Rabbi Shmuel Yizhar, Varanasi, India - Part 5 and Final

00:17 Speaker 1 Okay, Shmuel, please. We heard with great interest about finding the new Chabad House, with the siege of mosquitoes and all the other creatures surrounding you. Please continue this fascinating story.

00:34 Speaker 2 So, where we left off, there had been a lot of help from Heaven. Really. And very quickly we got the place set up. It was simply an enormous miracle. The first Shabbos we spent there was my daughter’s first birthday. We got the place on Wednesday—on Thursday, sorry—and Friday morning we went to get all the things we needed: plates, cups, everything. None of it was disposable. There are no disposables there. It’s all actual dishes.

01:11 Speaker 1 Right.

01:13 Speaker 2 And we needed gas burners and pots and all those things, and we had to immerse everything. Anyway, I won’t bore you with it, but it took almost the whole day. It was only late Friday afternoon that we actually started making food. And it was just us.

01:36 Speaker 1 Did you immerse the dishes in the river?

01:38 Speaker 2 Yes. I even immersed myself in the river.

01:41 Speaker 1 Good. Nice.

01:42 Speaker 2 Because I had nowhere else to immerse.

01:45 Speaker 1 What about the—

01:45 Speaker 2 I meant the dishes. What?

01:48 Speaker 1 Actual water?

01:50 Speaker 2 No, not at all.

01:52 Speaker 1 No—

01:53 Speaker 2 It’s one of the most polluted rivers in the world.

01:56 Speaker 1 What do you mean?

01:57 Speaker 2 They say its pollution level is seven hundred and fifty times the lowest acceptable standard for rivers in the United States. Seven hundred and fifty times. Anyway, I immersed for Shabbos. I said to myself, “You’re immersing the dishes, but not yourself? What’s that about?” So I went in too. Anyway, by the time we started cooking and organizing everything and getting the kitchen working, we’d brought in an Indian man to make us these Indian flatbreads. We didn’t have much time to make challahs, and we didn’t have an oven either. They make these Indian flatbreads on a kind of pan.

02:40 Speaker 1 Had you invited any Jews for Shabbos? Were there Jews there?

02:43 Speaker 2 That’s the thing: we hadn’t met any Jews. We’d met one Jew, an Israeli who’d been in Australia for many, many years. We told him it was our daughter’s birthday, and he said, “I’ll come.” That was it. Other than that, there was one Jew there named Anthony, in Varanasi, who spoke fluent Hebrew. Completely fluent, like an Israeli. So we told him too where the Chabad House was. Then that Jew from Australia arrived. I had ten minutes to shower, but I hadn’t had time yet. I was still covered in stuff from the river and everything. I said I’d take a quick shower. I was right in the middle of making a dish for the Shabbos meal. We didn’t have enough gas, because the fellow making the flatbreads for Shabbos was using it all. So there I was, ten minutes before Shabbos, still chopping carrots into the dish, and just then this Israeli who’d spent so long in Australia walked in. He’d brought a present for my daughter. I said to him, “Do me a favor, I have to shower. Could you carry on chopping until I come out?” He said, “Okay.” I said, “And if I’m not out in ten minutes, turn off the gas and put the lid on.” He said, “What? Nothing here will be cooked in ten minutes.” I said, “Listen, I’m not the one cooking. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is cooking. I’m just chopping things and putting them in. You carry on too.” I went into the shower. He started laughing at me: “We’re going to eat this raw.” I showered while he chopped. When I came out, there were about two minutes left. I turned off the gas, put the pot on the hotplate, and said to him, “That’s it. Shabbos.” Now, it was just him, me, my wife and our little girl. We started the Shabbos prayers, and there were

04:27 Speaker 2 incredible lights there. We danced during Lecha Dodi and all that. And we’d come from the duty-free shop, so we’d brought plenty for l’chaims. We started the Shabbos meal, and there were lots of l’chaims. I don’t know how.

04:39 Speaker 3 Can you describe how big this house was? What was its layout? Give us a picture. Did it have one room, ten rooms? How exactly did the house work?

04:47 Speaker 2 The house had twelve rooms.

04:50 Speaker 3 Wonderful.

