COLLECTING SOULS ONE AT A TIME

Why did the “unsuccessful Tanya” class actually succeed big time? Who controlled the life of a Jewish woman who lived in the distant mountains to the extent that it was necessary to extricate her in a secret operation? And when “out there” saving Jews, sometimes we have to look for those closer to home. * Three moving stories about collecting and rescuing souls that happened with Rabbi Shlomi Peleg, a shliach to Cozumel, a Mexican island.

The following are three stories that happened with Rabbi Shlomi Peleg, shliach to Cozumel who, along with his friend and partner, R’ Dudi Caplin, has done wonders on the island.

AN “UNSUCCESSFUL” TANYA SHIUR

R’ Shlomi relates:

Every evening, between Mincha and Maariv, we have a shiur. When we started it, we decided to teach Tanya, but experience has shown us that this doesn’t work.

The shiur started with fifteen people, at least five of whom are T’mimim who work at the Chabad House. The shiur gradually shrank and a few months later, I saw that I was only sitting with the bachurim and even they are not regulars. This meant there was no continuity to the shiur, no continuity to the material being learned, and definitely not the full picture. This is not how a Tanya shiur is supposed to be.

The “record,” which nearly broke the commitment, was a shiur with just one person. To Roni’s credit let it be said that he attended all the shiurim. The question then became whether the shiur should become a chavrusa or to try something new and plan a different program for the shiur.

Because of the shiur that turned into a chavrusa, Roni became a good friend, of ours and of the work at the Chabad House. We would sit and learn and talk, but when we computed the amount of time we had actually spent learning it turned out that since Mincha was starting at the latest possible time, and Maariv was the earliest possible Maariv, we had hardly any time to move forward in our learning; maybe a few lines a day.

Then Roni had an idea. Roni has a kosher restaurant and coffee house on the island and he suggested that instead of learning between Mincha and Maariv, we have a Chassidus shiur at the restaurant before the davening.

We began meeting every morning from eight until the beginning of davening at nine. We learned for at least forty minutes every day and we are now up to chapter 27. It’s not a full hour of learning but it always totals at least forty minutes.

“What really gets to me about this simple story,” concludes R’ Peleg, “is the impact the shiur had on Roni. Since then, not only does he attend the t’fillos (because if you learn Chassidus before davening, then you need to show up for davening …) but he has become the shul gabbai. He is in charge of aliyos to the Torah, sending up someone to lead the davening, someone to be the baal koreh, opening the aron, etc. He has become an integral part of the Chabad House and shul.”

On a personal level, the shiur had a tremendous impact on him. Besides the daily t’fillos, he began to gradually keep Shabbos and kashrus. Today, it can be said that aside from the beard he does not have (and it’s just a matter of time), he is a shomer Torah and mitzvos. And it all started with an “unsuccessful” Tanya shiur.

BRINGING OUR BOYS BACK HOME

The insights from the second story told by R’ Shlomi Peleg are relevant to all parents and educators who sometimes put in work and don’t see results and may despair.

“Many Chabad Houses deal with an unpleasant phenomenon which isn’t pleasant to talk about. Bachurim who have drifted away from the practices of their religious backgrounds sometimes decide to tour the world. They know of course that the Chabad House is open to everyone. When they need the services that a Chabad House provides, they make themselves at home at the local Chabad House along the way, and make sure to mix into everything that is going on.

“One day, two such bachurim landed at the Cozumel Chabad House. They felt comfortable enough to behave as though they were at home. I will confess, we prayed that they leave, the earlier the better.

“On Shabbos, we have a special practice. The donations that are customarily made when given an aliya are exchanged for a good hachlata. Whenever someone has an aliya, the wording of the Mi Sh’Beirach is, ‘Mi Sh’Beirach … Hu yevarech es … ba’avur she…’ and at this point, everyone bursts into song, “H-a-c-h-l-a-t-a t-o-v-a.” When the crowd knows the tourist, they sometimes urge him to make a specific hachlata, challenging and relevant to his spiritual state.

