The story of an American girl from a Conservative home and her journey to Chabad and shlichus.
By S. Stern
A pleasant breeze blows, and here and there, children can be seen going to the garden to play so as not to get in the way of the Shabbos preparations.
Then the happy sounds of music are heard and the quiet street immediately comes to life. Songs of Moshiach waft through the air and the voice of R’ Shmulik comes over the loudspeaker announcing the time for candle lighting. The children abandon their games and run as they shout, “Shmulik, Shmulik…” And R’ Shmulik, with his perpetual smile, encourages them to sing by motioning with his right hand, “The children of Beit Dagan are waiting for the Melech …”
Heads peer at the windows and join in the catchy tune, “L’Melech HaMoshiach Sh’Yavo.” A group of teens appears and when they see the familiar vehicle, decorated with signs and stickers, they exclaim, “Shmulik, Yechi HaMelech!”
R’ Shmulik does his usual rounds through the winding roads of the yishuv, making sure everyone knows what time Shabbos will come in. He greets everyone he sees very warmly. An older woman sits alone on a bench. R’ Shmulik stops his vehicle and asks how she is. Next to Moshe’s house he sings out, “Today is the birthday of …” and Moshe’s happy face pops out of the window. Next to the Levy house, he wishes them mazal tov over his loudspeaker on the birth of a son.
***
I continue walking, amazed by the sight before me and the great feelings of love and warmth towards Chabad. Moshiach flags wave proudly along the street, announcing to all that Beit Dagan is ready for the hisgalus.
Then, in an entranceway of a spacious home, I see a sign which lets me know I’ve reached my destination: “Beit Chabad” – Gromach family. I walk inside and immediately feel at home. A few other people walk in with me. They have come for meat and other basic food items for Shabbos.
Ruth Gromach welcomes me with a motherly smile, as though I arrived after the chulent on Shabbos afternoon and not during the final, pressured moments before Shabbos.
After a fabulous Shabbos in an atmosphere of utter simcha, chayus, and Moshiach, I managed to have a lengthy conversation with the shlucha, a devoted eishes chayil, role model and mashpia.
RUTH’S CHILDHOOD
I was born in Chicago to a family of four children. My grandparents grew up in religious homes but dropped religion as adults. My parents wanted to bring back some tradition and Jewish identity to our home, and so we belonged to the Conservative movement. My mother lit candles and my father made Kiddush. One day, I was talking to a friend who said her Reform family went to temple three times a year. I remember being shocked. We went at least seven to nine times a year, on holidays and for special occasions.
The knowledge that my brothers and I had was garnered mainly in Hebrew School, which we attended twice a week. There we learned Hebrew and acquired knowledge about the Jewish calendar.
When I was in seventh grade, we learned Chumash B’Reishis and Shmos and that was the extent of my Jewish learning.
I’ll give you another example to show how much my parents tried to get us more involved in Judaism. It was Erev Sukkos, and a member of our community who had a warehouse of wood volunteered to prepare boards for whoever wanted a sukka. I remember that I went with my parents to the shul where the entire yard was full of boards for people who had ordered them. My parents built a sukka for the symbolism, but did not think it needed to be used. We kids would go to the sukka on Chol HaMoed with our lunch, during the break, and eat there. We even went sukka hopping, visiting all the sukkos, and that was our Sukkos.
In high school, I met an Israeli girl whose father taught in a local university. She got me to join a Zionist movement, and one time we went to the movement’s Shabbaton. There they convinced us to take a break between high school and college and spend a year in Israel. I hated high school and liked the idea.
We went to Israel and lived in Yerushalayim. We spent five months in an Ulpan and studied the history of the land. Then we went on trips in connection with the material that we learned.
For the second semester, we volunteered at moshavim and kibbutzim. Each of us was able to pick a place, whether a kibbutz or a moshav, in the north or the south, with Ashkenazim or Sephardim. I chose a moshav in the south and I lived there with a Sephardic-Kurdish family. I wanted to get to know different cultures and customs. At the end of the year I returned to Chicago as an ardent Zionist and went to college in Minnesota. Together with my friends, we lived in an apartment that some people had donated to the school, which the school had turned into a cultural center. The first floor was under the auspices of the Jewish Agency. We spoke in Hebrew there and were given stipends to work with local Jews.
One day, as I was doing homework, I heard a noise, like banging at the door. At first, I ignored it, but the noise didn’t stop. I got up to check and saw students across the street banging with a hammer and building a sukka. I crossed the street and saw that there was an apartment with eight Jewish students who had a kosher kitchen! On the spur of the moment, I decided I was staying there. I lived in this apartment for two years, a period of time of varied Jewish activity. We would cook Shabbos meals and host students. We had a library with Jewish books and we tried to do Jewish outreach. It’s interesting that six of us ended up becoming baalei t’shuva.
About a kilometer from our dwelling was a Chabad House that housed Beis Chana, which had classes for girls. The shluchim were young and did not have enough manpower, and sometimes they asked us for help. One of those times was on a Motzaei Shabbos in 5739 when we heard a broadcast of the Rebbe with translation. We sat and listened. It was interesting but I still did not connect to it.
