Rabbi Yossi Levi - Manila, Philippines - Part 2

00:19 Speaker 1 Tell me a little about the—about the place. You say Manila is a small city with about two and a half times as many residents as Israel.

00:31 Speaker 2 That reminds me of a story. Manila has about twenty-five million residents. It’s a bit crowded, with lots of traffic and lots of high-rises. Behind the Chabad House here, there’s a Trump Tower that’s seventy stories tall.

00:50 Speaker 1 Trump Tower, named after President Trump?

00:52 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. In any case, there’s a lot to do here. We also work with people on the Seven Noahide Laws, of course. There’s a weekly class. Every Sunday, a few dozen people gather here, sometimes hundreds, for a regular class. There’s a kind of community here, and there are many communities throughout the Philippines. Especially in the south of the country—they’ve actually built themselves synagogues, places where they gather.

01:25 Speaker 1 Explain that, because I think people aren’t familiar with it and don’t really know what you’re talking about. So if you could explain a little of the background: What are these communities? Who founded them? How did they even get to—

01:38 Speaker 2 Basically, these communities arose on their own. It’s not that I came and founded them, and I haven’t researched exactly how they came about. But in general, people searching for the truth seem to find it through the internet, websites and people they know, and they want to observe the Seven Noahide Laws. So there are quite a few communities throughout the Philippines that observe the Seven Noahide Laws. They gather once or twice a week—some more, some less—to study and delve into the subject. How did these communities start? I imagine that, broadly speaking, there are large communities in America, and in Brazil too, so perhaps they followed their example and established these communities themselves. Here, they do gather with me once a week, and we study something connected to the weekly parsha and to the subject. We connect with the Rebbe, and so on. Of course, they come to write to the Rebbe, and the point is to connect them with the leader of the generation.

02:47 Speaker 1 Our listeners would like to know how you got to the Philippines in the first place. After all, as I understand it, the Philippines is roughly—I’d estimate—twenty-five thousand kilometers from Israel. Why there? How did you get there? Tell us a little about yourself, maybe what you did before. Tell us so we know.

03:13 Speaker 2 I got married at 770, and I always knew I wanted to go out on shlichus. The Philippines wasn’t really in the picture at first. After we got married, we said we’d go somewhere on shlichus. We were leaning more toward Bolivia, but somehow it didn’t work out, and life got underway. Then my wife told me, “The school asked whether I’ll continue teaching next year.” So I said, “Tell them yes. At most, we’ll go on shlichus somewhere around here, in the New York area.” My wife wrote to the Rebbe asking for a bracha for the coming year. And the Rebbe wrote, “I was pleased to hear that they are going on shlichus to a distant place near Australia.” So we understood that we weren’t staying in education, or in Crown Heights, or anywhere near Crown Heights. The Rebbe was sending us far away. Around that time, three people came to me, a few days apart, before Shavuos, and told me about the Philippines. I thought, that fits with what the Rebbe wrote: near Australia. We’re—

04:36 Speaker 3 And far away, too.

04:38 Speaker 2 Yes. We really are only hours by plane from Australia. We’re quite close. From Manila to northern Australia is less than a three-hour flight. Melbourne, though, is farther—to cross Australia takes five hours, so it’s eight hours to Melbourne. But relatively speaking, we’re quite close to Australia. We’re an island country, and a three-hour flight around here is considered very close.

05:09 Speaker 3 Yes. From Israel, three hours will get you to central Europe.

05:14 Speaker 2 Yes. So here, Thailand is three hours away, northern Australia is three hours, and Jakarta, Indonesia, is three hours. All the countries around here are about two or three hours away. So we understood that we had to go on shlichus here. And of course, as... We received clear guidance at every step. For example, every letter we wrote to the Rebbe at that time was about the shlichus. The only reason we waited was that I was in the middle of the green-card process. Eventually, when we wrote to the Rebbe, we were given an appointment on Yom Kippur. We immediately moved it. The next appointment we got was on our first wedding anniversary. It was a Monday. So I said, “There we go. Let’s buy tickets.” And that’s how we got here. There were a lot of difficulties at first. We arrived, and the Mumbai attack happened that very day.

06:20 Speaker 3 Wow.

06:22 Speaker 2 That was a hard landing for us. And it was very difficult to find a place to rent. We spent a week in a hotel. Renting a place was extremely difficult. Everyone wanted lots of contracts and things we couldn’t provide. There was a Jewish man, a Lebanese Jew who lived here and has since passed away, who really devoted himself to helping us. He drove us around in his car looking at places. After we’d given up on one of the places, we got back into the car. My wife said to me, “Come on, we didn’t come here on behalf of some company. We came because the Rebbe sent us. Let’s tell the Rebbe.” We took a picture of the Rebbe and said, “Rebbe, we came for you. Find yourself a place.”

