Article From SEVJN
The following is the text of the article i wrote for the SEVJN (South Eastern Virginia Jewish News) about my merkos shlichus.
This past summer, Chabad of Arkansas invited my first cousin Shaya Lieberman and me to travel their state as well as Mississippi, and search for Jewish people. We would be participating in the Merkoz Shlichus program which has just completed its sixty-second year of operation. Founded by the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Yosef Schneersohn, the program sends sets of rabbinical students with Jewish books, teffilin, mezuzahs and more to over 200 different locations across the globe with the mission of reaching as many Jewish people as possible.
We eagerly accepted the challenge. Once there, we found Jewish people in all kinds of places. They are doctors at Baptist hospitals, teachers at high schools, and vendors for Wal-Mart. We even found one Jew who lived in a motor home in a remote city where cell phones did not work and the nearest payphone was over seven miles away!
While we were busy in the Deep South, my brother Mendy and his friend Shmuel Newman were located Jews closer to home. They provided mezuzahs, Jewish books, and the opportunity to put on teffilin to Jews in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Virginia’s Eastern Shore and Oceanfront and even Suffolk, and Emporia, Virginia. Searching for Jews in a non-Jewish stronghold, my brother, the ever-clever investigator, found a Jewish man who attended church in attempt to quench his spiritual thirst. The man gladly welcomed this contact with Judaism.
As for our own journey, highlights are far too many to list; however there are two stories I’d like to share.
While in Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is less than five miles from the eastern border of Oklahoma, we met a gentleman by the name of Dennis. Dennis had only recently discovered that he was, in fact, Jewish. Shaya and I had the honor of helping him put teffilin on for the first time. Afterward, Dennis showed us some papers stored in a shoebox. It turned out that these papers were given to him by his grandmother before she died. Among them was a Ketubah, Jewish marriage contract, of his great-grandparents. Through these papers we were able to tell him where his grandparents and other ancestors were from. We spent nearly four hours with him talking about everything he or we could think of.
Another visit to a Moroccan Jewish woman in Meridian, Mississippi was heartwarming. As we walked in, the smile on her face grew large. She told us that she waits all year for the “traveling summer rabbis”. The joy she displayed made the whole trip (six hours away from our base in Little Rock, AR, -each way- with very little sleep) worth it. She told us how she tries her best to keep kosher and that she invites the other two Jews in town to her home for High Holiday services. She also told us that when her husband was alive and in the military they were stationed in Norfolk. They even used to purchase kosher meat from a man named Sidney Perlin!
Twenty-five hundred miles, 15 cities through 5 states, countless meals out of the trunk and 3 rental cars later, I feel honored to have been part of this wonderful program. It is a privilege to deliver the words of Judaism to those who would otherwise not know. For me it was the ideal summer vacation. I enjoyed every minute of it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
This past summer, Chabad of Arkansas invited my first cousin Shaya Lieberman and me to travel their state as well as Mississippi, and search for Jewish people. We would be participating in the Merkoz Shlichus program which has just completed its sixty-second year of operation. Founded by the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Yosef Schneersohn, the program sends sets of rabbinical students with Jewish books, teffilin, mezuzahs and more to over 200 different locations across the globe with the mission of reaching as many Jewish people as possible.
We eagerly accepted the challenge. Once there, we found Jewish people in all kinds of places. They are doctors at Baptist hospitals, teachers at high schools, and vendors for Wal-Mart. We even found one Jew who lived in a motor home in a remote city where cell phones did not work and the nearest payphone was over seven miles away!
While we were busy in the Deep South, my brother Mendy and his friend Shmuel Newman were located Jews closer to home. They provided mezuzahs, Jewish books, and the opportunity to put on teffilin to Jews in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Virginia’s Eastern Shore and Oceanfront and even Suffolk, and Emporia, Virginia. Searching for Jews in a non-Jewish stronghold, my brother, the ever-clever investigator, found a Jewish man who attended church in attempt to quench his spiritual thirst. The man gladly welcomed this contact with Judaism.
As for our own journey, highlights are far too many to list; however there are two stories I’d like to share.
While in Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is less than five miles from the eastern border of Oklahoma, we met a gentleman by the name of Dennis. Dennis had only recently discovered that he was, in fact, Jewish. Shaya and I had the honor of helping him put teffilin on for the first time. Afterward, Dennis showed us some papers stored in a shoebox. It turned out that these papers were given to him by his grandmother before she died. Among them was a Ketubah, Jewish marriage contract, of his great-grandparents. Through these papers we were able to tell him where his grandparents and other ancestors were from. We spent nearly four hours with him talking about everything he or we could think of.
Another visit to a Moroccan Jewish woman in Meridian, Mississippi was heartwarming. As we walked in, the smile on her face grew large. She told us that she waits all year for the “traveling summer rabbis”. The joy she displayed made the whole trip (six hours away from our base in Little Rock, AR, -each way- with very little sleep) worth it. She told us how she tries her best to keep kosher and that she invites the other two Jews in town to her home for High Holiday services. She also told us that when her husband was alive and in the military they were stationed in Norfolk. They even used to purchase kosher meat from a man named Sidney Perlin!
Twenty-five hundred miles, 15 cities through 5 states, countless meals out of the trunk and 3 rental cars later, I feel honored to have been part of this wonderful program. It is a privilege to deliver the words of Judaism to those who would otherwise not know. For me it was the ideal summer vacation. I enjoyed every minute of it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
posted by Levi M. at 11:06 PM
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