A family with three young children arrived shortly before Pesach three years ago on a distant island to open a Chabad House and encountered quite a few challenges. Since then, they are working to prepare the island for Moshiach.
Cebu Island in the Philippines is considered the central island in the province of Cebu. Surrounding the beautiful island, which is 225 kilometers long from north to south, are another 167 tiny islands. The island is famous for its varied colorful coral reefs that surround the island with its white sand beaches, its many scuba diving areas, scenic hiking areas and incredibly beautiful beaches. One can also see many colonial era buildings, museums and forts spread throughout the island. The capital of the island, where the Chabad House is situated, is called Cebu City.
“Just so you can understand, Cebu is the size of Eretz Yisroel,” says the shliach, R’ Nir Donenfeld, who has been working on the island for the last three years with his wife Chali and children. “About three million people live on the island. There is a small Jewish community concentrated around the Chabad House with about twenty families, most of them Israelis, but there are also Jewish families who came from Australia and the U.S. Most of our work is with Jewish tourists who come throughout the year, mainly during the Israeli winter.”
The Chabad House in Cebu has daily shiurim, one-on-one talks, warm Shabbos meals, and t’fillos on Shabbos and holidays. Along with all this spiritual aid, the Chabad House also provides material help to tourists on the island and the dozens of islands surrounding it.
Along with reaching out to the Chosen People, there is also work with a group of local gentiles who calls themselves Noachides.
How did the Donenfeld family get to the island of Cebu? Like many other shluchim, divine providence directed them in a most astonishing way.
“The ones who launched the activities on the island were R’ Yisroel Kaplan and his wife who had to leave for personal reasons. Along with the first shliach to the Philippines, R’ Yossi Levy, they looked for a family to take over and develop a Chabad House.”
When the Donenfeld got the phone call from R’ Levy, they were part of the Chabad community in Rechovot. The children were attending Chabad schools and R’ Nir made a nice living in computer programming.
“We heard about the offer on Rosh Chodesh Adar and R’ Levy asked us to come for Pesach. After getting my wife’s blessings, I consulted with a mashpia and received the Rebbe’s bracha. Then came the race against time, getting the paperwork done and taking care of the bureaucratic procedural aspects of the trip.”
R’ Donenfeld asked his travel agent to arrange for his family return tickets too because according to local law, Israelis cannot stay in the country for longer than sixty days without a special permit. “The travel agent promised to do that and on Rosh Chodesh Nissan we boarded a plane for Holland and from there to Hong Kong and from there to Cebu. When we landed at the airport in Hong Kong, we had just ten minutes to catch the connecting flight.”
FAITHFUL AMBASSADORS
“Exhausted after hours of no sleep, with three little crying children, we ran to the right counter. When we got there, the clerk asked whether we had tickets to leave the Philippines. I assumed we did since I had instructed the travel agent to do so and he told me it was taken care of. I opened the email on my computer and showed her the confirmation for a return flight. She printed the email, called some of her supervisors, and then said that we could not board the flight.
“We were shocked. The flight would be leaving in a few minutes and what would we do in the terminal in Hong Kong? The time in Eretz Yisroel was early morning and nobody would answer the phone. The clerk explained that the return date was later than was allowed by law.
“We begged but to no avail. The clerk suggested that we buy new tickets at the counter but this was out of the question.
“At a certain point I just stood there and addressed G-d. ‘We are on our way to disseminate G-dliness in the world. Help us!’ I did not know what to do. Then I suddenly had an idea. The Rebbe’s shluchim are ambassadors… I went over to the clerk and explained that we are ambassadors who had to reach our posts. She just heard the word ambassador and her face changed colors. She went over to the phone and returned a moment later with apologies for the delay. The plane waited until we boarded.”
CHASSIDUS AND FALAFEL
The Donenfeld arrived on Cebu just two weeks before Pesach. Preparations for Pesach went into high gear. On the island they found about twenty Jewish families and they expected another thirty or so tourists to join them for the Seder.
