Rabbi Pinchas Cohen - Panama - Part 2

00:18 Speaker 1 Let’s remind our viewers that we’re here with Rabbi Pinchas Cohen from Panama—well, currently from Panama. Originally from Kfar Chabad, right?

00:30 Speaker 2 Tel Aviv.

00:31 Speaker 1 Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv. Pinchas went through tremendous upheaval to be near the Rebbe, shlita, Melech HaMoshiach. And in the end, you had an enormous struggle to be near the Rebbe, to be in the Rebbe’s yeshiva. This world of ours—a world of concealment—wasn’t giving you that opportunity. You fought with all your strength, and finally the legendary founder of the yeshiva said to you, “What do you think? I say you’re in the yeshiva, period.”

01:06 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s how it happened. In short, I found a place to sleep, ate at the yeshiva, and came to the study sessions. Then, one day, about a year later, the person in charge of the yeshiva came over to me and said, “Listen, I see how much you want to be here officially and everything. So from now on, you’ll be responsible for all the books here in the yeshiva.” I was in my second year then. “You’ll be responsible for collecting all the books at night, for the bochurim, and for—I don’t know—coffee and cake. In short, you’ll take care of all those things, and you won’t have to pay tuition.”

01:45 Speaker 1 How wonderful.

01:46 Speaker 2 I said, “How wonderful, boruch Hashem, fine.” Actually, that year I also met Rami Antin[?] and—what do you call him—the one from soccer. What’s his name? The former player. Yes, Rami also helped a little with tuition at the time. But after a while, the truth is I wasn’t sleeping at night because I had to pick up the Gemaras. We were learning Bava Basra, one of the heavier tractates. Picking them all up was hard, and I also had to get up early. In short, collecting the Gemaras of more than two hundred bochurim every night was no simple matter. It was breaking my back. Rabbi Pikarsky, who was the mashgiach at the yeshiva, understood that. He saw it. So he said, “Listen, from now on you’re not doing that anymore. You’ll be a mashgiach here in the yeshiva together with me. You’ll supervise all the bochurim during the nigleh study session.” And so for two years I was a mashgiach there and studied there. That was the whole period when the Rebbe would come out onto the balcony, with “Yechi Adoneinu,” beepers, and everyone running. We were waiting for the revelation at any moment. For the bochurim, it was quite a time.

02:50 Speaker 1 Look, look, Pinchas, listen carefully.

02:53 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:53 Speaker 1 You’re speaking in shorthand that many of the viewers won’t understand. Tell the stories in detail. When you say the Rebbe came out onto the balcony, most people in the world have no idea what you’re talking about. Tell the story. Tell us what happened. You were there during Chabad’s most critical years.

03:13 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes.

03:14 Speaker 1 Describe it. We have time. We’ll meet another hundred times. Why not? Tell the whole story.

03:21 Speaker 2 Okay. And during that time, I also kept writing to the Rebbe that I wanted to go back to Israel. Well, not constantly—I wrote several times. And the Rebbe wrote to me, “No, continue insisting on getting into this particular yeshiva.” And in the end, as they say, the Rebbe saw things I didn’t see: I ended up needing to be there as a mashgiach together with Rabbi Pikarsky. I remember that period of study—how can I portray it? It was a very, very tense period. That’s the word I would use for it: a very tense period. On the one hand, we said, “We’ve finally come to see the Rebbe.” But we weren’t seeing the Rebbe at the dollar distribution or at the prayers. We saw the Rebbe on the balcony that had been built so he could come out for prayers and farbrengens. From time to time, there was also something like a private yechidus: people would pass by the Rebbe one at a time, and boruch Hashem, I merited that too. The Rebbe was at the entrance to his room, [unclear], and everyone passed by his room. So there would be Minchah and Shacharis, and when the Rebbe came out, the beeper would say “Moshiach Now,” and everyone would— I remember people pouring out into the streets.