04:51 Speaker 2 There were four on each side—four here, four there and four over there—with a courtyard in the middle that could fit around two hundred people for a Shabbos meal. A very big courtyard. At that point we still didn’t know anything, so we took one room, put in an aron kodesh, placed the Sefer Torah in it and made that room a shul. We held the meal there too. We had a ceiling fan, and we ate there. And we started saying lots of l’chaims. Lots of l’chaims. It was my daughter’s birthday, and the two of us were sitting there saying, “L’chaim, l’chaim, l’chaim.” He was going along with me, with his beard and all, and we were talking, encouraging each other, singing and playing music. Then suddenly he said to me, “Listen, I...” I said, “We have to make good resolutions.” He said, “I’m making a good resolution.” I said, “Great, let’s hear it. What good resolution are you making?” He said, “From today on, I’m going to keep the Ten Commandments.” I said, “Okay. Do you know what the Ten Commandments say?” He said, “Yes, this and that.” I said, “They say, ‘Observe the Shabbos day to keep it holy.’ You know? ‘Six days you shall work, and the seventh day is Shabbos to Hashem your G-d; you shall not do any work.’” He said, “Yeah, I’m taking that on, I’m taking that on.” I said, “Okay, l’chaim, l’chaim.” We were tipsy, both of us pretty far gone. Then we brought out the dish. We’d reached the main course, and as we took it out, he was laughing at me. “Yeah, some l’chaims we’ve had!” We opened the pot, and the food was ready. He just sat there: “How can that be? It can’t be.” And then, all of a sudden, the door opened. Lots of Israelis started coming in, one after another. “Where did you all come from?” “We heard there’s a Chabad House.” I said, “There certainly is. Sit down, come in.” Suddenly there was this great joy. Where had they come from? From that Indian man. The Hebrew-speaking Indian had seen a whole group

06:45 Speaker 2 of Israelis and said, “What are you doing wandering around here when there’s a Chabad House? Go into the Chabad House.”

06:51 Speaker 3 Amazing.

06:53 Speaker 2 Speaking of the Indian man who told them about the Chabad House, I’ll tell you another story. In our third year there, a couple arrived who wore knitted kippahs. Now, sometimes people like that are very, very nice, but some come in very arrogant, very haughty and dismissive. Anyway, this young couple were very rude. Very, very rude. No matter how much we tried to welcome them, they were like that. Say I was sharing a thought on the Torah: he would demonstratively turn his chair so his back was to me, you know? He’d be sitting right across from me. I’d stand up and begin speaking, and he’d turn his chair away and talk to his wife. It was a blatant snub. And all the while we kept trying to draw them in, giving them things and doing things for them. One Friday—oh, it was Wednesday or Thursday—they told us, “We’re coming to help prepare for Shabbos.” We said, “With Hashem’s help, come, help us. If you need help, come by. Come peel things, help us cook—we’d be happy.” Fine. We waited all Friday; they didn’t show up. Nothing. Well, we were used to it already. You know, you don’t get disappointed with travelers. That’s how travelers are. They come, they don’t come—it’s all good. We love them as they are. Then the Shabbos meal came around, and they weren’t there. The meal was packed; there was nowhere to sit. I personally sat on the garbage bin because there were no chairs left. I took the bin and sat on it—there simply weren’t any chairs or any room. We looked around and saw they weren’t there. They weren’t at the Shabbos meal. I said, “How can that be? Did they leave town? That can’t be.” And if they hadn’t left town, then they hadn’t

08:36 Speaker 2 come to the meal. It didn’t make sense. It just didn’t make sense. Anyway, the Shabbos meal ended and everyone left. Around midnight, they suddenly arrived, both of them looking frightened. “What happened?” He said, “You wouldn’t believe it.” I said, “What? What happened?” “You wouldn’t believe it.” Then: “Oh, we forgot that Thursday was the day we said we’d come, and we didn’t show up.”

08:59 Speaker 4 Okay.

08:59 Speaker 2 “And we went out. We went around the city and did some shopping that evening. We were buying things, and then we were on our way back to the hotel. It was ten-thirty. One of the Indian men who speak Hebrew—there are quite a few of them there, because this place used to be packed with Israelis. There are all kinds of Indian businessmen there who sell Israelis bedsheets and things like that. Silk—it’s India’s silk city.

09:26 Speaker 4 Oh.

