By Nechama Bar
My name is Eli Grossman. I grew up in Curacao, a Caribbean island, in an irreligious family. There was no Jewish school in the area so I attended a Christian school. The school occasionally had Christian ceremonies that all students had to attend.
There were other Jews in the school as well. My Jewish friends made no problems and obeyed whatever the school said to do, but I couldn’t. I am a Jew! I should not be participating in Christian ceremonies!
Whenever our class went down for an event of this kind, I found an excuse and stayed out of the assembly room. When they taught Christianity in class, I tried to leave the room. I don’t know where I had the strength from when I did not grow up in a religious home, but my neshama felt strongly about this.
My classmates noticed that I was avoiding the religion classes and ceremonies and they tried to convince me to participate. When they saw that I wouldn’t, they began fighting with me. I couldn’t complain to anyone. The teacher and principal were very angry at me and were happy to see my classmates mistreating me, so for a long time I suffered in silence. I didn’t even tell my parents.
I survived this way until seventh grade but then, the bullying intensified. My classmates used violence and beat me. There was no point in trying to fight back since it was just me against all of them. I felt I couldn’t take it anymore. Every day in school was a nightmare. At night I dreamed about running away and flying far away to a Jewish school.
One night, as I tossed and turned and wished morning would never come, I had an idea. I would run away from school in a way that nobody would know about it.
The next day, my father drove me to school, as usual. I waved goodbye to him and he left. Once he was gone, I absconded. I left the school area and walked to a grassy place where I played games and passed the time. Shortly before the school day was over, I went back to school and when the bell rang, I stood with the rest of the children. My father picked me up and did not suspect a thing.
A few weeks went by like this. It was wonderful! I wasn’t being harassed anymore! But it didn’t last long.
One day, my father was called to the principal’s office. “Why isn’t your son attending school?” he was asked by a stern-looking principal.
My father was stunned. After all, he had driven me to school and picked me up every day!
“Eli, how’s school, friends?” my father asked me that day.
“Fine, everything is as usual,” I said.
My father stared at me and said, “Were you in school today?”
I burst into tears and told him everything, about my cruel classmates and my solution to the problem.
“You can’t continue this way,” he said. “Either you go back to school or you leave school and join me at work.” I was happy with that option and chose it. The work was hard but I was happy; nobody bothered me.
A short while later, letters from the government began arriving at our house. The letters said that the law required me to be in school. We ignored the warnings but the letters kept coming. Each letter sounded tougher than the previous one. The government threatened to put the family on a black list and my father did not know what to do.
One night, my father had a dream. In his dream he was a little boy sitting on his grandmother’s lap. His grandmother caressed his cheek lovingly and said, “Whenever you have a problem, ask the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He will help you.”
My father woke up and felt that it wasn’t just a dream, but who was the Lubavitcher Rebbe? He had never heard of him. He went outside and his feet led him to the little shul near our house. He went over to the Aron Kodesh and sobbed. “Please Hashem, get us out of this predicament!” After spending some time praying, he left the shul feeling hopeful.
He had just walked a few steps when he noticed a taxi. Out of the taxi emerged an adult and a young man, both dressed in suits and hats. They approached my father and said, “The Lubavitcher Rebbe sent us here. We want to get to know the Jewish community. Can you help us?” My father rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
“Who are you? How did you know to come to me?”
The older of the two said, “My name is Moshe Kotlarsky and I live in New York. Yesterday, I received an urgent order from the Rebbe to immediately fly to Curacao. I do not know why but asked no questions. From experience I know that every word of the Rebbe is precise. I called a travel agency and booked a flight here, trusting that the Rebbe would guide me. That is how I got here. We walked around, not knowing to whom to turn. We stopped a taxi driver and asked him to take us to the shul where we hoped to meet a Jew. The driver brought us here now and we met you.”
My father was amazed by this turn of events. “On this island, there are many Jewish tourists and they usually visit the big shul on the island called Beit Knesset Mikveh Yisroel Emanuel; it’s a special shul. It is only used on Shabbos; during the week, it’s a museum. It’s extraordinary that the taxi driver did not take you there, but instead brought you to this little shul where I was.”
My father invited them home where we told them about our recent difficulties. The two of them were delightful and showed that they truly cared about us. Rabbi Kotlarsky invited me to attend Camp Gan Israel and then to continue afterward in yeshiva in New York. I was thrilled by the idea. A short while later, I was learning in a Chabad yeshiva.
The Rebbe heard our cries and took care of us like a compassionate father. Surely now too, the Rebbe is working to respond to our cries that he be revealed speedily.