04:50 Speaker 3 Explain the beepers. What were they? Not Menachem Mendel’s beepers...

04:56 Speaker 2 No, G-d forbid. Back then there were no cell phones, and we didn’t know when the Rebbe would come out for prayers or farbrengens. Everyone had beepers. The bochurim had them too. A message would appear on the beeper saying “Moshiach Now,” and we knew the Rebbe was coming out for prayers or a farbrengen. The yeshiva was on Dean Street in Crown Heights then, and all the bochurim would run through the streets. I remember seeing the streets surging with bochurim. They tried so hard to get there quickly that some would even climb onto the roofs of cars and run across them. Everyone did whatever they could to get there and see the Rebbe. That was how it was for about a year or more: we were constantly close to the Rebbe, so to speak. Even during the period when the Rebbe was in his room. This was something very striking: when the Rebbe wasn’t feeling well, his bed was in the room, and minyanim were held there. In the room where the Rebbe had always received people for yechidus, there was a sort of curtain. We didn’t see the Rebbe; of course, he was lying in bed. But davening with a minyan was important, and arrangements were made for it. Only ten people would enter to daven with the Rebbe. I merited to enter that room many times—the Rebbe’s room, the room where yechidus had always taken place. I also merited several times to be called to the Torah there as a Kohen. But it was a very... I remember we would be learning in the seminary. It was very hard to hear the Rebbe’s cries of pain coming from his room. As it says, “He bore our illnesses and carried our pains.” Literally. It—

06:53 Speaker 2 was literally that. I remember bochurim who were near the Rebbe’s room late at night talking about hearing the Rebbe’s pain. That was throughout 5753 and part of 5751. And that was it. That was the period that, to our great sorrow, led to that day of Gimmel Tammuz, which is already—how do you say it?

07:24 Speaker 3 A subject in its own right.

07:26 Speaker 2 An entire subject in its own right. Yes, yes. It was something extraordinary, something extraordinary.

07:32 Speaker 3 So you were there throughout that period. Were you also there in 5751 for the sicha of 28 Nissan?

07:44 Speaker 2 No, I wasn’t there then. No.

07:47 Speaker 3 When did you arrive?

07:49 Speaker 2 I arrived toward—I arrived toward the end of 5753, if I’m not mistaken. The middle of 5753, toward the end of 5753.

08:01 Speaker 3 When the Rebbe began coming out onto the balcony.

08:03 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. Yes, yes.

08:05 Speaker 3 Meaning the Rebbe would come out onto the balcony for all three daily prayers. That was the period.

08:12 Speaker 2 Yud Kislev[?], at farbrengens. Yes, from time to time, when the Rebbe was still...

08:16 Speaker 3 Yes.

08:17 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:18 Speaker 3 That well-known farbrengen of Yosef Isla[?] with the...

08:22 Speaker 2 Yes, I was there with the [unclear]... Yes.

08:24 Speaker 3 Yes, it was an amazing thing. And you were there throughout that period.

08:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:29 Speaker 3 How is it that...

08:32 Speaker 2 I’m telling you, you could see how the Rebbe... I remember the Rebbe. The truth is, at the time there was nowhere for me to stand. It was incredibly crowded, so I remember hanging on to a pillar opposite the Rebbe. You could see the Rebbe, with all his strength, despite all the pain and suffering, coming out and using all his strength to encourage everyone singing “Yechi Adoneinu.” It was something. It was as though, for the Rebbe, that was everything. As though what remained was “Yechi Adoneinu.” Throughout that whole period, the Rebbe encouraged it in an extraordinary way. And honestly, today I ask myself every single day: How have so many years gone by since then, and he still hasn’t come? He still hasn’t come. “The summer has passed, the winter has passed, and we have not been redeemed,” as they say. There isn’t a day when that question doesn’t come up for me. And since it happened, I’ve had a rule: In every letter I send, no matter to whom, after writing the date at the top, I write—for example, if it’s 26 Cheshvan—“And still he hasn’t come?” A question mark. Because it could be... Another day passes, and another day, and another day. It’s something utterly incomprehensible. But that’s the test we face, unfortunately. That’s an aside.

