How Many Years Do “Rebbe Dollars” Stay In Circulation?

Amazing and moving stories on how dollars from the Rebbe came to people when they needed them most.

It would seem that there really is no need to present the concept of “dollars” as it pertains to a Chabad chassid. There are “dollars” as the world perceives them, and there are the “dollars” of Chabadnikim. Obviously, the latter refers to dollars received by tens of thousands of chassidim and other individuals from the holy hand of the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, together with the golden words of “Bracha v’hatzlacha.”

In that fleeting instant when you received a dollar from the Rebbe, it was a most inspiring moment. You and the king together – alone. His clear blue eyes penetrate your heart and mind as the whole universe opens before you. You take the dollar, you hear his bracha, and his holy gaze immediately moves on to the next person in line.  All so quick, yet all so profound.

It wasn’t for naught that the Rebbe said that the dollars distribution for tzedaka represents a replacement for a yechidus, as chassidim had long been accustomed to have to receive the Rebbe’s advice and bracha in a wondrously private exchange.

This event took place every Sunday, during the morning or afternoon hours, when the Rebbe left his holy chamber, went over to the special podium near the elevator in the lobby of 770, and began accepting people, each for a brief yet everlasting moment. Over the next several hours, thousands of people passed by, men and women of all ages from all over the world, from all sectors and various educational backgrounds. The Rebbe greeted them all with a cheerful and glowing expression.

This glorious custom first began on the Rebbe’s birthday, Yud-Alef Nissan 5746. On that day, when the spiritual source of his soul shines with power, the Rebbe went to the mikveh (as he customarily did before traveling to the Ohel). When he returned to 770, he left his room and suddenly began giving out dollars, which continued for about an hour and a half. From that moment on, the dollars distribution became a weekly ritual, taking place every Sunday.

Once when someone asked the Rebbe why he specifically gives out a dollar, the Rebbe explained by quoting what the Rebbe Rayatz often said: “When two Jews meet, the result should be beneficial to a third Jew.” The Rebbe wanted to turn each person’s meeting him from a chance encounter into a mission to fulfill a mitzvah: give the dollar (or another in its place) to tzedaka, thereby providing a positive use to a third person – the one receiving the dollar as charity.

On another occasion, the Rebbe replied that just as a prophet connects his prophecy to a physical matter for the spiritual prophecy to descend to the physical level, similarly, he connects his bracha with a physical dollar in order that the bracha will be fulfilled in physical terms.

During the dollars distribution, the Rebbe stood near a special table, which he leaned upon, situated near the elevator facing the locked main entrance, to the right side of the person walking in the direction of the Rebbe’s room. Rabbi Binyamin Klein stood by the door, handing the dollars to Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner, who gave them to the Rebbe. Alongside Rabbi Klein was R’ Chaim Baruch Halberstam with a regular camera and a video camera to photograph and film each person passing.

At the end of the distribution, the Rebbe gave a dollar to the secretaries and other assistants, and took a dollar for himself. He then took the bag containing a collection of different items he had received during the distribution, such as gifts and sefarim, and returned to his room.

This weekly ritual reached its climax on the 26th of Adar Rishon 5752, when the distribution lasted for six hours straight until half past seven in the evening. During that day, thousands of people passed by, far more than usual, as several large groups of guests had come to Crown Heights for that Shabbos. In addition, a large group of Vizhnitzer Chassidim had come to New York to participate in a simcha, and they took advantage of the opportunity to receive the Rebbe’s bracha at “dollars.” All these were in addition to the “usual crowd” of average Jews from all walks of life and countries throughout the globe, each one receiving the bracha meant for him.

The last dollars distribution, for the time being, took place on the 26th of Tishrei 5754. A “yechidus” was held that day for chassanim and kallos, bar-mitzvah boys, and bas-mitzvah girls – all of whom passed by the Rebbe, who gave each of them a dollar. At the end of the official distribution, the Rebbe continue to give out dollars for another few minutes to those who had received a beeper message or managed somehow to come at the very last minute before this distribution finally ended.

Now, due to our many sins, we are not privileged to receive dollars from the Rebbe’s physical hand or see his holy and beaming smile.

Twenty-seven years have passed since then, and a new generation has been born – youngsters who have grown into mature adults with children of their own, and they too desire the privilege of receiving a dollar from the Rebbe. Not only them, but also those who have drunk from the wellsprings of Chassidus. There are also many non-affiliated Jews, and they have heard of the tremendous segula attached to a dollar once given by the Rebbe. They too wish to hold in their hands the means for obtaining the holy blessings of the king, him and no other…

What do we do? There is virtually no Chabad chassid who has never been asked, “How is it possible to receive a dollar from the Rebbe?”

In the following article, we have collected stories and eyewitness accounts – a relatively small number out of several thousand – about Jews given the great privilege under the most miraculous and Heavenly-inspired circumstances for an opportunity they had longed for – to receive a dollar from the Rebbe, even during these years of intense hiding and concealment. And the Rebbe? He heard their needs and sent them what they required…

THE DOLLAR REACHED THE RIGHT HANDS

Our first story is told by the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner:

There was a Chassidic Jew, not a Lubavitcher, who saw to his surprise one morning on his kitchen floor a single dollar bill rolling on the floor. He bent over, picked it up, and before he stuck in his pocket as he customarily would, he looked at it and noticed that besides the serial numbers and U.S. Treasury artwork, there was some handwriting. It was only a few words in English, but they indicated that this dollar had been given to its recipient from the holy hand of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

He asked his wife where she had suddenly obtained a dollar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. While she didn’t understand the question, she did mention that the day before she had gone out shopping, paid the bill, and received this dollar as change. She apparently had put the dollar in her cart without even noticing that it was a very “unique” dollar. It seems that when she took the groceries out of her cart, the dollar fell onto the kitchen floor.

The Chassidic Jew heard the story and put the dollar in his pocket, overwhelmed by the tremendous Divine Providence. Without any effort on his part, he had received a dollar from the Rebbe.

Afterwards, he went to daven Shacharis in shul as he always did. Then, in the middle of davening, a Jew came up to him asking for a donation. This chassid reached into his pocket, took out a dollar, and gave it to the man. He thanked him for the money, but he apparently was in a state of serious financial hardship. Thus, despite his apprehension, he asked, “Could you possibly help me out with another dollar?”

The chassid knew that the only other dollar he had in his pocket was this special dollar from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Naturally, he wasn’t all that thrilled about giving up this dollar, which had unexpectedly come his way only the day before.

Yet, a moment later, he said to himself: “The Rebbe customarily gave dollars in order that people should give them or their replacement to tzedaka. Here, a needy Jew stands before me and asks for another dollar: How can I possibly ignore his request?”

Thus, despite the serious internal struggle, it didn’t take long for him to decide that he couldn’t turn the man away, and he happily gave him the dollar from the Rebbe. 

The man, a guest from Eretz Yisroel, also noticed the handwriting on the dollar, and since his English was not so good, he asked his benefactor if he could tell him what was written on the dollar he had just given him. The Chassidic Jew explained to him that someone had indicated that this dollar had come personally from the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

The Israeli guest suddenly turned completely pale. He was stunned, and from his facial expression, it was clear that he had been shocked right down to his toes. After he had managed to regain his composure, he told the chassid why he had this emotional reaction:

“Until Chof-Zayin Adar Rishon 5752, whenever I visited the United States, I would customarily visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe before my return to Eretz HaKodesh to receive his holy blessing and a dollar for tzedaka. Now, here I am, about to conclude my present visit, and I decided to visit 770 as I always had in the past. During my visit, I said (whether to myself or to the Rebbe): On previous occasions, when I had informed the Rebbe of my imminent return to Eretz HaKodesh, I was privileged to receive his bracha, along with a dollar. If only I would be so privileged this time, as I believe that the Rebbe can do this even now.”

And lo and behold, I have been privileged to receive a dollar from the Rebbe – how could I not be moved by this?”…

DIFFICULTY PARTING FROM THE DOLLAR

There were numerous opportunities to receive a dollar from the Rebbe. Besides the weekly Sunday distribution, there were also times when the Rebbe gave out dollars after sichos, which often took place after Maariv (primarily in 5752). There were also dollars that the Rebbe distributed through the “tankists” at the end of weeknight farbrengens. Chassidim kept them in their private and personal treasure chests, and in some cases, they accumulated into literal treasures.

Today, people long to have a dollar from the Rebbe, and they turn to “veteran” chassidim, those who were privileged to see the Rebbe in more luminous times, to pass before him as a flock before their shepherd, to stretch out their hand and receive a dollar and a blessing. However, it isn’t always easy to part from such a prized keepsake. A chassid ponders “holy thoughts” and from one side they cry out to him, “This is a channel for an abundance of brachos to you from the Rebbe. Why would you simply give it away to someone else?” On the other hand, there are other “holy thoughts” whispering to the heart of a chassid. “Yes, you are holding on to a literal treasure. But why should other Jews who never had the privilege of seeing the Rebbe, yet they long for a tangible physical sign of his blessing, be deprived of that opportunity? Where’s your Ahavas Yisroel? What about ‘he who has a generous eye will be blessed’”?

We can understand both arguments.

One of the most thrilling stories about the difficulty of parting from a dollar of the Rebbe comes from Rabbi Binyamin Karniel, the Rebbe’s shliach in Gedera:

Several years ago, a local Jew named R’ David Maimon came into the Chabad House, and with the passage of time, he became a close friend of the shliach. During one of their conversations, R’ David opened up his heart to Rabbi Karniel. He said that he was forty-two years old, married for several years, yet he and his wife had still not been blessed with children. They visited all the relevant specialists, who unanimously diagnosed that there was no problem requiring any medical treatment and R’ David’s wife was able to give birth naturally. However, this merely increased their feeling of confusion, because there was no action upon which they could pin their hopes. 

Rabbi Karniel was familiar with the Rebbe’s answers on the subject, i.e., it depends upon strict observance of the Laws of Family Purity, and he made a chavrusa with R’ David. While it turned out that the Maimons were aware of the mitzvah in general, they had difficulty in observing the laws with the proper stringency. Rabbi Karniel made a serious effort to go through the relevant halachos with R’ David, but the more he became exposed to the depth of the necessary commitment, he resisted and refused to accept the obligations. The shliach tried his best to convince him, but to no avail.

One Shabbos, in the middle of a farbrengen at the Chabad House, after Rabbi Karniel had consumed a fair quantity of “mashke” and his heart was overflowing with Ahavas Yisroel, he turned to R’ David and said: “My dear friend, I have a treasure in my home that is one of the most precious things to me in the world. I never gave part of it to anyone and I protect it as I do my own children: a bundle of dollars for tzedaka that I had received from the Rebbe’s holy hand. However, your pain and your wife’s breaks my heart, and what hurts me the most is that I’m certain that you can solve this problem. Therefore, I hereby promise that if you accept upon yourselves to keep the Laws of Family Purity stringently, I will open my precious dollars collection for the first time in my life and give you one as a gift.”

R’ David could not possibly refuse such an offer, and especially since he was also “tif tif arein” [ = deeply into] the farbrengen, they shook hands and made a deal.

The very next day, R’ David resumed his study of the halachos, and just a few weeks later, his wife learned that she was expecting. She began a healthy and successful pregnancy that concluded with the birth of a healthy child.

But R’ David was not satisfied with that. Every day, he reminded Rabbi Karniel of his promise to give him a dollar from the Rebbe. However, the shliach had some difficulty fulfilling his end of the bargain. He had a very hard time agreeing to let a dollar he had received personally from the Rebbe leave his possession.

Then, one morning, shortly after Chag HaGeula, Yud-Beis Tammuz 5765, R’ David went over to Rabbi Karniel and declared quite forcefully that he wasn’t asking him anymore. At nine o’clock that evening, he would come over to the shliach’s house and he wouldn’t leave until he got the dollar he had been promised. Rabbi Karniel walked home with a very uncomfortable feeling about the commitment he had made after making several ‘L’Chaims.’

As he came in the house, his daughter told him that his mother wanted him to call her back. When he got his mother on the phone, she immediately said: “I have a dollar for you from the Rebbe.”

“What?” he replied incredulously.