07:15 Speaker 3 Wow.

07:16 Speaker 2 And as soon as—

07:17 Speaker 3 You put the responsibility on the Rebbe. Beautiful. Well done.

07:21 Speaker 2 And as soon as we spoke to the Rebbe, someone knocked and said, “Are you looking for a house? Follow me.”

07:25 Speaker 3 Wow.

07:26 Speaker 2 And that was it. That place served us for nine years, until we moved to a spacious building. And that whole process—I don’t know how my mashpia didn’t give up on me, because for years the place was quite small for all our activities, and all the time—

07:49 Speaker 3 What kind of place was it? Describe it a little. What was it? Where was it? In Manila—

07:53 Speaker 2 It was a villa in a residential neighborhood. A villa. Being there was a bit complicated too, because it was a neighborhood of homes, and suddenly you have travelers coming and going. There was quite a lot of activity for a quiet neighborhood. There was also a hall in the neighborhood that we kept renting for events. Sometimes, for Shabbos, when there were a lot of people or groups, we needed it; for Yom Tov, we would regularly take the hall. And one thing I always wanted was to at least find another place, another building, something. All along the way, I found many places to rent. But the Rebbe kept writing that we should build a building.

08:56 Speaker 4 Right.

08:56 Speaker 2 And I kept pestering him, because I didn’t know how I would pay the rent. The Rebbe wanted a building, and sometimes I couldn’t even pay the monthly rent. Sometimes I didn’t have money to buy food for Shabbos, and the Rebbe wanted a building. Ultimately, wealth is a mindset. It’s not something that... That’s one of the things you have to understand. About three years ago—I’m jumping around in time—I was supposed to travel to Israel, and suddenly I found myself owing money. So I told my wife, “Maybe I’ll cancel the trip to Israel.” She said, “Write to the Rebbe.” I wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote there that this is not how one conducts oneself. There’s always a way. One shouldn’t conduct oneself like that. It’s a very well-known letter in which the Rebbe writes that he should study Shaar Habitachon at least three or four—two or three times. So, first of all, not only did I travel to Israel, I also took my daughter and bought her a very expensive ticket. And I immediately began studying Shaar Habitachon in earnest. I also have a class on it every day.

10:15 Speaker 4 Every day?

10:17 Speaker 2 Every day.

10:18 Speaker 4 Yes.

10:19 Speaker 2 There are all kinds of classes here at the Chabad House, guests. There are—exactly. No, sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have. But a Jewish businessman came here. He’s just bought a big company and is investing here, and he said to me, “You know, I see you have three prayer services a day here, and classes. Here in the East, you’re one of the few places with three services a day. You need to appreciate that.” He said there might be only two or three Chabad Houses here that have that. And that’s how the Rebbe changed my whole way of looking at everything. It’s like what we learn in Shaar Habitachon: we need to change our whole way of thinking. The Rebbe wanted a building, and I’m so glad I listened to the Rebbe. But it’s easy to say that now, sitting here inside the building—a nine-story building. It’s easy to say now, “I listened to the Rebbe.” At the time, it was very hard to listen to the Rebbe. On the one hand, you understood that the neighborhood wasn’t too happy with what you were doing. You were disrupting the neighborhood: travelers coming and going, the place turning into a central bus station. I realized that, and people had already hinted that I needed to get out of there. It was really difficult. And I just remembered: that businessman who came is related to one of the major donors to this building. The donor is his uncle. I know the uncle. When I was a bochur, I used to do mivtzoim with him, and afterward he became very involved in Chabad. He opened offices here. He lives in New York.

12:10 Speaker 4 Where did you do mivtzoim with him?

12:13 Speaker 2 In—Queens.

12:17 Speaker 4 Oh, the uncle was there.

12:18 Speaker 2 He was there. He had offices there. I used to visit him at his office every week, and... his business grew tremendously. He has a shipping company that expanded all over the world. He has offices here too, and today he has offices almost everywhere in the world. I remember he called me when he heard I wanted to build a building. He called and said, “I’ll give you a donation of ten thousand dollars.” I hung up and said to my wife, “Oy vey.” My wife said, “Why ‘oy vey’?” So I told her he’d called to say he wanted to donate ten thousand dollars. At that point I was in despair over the whole thing, and here he was, giving me ten thousand dollars. Suddenly someone was giving me a serious donation for the building. I had to get started. Of course, the building cost millions, and later he gave much more money. But that’s where it began. He called me when, on the one hand, the Rebbe was saying to build a building, and on the other, I couldn’t see where the miracle would come from. I was already wondering when the Rebbe would let the matter drop. And suddenly, at my lowest point, he came along with the ten thousand dollars. Then I understood that I had no choice. And... that went on for quite a while. It was a story that lasted several years, until we finally bought it. You reminded me of a story—you said Manila was a small city.