One of the students in our apartment was Chana Leah Greenberg (who lives in Morristown now). She was drawn to Chabad and always tried to take me with her. She was getting married on Gimmel Tammuz in Crown Heights to a Lubavitcher from Netanya. I went to her wedding and she immediately sent me to 770 so I could see a farbrengen with the Rebbe. I went but it didn’t grab me. The first question I asked the people around me was, “Did they bring these old benches from Russia?”
I went back to my friend a few minutes later and she said, “Ruth, go back! Listen to a niggun. It’s amazing! You probably only heard Yiddish.”
At the end of Elul I decided to spend Tishrei in Eretz Yisroel. I tried to arrange a flight, but the travel agent said all the flights were booked and he would let me know if anything changed.
As a back-up plan, I called my friend and asked her to arrange a place for me to stay. She tried to convince me not to stay in Crown Heights for Tishrei because of the pushing and crowdedness. She didn’t think I would like it.
In the end, I couldn’t get on any flight and I stayed in Crown Heights. We went into 770 and I sat in the second room where I heard two ladies talking. One asked the other, “Are you ready for the davening?” She answered, to my utter surprise, “Yes, I put in a lot of bobby pins to keep my sheitel on my head.”
In my imagination, I pictured the pushing and shoving that was to come as a bloody battle but the reality was, obviously, not like that. I slowly got into things.
On Shabbos Chol HaMoed Sukkos, I was a guest of Miriam Swerdlov. She told me that the night before, her brother-in-law had farbrenged in her sukka and one of the bachurim threw up and the bench broke in the middle of the farbrengen. She wasn’t embarrassed to tell me this and didn’t try to sugarcoat the reality. I loved her candidness. She made me feel like I belonged.
At the time, I was working on medical research at a hospital in Chicago and my workdays ended at four. My friend Chana Leah and her husband tried to convince me it was time to stop working and start learning seriously. At this point, I was keeping Shabbos and I had kosher pots. During the winter, they did not let me end work early and it was hard for me to get home in time before Shabbos.
I realized the Greenbergs were right and I moved to Crown Heights and went to Machon Chana from Shabbos Parshas Lech Lecha until Shavuos. It was nearly a full year of learning.
In those days, the Rebbe was receiving guests for yechidus in groups; first those who spoke Yiddish, then those who spoke French, then Hebrew, then English, and yechidus for brides and grooms. The last group was bar mitzva boys and their parents. We were four girls who decided to go for yechidus and we arrived at the time for English-speakers. It was very crowded and by the time we made our way through, we had missed it. I asked R’ Groner what to do and he suggested we join the brides and grooms. We brought our requests and went in. We were among the first. We went close to the Rebbe, and due to the pushing we were right up against the desk. We saw how the Rebbe received all the notes and put them together, while putting the notes from us four single girls separately. Boruch Hashem, that year we all became engaged!
On Shavuos, I stood on Eastern Parkway and watched as the Rebbe gazed after the men going on Tahalucha. I felt that the Rebbe was escorting me too and giving me kochos to carry on.
I went back to Chicago for two weeks, packed my belongings, and left. I flew to Tzfas and attended Machon Alta. Exactly one year after I arrived, I got married.
When I was dating my husband, we spoke about his desire to open a Chabad House. All his acquaintances suggested places that needed an English speaker. After we married, we lived in Kfar Chabad and we decided that our shlichus, until we found a suitable place to settle, would involve the mitzva of bikur cholim.
Every Shabbos, we walked from Kfar Chabad to Asaf HaRofeh Hospital in Tzrifin and visited the patients and their families. We cheered them up and put a smile on their faces. In one of the departments there was a man named Mordechai, who had been in a terrible car crash as a result of which his legs had to be amputated. He was always depressed and we tried to bring him joy. One day, he happily told my husband that he would be returning home to Beit Dagan in a few days.
My husband decided to continue visiting him at home and that is how we came to know the yishuv of Beit Dagan. The first time my husband went there, he brought some bachurim along with him as well as mashke and cake to celebrate Mordechai’s recovery. Mordechai was very surprised and pleased.
On their way back, my husband asked the bachurim if the Tanya had been printed yet in Beit Dagan. They said no. Some time later, we went to the yishuv with a printing press and we printed the Tanya. The locals were very impressed by the event to the point that the director of the youth sports cultural center asked my husband to arrange a large gathering for the children for Sukkos. On Sukkos of that year, the children of the yishuv had a wonderful time filled with lots of Chassidishe content.
On Erev Rosh HaShana, we wrote a report to the Rebbe about the work we had done thus far and we received a letter in which the Rebbe wrote, “Hatzlacha in mivtzaim and in all matters.” We didn’t need more than that.
REMOTE CONTROL SHLICHUS
We continued to live in Kfar Chabad for 16 years and that is actually where our Chabad House began. My children, from the youngest ages, went around and got people to sign panim that were sent to the Rebbe, they raised funds for the needy, etc. The chinuch in the house was always under the motto: We are shluchim and we must be a shining example to others.