10:10 Speaker 3 Okay, we’ll talk about that in more depth another time. But what I’d like to hear from you now is: You’re in yeshiva. How does it work? You finish, and then comes your year of kvutza?

10:26 Speaker 2 No. In Oholei Torah there are four years. The fourth year is essentially the year of kvutza. There’s first year, second year, third year; the fourth year is, so to speak, kvutza. After that, as they did every year, they would submit names to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe would say which shlichus each young man would go on—which country, which yeshiva he would go to as a shliach.

10:48 Speaker 3 Oh, so they would submit the young men’s names, and the Rebbe would decide where...

10:53 Speaker 2 The Rebbe would decide where each one would go. Yes, they would submit a list of names and a list of yeshivas, along with the number of places each yeshiva had—seven, ten, five. Each yeshiva had its quota. I remember that I really wanted to go on shlichus to Brazil. It sounded like an interesting place to me. And...

11:16 Speaker 3 You didn’t know the language...

11:16 Speaker 2 It was my personal choice. What?

11:18 Speaker 3 You didn’t know the language then.

11:20 Speaker 2 No, I didn’t know anything. And you didn’t know whether you would actually be sent or not. We just knew which places were on the list. I think it was the first year that this yeshiva was an option, so it was quite attractive. It was the first year they sent young men there. After we finished the year—and, you know, some places specifically want young men of one type, and others want a different type—a very good group of seven of us was sent to that yeshiva. We went to Brazil for a year of shlichus at the yeshiva.

11:52 Speaker 3 When you say “that yeshiva,” which yeshiva do you mean? And where is it?

11:56 Speaker 2 It’s Rabbi Shamai Ende’s yeshiva. It’s in... Wow, I can’t remember the name of the yeshiva. I can’t remember the name of the neighborhood there.

12:09 Speaker 3 In Rio or São Paulo?

12:11 Speaker 2 No, in São Paulo. Yes, it was in São Paulo. São Paulo, yes.

12:14 Speaker 3 Oh, okay.

12:15 Speaker 2 The yeshiva was in São Paulo, and we arrived there. The basic arrangement was that we were supposed to sit and learn with the young men there. Since I had finished my studies, I wanted to study for semicha, but there was no one there to study semicha with. There was nothing set up for it. And just as I had been a mashgiach at Oholei Torah, I was a mashgiach at the yeshiva there, which had sixty young men. While I was there, I decided to open a semicha program. I remember Rabbi Shamai Ende was relatively young then, thirty-five or thirty-six. He said to me, “What do you mean, I should give the young men semicha?” He wasn’t ready to give semicha then. I told him, “Listen, I’ll be the first young man you give semicha to, and after that it will open the door for everyone.” And that’s what happened. I studied for semicha there on my own. He examined me on the laws of issur and heter, Shabbos, and... When I brought him the certificate to sign, he said, “Listen, I’m nervous, because you’re the first person I’ve done this for. Will you promise me you’ll continue to be examined by other rabbis?” I said, “Yes. I promise I’ll also go and be examined by the Chief Rabbinate.” And that’s what happened. A year later I went to be examined by the Chief Rabbinate. Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu examined me, and I received a certificate from him. He also officiated at my wedding, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu. We had the privilege of having him do that as well.

13:44 Speaker 3 You were a religious young man?

13:46 Speaker 2 Couldn’t do otherwise. We want to be connected to the Tree of Life. Anyway, after that year, baruch Hashem, that place has produced hundreds of young men with semicha, right up to today. Hundreds. They now have an established program there for the young men. It’s really amazing. Baruch Hashem, it makes me happy to see that the program is still functioning and going strong today. Apparently, sometimes you just have to get something started—

14:13 Speaker 3 Are they usually local young men from Brazil?