13:53 Speaker 4 Yes.

13:54 Speaker 2 One day I got a call from parents in Tirat Carmel. Their son hadn’t been in touch. Usually he was very reachable and always kept them updated on where he was, but for a whole week they’d heard nothing, and they were very worried. I tried to explain that the Philippines isn’t some neighborhood in Tirat Carmel. It’s a country of 110 million people. It’s a big country. I said, “Send me pictures; maybe he passed through here. I can put out a notice.” But I couldn’t promise to find him. They were so worried that I realized explaining how big the Philippines was wasn’t going to help. When you live in a neighborhood, you think someone can just go look and find him. I tried to explain, but it didn’t really work. I told them, “First of all, go to the Chabad House.” I gave them the number. “Write to the Rebbe through Igros Kodesh and ask for a bracha. With Hashem’s help, it will work out.” I told them to write to the Rebbe and receive a bracha. I was also trying to buy time, hoping that, with Hashem’s help, he would get in touch. In fact, at two in the morning I got a call. His mother was crying on the phone. His father had had a heart attack. “Please, go look for him.” Now, I had no idea what “go look for him” meant. Where was I supposed to look?

15:33 Speaker 4 Twenty-five million people. Go find him.

15:35 Speaker 2 I didn’t even know where to start. Where would I go? I could look among the travelers here, but there was no chance—if he’d been in the area, he surely would have come in. I had nothing to go on. They also told me the last time he’d been in touch, he was in Jordan. But in the end, when a mother is crying and tells you the father has been hospitalized, you try to help. So I promised her, “It’s two in the morning now. In a few hours it’ll be light, and I’ll go look for him.” Then I started asking her questions. What did he like to do? He liked diving. I asked for pictures. One of the pictures they sent was of his non-Jewish girlfriend, who was from France. I went out with another Israeli and a Filipino. I knew there was a diving town about three hours’ drive from here. I’d never heard of Israelis going there, but I thought I’d go just so I could say I’d tried, and to put the parents’ minds at ease. So I drove there and started looking. I went to a diving club and asked, “Does anyone know this young man? Has anyone seen him?” Nobody had seen him or heard of him. All right, I headed toward the beach and saw a building. I asked what it was, and they told me it was a hotel. I went over there. I couldn’t find him. I told the Filipino, “Ask people around here if there’s another guesthouse nearby.” They told him there was one across the street and explained how to get there. So we went to the guesthouse, and who comes out—

17:31 Speaker 2 His non-Jewish girlfriend comes out of the guesthouse. We recognized her immediately from the pictures. I had brought a computer with the pictures, and I asked her, “Where’s your boyfriend?” She said, “Down on the beach.” We went down to the beach. He saw us and understood at once what was going on. There had been a small storm, the power was out, and he hadn’t been in touch with his family. He saw us and started shouting. He was wearing only shorts. He shouted to her, “See what Jews are like?” Suddenly his Jewish spark burst out. I don’t know where it came from, but he shouted that to her, and he understood why we were there. I immediately called his father from my phone, and he spoke to his father and mother. They were so happy. His father had told me to be careful with the young man: “Don’t suggest anything religious to him. He hates religion. He deliberately eats only non-kosher food, and he deliberately chose a non-Jewish girlfriend.” His father stayed in touch with me afterward and told me that ever since that incident, his Jewish spark had come to the surface. He left the non-Jewish girl, and something in him changed completely. Looking back on the whole story, it was apparently all hashgacha pratis. I had another story like that.

18:49 Speaker 5 What an amazing story. Unbelievable.

18:54 Speaker 2 I had another similar story, though a little different. I got a phone call on the night after Rosh Hashanah from a Chassidic father in Jerusalem, a Sanz chossid. He told me his son was in the Philippines. He said his son had been somewhat depressed. [unclear] The other children had picked on him, so he took him out of one school and put him in another. His self-confidence dropped sharply, and suddenly he started falling into depression and needed more serious treatment. The father told me, “Lately he’s been doing a little better, and for the first time we let him travel on his own. He wanted to go to Meron for Rosh Hashanah. We let him go, but he didn’t come back, and we can’t find him. In the trash in his room, we found things he’d written about the Philippines and places in the Philippines.” I told him, “That sounds a little strange. It’s a long way to fly here from Israel. I don’t think he’s here.” He said, “Listen, we’ve already found his flight ticket. We got into his email.” So the first thing I did was contact immigration and check whether someone by that name had entered the country. They told me he had indeed entered—not on the day shown on the ticket, but the following day. I let the father know. Until then, I’d been trying to convince him that his son had probably flown to London or somewhere in Europe. I couldn’t imagine he’d come all the way to the Philippines. I asked whether he knew anyone here, whether he’d met any Filipinos from here. Why would he come here? But in the end, the father was right: he was here. Now, knowing he was here was one thing—finding him was another. We started going around looking for him, looking for some lead. I sent people out and went searching around the city. I found nothing. Now, one of the things the father