“The first Shabbos following the arrival of these two guys, one of them had an aliya. When it came time for a hachlata tova he announced, ‘I commit to, bli neder, volunteering for a week at the Chabad House.’”

R’ Peleg smiled as he recalled the situation. “I thought, ‘What do I need him to volunteer for? By the time he understands what to do, he’ll be leaving and who knows how motivated he will be to help? And anyway, he isn’t exactly the prototype that I want around the Chabad House.

“Sunday morning, the two of them came to the Chabad House and said, ‘We decided that if we are here already, we’ll both volunteer. Where do we sleep?’

“I didn’t know what to do and how to behave. This was a very sensitive situation. After some thought, I decided to develop a schedule for them which included participating in our ‘kollel’ during the morning hours, from 8 until 1, in the course of which they would daven and learn. I figured, at least the morning will be properly utilized and then we would see how to incorporate them into the classes and the work.

“Somehow, the week passed and I breathed a sigh of relief. But my joy wasn’t long-lasting, because the following Shabbos the second guy had an aliya and he made the same hachlata. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

“I won’t bore you with the details, I’ll just tell you that they stayed at the Chabad House for eight months! During these months I sat with them and we learned together from morning until night. We took care of all their needs, materially and spiritually. At the end of their visit, both of them had done complete teshuva and one of them even became a serious ‘shliach’ himself.

“I got to see firsthand that with all due respect to the ‘ohr makif’ of a Chabad House, the real and deepest impact is when you take the approach of providing deep and personal attention on an individual basis. Then the influence penetrates and changes the person from one extreme to another.”

RESCUE MISSION

The third story from R’ Shlomi Peleg seems straight out of a horror story.

One day, the phone in the Cozumel Chabad House rang. On the line was a Jewish woman, a former Israeli, who lived in the mountains. Since she was about to give birth, she wanted to know how to get a mohel.

R’ Peleg said that when she gave birth to a boy, she should call him and they would see which mohel could do the bris.

A month passed, and another month, and the shluchim almost forgot about her. When they got around to calling her and asked why she hadn’t followed up, she apologized, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I ended up having a girl.”

“What do you mean ‘ended up?’ How was it first a boy and then a girl?”

The woman, whom they realized wasn’t 100%, said, “I had a feeling it would be a boy but, in the end, it was a girl.”

On one of their trips, the Peleg couple traveled near the area where that woman lived. They decided to contact her and invite themselves over.

The woman welcomed them graciously and the shluchim invited her and her family to Cozumel to the programs and events at the Chabad House.

Not long afterward, the woman and her children moved to Cozumel, but the shluchim were in for a bizarre surprise.

The woman was married to an Israeli who used various means and manipulative methods to control her life and had succeeded in making her totally dependent on him and his whims, and shutting down all of her own thoughts, feelings and desires.

The Pelegs contacted her parents in Eretz Yisroel and in cooperation with her devoted parents, they offered the woman a job at the Chabad House with her salary paid for by her parents.

The fact that she began leaving the house to earn money, gave her the strength and courage to think and act independently. She became the primary breadwinner because her diligence and the great work conditions at the Chabad House enabled her to earn more than her husband.

She began sounding normal again, logical and rational.

Her husband suddenly felt second-rate compared to her. He felt very uncomfortable with the fact that she was earning more than he did. He went back to live in the mountains and demanded that she return with him. Sad to say, she could not withstand his smooth talk. She went back with him and returned to her previous emotional state. She began saying “the end of the world is nigh,” and “only in the mountains would they be protected.” It was clear that he was manipulating her thinking as well as her speech.

The shluchim, who realized this entailed saving generations of lives, were unsparing in their investment of effort, time and thought, and in a complicated and secret mission they flew her to Eretz Yisroel where her parents paid for professional help and provided the warmth and love that she so lacked.

Today, she lives in Eretz Yisroel and has a nice life with her devoted parents and sweet children. The husband, who tried to contact her and even flew to Eretz Yisroel to meet with her and the children, was arrested by the police.

“Hashem sent us to be the right people at the right time,” concludes R’ Peleg.