14:16 Speaker 2 Both shluchim who come there and young men from Brazil, yes. My son was also born there.

14:21 Speaker 3 And you receive semicha—ordination as a rabbi. I’m explaining a little for the audience, because you’re using terms that only Chabad people understand, and I want everyone to understand what we’re talking about. So you receive semicha there, and how much longer do you stay?

14:39 Speaker 2 Altogether, my time there on shlichus was about a year. That was it. After a year I went back to 770. At 770 I continued learning for a while. At the same time I wrote to the Rebbe about shidduchim, and the Rebbe wrote back that I should indeed start looking for a shidduch. I realized there wasn’t much point looking in Brooklyn, because the American and Israeli styles are different.

15:14 Speaker 3 Yes.

15:14 Speaker 2 I always say: Good meat, good milk—but not good together.

15:18 Speaker 3 Yes, that’s true, it’s...

15:20 Speaker 2 In the end, it doesn’t work. Each has its own style. So I traveled to look in Israel, figuring I’d stay until I found my shidduch. For a short time I was in Ramat Aviv, learning there. The yeshiva in Ramat Aviv had only just started. I really enjoyed those few months, mainly because I had a connection with the rabbi—the Rebbe’s factotum, Rabbi, uh...

15:52 Speaker 3 Donin, Donin.

15:53 Speaker 2 Dunin, yes, with Reb Reuven. I had classes in Likkutei Torah with him. It was a taste of the World to Come. It was such a pleasure, such a pleasure, such a pleasure to sit in his class. He was a genuine Jew who... and that’s it. After that, as I said, I wanted to finish my rabbinical exams, so I went to study in the kollel in Arad with Rabbi Lipsker, a"h. The rabbi in Arad? Where? Yes, in Arad. In Arad. With Rabbi Lipsker and Rabbi Mendelson, his son-in-law. They had a kollel there for rabbinical ordination, and I continued my studies there until I got married. That was a few months too. And the shidduch was also something very much from Heaven. It’s a very interesting story. I don’t know if it’s connected to shlichus. If you want, I can tell it. Of course it’s connected. Everything is connected. Really. Come on, tell the stories. People want to hear. The truth is, I tell this story many Shabboses at the Chabad House, because it really is a fascinating story of hashgachah pratis. A little slower, so people can follow. I’m saying it’s a very interesting story. I often tell it to couples I sit with for marriage counseling, or at the Chabad House on Shabbos when we talk about these subjects. The story involves several remarkable instances of hashgachah pratis. When I was with the Rebbe, one of my friends said to me, “Listen, I have a shidduch to suggest: my sister.” Honestly, without that push, I might not have traveled to Israel. I did travel to Israel and met his sister. She was a very good young woman, but she was a little older, so it didn’t really work out. Then, a little while later, a friend from Oholei Torah called me—actually, a fairly well-known fellow in Chabad, Peretz Friedman. I don’t know if you

17:47 Speaker 2 know him. Friedman. Of course. Peretz founded the Gan Israel camp in Israel, and he was a close friend of mine at Oholei Torah yeshiva. He says to me, “Listen, Pinchas, mazal tov is in order.” This was a few days after he got married. I said, “Wow, what happened? You got married, and you can already marry me off too? Boruch Hashem.” Handing out mazal tovs. Yes. So he tells me that he and his bride had been talking about me, and they had a young woman from the seminary in Tzfas to suggest. You have to remember that twenty-five years ago, traveling from Tel Aviv to Tzfas was like traveling to the Rebbe. It was far away. So I thought to myself, all right, you have to do everything you can to find a shidduch, because I had come back home by then. The truth is, I’d already gone out with several young women, and I found it uncomfortable to tell people no. I’d felt that awkwardness, so I said I’d rather see the young woman beforehand. If I saw her, I’d know whether there was reason to continue. If not, it would be a shame to meet and then turn her down. Hashem gave me an eye for seeing things in people. If it’s right, it’s right; if not, there’s no reason to hurt the young woman. So I called a friend of mine who lived in Tzfas and said, “Listen, someone has suggested a young woman from Tzfas, and it turns out she lives in your building. Could I come stay with you for Shabbos?” He said, “Of course, come. We’d be happy to have you.” I arrived at their home. He was a childhood friend, and at the Shabbos table on Friday night,