I always had a higher standard than others in tznius and kashrus and the children knew we are not like the rest. I recall an incident which illustrates the world the children grew up in. A neighbor told me that she heard my oldest son Mordechai talking with a friend:
Friend: My father bought me a bike!
Mordechai: My father goes on mivtzaim every day and puts t’fillin on lots of people!
Friend: But my father has a new car!
Mordechai: My father has a mitzva tank that plays music and makes lots of people happy.
My children were very involved in our work and we made sure that they were our partners, whether in my rounds to announce candle lighting on Fridays or big events for which they were assigned jobs and carried them out responsibly.
I was mainly involved in raising the children at home while my husband worked at the yishuv and came home very late every day.
Every Shabbos my husband would walk with bachurim from Kfar Chabad to Beit Dagan to hold farbrengens. One Shabbos, we had two girls from Machon Alta who came to see what a Chassidishe Shabbos is like. On Friday, an hour and a half before Shabbos, my husband came to drive over the food that I had cooked for the farbrengen. I dropped everything else in order to arrange everything he needed.
When he left, the girls said, “Wow, you are really a shlucha!”
When the children were young, my shlichus was mainly focused on their chinuch at home and in supporting my husband. To hear myself being called a shlucha showed me that this was possible, even when living in Kfar Chabad.
Beit Dagan’s original population consisted of Holocaust survivors who came from all over the country and large groups of Moroccan and Yemenite immigrants. The streets were full of unemployed people, criminals and drunks. Obviously, attempting chinuch in such a place would have had devastating spiritual results.
Over time, the yishuv began to change. A large number of problematic families left and more stable families moved in. In 5761/2001, we moved to Beit Dagan. Interestingly, the residents didn’t notice any difference. My husband had spent so much time at the yishuv that he seemed like an old-timer to them.
The children eagerly jumped in, and today a large part of the activities is done by them. The Tzivos Hashem club twice a week, candle lighting every Friday with the girls in Scouts and Kabbalas Shabbos at our house are all with Moshiach and Geula messages.
This week, I met one of the girls who regularly attend the Tzivos Hashem activities. She was dressed in a sports uniform of sleeveless top and shorts and was walking with her mother. When she saw me, she was embarrassed and she immediately called out, “Don’t look at me. It’s not my fault that I am dressed immodestly; it’s just for sports.”
The children here are strongly influenced and know a lot of Chassidic concepts. There is even a decent familiarity with the sichos of the D’var Malchus and in finding the “Alef” in “gola.” Beit Dagan is ready!
AS FOR DIFFICULTIES…
Even when I was alone with little children, I constantly reminded myself that I chose shlichus and that I wanted this, and therefore, I had to deal with it. I knew that difficulties pass and I tried, mainly, to be happy.
What gives someone strength to go on and provides such satisfaction are the little-big stories that we experience with the people of the yishuv. For example, there was a time that we did a Kiddush Levana every month followed by a big party. My husband loved to give out dollars that had been received from the Rebbe. Each time, he would get people from Kfar Chabad to donate some on behalf of the event. Two years ago, a woman won the raffle, and without giving it even a moment’s thought, she gave it to her friend standing next to her who had been married for eight years without children. In a voice full of bitachon in the power of the dollar and the power of the Rebbe, she said, “Take this dollar and it will bring you bracha.”
The friend gave birth to a son that year!
Throughout the year, many people write to the Rebbe through the Igros Kodesh and see miracles. At least eight children were born on the yishuv thanks to the Rebbe’s bracha. Here is one story. Ilana Matary waited seven long, painful years for a child. Then we started a shiur in Taharas HaMishpacha and she came and began observing the laws. She also wrote to the Rebbe and asked for a bracha. She credits the birth of her son to the Rebbe’s bracha.
BEIT DAGAN – READY FOR THE HISGALUS!
In response to the question “Did you ever imagine that your children would open their own Chabad houses around the world?” Ruth smiled and said:
No. I thought they would all remain near us, in Eretz Yisroel. But Boruch Hashem, our children are devoted shluchim to Hampi in southern India and Delhi, the second largest city in India, as well as in Beer Sheva, Ganei Aviv-Lud and another branch in Beit Dagan together with us.
We had a guest from abroad who wondered how it was that the children of the shluchim in her city, who were dynamic individuals with so much potential, were not involved in the shlichus. That is when I understood that when the children of a shliach hear their father constantly discussing what he’s doing next and grow up in that atmosphere, it is only natural that it becomes a part of who they are. Here in our home there was nothing but shlichus!
Boruch Hashem, I am happy that my children went on shlichus. It gives me much nachas. When my son went to India as a bachur, he said that India is a place for pioneers and that Lubavitchers ought to work there, for there is so much to be done. I naively thought he would only be there until he married, but my son had other plans. He is there with his wife and little girl and is mekasher many souls to the Rebbe.
In conclusion:
“We work here with warm, simple people, and the most special thing is their pure faith, their strong desire to be mekarev the Geula. The people here live with the Rebbe and constantly look forward to his coming.”