JEWISH CHAIN REACTION

R’ Dovid Dery is a Lubavitcher living in Crown Heights, who owns an Israeli restaurant in Manhattan. He shares an amazing story with Beis Moshiach about one of his customers. * One little action can change a life.

One Sunday, a fellow walked into the restaurant, looking somewhat unkempt with torn jeans. I asked his name and he said it was James. James looked at the menu and ordered some shawarma. I was a bit surprised since he looked American.

“How do you know what shawarma is?” I asked him.

James responded in astonishment, “What do you mean? I’ve been eating shawarma all my life. I’m Israeli!”

My curiosity grew even more and I said, “I don’t get it. Didn’t you say your name is James? James is an American name.”

“Right. My real name is Chaim. James is the name that I use in the business world.”

We began to talk and I interspersed our conversation with divrei Torah. I could see he understood what I said and that he was an intelligent person.

After he visited the restaurant several times, I asked him whether he would be interested in learning the weekly parsha together with a student from 770 on the phone once a week. He said yes and when we parted he gave me his business card so we could keep in touch. When I looked at the card I was surprised to see the address of an exclusive building in Manhattan, and that James was the CEO of a big company on the stock exchange. I asked Shneur Schneersohn to learn with him and promptly forgot about the whole matter.

HALF A YEAR LATER

Half a year later, I asked Shneur what happened with James and whether he was learning with him on the phone. Shneur said that two months after they started learning together the man bought t’fillin, began having a shiur in his office, and started keeping Shabbos in a limited fashion.

One day, I was standing at the counter in the restaurant when I saw a man wearing a kippa come in and order shawarma. He looked at me and I thought he looked familiar but couldn’t place him. After a few minutes, I was astounded when he came over and hugged me and said, “Dovid, shalom aleichem, I am James. I visited your restaurant half a year ago. I was wearing jeans at the time and you suggested that I learn the parsha over the phone. You made the connection between Shneur Schneersohn and me, and you and I haven’t met since.”

Once he reminded me who he was, the story came back to me and I did a double-take. He looked like a religious person and not at all the way he looked half a year earlier when he walked in for the first time. When he saw how surprised I looked he said, “You should know that you changed my life. Come, I’ll tell you what happened since we last saw one another.”

This is what he said:

“A short time after we met here in the restaurant, I began learning with Shneur Schneersohn once a week. We learned a sicha of the Rebbe on the parsha and I enjoyed it very much. One time, we learned the sicha in which the Rebbe says that we need to teach others what we know. If you know ‘Alef’ – teach ‘Alef.’

“At first, it was hard for me to accept this idea since I wasn’t at all religious so how could I teach Torah to others? But Shneur told me: Although you are not shomer Shabbos and don’t put on t’fillin yet, you still have to teach others what you know.”

MESIBOS SHABBOS FOR ADULTS

“Shneur convinced me and I had an idea of making ‘Mesibos Shabbos’ in which I would invite the hundreds of Jewish clients that the company serves, and relate to them the sichos that I was learning each week.

“At the time, I was renting a large loft apartment with a partner in an exclusive Manhattan building and I decided to hold the parties there. I had five star catering and a guard at the entrance. I looked at the list of the company clients and employees, and invited any of them with a Jewish-sounding name. If I saw a ‘Levy’ or ‘Cohen,’ I invited them. Only invited guests were allowed in.

“Well, my idea wasn’t bad at all and those parties were very successful. The place filled up and the highlight of the evening was when I reviewed a sicha of the Rebbe on the parsha that I had learned with Shneur. It was such a hit that there wasn’t enough room for all the guests to attend on the same evening. Every week, different people were given a turn to attend.

“I held these parties for a while and people were very happy with them. As time went on, it occurred to me that if I was teaching Torah, I could not hold a Mesibos Shabbos in which Shabbos was desecrated. Nor was it befitting for me not to keep Shabbos.

“I slowly became more religiously observant and thank G-d, I married a religious woman. We moved to Canada and as you can see for yourself, I no longer look like the same person.”

CONCLUSION

“The story does not end there,” said James.

“A few weeks ago, I was in Manhattan when someone with a kippa, whom I didn’t know, accosted me and said, ‘Hey, Rabbi James! You changed my life! Thanks to you, I became a baal t’shuva!’

“I was flabbergasted. I didn’t recognize him at all.

“‘I attended your Mesibas Shabbos every Friday night. I heard a point from a sicha of the Rebbe on the parsha. This gave me a lot of strength and I became religious.’”

***

When James, who once again calls himself Chaim, finished the story, he said to me, “You should know that you changed my life. With that small thing that you did in arranging for me to learn with someone, you changed my life, the life of that other man, and who knows how many other people were strengthened in their mitzva observance!”