09:26 Speaker 2 So, so there are a lot of Indians there who speak really good Hebrew. Really good. One of them came into the Chabad House and started talking to me: “What’s up, bro? How’s it going? What’s happening? What’s new?” He sounded just like an Israeli, slang and all. For about half a minute I felt something wasn’t quite right, but I couldn’t figure out what. Then he said one word, and I realized he was Indian. He looked Israeli, dressed Israeli, and had a dark complexion, a bit like a Yemenite. Anyway, one of the Indians says to these guys, “Shabbos shalom, guys. Why aren’t you going to the Chabad House? It’s Shabbos.” He was even wearing a kippah. One of them says, “No, today isn’t Shabbos.” The Indian says, “Today is Shabbos.”

10:12 Speaker 4 Okay.

10:12 Speaker 2 The Indian started arguing with him. He said, “It’s Shabbos now. Everyone’s at the Chabad House.” The guy says, “No, no, today is Thursday.” He says, “No, today is Shabbos. Everyone’s here; they’ve all gone to the Chabad House.” Well, they said they hid their things, left them to one side in the shop, emptied their pockets, and ran to the Chabad House. It was an hour’s walk. They got there around midnight, poor guys. We gave them such a hug, had them make Kiddush, gave them something to eat, and so on. It really... In India, you often lose track of time. You really do. It’s not... If you’re very connected, then somehow you keep track of Shabbos, right? But you really do lose track. Anyway, those guys arrived, came into the Chabad House, and things got lively—and the birthday celebration was unbelievable. And that’s how we spent our first season. The first season was very, very special. Very special. That was the beginning, when we started getting to know the characters.

11:12 Speaker 4 When you say “season,” explain what a season is, because we don’t know what you mean. Apart from—

11:17 Speaker 2 A season.

11:18 Speaker 4 Apple season, watermelon season. But what do you mean?

11:22 Speaker 2 For us, a season starts... It can start at Rosh Hashanah, like this year. This year we’ll open in Elul because it’s after a leap year. So, in terms of the seasons of the year—summer and winter—it falls toward the end of the hot weather. It won’t be quite so hot anymore. On the secular calendar, it falls in the tenth month. Tishrei starts in the tenth month, and then we open before Rosh Hashanah. But if it’s a year when Tishrei falls in the ninth month, it’s very, very hot there and very humid, and it’s very unpleasant. There are flying insects there, and they multiply in enormous numbers. It’s unpleasant to be there. So we usually open in Cheshvan, toward Kislev. And the season runs until after Pesach. Pesach is the end of the season. Usually, after the seventh or eighth day of Pesach, we close up, pack up, and go back. So that was a very special season. One of the characters who came to our Chabad House—after all, it’s a city of music—was this... I’ll tell you what it looked like. Someone walked into the Chabad House with long blond hair, like a mane, and all the Indians started bowing. All our Indian employees at the Chabad House started bowing to him, kissing his feet. I looked on and thought, okay. He came in wearing boots and a leather jacket, like a biker. You could see he was a biker. He came over to me and said, “Rabbi, Pesach Seder night is coming up. I’ve come to ask a few questions.” I said, “Have you put on tefillin?” He said, “No.” I said, “Let’s put on tefillin first. Questions afterward.” So, first you give a gift. Anyway...

13:27 Speaker 2 He put on tefillin, and all the Indians were watching him, you know, with tremendous admiration. After he put on tefillin, he said to me, “Listen, the woman I live with is Korean, and I have children with her. I wanted to ask if she can come to the Seder.” Well, I said, “I don’t know what to tell you. I need to check.” He said, “I really, really appreciate that. And I wanted to tell you something else: I’m going to Delhi now. Is there anything you’d like me to bring back?” I said, “Yes, I’d like you to bring me chickens from Delhi.” He said, “No problem, you’ve got it. Have the Chabad House there prepare whatever I need to pick up, and I’ll bring them.” So he went to Delhi, picked up what he needed, and came back. Now, who was he? This Jewish man played the pakhawaj. The pakhawaj is a very, very special Indian drum that you play from the sides, like this. It has two heads, one on either end, and he was a master musician.

14:35 Speaker 5 You play both sides.

