Weekly Chasidic Story #1320 (5783-27) 5 Nissan 5783 (March 27, 2023)

"Mr. Rock & Roll demands answers from the Rebbe"

In my early twenties, I was invited to travel with the Rolling Stones on a concert tour; I saw more immoral human behavior than most people will ever see in a lifetime.

Connection: This Saturday night-Sunday, the 11th of the Jewish month of Nissan (this year: April 2), is the anniversary of the birth in 1902 of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem-Mendel Schneerson.

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'MR. ROCK & ROLL'
DEMANDS ANSWERS FROM THE REBBE

This JEM interview with Eli Lasky is from ten years ago [as was the story of Kaila Lasky that I sent two weeks ago. (story #1318)]

Several months after I returned from a concert tour with the Rolling Stones, I met the Rebbe and - because of him and despite me - I experienced an unexpected spiritual awakening.

My parents were both Holocaust survivors from Belorussia, and I had been born in a DP camp right after the war. I was raised Torah observant with Yiddish as my first language. After we came to the United States, I kept Shabbat, I went to yeshiva, and I put on tefillin.

But, after being exposed to a lot of inconsistency and some hypocrisy, I started to question it all, and by the mid-1960s, I stopped keeping Torah. After a time of experimenting with acting, I found myself at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Buffalo, studying law and dabbling in music promotion.

In my early twenties (in the late 60's), I found myself hanging out with some very famous people in the music and entertainment business - like Carly Simon and Chip Monck.[1] Through Chip's efforts, I was invited to travel with the Rolling Stones on their 1972 summer tour, and I got to see more depraved human behavior than most people will ever see in a lifetime.

Several months after that tour, I had a talk with a Zen Buddhist friend who was not Jewish. The way he spoke about Zen Buddhism sounded very interesting and believable, so I wound up asking myself, "How can Judaism be right and the whole world wrong?" That was the question that kept percolating in my mind.

At the time I was staying in NYC, at Chip's house. Because of my years at SUNY in Buffalo, I had a close relationship with Rabbi Nusson Gurary, who was the Lubavitcher Rebbe's emissary there. So I called him and started asking him my questions. His answer to me was, "There's only one person who can help you - the Rebbe. You are in New York; go ask him!"

The concept of a Rebbe, who somehow understood your soul, was very alien to me, and yet, that very day, I took a taxi to the address that Rabbi Gurary gave me - 770 Eastern Parkway - thinking to myself, "If this guy is not where it's at, whatever little bit of Judaism I have left will be gone."

I recall that it was a bitter cold day in January of 1973. I went into the large shul where dozens of yeshiva students were loudly studying together in pairs. It sounded and looked foreign to me; I couldn't relate. However, almost immediately I was welcomed by Rabbi Yossi Hendel, Rabbi Gurary's brother-in-law, who had been told I would appear the day. It was easy for him to find me in the crowd; I certainly stuck out with my shoulder-length black hair and unconventional dress: tight jeans, custom-made snakeskin boots, and a leather jacket: "Mr. Rock & Roll."

He gave me a yarmulke (kippah) to put on my head and told me that I'd be able to approach the Rebbe and speak with him briefly as he arrived from visiting the cemetery in Queens[2] and walked into 770 before the afternoon Mincha prayers. So I went back outside and waited in the cold.

As I was standing there between the entrance steps and the sidewalk, shivering in the bitter cold, an old limousine pulled up and the Rebbe emerged. Since Yiddish was my first language, I felt this was appropriate to address him in it, so I said, "Anshuldig, binste der Lubavitcher Rebbe? - Excuse me, are you the Lubavitcher Rebbe?"

Our eyes locked. In my whole life I had never seen eyes like his. And suddenly, it felt to me like I had been transported to another dimension, above the burning mountain, with nothing around us and it was just the two of us in the whole world. This was an incredible spiritual experience for me. I will never forget that day for the rest of my life.

He didn't respond, "Yes, I am the Rebbe" or merely a simple "Yes" Or nod of the head. He just said, "What is your name and where are you from?" I gave him my name, told him where I was from and where my parents were from.

"I have a question," I said. "Ask," he responded.

"Ah vu iz G-t? - Where is G-d?" "Umetum - Everywhere," he answered me.

But I persisted crying out from my heart, "Ich vays, ubber ah vu? - I know, but where?"

"Umetum, "he repeated, but then added," in alts; in ah boim, in a shtayn. - Everywhere, in everything; in every tree, in every stone."

But he perceived that I still wasn't satisfied with this answer so he said, "In dayn hartz, oib dos iz vi du fregst - He is in your heart, if this is how you are asking."

That answer completely stunned me. In all the years I spent in yeshiva in my youth, I never grasped that G-d was in my heart.

At that point, I asked him if we could speak in English, because I could not ask in Yiddish all that I needed to know. He agreed.

I said, "When we say the Shema - 'Listen Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is one' - do we mean that there is one G-d for all people--be they black, or Indian or Jew?"