“Within a few days we had to buy utensils, clean up, and prepare all the food. We were also busy advertising and asking tourists to sign up so we would know how many to prepare for. About thirty people signed up but more like a hundred people actually showed up to the seder.”
Since then, R’ Donenfeld describes his work as “collector of souls.” He keeps finding more and more Jews and is forming them into one community.
“From the moment we landed in Cebu we decided that we are dedicating ourselves to shlichus. Tourists know that we will do anything for them, materially and spiritually – whether it’s putting t’fillin on with them, Shabbos candles, shiurim, t’fillos on weekdays, Shabbos and holidays, and Shabbos meals.
“At first, fifteen people joined us for the Shabbos meals. Now we have almost seventy guests every Shabbos.”
R’ Donenfeld tells us with a smile about a question someone from Rechovot asked him, whether it’s enough to go on mivtzaim. “I told him that unlike someone who lives in a regular community and has to go out on mivtzaim, here on shlichus if I leave the house I am actually leaving behind mivtzaim. Throughout the day people come to the Chabad House and many of them make good commitments as far as Torah and mitzvos are concerned.”
Israeli tourists greatly appreciate food that reminds them of home and R’ Donenfeld decided to put that to good use.
“We started a shiur called ‘Chassidus and Falafel.’ Every Tuesday we have an Israeli supper with falafel along with a shiur on practical concepts for daily life taken from the teachings of Chassidus. The shiur began with five people and now dozens attend it. The members of the local community were jealous and asked for a shiur for them too.”
PIDYON SHVUYIM
It happens that a Jewish person gets into trouble with the law or with the locals and the Chabad House gets a request for help. R’ Donenfeld says that he never checks to find out whether the person is guilty; he just helps out.
“A few months after we arrived here on shlichus, our financial situation was not the greatest. Every week we worried about where we would get the money for our work. One day, we got a phone call from someone in Florida. He sounded hysterical. He said that he has a good friend who lives on an island near us and that he was put in jail without anyone knowing about it and with no one to help him. My wife prepared sandwiches and we set out. The one who helped us get into the jail was a member of the Noachide community, a young man who had connections with law enforcement officials.
“We quickly learned that the fellow had been falsely accused. A local woman took all his money and his possessions deceitfully and he remained without anything. Of course he was thrilled to see us. Meanwhile, his family in the U.S. got him out of jail by paying an exorbitant bail. Then he had to hire a lawyer for a huge amount of money in order to prove his innocence, but he didn’t have the money. His hearing was scheduled for two weeks later. We felt bad for the guy who was likely to rot in jail for years to come for no crime. We decided to do all we could to help him.
“Every day I made phone calls to raise money to pay for a lawyer. As I said, our financial situation at the time was not good but I told my wife that the mitzva of pidyon shvuyim takes precedence. After two days of phone calls, I reached a wealthy person in the capital who agreed to give the full amount and even promised to deposit it in our bank account at the end of the week. Since I could not rely on promises I continued my efforts in fundraising until I reached a rich American Jew who immediately deposited the entire amount in our account.
“After the money cleared I called the local Jew to tell him that we already had the money. The next call was to the lawyer to arrange an appointment. The lawyer did his work well and the man was freed and left the Philippines.
“In the meantime, our financial situation at the Chabad House was still awful and I had no idea where to get money from. We had to pay bills and it reached the point where we had no money to go shopping for the upcoming Shabbos.
“I was convinced that the Rebbe would help us. I waited for a miracle. More accurately, I prayed for a miracle. What happened from that point on can be described as nothing but miraculous. Suddenly, the man who paid for the pidyon shvuyim told us that he was moved by our willingness to help a Jew and he sent us a donation. A short while later, the first man who promised to help called and although I had told him I already had a donor for that case, he insisted that he had designated the amount for tz’daka already and he would give it to us to do with it as we pleased. These two donations helped us a lot.”
A MEIS MITZVA
Chabad Houses in distant places often have opportunities for rare mitzvos. We told about the pidyon shvuyim and now, listen to this story from R’ Donenfeld about the funeral of a Jew who lived on a forsaken island.
