Rabbi Shmuel Yizhar, Varanasi, India - Part 4

00:18 Speaker 1 Hello, Rabbi, uh, Shmuel Yizhar. Do you prefer that we call you Rabbi, or are you one of those people who are fine with—

00:27 Speaker 2 Fine with it, fine with it.

00:29 Speaker 1 The general [unclear]. [unclear]

00:32 Speaker 2 Yes, fine with it.

00:34 Speaker 1 When I came to Chabad, I had no idea what people meant when they called someone “Rabbi.” Today, you have to call everyone Rabbi, or else something will happen. So, uh, Shmuel Yizhar, who founded, runs, and m-m-manages the Chabad House in one of the most fascinating places, Varanasi, right? Varanasi, uh, is that how you say it?

00:58 Speaker 2 Varanasi.

00:58 Speaker 1 Varanasi, India. Uh, last time you told us about the whole fascinating journey—what Varanasi is in the first place, and why you suddenly went there of all places. I won’t call it a remote backwater, but in a sense, in vast India, it seems like such an unlikely spot. Why there? And you told us about the music and everything connected with it. Today, Shmuel, I’d like you to tell us about setting up your home, going out on shlichus, and about different people you met along the way, or still meet, who have become part of your life on shlichus. So please, tell us.

01:54 Speaker 2 Uh, the decision to go out on shlichus began while I was still in India. From the moment I came to Chabad and started getting closer, I began to understand that this was where I was headed. There wasn’t anything else. Uh, once I even—

02:15 Speaker 1 I’m curious—

02:16 Speaker 2 An idea occurred to me.

02:17 Speaker 1 I’m curious what you mean by “this was where I was headed.” What does that mean? How does something like that take shape in your mind? After all, you’re in the middle of...

02:26 Speaker 2 I’ll explain. I’ll explain.

02:28 Speaker 1 Please.

02:29 Speaker 2 For example, when I first came to Chabad, once we’d resolved all the conflicts between us and gotten on the same page, I started sharing divrei Torah at the Shabbos meals. That was in front of three hundred, four hundred people. It became a regular thing for me to speak there...

02:48 Speaker 1 Where? In...

02:50 Speaker 2 That was during the two years I spent in Dharamshala. I had a drum school there—I taught drums—and I was still on my travels. But by then I was getting much more seriously involved. Once I realized that I was keeping Shabbos and connected to all of this, I really got into it and started learning. I studied Dvar Malchus, maamarim of the Rebbe Rashab, and began learning very, very deeply. Uh, I would put on Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, and so on. I went to the mikveh every day. So, uh, at the Shabbos meals they would ask me to speak, and I’d speak at every Shabbos meal. It was clear to me that this wasn’t just something temporary on my trip. This was where I was headed.

03:42 Speaker 1 Uh.

03:43 Speaker 2 Eventually, at one point... I even had people there whom I’d brought closer myself. You know some of them; I know they live near you. I won’t mention names, out of respect, but there are several people I brought in back when I was still traveling. I brought them, and Chabad won them over. Uh, and it was clear that this was where things were going. There was no question anymore. In fact, while I was still a traveler, one Shabbos I had an idea as I was coming down from— I lived very high up on the mountain, a ten-minute climb. It was a steep mountain, and my house was the last one in the village, right up there on the mountain. Every day I would walk down into town, where the Chabad House and my drum school were. So one Shabbos it occurred to me that maybe I should go. I’d call a friend—we’d both been in India for a long time—and try to open a Chabad House in Varanasi. This was while I was still traveling. So I said to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and to the Rebbe, “If this is a good idea, give me a sign, and if it isn’t, give me a sign too.” And I kept walking downhill. A few minutes later, I suddenly came across an angry Indian man with a club who wanted to smash my head with it. He chased me all the way to the Chabad House. It was Shabbos morning. After Shabbos, I went to apologize to him, thinking maybe I’d done something to upset him. He was the son of the village headman—like the village chief. If you’re not on good terms with them, you can’t do anything there. So I went to talk to him. He had no idea what I wanted from him. He didn’t even know what had happened. I don’t know, I don’t—

05:22 Speaker 2 know what... There was nothing. Nothing to apologize for. So, uh, I took that as a very, very clear sign that I wasn’t going to open a Chabad House in Varanasi that way. Then I returned to Israel, entered yeshiva, and studied there for two years.

05:37 Speaker 3 Where?

05:37 Speaker 2 And... when I got married. What? With Rabbi Arad [unclear], at Daas.

05:43 Speaker 3 Daas in Rechovot.

05:45 Speaker 2 What?

05:46 Speaker 3 Daas in Rechovot, right?

05:48 Speaker 2 Yes, Daas in Rechovot, back when it was a yeshiva for baalei teshuvah. I was also in Tzfas. Then I got married and moved to Tzfas. Uh, we lived in Tzfas for a year, and after a year, when our daughter was born, we went out to India.