14:36 Speaker 2 It’s round. It’s like a round tube with two ends, but it’s very sophisticated. Indian instruments are very, very sophisticated. Now, he was a master of the pakhawaj. He was considered one of the very, very best there. Even among the Indians, he was considered one of the best, and there are some phenomenal Indian musicians there. And he was considered one of... Now, he was Israeli, and he lived there for many, many years. He passed away, by the way, ten years ago. He had a degenerative muscle disease, and he passed away. He passed away in Israel; he had come back to Israel. So I asked a rabbi what I should do about this Jewish man and his wife. The rabbi told me, “Listen, don’t permit it. Don’t allow this, because it’s very problematic. It won’t end with her, either, and...” He said, “It’s a recipe for problems.” So I called him while he was still on his way to Delhi. I said, “Listen, I don’t have permission to allow this. We think it’s a little problematic. We’d be happy if you came, but if you don’t, we’ll understand.” And he came. He came alone. In the end, he came alone. He arrived in the middle of the prayers—in the middle of Hallel—and suddenly stood beside me. Wow, boruch Hashem. He was a very special Jewish man. Now, in India, when you’re a musician, people kiss your feet. That’s how far it goes. Someone can be walking down the street, and Indians coming toward him will bend down and kiss his foot.

16:25 Speaker 5 Wow.

16:26 Speaker 2 They touch his feet.

16:27 Speaker 5 It’s a big deal.

16:28 Speaker 2 It’s a sign of respect among Indians. When I walk down the street, they often kiss my feet too. The Indians don’t know who I am. They think that because I look like this, with the black suit and everything...

16:42 Speaker 5 You play... What do you play, Shmuel?

16:46 Speaker 2 I play tabla.

16:47 Speaker 5 Tabla.

16:48 Speaker 2 Tabla is like the pakhawaj, except the two drums stand upright like this. It’s a different style, but it’s also a percussion instrument. They have no idea who we are. I’ll tell you a little story so you’ll understand. The Indians are completely unfamiliar with these things; they’re simple people. Once, my wife and I went shopping. We already had two children. So we were riding in a cycle rickshaw. It’s a bicycle with a bench on the back. You climb up and sit on the bench, and an Indian pedals you wherever you need to go.

17:23 Speaker 5 Like a taxi, a taxi.

17:24 Speaker 2 Yes, a bicycle taxi. They still have those in India.

17:31 Speaker 5 If you have pictures of these things, I’d be glad if you brought them next time.

17:34 Speaker 2 I can send it. So my wife and I were riding bicycles, and we came to an intersection. There were a few cyclists ahead of us. Suddenly a cyclist stopped beside me—a young man on an ordinary bicycle. In English, with an Indian accent, he said, “Excuse me, are you magician?” Are you a magician? I didn’t know what he meant. I mean, what...? Maybe it was because I was dressed in black and wearing a hat. I don’t know. So he asks me, “Are you a magician?” I told him, “Yes, I’m a very great magician. Do you want me to turn you into a frog?” He says, “No, no, no, please, no, don’t...” I say, “Would you rather be a monkey?” He says, “No, no, no, no.” I said, “Okay.” So he let it go and rode on. We kept going too, until we reached a shop where my wife wanted to buy something. Then he stopped beside me again. My wife had gone inside, and I was sitting with our two children, who were fighting. He says to me, “Do you know why I asked if you were a magician?” I say, “Why?” He says, “Because I’m a magician too.” I said, “Really, you’re a magician?” He says, “Yes, but not like you, a great magician. I’m a little magician. Do you want to see what I can do?” I told him, “Sure, why not? Show us.” So there I was with my two children, and he started putting on a magic show for us. Meanwhile, about two hundred Indians gathered around us. He was doing tricks, pulling things out of his mouth and all sorts of things. By then my wife had come back. So I said to him, “Okay, excellent. You’re doing very, very well. Keep

19:19 Speaker 2 practicing, and with Hashem’s help you’ll become a great magician one day.” We were about to ride off when he said, “Wait, wait. Can you give me your business card?” I told him, “I’m on a trip right now, not working, so I don’t have a business card. But look me up on the internet. Search for ‘David Copperfield.’” David Copperfield is the greatest magician in the world. “Look up David Copperfield online, and you can call me whenever you want.” That’s India, you understand? You walk around India and it’s like one big show. There’s a show everywhere you turn. So... nu, l’chaim. What else?