19:34 Speaker 2 his mother asks me, “Tell me, what brought you to us for Shabbos?” So I told her they’d suggested the young woman who lived upstairs, and gave her name. Now for the first instance of hashgachah pratis: she was a dorm mother in Tzfas at the time. She knew all the girls inside out. So she says to me, “Listen, she’s not right for you at all. I wouldn’t suggest it.” I asked her, “Why?” She said, “You’re energetic.” She started explaining: “You’re a plus and she’s a plus, and it won’t work. There’ll be action, there’ll be...” All right. Thunder and lightning. Yes. So I asked her, “What do you suggest?” She said, “I have two other young women to suggest.” She started describing each one—what she looked like, where she was from, what she was studying, her background, this and that. When she described the woman I’m married to today, I said, “I want to meet her.” Just from the way she described my wife. So you didn’t even need to see her; you already knew through ruach hakodesh. I don’t know about ruach hakodesh, but I knew what I was looking for. That Shabbos—hashgachah pratis upon hashgachah pratis—was a vacation Shabbos, and the whole seminary had gone to some holiday village. All the girls. So even though I came that Shabbos, my wife wasn’t supposed to be there. But my wife—as Hakadosh Boruch Hu arranges matches—had put her suitcases on the bus. It was Friday afternoon, and the bus was leaving for the holiday village. I don’t know what happened; the driver didn’t notice she hadn’t gotten on, and drove away. And my wife was there on the slopes of Tzfas, up in the hills. She says she ran after it,

21:20 Speaker 2 but she missed the bus, with all her clothes on it. All right. So the dorm mother says to me, “Look, I’ll tell my son to go find her.” I said, “Let’s do this: invite her to come for Melaveh Malkah. Tell her she can help you a little with the cooking, the food and serving. If it looks promising, we’ll say we should meet. If not, she won’t have been hurt by me, I won’t have been hurt by her, and everything will be fine.” And that’s what happened. She invited her, and she came on Motzaei Shabbos. The problem was that this shadchan, the dorm mother, was a double agent. She told my wife the same thing. My wife was coming over, but before she arrived, she wrote to the Rebbe. My wife is originally from Argentina, where it was still Shabbos, so she had no one to consult. She wrote to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote back, blessing her that it should be a matter of daas, and so on—all the blessings the Rebbe gives for marriage. As far as she was concerned, she knew this was it. Settled. She was just waiting to see who it was. And when I saw her, I understood that this was it too. I told the dorm mother, “Listen, you have my approval.” So she checked with her, and she also said yes. And we met, of all places, on the roof of that building. All the dogs in Tzfas[?]. That very Motzaei Shabbos, we met and talked, and I told my wife that I wanted to go on shlichus, and so on. After half an hour I said, “Listen, I can’t explain it, but I feel I’ve finished making all my inquiries. As far as I’m concerned, it’s settled. Tell me what you think.” So she said, “I’ll tell

23:17 Speaker 2 you the truth: as far as I’m concerned, it’s settled too. That’s it for us.” Well. So I said to her, “Look, if I go to my parents and tell them I’m engaged, they’ll think I’ve gone crazy. So let’s go out another two or three times. Let’s give things a little—how do you say it?—time to settle down, so it looks like everything happened naturally, normally.” And indeed, after three meetings, I called my parents. They actually had no idea I’d been going on dates, because in my experience, when you talk about it, it doesn’t work out. So this time I’d decided not to say anything until I’d gone out and had something to tell. Exactly. I’d always noticed that the more you talk about it, somehow it doesn’t work out in the end. Yes. So that’s what happened. I called my parents, and I also called my oldest sister-in-law, who at the time really spent all day on the phone trying to find me a shidduch. I said, “Come over. I want to tell you something.” We said l’chaim. I told them, “Wish me mazal tov—I’m engaged.” Everyone was happy and excited. We’d actually met on the third night of Chanukah—sorry, we met on Rosh Chodesh Kislev. By the third night of Chanukah we were already engaged, and by Rosh Chodesh Adar we were married.