06:06 Speaker 3 So your daughter was the sign that you should return to India? Is that how it worked? Or had you talked about it?

06:12 Speaker 2 No, it was simply after a year. It was exactly after a year.

06:15 Speaker 3 Did your wife know you wanted to go to India?

06:18 Speaker 2 My wife knew, and we talked about it a little during the shidduch. She told me she absolutely didn’t want to hear about India, because she knew where I’d come from. So I told her, “We’re not discussing our shlichus during the shidduch. We’re discussing our home, our relationship, those things. We’re not discussing shlichus. Shlichus is something that...” I also knew it would be very, very, very hard to bring her to Varanasi, because Varanasi really is a difficult place. So three months after we got married, we went to open something in Dharamshala. Dharamshala, in India, is a very beautiful place, with mountains, streams, and forests. It’s very, very beautiful, more rural. So I took her there for Pesach to open something. She really, really didn’t like it, but it was a first step into India. She’d seen India now; she’d seen what India was like. She really didn’t like it, though. After a year I said, “All right, now let’s go do shlichus for real.” And we went to Varanasi. At first she really couldn’t make sense of the place, but today she wants the shlichus more than I do.

07:31 Speaker 3 Could you please—could you describe a little of the preparations for Varanasi? Tell us a bit about the surroundings there so we can understand what makes it so difficult. And how—with donkeys, with... H-how did you get there, and what equipment did you have? Tell us a little, because people don’t know.

07:53 Speaker 2 First of all, we had extraordinary siyata d’Shmaya when we opened the Chabad House. It was simply unbelievable. Everyone I told that we were going to open a new Chabad House—there was siyata d’Shmaya. People gave us money; it was completely beyond anything I could have expected. Very, very quickly, we put together the entire budget for that year. The Rebbe also gave us a very big test connected with the shlichus. Every year, to get a visa for India, we’d just go to the Indian embassy on the day of our flight, apply, receive a visa that same day, and fly to India. That was the usual way. That year, my wife and I went there. We’d just come back from the Rebbe in Tishrei. Before flying to the Rebbe, we’d already put everything from our home into storage. We’d packed it all up. We didn’t have a home in Israel anymore. We came back from the Rebbe and went to the embassy to get our visas so we could fly to India the next day. Long story short, the Indians held us up for two and a half months.

09:02 Speaker 4 Wow.

09:03 Speaker 2 Two and a half months. For one week, a friend gave us his children’s rooms, and we slept there. After a week we realized we couldn’t go on like that. They kept putting us off. You didn’t know when you’d get the visa. Come back in two days. Call in a week. Call in three days. In short, we spent two and a half months with two bags and mattresses, and we didn’t even have a kitchen. It was something else. Unbelievable. On 19 Kislev, my wife and I held a farbrengen with a shoebox from shoes we’d bought. We put a napkin on the shoebox and ate the falafel we’d bought. That was our 19 Kislev farbrengen. So it was a very big test of whether we really belonged on this shlichus. That’s truly how we both felt. And after two months the visa finally came, and we flew to India. We were supposed to arrive much earlier, but by the time we got there it was already winter. They have a month and a half of winter there. Just a month and a half when it’s cold. No rain or anything, just cold. It’s very cloudy, and you don’t see the sun. Everything is gray. On the day we arrived, we took a rickshaw from the train. The driver said to us, “You should know, you’ve brought the light here. After a month and a half, this is the first time the sun has come out. You’ve brought...” That’s what he told us: “You’ve brought us the light here.” And we arrived. We arrived. Now I’ll tell you a little about Varanasi, so we can understand what goes on there. In Varanasi, there isn’t a home without an idol inside it. Set into the wall by the entrance, or statues in every corner. It’s a city of idol worshippers, quite literally. So it’s very, very difficult. And the houses there are very, very small, and it’s a very

11:08 Speaker 2 crowded city. It’s an old city, with alleyways like—lehavdil—the alleyways of Jerusalem. They’re all very, very narrow, with very small houses built upward. So there’s no obvious place where you can set up a Chabad House. It’s very, very hard to find one.

11:28 Speaker 4 Was that the first time you’d come to Varanasi, or...?

11:31 Speaker 2 That we came together for shlichus, yes.

11:33 Speaker 4 So it was your first time?

11:35 Speaker 2 First time. We brought things with us for the shlichus—what we’d planned for and thought we’d need.

11:43 Speaker 4 A taxi. How did you get there?

11:46 Speaker 2 We flew, then took a train, and after the train, a taxi into the city. We got a hotel room and started going out from there to look for rooms. We arrived on Sunday morning. We took the train on Motzaei Shabbos, arrived in the city on Sunday, got a room, and started looking. We thought it would surely take a day or two. And the siyata dishmaya was extraordinary, truly extraordinary. But we didn’t find anything. We started looking and couldn’t find a decent place. Meanwhile, my wife was nursing, and we had practically nothing to eat. We couldn’t prepare any food. You could only eat, you know, bananas, clementines, tomatoes, cucumbers. We had nothing to cook with. We were in a hotel room. By the fourth day, we’d run out of everything. By Tuesday, the bread we’d brought was gone, and... In short, we had nothing. My wife started crying because there wasn’t much milk left for the baby to nurse; there wasn’t enough food for her to produce milk. On Wednesday morning, my wife wrote to the Rebbe in tears: “We have to find a place. We can’t go on like this.” And I wrote to Rabbi [unclear], to my rabbi. I wrote, “Listen, we have a problem. We can’t find a place. It’s already Wednesday, Shabbos is coming soon, and we hardly have anything to eat. We’re eating vegetables and fruit.” I sent it to him by SMS, as a text message. This was back before WhatsApp and all that. It didn’t exist then. Fifteen years ago. I sent him a message, and we went out looking. We went out in the morning. We finished getting ready, davening, crying and all that, and went to look again. We headed in a different direction and wandered around, walking and walking. Suddenly we looked at a house, thinking maybe this could be the one. All of a sudden, a cow walked past us. It went about twenty meters, stopped, and looked back

13:50 Speaker 2 at us like this—the cow.

13:54 Speaker 5 Cows there are... out in the street?

13:57 Speaker 2 There are lots of cows there. The streets are full of cows. They just wander around freely. It’s like cats here, only more so. A cow walks right down the middle of the street and feels free. A cat here is afraid; the cow isn’t. Anyway, the cow looked at us, and my wife said to me, “I think Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us to follow the cow.” Fine. If Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us to follow the cow, we’ll follow the cow. What do we have to lose? So we followed it. The cow kept walking, turning into all kinds of alleyways and courtyards belonging to local people, and we followed it. We kept walking and walking. After about ten minutes, the cow stopped beside a big blue gate. [unclear] A big blue gate, and it looked at the gate. So we opened it. We saw a large courtyard with grass and rooms around it. We went in. It looked like the ideal place for a Chabad House: a courtyard and rooms. Wow! We looked around, and a local man came over. We asked him, “Are you the owner? Is this place available?” He said, “No, I’ll call him. Wait a moment.” So he called. The owner arrived and started negotiating. Now, negotiating there is impossible. I mean, it never ends. He starts with prices and... takes his time, and little by little he argues with you, cries, laughs. It’s an impossible negotiation. So I told him... By then I’d spent many, many years in India. I already knew how the whole thing worked. “Forget it. Listen, my friend, I don’t want to negotiate with you. I can give you such-and-such for

15:50 Speaker 2 the place. If you want it, take it. If you don’t, goodbye.” We left. I knew I’d offered him a good price, more than he expected, because we wanted the place. He said, “No, it’s...” I told him, “Listen, this is what I can afford. I’m not bargaining. This is what I can give you. If you want it, take it. If not, that’s fine. I’m staying at this hotel, in this room. If you want, you can come by. If not, that’s fine too.” And I walked out.

16:19 Speaker 5 Did you know how to get back to that place? You said there were all those twists and turns.

16:23 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. No, you find your way around. It’s very easy.

16:26 Speaker 5 I see.

16:27 Speaker 2 But we never would have found that place just by looking. We wouldn’t have gotten there on our own. As soon as I walked out through that blue gate, I got an SMS back from the rabbi, Rabbi Yitzchak [unclear]. He wrote: “Even a bird has found a home, and a sparrow a nest for herself. This is the Shechinah. Wishing you success.” That’s what I received from him. “Even a bird has found a home, and a sparrow a nest for herself. This is the Shechinah. Wishing you success.” I understood. I told my wife, “That’s it. This is our place.” That settled it. We went back to the hotel. Half an hour later, the owner showed up with his worker. “Okay, take the place. It’s all fine.” We said, “Okay. We’ll move in tomorrow.” And we did. It was already afternoon, so we moved in the next morning. That evening, we went there to make pasta, because we’d bought a camping stove and a pot. We were so hungry. We went and made pasta, and forgot about our daughter, who was asleep in her stroller, for ten minutes. While we were busy, she was left there in the courtyard for ten minutes. When she came out, her face and hands were covered in mosquito bites.

17:43 Speaker 5 Wow.

17:45 Speaker 2 It’s a terrible, terrible place. There are mosquitoes and all kinds of flying insects. It’s on the river. The whole place is on the river, and what comes out of it... There are surprises coming from the river all the time. So that was the place. Eventually, we wrapped that Chabad House in mosquito netting. We had a net sewn that was three hundred square meters.

18:10 Speaker 5 Really?

18:12 Speaker 2 Square meters. We wrapped the entire building, from beginning to end, everything included. So at night, when we sat in the courtyard, there was mosquito netting above us. You could see the mosquitoes above the net—a whole world of them. An amazing world. So that’s how we found our first place.