“That’s right,” she replied. She told him that nearly thirty years earlier, after Yud-Beis Tammuz 5736, she had been in a yechidus together with her husband, Rabbi Karniel’s father, Rabbi Amos Karniel, and the Rebbe gave them a dollar for their son. When she left the yechidus, she wrote on the dollar the words “A dollar from the Rebbe for Binyamin.” The dollar had been misplaced in one of the desk drawers in the house, and exactly around that time, as she was tidying things up, she found the lost dollar…

THE REBBE WILL FIND THE WAY…

In one of the Rebbe’s sichos in the early years of his leadership, he said that we should continue to request brachos and advice from the Rebbe [Rayatz] as we did before Yud Shvat. And how will the answers reach our physical ears? Nu, the Rebbe will always find the way to reply, as he is now far less limited than he was in the past.

It would seem that such things clearly apply to the Rebbe MH”M himself, during this period of darkness engulfing the world when we don’t see the Rebbe with our physical eyes and we also can’t receive a dollar from him for a “bracha and hatzlacha”, when thousands upon thousands are in need of one. However, the Rebbe does not abandon his flock and he continues to have a powerful influence upon us through the vast resources of his holy blessings.

Yet, the problem is that there are times when it’s hard for us to rely solely upon our faith that the brachos have been given. We literally want to see the Rebbe with our own eyes, we want to hold the dollar in our hand, we actually want to feel the source of the bracha between our fingers, and we need to know in a truly physical sense that the Rebbe has sent us his blessing even during those moments of personal trial.

The following story illustrates this even more.

***

Forty eight years had passed since then.

This was about four months ago, this past Nittelnacht, when Chassidim customarily do not learn Torah. Rabbi Dovber Junik of Crown Heights used the opportunity that evening to tidy up his files.

As he was going through his papers, he suddenly found a currency bill with a few words written on it – an indication that it had come from the Rebbe. On this bill, there appeared the words “From the Rebbe. Notik.”

Rabbi Junik didn’t know what this dollar was, however, when he saw the name ‘Notik’, he quickly and with great excitement called R’ Dovid Aharon Notik from Tzfas to tell him about this thrilling discovery. It turned out that the dollar had been meant for his brother, the well-known mashpia, R’ Zalman Notik.

This dollar had also been given with a specific purpose in mind. The story began forty-eight years ago, when R’ Zalman Notik was just two years old. On that day, Erev Shavuos, he emigrated with his family from the Soviet Union to Eretz Yisroel, but the great celebration and excitement were dampened all at once. His mother was cooking kompot in a large pot, when at a certain point, his aunt took the pot and accidentally spilled it on little Zalman, seriously burning him.

As a result, he endured a lengthy period of hospitalization, including four months when he lay totally unconscious.

With Zalman’s condition remaining serious, the family asked the Rebbe to give him a bracha for a speedy recovery. The person who actually made the request was Rabbi Meir Junik, R’ Zalman’s uncle, a resident of Canada who was visiting the Rebbe at the time.

In response to this request, the Rebbe gave Rabbi Junik a Canadian ten-dollar bill for the Notik family as a bracha for their son Zalman’s complete recovery.

Rabbi Junik wrote on the bill “From the Rebbe. Notik.”, in order that he should remember for whom it was meant. He placed it in his desk drawer and waited for an opportunity to send it to Eretz HaKodesh. As time passed, he forgot all about it, and the bill didn’t reach its intended destination.

For many years, the Notik family knew about the Rebbe’s bracha for Zalman’s recovery and the ten-dollar bill that had been given for him but never received. As it turned out, while Rabbi Junik waited for the opportunity to send the ten-dollar bill to his relatives in Eretz Yisroel, it simply disappeared.

We now return to this year, in the middle of Teves, when the bill was suddenly found. The news of this discovery deeply moved R’ Zalman, who was now a middle-aged adult, a well-known mashpia, and even a grandfather. Unfortunately, however, during the past year, doctors diagnosed the beloved Rabbi Notik as suffering from a serious illness and was in need of the Rebbe’s bracha for a refua shleima.

Thus, at the height of the bar-mitzvah celebration for his son Levi, on the night of his fiftieth birthday, Rabbi Notik was privileged to receive the Canadian ten-dollar bill designated for him forty-eight years earlier for his speedy recovery.

The Rebbe finds the ways to respond and send the appropriate bracha at exactly the right time…■