20:03 Speaker 5 L’chaim and blessings.

20:04 Speaker 2 People, people I met. L’chaim and blessings.

20:08 Speaker 5 People you met. So you’ve told us about two people you met so far. We’d be glad to hear about some more.

20:17 Speaker 2 Let me say a little more about what Indians are like. We had a worker there who worked for us for ten years. Ten years he worked at the Chabad House. During the week he’d come in every morning. This is a true story; this is exactly what he did. He’d arrive for work, and the first thing he’d see was a large picture of the Rebbe at the entrance to the Chabad House. He’d bow to the Rebbe, take some of his own money and put it in the tzedakah box, put on a “Yechi” yarmulke, and go in to work. That was his morning routine. Then, when he had some free time, he’d sit with a copy of Dvar Malchus. Really. He’d sit with Dvar Malchus—sometimes holding it upside down, sometimes right side up. He didn’t know how to... He’d sit there with Dvar Malchus, and he’d open the door for Israelis leaving the Chabad House. They’d come up to him and he’d say, “Yechi Hamelech!” They’d look at him like this. “Yechi Hamelech!” He wouldn’t let them go until they said it. “Yechi Hamelech! Yechi Hamelech.” That’s an Indian for you. Indians are like something out of a movie. Really, like a movie. And after a while, after a few years, we moved to a somewhat more substantial Chabad House. We built a very, very nice mikveh there.

21:30 Speaker 5 Ah. So you left the original building.

21:33 Speaker 2 We moved—we left the first one, moved to another building, then to another, and finally, baruch Hashem, we reached a building where we could also build a mikveh.

21:44 Speaker 5 Ah.

21:44 Speaker 2 We had wonderful responses from the Rebbe about the mikveh and everything. And in the course of all that, we moved to this place too. Now, getting to this place involved tremendous hardship. Tremendous hardship. Finding a place big enough for the Chabad House was difficult, as I told you—there just weren’t places available there—and finding one where we could also dig a mikveh seemed impossible. So every year we’d say, “Okay, we’ll look for a place for a mikveh. We’ll look, we’ll look.” Because traveling to a mikveh is no simple matter. We have stories about that—maybe I told you one last time? I told you.

22:27 Speaker 5 No.

22:28 Speaker 2 About how we jumped off a train while it was moving.

22:31 Speaker 5 No, you didn’t tell us.

22:32 Speaker 2 No? Okay. How were we supposed to get to a mikveh each time? The closest mikveh was about twenty-two hours away. And sometimes you need one every month. We tried to arrange it [unclear]. But whenever we needed a mikveh, it was simply a nightmare. The Rebbe kept writing that we needed to build a mikveh. So every year we’d say we’d look for a place, but you know how it goes: the season starts, the tourists arrive, and you sort of forget about it. You think, “I have a place now; I have activities going on.” One year—I think it was our fourth year—my wife and I decided we weren’t going to find a place for the Chabad House until we found a place for a mikveh. We weren’t going to settle for anything else, no matter where we had to live in the meantime. So we took a tiny one-room apartment and said, “We’re not leaving here until we find a place for a mikveh.” Well, we found a place, but the Indians deceived us. After a month we saw they weren’t going to give us the place. We went to another place, and they deceived us too. In short, we came to a third place. We saw a very, very nice property, and the landlord seemed easygoing. We told him what we wanted to do. He said, “No problem. I’ll just do the renovations for you—a few little changes so you’ll have a bathroom and a kitchen and be able to live there.” It was a place that suited both a Chabad House and a mikveh.

24:10 Speaker 5 How big was it? Bigger than the first place? Because I understood the first place was large.

