rebbe stories – Page 2 – Melava Malka Stories

Ink that doesn’t fade

The well-known Rabbi Yosef Wineberg shared an interesting experience. In 1945, when he was living in Chicago, the Previous Rebbe sent his emissary, the distinguished Chassidic rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Levitin, to Chicago on a special mission. Rabbi Levitin was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe to visit and bring warmth and inspiration to the Jewish community in Chicago in general and to a certain Mr. Lisner in particular.

Rescued by the Rebbe: A Journey from Curacao to New York

I grew up in Curacao, a Caribbean Island that is part of the Netherlands Antilles. There were no Jewish schools on the island at the time, and I attended the Protestant school.

A Jewish priest

I was born and raised in Basel, Switzerland in 1937. When I was fifteen, my family moved to the Netherlands, where my father became the Chief Rabbi of the Hague. Here he opened a yeshivah for Hungarian refugees from the war. Five years later, I came to New York to enroll in the central Lubavitch yeshivah in Crown Heights.

The Rebbe continues to guide and bless us

“Few contemporary religious leaders, certainly few contemporary Jewish religious leaders, have stimulated so much curiosity as the Rebbe of Lubavitch.
He was a most unusual man: a quiet, self-effacing heir to an impeccable Hassidic pedigree. A maritime engineer educated at the Sorbonne. The master of a dozen languages. The childless father of a half-million disciples.

The life of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson

Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson led an intensely private life. “Very few people knew about the relationship that I had with the Rebbetzin,” said Londoner Mrs. Louise Hager, who knew the Rebbetzin since the 1960s and spoke to her by phone at least once a week. “I think that was one of the strengths of the relationship. It was totally private.”

The previous rebbes prophecy (part 2)

“Behind the synagogue in the Bronx where I was the rabbi, there was a butcher shop facing the road. The back wall of the shop was attached to the synagogue wall. The Jewish owner of the butcher shop was a successful businessman and soon his small shop was not large enough for his growing business.
He found a larger space close by and decided to sell his shop which was attached to our synagogue.

The previous rebbes prophecy (part 1)

Reb Michel Vishetsky was a young man who had recently come to the United States from Russia. In Russia, Reb Michel was active in the underground Refuseniks movement, teaching Judaism secretly.
When he arrived to the freedom of America, he did not forget about his friends who were still in Russia. He became active in an organization which aided Russian Refuseniks by sending them packages of food and clothing to help them survive.

Rabbi Yedidia Ezrahain and his work for Iranian Jewry

I was born in the city of Sanandaj, Iran, to a line of rabbis that originally come from Safed, Israel, nine generations ago. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution broke out, I was appointed as the head of the local rabbinic court, as well as the head of the community council, making me the lead person between Iranian Jewry and the new regime.
Not long after that, a group of militarized Iranian students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the United States embassy in Tehran taking fifty-two people as hostages.

The children of the Rebbe

A number of years back, the Jewish Joint Organization arranged for a group of Jewish educators, principals and teachers from America to travel to Odessa, Ukraine. The purpose of the trip was for them to see firsthand the way of life of Jewish students there.
When the organizers of the trip searched for a place where the group could have a Shabbat meal together, they reached out to the Shluchim of the Rebbe in Odessa. Unbeknownst to them, this special Shabbat was the day before Yud Alef Nissan, the birthday of the Rebbe.

“Elijah the Prophet” appears at the Seder!

Macon, Georgia, an hour’s drive from Atlanta, did not yet have a Chabad presence. Enter Rabbi Chaim and Chayala Markovits, directors of Chabad of Rural Georgia. This young couple from Australia and California, opened the first Rural Chabad Center in the US. They travel around the state to small Jewish communities and bring the warmth and light of Chabad to each place. One of their first Jewish experiences was to offer a public Seder in Macon for Passover last year, 2021. They rented a room in a hotel and transformed it into a beautiful Passover Seder complete with all the details including a delicious kosher for Passover meal. Jewish people heard about it and came out of the woodworks to attend. As the Seder progressed, little did they realize that G-d had planned a special guest to join them for the Seder. The unexpected guest appeared and for a moment the assembled thought they were seeing, “Elijah the Prophet” dressed up as a local.
Here is how it happened: