In the middle of Chanuka six years ago, IDF forces carried out Operation Cast Lead. Naturally, tensions ran high in Moslem countries that tuned into Al Jazeera which incited against Israel. I was working as a shliach in Marrakesh in Morocco at the time, and we could feel a definite tension among the local population.
A dinner meal that turned into a Chanuka farbrengen.
As is done every year, we brought four bachurim from the yeshiva in Brunoy to help out, mainly with children and youth. The bachurim called me early in the morning from the home of the family that was hosting them and they asked whether I had heard the news from Eretz Yisroel. They updated me about the IDF (finally) going in to attack Gaza and also told me that their host was very nervous and was telling them to remove their hats and to wear caps in the street to hide their Jewish identity.
Actually, from when I first arrived in Morocco, local Jews had suggested removing my hat but I refused. I said I am a shliach of the Rebbe and I had to look like one. I relied on the shluchim who had lived all those years in Morocco who always wore Chassidic dress.
I told the bachurim they could do as they saw fit, that I wouldn’t decide for them, but I would continue wearing my regular hat.
That morning, the discussion came up again when we were in shul. The local Jews, who usually wear caps or nothing at all on their heads, told me not to take unnecessary chances and to change my hat until things quieted down. They referred to the massacre at the Chabad House in Bombay as an example of it being forbidden to take unnecessary risks and to be careful. Some broadly hinted that it was likely that people would refrain from being in contact with us because of fear of being identified on the street as Jews.
I consulted with the shliach, R’ Sholom Eidelman. He said that removing the hat was the most dangerous thing to do because Arabs admired those who stuck to their principles and attacked those who displayed fear and weakness. He said with a smile that he and his fellow shluchim had experienced nearly all the Israeli wars while living in Morocco and had never removed their hats.
In any case, I wrote to the Rebbe about it and opened to this astonishingly precise answer: As to your question about learning a secular profession while bareheaded where there is room to say that this would make it easier to find a common language …
I was in shock over this direct beginning. The Rebbe then went on to say that matters of Shulchan Aruch were not “business deals” in which you conceded on a small mitzva for the sake of a big mitzva. The Rebbe then went on to teach me ironclad rules in my work with the community:
“… Most importantly, we see, especially with the youth, that a compromise, even a minor one, diminishes the value in their eyes and all the trust in the one making the compromise. For if a compromise is possible in some laws of the Torah and mitzvos, that proves that these things are not utterly true, for truth leaves no room for compromise and deviation of even a hair’s breadth. If there is room for compromise, then it is not the path of truth.”
The Rebbe then went on to say that all of the above was as it relates to the students, but as far as the mashpia, “he must be a dugma chaya not only for what he demands of them, but for the entire way of life that he speaks about…”
I understood from this that the Rebbe was teaching me: 1) If you make compromises, people will understand that everything you represent all that important to you is not absolute truth, and 2) if you remove the hat, other people will take off their head covering altogether or will deteriorate in other areas.
There were demonstrations in the streets of Marrakesh in support of the Palestinians. The king allowed the people to express their feelings without sliding into violence. I remember that one day, a student demonstration passed near our house, five minutes after I and my wife and children had been there. Another time, three Arab youths approached me and one of them said in Arabic, “I am a Palestinian.” I coolly replied, “Good for you, I am a Marrakeshi,” and I walked on to shul and not to my house so as not to reveal to them where I lived.
That year, the Jewish children did not go to school (I don’t remember whether it was because of the tensions or whether it was winter vacation) and every day there was day camp for about fifteen kids (and sometimes for their parents too) throughout Chanuka. We also arranged a special Chanuka party for the community with policemen on guard outside the shul. Not only local Jews attended these parties, but also many Jewish tourists.
This took place in the Beis E-l shul in the new neighborhood of Marrakesh where we lived. Fortunately, policemen guarded the shul and the street we lived on 24 hours a day.
I also went to the ancient Lazama shul (the shul of those expelled from Spain) that is within the old Jewish quarter (the Mellah), which today is full of Arabs. The way there is dangerous for I had to walk through streets and alleyways of the old city without protection.
One day, I met a family of tourists from Pennsylvania in the old shul. The father, it turned out, was not Jewish, the mother was Jewish, and of course her son was Jewish. When I asked him whether he had had a bar mitzva, he did not know what I was talking about. I sat down to talk to them. The boy had joined his parents on this trip to mark his thirteenth birthday but had no idea what a bar mitzva is.
I was excited by our providential meeting. “If I had been afraid to walk in the street, I would not have come here and met them,” I thought and I announced that we would make him a bar mitzva then and there.
The mother was very moved and began to cry. She said that before they had entered the shul, she had told her son that it was a holy place for Jews and that he too was a Jew. “I did not know what else to add,” she said.
I put t’fillin on with the boy and asked him to open the Aron Kodesh and to make his requests of Hashem. I also gave him a bar mitzva present, a menorah and candles with a brochure that explained how to light the menorah.
A few minutes after the family had left, a tall man walked in, also American. When I suggested that he put on t’fillin, he refused and said, “I never put them on and I don’t think I will ever want to.” Following the excitement of the bar mitzva I had just made, I decided I would not give up on this fellow. “If I explain to you why it’s so important to do it, will you agree?” I asked.
I felt that Hashem put the right words into my mouth. I told him about the Rebbe, about the prophecy about “Hinei Moshiach Ba,” and that the time for the Geula was more imminent than ever. I told him what the Rambam says, that every Jew needs to see the world in a balance, half unworthy and half meritorious and one mitzva can tip the scale and bring the Geula. “Just imagine,” I said emotionally, “that it is quite possible that your putting on t’fillin, here and now, will be what brings the Geula.”
To my surprise, the man was convinced and agreed to put on t’fillin. So we celebrated two bar mitzvahs, two men left the category of karkafta d’lo monach t’fillin and it was all thanks to the Rosh B’nei Yisroel who told a Chassid not to take the hat off his own karkafta (skull).