He answered, "The essence of the black man is to be what he is as a black man, and the essence of the Indian is to be what he is as an Indian, and the essence of the Jew is tied to G-d through the Torah and its commandments."

These were very, very powerful words to me.

Altogether, we spoke for approximately fifteen minutes on the steps of 770 on a very bitter cold day in January. At the end, he told me two things to do. One was to learn the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (the Abbreviated Code of Jewish Law) in English, and the other was to put on tefillin every day.

I resisted. I said that, given my lifestyle (as 'Mr. Rock & Roll.' which included a lot of spontaneous traveling), I didn't think I could put on tefillin consistently. But he said, "You can and you will." He then blessed me and added that if I keep the Torah, it will be a source of blessing for me, but if I don't, it will go the other way - "it will lead to being downtrodden" is how he put it.

All this time, he was looking into my eyes directly - our eyes were locked - and I was the one who broke the eye contact first.

I looked around, and that's when I realized that a large crowd -at least a hundred! -- of young chasidim were standing around us with questioning expressions, as if asking, "Who is this meshuggener (crazy guy) who had the audacity to stop the Rebbe and whom the Rebbe is speaking to for so long and delaying Mincha?"

At that point, as the Rebbe went in for the afternoon prayer service, I started crying. It was a very emotional moment for me.

I walked away understanding one thing - that I had just met a man of total truth, of total sincerity. Who gave me hope. Who helped me realize that my dismissing everything years ago was maybe a mistake.

Still, it took some time for his words to sink in. I'd say about three months. That's when I started putting on tefillin, something I had not done for 6-7 years. From that day till today I have never missed.

And, as they say,[3] "one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah." Bit by bit, I started adding to my prayers. Then one day I asked myself, "How can the lips that utter prayers, the praises of the L-rd, eat foods that are forbidden?" So, bit by bit, I started keeping kosher. I also started learning the 'Kitzur Shulchan Aruch' just as the Rebbe instructed me to.

Two years later, when I was again at the university in Buffalo, studying in law school and dabbling in real estate on the side, The Rolling Stones came to town. Their manager at the time, Patrick Stansfield, was actually staying in my house. He wanted very much for me to attend. "Come on, Elliot. There will be over 80,000 people there at Rich Stadium. You can be back stage with me and all the guys-you are one of the boys!"

It was tempting. But one little problem. The concert would be on Friday night. I wasn't yet fully Shabbos observant, but still….

Finally, I said to myself, "Who are the Rolling Stones, that they will take me from my house on Shabbos? No way!"

And so, over the years I continued to grow and develop. Today (2013), I have a wife and four beautiful children, all of whom are Torah observant. And I do believe that everything has turned out like this because of that fateful meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe on a cold winter morning in 1973.

Because of him, my life was forever changed…and so were many other lives that I affected.

All for good. All for blessing.

Photo:
Kaila Lasky, Eli Lasky, and their four children
Photo taken in 2013. Photo credit: Aish.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: Compiled and adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from a weekly email of "Here's My Story" and two videos on Chabad.org, a part of JEM's extraordinary "My Encounter with the [Rebbe" project; plus several small additions from personal contacts.

Mr. Elliot ["Eli"] Lasky is a real estate developer who resides in Monsey, New
York. He was interviewed in May, 2013. He is also a long-time friend of Ascent Rabbis: Leiter, Siev and Tilles (from before Ascent!). You can hear him personally telling the above story for JEM on Chabad.org.

https://www.chabad.org/therebbe/livingtorah/player_cdo/aid/2289725/jewish/But-Where-Is-G-d.htm (JEM interview 5773, 7:49 minutes)
https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/2627353/jewish/My-Journey-from-the-Fast-Life-Back-to-My-Jewish-Roots.htm (18:10 minutes. Talk given at a tribute commemorating the Rebbe's twentieth yahrtzeit at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan 2014.)

Connection: This Saturday night-Sunday, the 11th of the Jewish month of Nissan (this year: April 2), is the anniversary of the birth in 1902 of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem-Mendel Schneerson.

Biographical note:
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe : [11 Nissan 5662 - 3 Tammuz 5754 (April 1902 - June 1994)], became the seventh Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty after his father-in-law's passing on 10 Shvat 5710 (1950 C.E.). He is widely acknowledged as the greatest Jewish leader of the 2nd half of the 20th century. Although a dominant scholar in both the revealed and hidden aspects of Torah and fluent in many languages and scientific subjects, the Rebbe is best known for his extraordinary love and concern for every Jew on the planet. His emissaries around the globe dedicated to strengthening Judaism number in the thousands. Hundreds of volumes of his teachings have been printed, as well as dozens of English renditions.

Footnotes

[1]Edward Herbert Beresford III "Chip" Monck is an American Tony Award nominated lighting designer, most famously serving as the 'master of ceremonies' at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.
[2]The burial site of his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef-Yitzchak Schneersohn, his predecessor as Rebbe until his passing in 1950.
[3] Pirkei Avot 4:2

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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