“At the last Kinus HaShluchim, three of us from the Philippines, R’ Yossi Levy, R’ Shmuel Luzon and myself, sat together and got to talking about those brought to Jewish burial and the efforts and difficulties involved. When I heard them discuss it, in my heart I prayed that I would be spared from this sort of mitzva, but what I feared came to pass. The next day I got a text from a woman in England who wanted help with her father who was dying on an island near Cebu.
“She said she was going to him from England and she asked that we take care of a Jewish burial. I told her that I was not in the Philippines and we were returning a week later and that, at that moment, there were no shluchim in that area. She said that she did not believe that her father would live another week. In the Philippines, hospitals embalm the dead. When she told me which hospital he was in, I sent someone from the Noachide community, a person who holds a high governmental position, to warn the doctors not to touch the man’s body when he died.
“At a certain point, I lost contact with the woman and did not know what happened to her father. The connection was renewed only when I returned to Cebu, an hour before Shabbos. The woman sent me a text which said her father died the previous week and the doctors did not touch him, but he was in a local church surrounded by crosses. In addition, we found out that he died with big debts and the authorities on the island were demanding that she pay what he owed. She had already bought a ticket and was about to leave the Philippines, despondent over the fact that her father would have to remain buried on the island.”
R’ Donenfeld knew that there wasn’t much he could do, at least not under ordinary circumstances. After receiving the Rebbe’s bracha, right after Shabbos he headed for the island together with a member of the Noachide community, so he would have a helper.
“On the way there I called whoever I could think of who could help us, to R’ Yehuda Meshi-Zahav of Zaka and to shluchim in other countries in the area.”
The trip to the island should have taken about ten hours but it actually took about two days.
“It was so difficult without hardly any food or sleep. There were obstacles at every turn. At some point, the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. Precious hours passed until a replacement bus arrived. Because of that, I missed the last ferry and there was no other transportation in the middle of the night. I had to wait at the port until morning and only then was there a ferry that took me to the island I needed to get to.
“I was afraid that time was running out. His debts grew bigger because of the cost of the hospitalization and there was nobody to pay. The way it worked on the island was, if the money wasn’t paid within a day, the church could cremate the body. After much persuasion on my part, the church agreed to delay cremation. At the same time, they refused to release the body without a death certificate from the hospital, but without paying them for the hospitalization the hospital refused to provide the death certificate.
“The ones who helped me a lot were the people from Zaka led by R’ Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and the shliach in Hong Kong, R’ Mordechai Avtzon, who got involved. R’ Avtzon was able to enlist one of the wealthy people in his city, Rafi Aharoni, who was happy to pay thousands of dollars for this cause. R’ Avtzon also guided me throughout regarding the relevant halachos.
“After a complicated process and quite a few difficulties, the body was flown to Manila where a Jewish funeral took place and the man was given a Jewish burial.”
AN ACCURATE ANSWER
“For the tourists, who have no Jewish education, the topic of Moshiach is just as new and fascinating as netilas yadayim. The ones who challenge me are the ones who belong to religious Zionist groups who also visit the island in growing numbers.
“In the shiurim on the subject, we discuss the belief in the Rebbe as Moshiach and his being chai v’kayam, which is anchored firmly in the teachings of Chazal. Tourists who spend the time learning about this in depth are quite surprised.”
Writing to the Rebbe connects many people to the Rebbe and to the eternal life of the Nasi Ha’dor. Many of them write to the Rebbe and open to clear answers and moving brachos and there are endless examples of this.
“We had someone here who was uncertain about what profession to study when she returned to Eretz Yisroel. After opening one of the volumes of the Igros Kodesh, she gave it to my wife to read. My wife read the letter and saw that it had nothing to do with what the woman had written about.
“The answer was for someone who asked what to do on the yahrtzait of her grandmother. The Rebbe suggested increasing in positive acts and learning to commemorate her grandmother’s memory based on the letters of her name. In situations like these, my wife reads the answer out loud and we have sometimes seen how the answer actually did respond to an important, albeit unasked, question.
