Weekly Chasidic Story #800
(s5773-29 / 13 Nissan 5773)
An Impromptu Seder
I had to get home to the Bronx, which was pretty far away,
but when the Lubavitcher Rebbe handed me matza, he asked if I could deliver
some to a certain family.
Connection: Seasonal--Passover Festival
This story took place a month after
my bar-mitzvah, 3 subway stops south. Appropriate for our landmark of 800 consecutive
weekly stories, don't you agree?
Dedicated for the soul-elevation of
Yehuda ben Yerachmiel (Tilles)
on the occasion of the 37th yahrzeit on 17 Nissan (3rd day of Passover)
An Impromptu Seder
It was mid-afternoon Erev Pesach, Friday, April 4, 1958, a few hours to go
till the Holiday officially began. A group of Chabad yeshiva boys in Brooklyn
had finished baking the last of the Passover matza. The Lubavitcher Rebbe
used to give a piece of hand-baked matza to people as a spiritual gift in these
final hours. The Rebbe would stand the whole time, greeting people and handing
them matza. The mystical Jewish work, the Zohar, explains that matza is the
"bread of faith," and simply eating it nourishes the soul.
The Rebbe would give matza first to the people who had to travel far, because
riding in a car or subway is not permitted on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
I [Shlomo Cunin] was 16 years old and had to get home to 167th and Jerome
Avenue in the Bronx, which was pretty far away. When I approached the Rebbe,
he handed me matza and asked if I could deliver some to a certain family.
Ideally, I would have taken a taxi from the subway station, asked the driver
to wait, delivered the matza, and gotten home in time for our family Seder.
But life is seldom ideal; it was too late to take a cab. Eventually, I found
the address, which turned out to be a housing project. I knocked on the door
and out came a man with no shirt, tattoos and a pot belly.
"What is it?" he snapped. (It is Bronx etiquette to snap when greeting
someone.) "Excuse me, are you Mr. So-and-So?" I asked. "Yeah,"
he said.
I noticed the loaf of rye bread sitting on the table, definitely not a traditional
Seder food. I said, "The Rebbe sent me."
"The Rebbe? Oh, please come in," he said. The tiny kitchen contained
only a small table, some chairs and a hot plate. I didn't understand what I
was doing there, delivering matza to a family who wasn't celebrating Passover.
Then I thought, perhaps that's exactly why I was there.
I asked the man if he would like to have a Seder. He agreed and called for
his wife to come in. She entered, visibly pregnant, with two beautiful little
girls, maybe five or six years old, trailing behind. Both girls were blind.
We cleared off the table. I put a hat on the man's head and said, "Okay,
we're having a Seder!"
I tried to remember the blessings in the proper order, but it was difficult
without a Hagada.
We ate the matza and used water and paper cups to recall the four cups of wine.
I tried to think what the Rebbe would do if he was here. I looked at the little
girls and at their mother, about to have another child, and began to tell them
some things I had learned from the Rebbe.
I told them that we have to have faith. On this night, G-d liberated our ancestors
from slavery, and He liberates us, too. The husband and wife seemed to hang
on every word, like they were getting nourishment just by listening.
I told them that on Passover, we journey through our personal Egypt to freedom,
and that G-d doesn't put on our shoulders more than we can carry. Once you know
that, and believe it, you're already liberated. We sang songs with the children
and time flew.
At 1:00 a.m., the woman put the girls to bed and it was time for me to leave,
but I had to ask the man how he knew the Rebbe. It turned out he was a leather
tanner and was acquainted with a rabbi who worked at another section of the
meat plant.
Several months ago, the man's wife had become pregnant. Since there was a strong
possibility that this child, too, would be born blind, their doctor recommended
an abortion. The man was very depressed and didn't know what to do. So he asked
this rabbi, who suggested that he write a letter to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The
Rebbe wrote back, saying that they should have faith in G-d and have the child.
As I was about to leave, the man said, "You know, my wife and I weren't
sure about this. How are we supposed to have faith? How are we supposed to forget
what is and have hope? We didn't think it was possible. But tonight, hearing
about faith and how G-d gives us the strength to overcome our personal Egypt,
well, now we understand."
So she carried to term and gave birth to a son, who was born fully sighted.
Over time, I lost track of this family, but years later I learned that the daughters
had gotten married and that each had several children, all sighted.
To really describe the Rebbe's love for hundreds of thousands of Jews and non-Jews
all over the world would be impossible. The best I could do is to write about
a poor family in the Bronx, living in a housing project for the blind. And how
the Rebbe had faith hand-delivered to their door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from //LChaimWeekly.org (#765)
with permission.
Biographical note:
Rabbi Boruch Shlomo E. Cunin has been the Head Shliach (emissary) of
the Lubavitch Rebbe and Director of Chabad Lubavitch on the West Coast since
1966. This article was originally published in Farbrengen Magazine.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Yerachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor
of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories
to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells
them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.
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