24:35 Speaker 4 So it was all within that period.

24:37 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, yes, yes, that was the period. Yes. So I’m saying, such instances of hashgachah pratis: I’d gone there to meet a completely different young woman, and everyone else had gone away, leaving only my wife. You could say it was from Heaven.

24:51 Speaker 4 Hakadosh Boruch Hu arranged it deliberately.

24:54 Speaker 2 Yes. And then, of course.

24:58 Speaker 4 An incredible story.

25:00 Speaker 2 An unbelievable story. Unbelievable. To this day I still say, “Wow, it doesn’t make sense. It’s not normal.” So I wrote a letter to the Rebbe, asking whether this was the right shidduch. The Rebbe wrote back, “I give my full blessing that this shidduch should come to fruition.” And the Rebbe added a condition: “For the first year, you will sit and learn in kollel.”

25:26 Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

25:27 Speaker 2 To learn in kollel for the first year. And the Rebbe knew why he wrote that, because at that time I had been offered a position on shlichus in Ashkelon. I had also been there on shlichus as a bochur, helping manage the institutions, and it seemed obvious that as soon as I got married, I would go straight into shlichus. But the Rebbe explicitly made it conditional on our spending a year learning in kollel. They took it a little hard, but they had someone else who could replace me for a while. And I did indeed learn.

25:56 Speaker 4 Who’s “they”? Oh, in Ashkelon.

25:58 Speaker 2 The shliach in Ashkelon. Rabbi Lieberman knows him too.

26:00 Speaker 4 Rabbi Lieberman. Yes.

26:02 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. But they understood that this came from the Rebbe. So I learned for a year in kollel in Tzfas, while my wife finished her studies. Baruch Hashem, she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at Ariel.

26:15 Speaker 4 Did you learn with Yossi Daniel?

26:17 Speaker 2 In the kollel?

26:20 Speaker 4 Yes.

26:20 Speaker 2 In Tzfas? With Amichai, with Rabbi Amichai.

26:23 Speaker 4 Oh, Amichai.

26:25 Speaker 2 He had a kollel there. That’s also where I met the man who would be my mashpia for more than twenty years, Rabbi Ornstein, a"h. A man of truth, Rabbi Ornstein. Rabbi Moshe Ornstein. A chossid, a real chossid.

26:42 Speaker 4 Yes, yes.

26:44 Speaker 2 That’s it. And in that same letter, the Rebbe wrote to me—I don’t know why the Rebbe wrote it in that letter—about learning shechitah and learning how to perform a bris milah. And that first year, I did indeed study both shechitah and milah, which I made a lot of use of on shlichus. There were a few other things I studied too, which, baruch Hashem, Hashem helped me complete. So that was it. We spent a year in kollel. After that year, we went on shlichus to Ashkelon. I was there for five years, managing the kindergartens. There were close to a thousand children in the kindergartens there.

27:15 Speaker 4 Wait, wait, wait, Pinchas. That deserves a blessing of its own. So we’ll stop here for now.

27:22 Speaker 2 All right.

27:23 Speaker 4 Be’ezras Hashem, next week, if you can, of course.

27:26 Speaker 2 Be’ezras Hashem, be’ezras Hashem.

27:27 Speaker 4 You can tell us about the shlichus in Ashkelon, and how that led to your current shlichus, as I understand it. Right?

27:35 Speaker 2 Be’ezras Hashem.