“This time too, my wife read the answer and the girl began to cry. When she calmed down, she told my wife that that very day was the first yahrtzait of her grandmother, and it was a week already that she had not been able to sleep because she was upset over not being able to visit her grave along with the family. She wanted to do something but did not know what to do in memory of her grandmother to whom she was very attached. And here, when she wrote to the Rebbe, he answered her about what was foremost on her mind.”
FUTURE BUILDING
R’ Donenfeld concluded the interview with thanks for all the people who help them out, led by R’ Yossi Levy, shliach in Manila and another shliach in the Philippines, R’ Shmuel Luzon and the first shliach in Cebu, R’ Yisroel Kaplan.
“Our next project is putting up a big building for all our activities. We are dreaming of a beautiful shul, a dining room, guest rooms, a mikva and a well-appointed kitchen to provide kosher meals.
“Our work is expanding every month. Israeli tourists and Jews from around the world are discovering Cebu and it seems the Chabad House plays no small role in this. We hope that this will prove to be what tips the scales to bring about the hisgalus.”
THE HELP OF THE B’NEI NOACH
During the interview we heard mention of the big help provided by the community of Noachides and we asked to hear more about them.
“Throughout the Philippines there are many people who identify as Noachides. They believe that the Jewish people are the Chosen Nation and that they need to help us to the best of their abilities,” says R’ Donenfeld.
“Every Sunday I give a class on the Sheva Mitzvos B’nei Noach and about the Geula. Dozens of people attend the class. Their connection and identification with the Jewish people is astonishing. Just recently, a boy came to us whose parents said his name is Gavriel Noach. When I heard this I was very taken by it. When I asked the parents why they gave him a Jewish name, they said he was named for the Jewish rabbi who was murdered and this was despite their not having heard of Chabad before.”
The Philippines is a staunchly Catholic country and the law is that every child must receive a certificate from the local church. Without it, he cannot attend any school or receive any government benefits. Nor can he be issued a passport or identification papers.
Noachides reject the path of Christianity. Their top people published some books to prove the lies of Christianity and to show that the Jewish nation is the Chosen People. Noachides do not receive government aid because they don’t have the necessary papers but recently, some of them managed to pull strings in government offices and were able to arrange that instead of a stamp from the church, they will get a stamp from the Chabad House. So on Cebu, R’ Donenfeld is the one who stamps their certificates.
“Nearly every week we have families from the surrounding islands coming to us and after we check to see that they actually belong to a Noachide community, we stamp their certificates.
“The Noachides are an astonishing phenomenon, mamash Yemos HaMoshiach. They help us with everything. Many Jews are helped by them thanks to the fact that they are locals who are well established and know all the nuances. Some of them even hold senior government positions and they are happy to help.
“Many of them donate toward the Chabad House. Just recently, I heard that some of them did not have much money and they took loans in order to donate toward the Chabad House!”
THE ANSWER FROM THE REBBE AFTER THE TORAH FELL
On Rosh HaShana this year, something terrible happened at the Chabad House.
“We have the Rosh HaShana meal in the same hall where we daven. We fold the tables we eat on and put them on the side until the davening is over and then we reopen them for the meal.
“On the night of Rosh HaShana, although nobody went over to the pile of tables, they suddenly fell, one after another, and in falling they hit the small Aron Kodesh. The Torah fell on the ground. Everyone was in shock. This really upset me and the others. When something like this happens, it’s a sign to do t’shuva. During the meal I spoke about this and everyone made positive resolutions. After Rosh HaShana we held a special fast day in which all those who davened in the minyan fasted.
“Despite all the spiritual fortification which this brought to many people, I was still upset. Why did this happen to us? What were they hinting to us from heaven that we could improve?
“I decided to write to the Rebbe and ask for his bracha and advice. When I opened volume 20 of the Igros Kodesh, the Rebbe wrote about the importance of joy and referred to events that occurred with the reading of the Torah and a dream etc. The Rebbe wrote that the correct response is to not dwell on it or see it as a negative sign from Heaven, but that the purpose of Torah is to bring greater joy and specifically down below in the physical realm.”