Rabbi Mayshe Schwartz: Connecting Two Generations Of Rabbis In A Boston NICU

00:00 Speaker 1 That first Monday morning, we met with numerous medical specialists and, you know, social workers, you name it.

00:08 Speaker 2 That's Jacir Collins. In April 2022, right before Passover, Jacir and her husband Michael had traveled from Miami to Massachusetts with their newborn son, Chaim Mordechai, who was about to undergo emergency surgery to save his life.

00:26 Speaker 1 That's when, you know, they were telling us essentially there's a very low probability.

00:31 Speaker 2 The Collins had been told that their son had an 8% chance of survival. Jacir was devastated. She messaged her Chabad emissary in Florida, Rabbi Avraham Stalek.

00:44 Speaker 1 And I said, "Somebody please get me a Chabad rabbi. The surgery is gonna take place in two hours. I just need someone to come and pray."

00:51 Speaker 2 Stalek knew just who to call.

00:53 Speaker 3 And I ran over, dropped everything, and went to Children's Hospital, the seventh floor.

00:59 Speaker 2 That's Rabbi Meish Schwartz of the Chai Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. Passover was quickly approaching, and preparations were in full swing, but Schwartz took the call from Stalek, and then took the time to meet with the Collins family. He prayed with them and offered words of encouragement. Then Schwartz asked Jacir about her life story. She told him about how she had struggled with her Jewishness when she was younger, and about the rabbi in Israel who helped her embrace her identity.

01:31 Speaker 1 And so as we were talking about that, he's like, "Where were you?" And I was like, "Oh, I was in Tzfat." And he was like, "Do you remember his name?"

01:38 Speaker 2 But she only remembered his nickname.

01:40 Speaker 1 And I was like, "He was the hippie rabbi."

01:43 Speaker 2 Now, there are a lot of rabbis in Tzfat, but Meish Schwartz began to sense that he might know who this rabbi was, and to realize that the Collins' real-life drama might be overflowing with enough divine providence to cover all of Massachusetts, Florida, Israel, and just about everywhere in between. I'm Gary Wolk, and this is Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. Life as a Chabad emissary is often joyous, but it can be unpredictable and even dangerous. Chabad has become a ubiquitous presence in every corner of the world, but behind every Chabad house are emissaries, regular people striving to transcend their circumstances, and a community that supports and relies on them. These are their stories. You might call Meish Schwartz a second-generation shliach.

02:49 Speaker 3 So my father was sent by the Lubavitch Rebbe in 1969 to be the first Chabad campus rabbi in the world, and that was at UCLA.

02:57 Speaker 2 Schwartz's father was Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, described on one website as a one-time bongo-thumping Greenwich Village beatnik. Rabbi Shlomo, or Schwartzy as he was most commonly called, was widely known for his colorful dress, rainbow suspenders, cowboy hats, and Star Wars and Mickey Mouse T-shirts, as well as for his rather unusual approach to the dissemination of Torah, whether on the Venice Beach boardwalk, parts of Lower Manhattan, or in the mountains of Israel. Meish was born in 1972 at UCLA Hospital, and he was very quickly swept up into Schwartzy's unorthodox Orthodox world.

03:41 Speaker 3 I was brought up into it, and really that's the only thing I ever really knew, and we had a really good time growing up.

03:47 Speaker 2 Young Meish would often make UCLA campus rounds with his father.

03:51 Speaker 3 And it was a great experience going to Bruin Walk with my father often, and doing mitzvah and shaking the lulav and etrog, and watching Rabbi Kunin arm-wrestle football players so that they should shake lulav and etrog and put on tefillin. It was just a great, great upbringing. There was a lot of love. It was off the heels of the '60s movement. The doors were open. The energy was flowing. It was open 24 hours, and everybody was coming in, from Vietnam vets to drug addicts to Hollywood producers, Hells Angels, and everything in between. So it was an extremely, extremely colorful upbringing.

04:26 Speaker 2 Schwartz admits he didn't always understand his father's unusual approach to Jewish outreach.

04:32 Speaker 3 Until one day I approached my father and I asked him, I said, "You know, Ta, why you always have to wear, like, those rainbow suspenders? Like, what's up with that?" So he said, "Because no Jew will ever be scared to approach a rabbi wearing rainbow suspenders." And that was it. You know, that was the moment that I understood what he was about, what he was trying to do. It was something special. My parents were very dedicated to the shluchus completely, and you got to see lives changed in front of your eyes at a Shabbos table over and over and over and over again.

05:05 Speaker 2 Beginning in 1991, Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, AKA Schwartzy, lived and taught in Tzfat each summer for the last 25 years of his life. When it came time for Meish to figure out what he wanted to do in life, it was easy for him to envision doing the same thing.

05:23 Speaker 3 I never thought or saw myself in any other position. Was I completely locked in? Pretty much, I would say yeah.

05:30 Speaker 2 Meish Schwartz attended yeshiva in California until 1989, and then went to study at Oholei Torah in Crown Heights.

05:39 Speaker 3 I was there in Crown Heights, what we call the glory years. The glory years would be '89 to '92, and it was a very, very special, special time those three years. I was every Shabbos by Farbrengen. I got to see the Rebbe every single day. Never missed the opportunity. It changes you. It changes how you think of life and how you think of the world of possibilities and what can be done.

06:02 Speaker 2 Schwartz lived and studied in New Haven, Connecticut for a couple years, and then in Israel where he earned Rabbinic ordination. He married his wife Shifra in 1999. They lived in Israel and Los Angeles until they were presented with an opportunity to do outreach. In 2003, they opened the Chai Center in Brookline, a bustling, diverse town just to the west of Boston. They began devoting much of their time to supporting young Jewish professionals.

06:31 Speaker 3 Which is part of a much greater international movement, which is n- now known as CYP, Chabad Young Professionals. We also have what's called Chai Hospitality, kind of came about 10 years after our shlicha started. We cater to people that are coming in for hospital visitations.

06:47 Speaker 2 The Schwartz's get a fair amount of requests for spiritual and material support for people undergoing medical treatment, because the Chai Center is located just a short walk from Boston's sprawling Longwood Medical Area.

07:00 Speaker 3 And you have multiple hospitals, from Beth Israel, Brigham, Children's. And more and more as time went on, we kept on getting phone calls. People Google Chabad near hospitals, and we'd come up, and people need a meal, and people need a place to stay, and this became a real, real part of our shlichas. This is about helping someone in a time of need.

07:21 Speaker 2 In April 2022, Jacir and her family transferred from a Florida hospital to Boston Children's. She didn't want to share the details of her son's illness with me, saying only that he was two weeks old and in need of life-saving surgery.

07:37 Speaker 1 My husband and I were taken to a conference room where we met with numerous medical specialists and, you know, social workers, you name it, and that's when, you know, they were telling us essentially there's a very low probability.

07:52 Speaker 2 Jacir says doctors told them Chaim Mordechai had an 8% chance of surviving the surgery.

07:59 Speaker 1 And the first thing I could think of was, "What, what can I do?" And so at that time I felt like wherever I go and wherever I've traveled, and I've traveled to a lot of different places, there's always a Chabad. I messaged Rabbi Stolik and I said, "Somebody please get me a Chabad rabbi. The surgery's gonna take place in two hours. I just need someone to come and pray."

08:29 Speaker 2 Just a few days before Pesach, Schwartz got a call from a number he didn't recognize. Normally, he says, he wouldn't pick up, but...

08:37 Speaker 3 I just thought, you know, if someone's gonna call a shliach before Pesach, that means they really need it, you know? It's, everybody knows it's a busy time, so that's what they need.

08:45 Speaker 2 It was from Rabbi Avraham Stolik, a good friend of Rabbi Schwartz's.

08:49 Speaker 3 He's like, "There's a woman and her name is Jacir. She's in the hospital. She needs a rabbi to go over right now to do a blessing." And I ran over, dropped everything, and went to Children's Hospital, the seventh floor. It was a NIC unit, and there was a lot of wires and a lot of babies and a lot of scared moms, and I didn't even know who I was looking for 'cause we're all wearing masks.

09:11 Speaker 1 And Rabbi Schwartz showed up, and there's a, a bay of numerous children, you know, next to each other in this NICU.

09:21 Speaker 2 He's wearing a mask, so how did you know it was him?

09:24 Speaker 1 I could see part of the beard through the mask.

09:28 Speaker 3 I barely remember the name, but the mom recognized the beard.

09:31 Speaker 1 And so he, you know, he was like, "Hi, I'm Rabbi Schwartz. I'm here to pray for your son."

09:37 Speaker 3 She pulled me towards the crib, tiny little crib. You know, what do you say?

09:42 Speaker 1 And I remember something along the lines of like, "God is in control, and let's just pray for a miracle."

09:50 Speaker 3 The only thing that came out of my mouth was the following. "God can do anything. Let's pray for a miracle." And we prayed. We said the Shema, we said some Tehillim, and I wished her well, and I left. They had to go. I had to go.

10:07 Speaker 1 And so I just waited for the outcome. I was like, "It's out of my control now."

10:14 Speaker 2 Chaim Mordechai's surgery was successful.

10:17 Speaker 1 A week later they were like, "Hey, we need to do a similar procedure."

10:21 Speaker 2 So Jacir again called Rabbi Schwartz.

10:23 Speaker 3 "Can you come back again for another blessing?" So I said, "Sure." Now you're talking about the day before Pesach. Run to the NIC unit.

10:30 Speaker 2 They said more prayers and more Tehillim.

10:32 Speaker 1 And I would tell you this time I was much more calm. There was a sense of peace in me that I definitely didn't have the first time. My guard wasn't as high as it was the first time. And so Rabbi Schwartz, you know, we finished praying next to the baby, and we're in front of the baby's bay, and he's like, you know, "What's your story?"

10:51 Speaker 2 Jacir told Rabbi Schwartz that she was born in Venezuela, and that she and her family moved to Chicago in 1994, but there was so much more to her tale.

11:04 Speaker 3 And she shares with me this incredible, incredible story. She grew up in a very, very Christian home, and the grandmother, right before she passes, lets everybody know that she's got something to share, that she's Jewish, but she doesn't tell them what to do with that information.

11:19 Speaker 2 Jacir didn't want to do anything with it at first, but her mother embraced her own Jewishness right away.

11:26 Speaker 1 My mom would start lighting Shabbat candles every Friday, and my mom, it, I vividly remember my mom inviting me to light candles, and I was just so rebellious that I was like, "No, I don't need to do that." And so she explored right away I was a rebellious teenager and denying that part of my identity, and I think it's because I didn't understand what being Jewish was.

11:51 Speaker 2 Rabbi Schwartz was transfixed as Jacir told her story in the middle of the NICU.

11:57 Speaker 3 And she says, "From that moment on, there's something stirring in my soul to find out more about what this means to me."

12:02 Speaker 2 In 2005, Jacir attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She tried to explore her Jewish roots through different campus groups, but didn't quite find what she was looking for. Then she met Rabbi Dovid and Rebbetzin Goldie Teichtal of Illini Chabad, and she attended her first Jewish service. Her first impression?

12:23 Speaker 1 Um, I thought all services were really long because my first service was the Yom Kippur service, and I was like, "Oh my goodness, these services are very lengthy." But, you know, from that point on it was like one thing led to another.

12:40 Speaker 2 Not only did she learn that no other service was quite as long as the one for Yom Kippur, she also learned the joy of a Shabbat dinner, the importance of community, and the connection every Jew has to the land of Israel. In late 2007, she signed up for a Birthright trip.

12:59 Speaker 1 I was very transparent in my Birthright application. I was like, "This is who I am. I identify as a Christian." Nobody pressured me to be like, "You have to do this," or, "You have to believe in this."

13:12 Speaker 2 Jacir went on that first trip and found what she learned to be so compelling that she returned to Israel three more times. But her second trip was the most consequential because on that one she traveled to Ascent Institute in Tzfat, which brands itself as a center for Jewish spiritual discovery.

13:32 Speaker 3 She meets a rabbi, and she has a lot of questions for the rabbi about divine synchronicity, bashert, how it works, how it doesn't. And the rabbi is giving her a lot of time and trying to help her out.

13:44 Speaker 1 And I'll never forget the conversation that we had. I was really curious about time on Earth and just the concept of deja vu moments. On that specific trip I felt like a lot of times what I was doing was repeated, and I didn't understand why things were happening in that sequence. And so he was like, "You know, you're fixing something in this life that you didn't fix in another life." The lesson that I took away from that was you have a purpose to fulfill. The way he explained it was just like it's okay to not know the answers to everything. Just trust the process and trust God, and Hashem is there with you along the way. And it was the trip that really sparked my interest and, and really gave me my identity and, and my belief as a Jew.

14:38 Speaker 2 Rabbi Schwartz was captivated by Jacir's story as she told it to him in the Children's Hospital NICU.

14:45 Speaker 3 I remember this is the day before Pesach. I'm completely stressed. We have hundreds of people coming for the Seders. But a woman who is in need of help and support and blessings and sensitivity, and she's telling me about a rabbi telling her about bashertness in the city of Tzfat.

14:58 Speaker 2 But there was another reason why Schwartz was so fascinated.

15:02 Speaker 3 I know in my mind that my father spent a lot of time in Tzfat. And I'm thinking to myself, "What if this could be that she was talking to my father? What are the chances?"

15:13 Speaker 1 And so as we were talking about that he's like, "Where were you?" And I was like, "Oh, I was in Tzfat."

15:18 Speaker 3 And so I asked her, I said, "By any chance do you know the name of the rabbi?" And she says, "You know, I don't really remember the name of the rabbi, but everybody called him Schwartzy."

15:29 Speaker 1 And I look over and Rabbi Schwartz had tears coming down. And so I was like, "Did you know the hippie rabbi?"

15:38 Speaker 3 So at that point, you know, I lost it basically and I said, "I need to let you know that Schwartzy was my father. He passed away five years ago. Clearly he's sending us to be together and a, a part of this divine synchronicity."

15:52 Speaker 1 It was like, "You've got to be kidding me."

15:56 Speaker 3 But now she's talking to me about bashert, and this whole story is bashert. Like what's going on here? It's like you're walking in real time i- into this splitting of the sea type of miracle in front of you.

16:08 Speaker 1 14 years later I'm in a situation where I feel very vulnerable and helpless. I have the son of the rabbi that taught me praying for my son while my son fights to survive. And it was one of those moments where I was like, "God is here."

16:33 Speaker 2 Little Chaim Mordechai's second surgery was also successful. The Collins returned to Miami, and Rabbi Mesh Schwartz resumed his work in the Chabad house he and his wife run. It was about five months before Chaim Mordechai was strong enough to have a bris. Jacir and Michael Collins wanted Rabbi Schwartz to be the sandek, so Jacir called him.

16:55 Speaker 1 And he was like, "Actually, I'm in Israel. I'm not sure." And it was one of those where I was like, "I'm not gonna stress over it. I'm just gonna let go with the flow and let it be."

17:04 Speaker 2 But Rabbi Schwartz was able to get a direct overnight flight from Israel to Florida on the day of the bris.

17:11 Speaker 3 And I was able to be there to have the honor of holding the baby while the baby had his bris and welcomed into the covenant. And I was able to be there for a special moment and give a blessing by the powers way beyond me that was, thank God, successful enough for this baby to survive.

17:25 Speaker 1 He was at his father's grave literally the same day and at my son's bris. And again, it was like one of those moments where I was like, "Schwartzy's here again. You went and prayed at your father's grave, and now you're here at my son's bris." Like there's no words for that.

17:45 Speaker 2 These days Chaim Mordechai is in Miami with his parents and older sister. He's doing much better, getting the help he needs to grow and thrive.

17:53 Speaker 1 He's definitely trending in the right direction. I've been able to take him to therapies. I would say from where he was where essentially it was an 8% chance to where he is today, it's like every day is a miracle. And it made me realize how- precious life is, how many miracles each one of us experience daily. Life is a miracle.

18:18 Speaker 2 Rabbi Mash and Rebbetzin Schwartz are tending to the somewhat less dramatic work of bringing young Jewish professionals together for Shabbos meals and social events. They still get calls from people who need support during hospital visits. Rabbi says his meeting with Jacir Collins taught him something.

18:36 Speaker 3 You think that your schlich is supposed to be a certain way in terms of what you're supposed to do that morning. You think it was time to go ahead and organize your, your library or whatever it is, but sometimes you're being called in a whole different direction. But when you're open to realizing and not being fixated on what you decided was important that day, and allowing the bashertnes to take over, great things happen. I always say this is the perks of schlichus. You know, you get to be involved in a story like this. You know, those are the gifts. The 401plan is not as good, but the stories are great.

19:10 Speaker 2 Jacir says she's learned something, too, first through Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, AKA Schwartzy, and then through his son, Rabbi Mash.

19:21 Speaker 1 Everything is connected. There's no such thing as a coincidence. Everything is connected.

19:28 Speaker 2 Rabbi Schwartz, what do you think the chances are that you'll meet someone with a similar story, someone who was inspired by your father in a very significant way?

19:38 Speaker 3 I had a really special father, so I think the chances are actually very high.

19:47 Speaker 2 I'm Gary Wollek. Thanks for listening to Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. We welcome your questions and comments about what you've just heard on Lamplighters. Please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com. And if you know of a great story involving Chabad emissaries or the people they inspire, please let us know about them. That's podcast at L-U-B-A-V-I-T-C-H.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. This is a Lubavitch International podcast.