24:14 Speaker 2 Bigger, bigger, bigger. This one was really big: a huge two-story villa, with one floor for living and one for the Chabad House. It also had a very large yard with a spot set aside for a mikveh. It was really very big and very good. We waited about a month for him to renovate it. By then it was almost Purim. We’d arrived in Tishrei, and it was nearly Purim by the time we’d gone through this whole ordeal. The time had come for him to give us the place, but he kept delaying us, delaying us, delaying us. We didn’t know why. One day I’d simply had enough. I said to him, “What’s going on? What are all these delays? Give us the place already.” Suddenly he says, “You know what? I don’t want to give you the place. I don’t want to. Come and clear out the things you’ve already put there. I don’t want to give it to you.” Well, I’m telling you, we reached the point where we said, “That’s it. We’re leaving the city. We don’t want to stay here anymore.” There was nowhere to go. We’d been through so many nightmares already. Every broker in town, everyone who might have had connections to help us find a place—we’d tried them all. We were even willing to move far from the travelers’ area. Nothing. We couldn’t find anything. We’d given up. We said, “If we can’t build a mikveh, then our whole purpose here no longer makes sense.” I came home frustrated to that one-room apartment. All our activities were taking place in that tiny room, with travelers practically sitting on top of us and no space to move. And next door there was someone practicing idol worship, constantly holding rituals with music and everything. It was a living nightmare. We said, “That’s it, we’re leaving. We don’t want to stay.” Someone else, somewhere else in India, in the mountains, in the Himalayas and all that, he

26:02 Speaker 2 No, he couldn’t run the Chabad House anymore. He needed someone to take over. We called him and said, “What do you think? Do you want to give us the place?” He said, “Of course! I’ve been searching desperately for someone. Come on, you take it. I’ll pay for the move on my end, you pay on yours.” We said, “Okay, let’s do it.” That was it. We settled all the details—taxis, everything. It was all set. We were moving. Then we sat down and wrote to the Rebbe. We explained that we couldn’t find a place for a mikveh, and we wanted to move somewhere else where there was a possibility of building one. We opened the Igros Kodesh. The Rebbe wrote to us: “It is known that my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, granted him the merit of being one of his shluchim in this city, and any thought of leaving his shlichus is the counsel of the yetzer hara. He should remain where he is and continue his work, and Hashem will grant him success.” You look at the letter and say, “That’s it. The Rebbe said no. There’s nowhere to go.” So we called and canceled the whole thing. Canceled everything. I said to my wife, “It looks like we’re meant to stay in this one-room apartment. I don’t know what the Rebbe wants from us. Anyway, I’m going to get our things.” The things we’d left at that last house, the one whose owner had suddenly decided not to give it to us. I took some carts to load everything up. When I got there, the owner of the building came out. He said, “Come, I’ll open up the place where your things are.” As we were talking, I asked him, “Tell me, what’s the story? Why don’t you want to give us the place? Honestly, what’s the real reason?” Now,

27:50 Speaker 2 he said, “Listen.” Wait, let me give a little background. We had no money. We’d already run out. It was the end of the season, and we had almost nothing left. We’d said we would take the place as it was and not tile our apartment. We’d live on the concrete—smooth it out and live like that. Little by little, money would come in the following year, and then we’d start tiling and fixing things up. In the meantime, downstairs, we could at least start building the mikveh that year. The following year we’d make the building look nice. So I asked him, “Tell me, why don’t you want to give us the house?” He said, “I’ll tell you the truth. I decided you’re broke. And I want the kitchen to be top quality, with the best countertops there are. I want the best flooring, because one day I’m going to live in this house. I want to invest in it and make everything as beautiful and as good as possible. You’ll put in the cheapest flooring and do everything on the cheap. I’m not willing to let you take the house.” I said, “What difference does it make to you what flooring there is?” He said, “I bought it. I’ve already bought all the flooring.” He opened one of the rooms and showed me everything—the highest-quality flooring, which had cost a fortune. He said, “No, I’m not willing to compromise. I want it the way I want it.” I said, “Listen, I have no problem with you putting in whatever flooring you want. I’m not going to argue with you about flooring. Go ahead.” He said, “You don’t mind if I put in the flooring I want?” I said, “No, I don’t mind.” He said, “And a top-quality kitchen—

29:29 Speaker 2 you don’t mind if I put that in?” I said, “No, go ahead.” He said, “And upstairs, I want this and that.” I said, “No problem.” “And I want these kinds of windows.” I said, “No problem. Everything. I just want to choose the paint color.” He said, “No problem. You can choose the color.” In short, that Indian man renovated the place for us. By Purim, we had the upper floor, tiled with the best and most expensive flooring and fitted out with the finest materials. By Pesach, we had the downstairs finished and ready for Pesach. A renovation like that costs about thirty thousand dollars. The house is about four hundred square meters. Just the flooring costs a fortune there. In short, that Indian man gave us not only the house, but also more than thirty thousand dollars’ worth of renovations at his own expense, because that was how he wanted it. You look at it and say, “Look at that.” Keep quiet! “And Aharon was silent” [unclear] and received a reward. Was it worth staying on shlichus after that whole ordeal? We got a beautifully finished Chabad House. And that was our place until two years ago. Two years ago, someone broke into our Chabad House, wrecked the whole place and stole everything.

