“More than an angel, a special rabbi, a very holy rabbi.”