20:53 Speaker 2 had found in the trash was a note on which he’d written “Banaue.” He told me, “He really loves nature. He doesn’t like the city. He wanted to go to Meron because there’s so much nature around it. He loves nature.” He told me to go to Banaue. This was between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I said, “It’s difficult for me to go. It’s a twelve-hour drive each way.” He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the car. Listen, if he doesn’t take his medication, his life is in danger. He could take his own life. He has to take his medication. It’s dangerous.” So, having no choice, I rented a car and was about to leave. My wife said, “Before you go, write to the Rebbe.” I wrote the whole story to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe’s answer was that he was in my city and there was no reason for me to travel.

21:37 Speaker 6 Ah.

21:39 Speaker 2 So I told the father. He got angry with me. He said, “What is this nonsense? What is this Rebbe? What is this Igros Kodesh [?]?” He started in on me: “Stop this nonsense. What are you listening to? Go! Make the trip!” I told him, “Listen carefully. If the Rebbe wrote that, I’m not going. If the Rebbe wrote that he’s here, then he’s here.” The father was terribly angry with me. Not only was he angry; he decided he couldn’t count on me. He immediately bought plane tickets for another son and for the person who had been treating his son. He was angry that he’d told me to go and I hadn’t gone. He bought them tickets for right after Yom Kippur, and they arrived here for Sukkos. That year, the four species hadn’t arrived, and they brought the four species too.

22:25 Speaker 6 What a miracle.

22:28 Speaker 2 That’s how it is here—life here is one big miracle.

22:32 Speaker 6 Yes, I can see that.

22:35 Speaker 2 That same year—no, of course, I had asked travelers to bring the four species. But they put them in their bags and folded them over. They didn’t know that was a problem. They took the lulavim and bent them. So the four species arrived, but they were bent and crushed.

22:54 Speaker 6 So?

22:54 Speaker 2 Boruch Hashem, these visitors understood how to bring the four species properly and brought me a set. In any case, they arrived. The holidays were packed together that year—Shabbos and Yom Tov, something like that—and they also wanted to travel up north. But because it was Yom Tov, I said, “It’s Sukkos now. Where will you find a sukkah up there?” So they decided to stay. I told them, “Let’s get to work. The Rebbe says he’s here. Let’s work here—he’s here.” A lot of people here helped me. Each one has a story of his own. We went around and decided to start circulating his picture. Apparently, someone found him and dropped him off at the entrance to the embassy, but the embassy was closed for the holiday. The embassy guards informed us right away that someone had brought him there and he’d left. They recognized him because I’d already circulated his picture. One thing I’d done was ask the people involved in spreading the Seven Noahide Laws for help. They immediately all pitched in, went around to all the police stations, and circulated his picture. We hadn’t wanted to put it in the media, because we thought he might see it and hide even more, so we didn’t. But after we questioned the guards at the embassy entrance, they said he had arrived there in a terrible state. We realized he wasn’t staying in a hotel or anything like that, and then we publicized it. Anyway, on the first night of Sukkos, we were sitting at a farbrengen in the sukkah. It was about one in the morning, and we were getting ready to go to sleep. I’m a Levi, and they were Levi’im too. Someone asked who would get the Levi aliyah the next day. I said, “Your brother will get Levi—the one we’re looking for.” A few minutes later, the police arrived and said, “Come identify him. He’s at the station nearby. Come—

24:52 Speaker 2 is this the person you’re looking for?” We rushed over, identified him, and it was him. One of the first things I asked him was, “How did they let you leave with your payos?” After all, he’d flown on Rosh Hashanah. “How did they let you leave?” He said the security staff at Ben Gurion Airport had asked him why he was flying then. He told them, “It’s permitted on the second day of Yom Tov,” and they accepted that. They should have realized something was wrong. In any case, when the father heard everything that had happened, the whole sequence of events, he exclaimed, “Now I understand that the Rebbe is alive and with us!” He’d been so angry that he’d sent the brother and the person treating his son, but in the end he understood that the Rebbe had been right. I asked the young man what had happened. He’d run out of money, so he’d slept on the streets and asked people for food. The whole time, he’d been here in the city, just as the Rebbe had said. And finding him was a miracle too. The police station was nearby, but the officer who found him, though he works here, lives at the opposite end of the city. He was on his way home when he found him. It was unbelievable.

26:09 Speaker 7 It sounds...

26:10 Speaker 2 It really was. The father has stayed in touch ever since. He sends donations and is very appreciative, and he went to his Rebbe and told him the story. He said, “Now I believe the Rebbe is alive and with us. I was so angry, and now I see how right the Rebbe was.”

26:25 Speaker 7 Amazing, amazing, amazing.