31:02 Speaker 6 Okay.

31:03 Speaker 2 Now we’re starting over. Simply starting completely from scratch.

31:08 Speaker 6 Amen.

31:09 Speaker 2 I just want to tell one more little story. A short one, the last one. We had... I want to—this is a story that really touches on life itself. One day, a Jewish man came to us who was completely closed off. His mind was closed off. He couldn’t even understand the plain meaning of what someone was saying. The sort of casual conversation we’re having right now—he couldn’t follow the thread of it. He’d really been through a lot. He was a Jewish man who’d suffered some abuse. His family, a Litvish family, had thrown him out of the house at thirteen, and he’d been living on the streets ever since. I didn’t really have the strength to sit and learn with him, because he just couldn’t understand. So he connected much more with my wife. She would show him warmth, talk with him, and he’d help her in the kitchen. You know. I would try now and then to learn one more little thing with him. It was very hard for me, but my wife really pushed me: “Learn with him, learn with him.” Anyway, during his first week with us—I think he arrived on Sunday—on Shabbos he came up to my wife. He had tattoos and everything, you know. He came to her in the afternoon and said, “Mom, I bought clothes for Shabbos.” He’d bought new Shabbos clothes. He’d come dressed for Shabbos and started keeping Shabbos. So he began taking steps, one step and then another. After a while, he left us. Now, Hakadosh Boruch Hu worked a miracle. This was in the winter, when there aren’t many travelers, but during the two weeks he was with us, not a single person came into the Chabad House. No one. All day long, he was either with the children, with my wife or with me. Someone was giving him attention all day, around the clock. The day he left was 8 Teves. We held a farbrengen, and thirty people came. He came to say goodbye, carrying his bag. He made a little l’chaim and went to catch the train. But for those entire two weeks, not one person had come into the Chabad House. The day he arrived, there had been people from England and other places, a farbrengen and everything. Anyway, he left. We sat with him and kept working with him. Somehow, we got him into a yeshivah. We spent more time helping him, and then we brought him back to be a bochur helping us on shlichus. That was during COVID. Today, baruch Hashem, this Jewish man is married and is a Chabad chossid. Today he sits and learns Ayin Beis. This is no small thing. He sits and learns. I had a class here—we’ve stopped it for now because of a few things—in Ayin Beis for two years. He would sit in that class and ask challenging questions like someone whose mind was completely open. You see the power and the strength of Chassidus: it can take a person who was quite literally a complete am ha’aretz, who couldn’t even understand a simple conversation, and today he understands the most profound concepts in Chassidus. And that’s only through the power of the—

33:18 Speaker 2 We gave him attention all day, practically around the clock. The day he left was 8 Teves. We held a farbrengen, and thirty people came. He stopped by to say goodbye, with his bag and everything, said a little l’chaim, and went to catch the train. But throughout those two weeks, not a single person had come into the Chabad House. On the day he arrived, people came from England, from here and there; there was a farbrengen and everything. Anyway, he left. We sat with him and talked things through with him. Somehow we got him into yeshiva. We kept working with him a little longer, and then brought him back to join us as a bochur on shlichus, to help us. This was during the COVID period. Today, baruch Hashem, this man is married and is a Chabad chossid. Today he sits and studies Ayin Beis. This is no joke. He sits and studies, and... I have—I had a class here on... We’ve stopped it for now because of a few things. For two years I had a class here on Ayin Beis. He would sit in the class and ask challenging questions, the kind you hear from someone whose mind is completely open. And you see the power and strength of Chassidus: it can take a person who was, quite literally, completely ignorant—even the plain meaning of a sicha was beyond him—and today he understands the most profound concepts in Chassidus. And that is only the power of the...