“The first time I saw the Rebbe my whole body began to tremble. I felt that I was standing before a king.” Rabbi Mordechai Siev is a very dynamic personality. He has met thousands of Jews over the years who have turned their lives around after meeting with him. With a humorous smile, he combines his own life story with some fascinating stories about the countless Jewish souls he has encountered.
Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry
One winter night, a mother and child came into the Ascent Institute of Tzfas. The two were tourists who had come from faraway South Africa on a tour of Eretz Yisroel. The Ascent staff quickly noticed something rather strange. While the mother was dressed as a Torah observant woman, her young son was dressed like a secular Jew. He spoke scornfully and acted with total defiance.
Realizing that they had a complex situation on their hands, the front office knew exactly where to send them. The person they needed was Rabbi Mordechai Siev. While Ascent has numerous staff members, if there’s anyone who has proven that he can deal with interesting types and “hard nuts to crack,” it’s Rabbi Mordechai Siev, known to everyone as “Big Mo.”
Rabbi Siev was called from his office and after he greeted the young man they sat down for a discussion that lasted several hours. Rabbi Siev’s office at Ascent is the most lively and colorful room at the institute. It has a large sofa previously graced by professors, philosophers, and other deep thinkers, along with simple Jews, young and old, from all over the world. Everyone feels surrounded by immense love, alongside bottles of mashke and pictures of baseball stars.
The young man sat in this office with Rabbi Siev and he proceeded to pour his heart out. His life had not been an easy one. It turned out that his father had abandoned him and his mother just before his bar-mitzvah, and he had been angry at the whole world, especially G-d, ever since. The wounds inflicted by his father’s desertion had never healed, but when he found Rabbi Siev’s attentive ear, his anger began to cool. “While the mother initially spoke with us about accommodations for one day, they eventually stayed for three weeks,” R’ Mordechai said with a playful smile.
We recently met with Rabbi Siev at his home in the heart of Tzfas’ Old City, and conducted an interview with him that lasted well into the night. Anyone acquainted with him knows that he is a person with a magnetic personality. Although he is in his fifties, he is characterized by a youthful quality. He is a warm and kindhearted Chassid filled with tremendous Ahavas Yisroel and considerable Torah knowledge, and these always find their way into the hearts of his fellow Jews.
Rabbi Siev joined the Ascent staff in 5747, and he has met with thousands of Jews, paving the way for many of them to begin the spiritual journey to reawaken their pintele yid. We asked him about his activities and we came away with a marvelous narrative about a young American Jew who became exposed to the light of Yiddishkait with the help of the Rebbe’s shluchim. He subsequently vowed that he would repay the favor by helping other young Jews. His life story has been filled with many fascinating twists and turns.
“LIKE ANY OTHER NORMAL AMERICAN KID”
Mordechai Siev was raised in Woodbury, Long Island, in a family that was somewhat distant from Torah and mitzvah observance. “My mother, a teacher, came from a Jewish family that had been religiously unaffiliated. My father a”h, a professional accountant, was born in Brooklyn, and was a descendant from a Yerushalmi family.” While his parents were very traditional, he was not so religious.
The Siev family kept some of the basic Jewish holiday traditions, such as making Kiddush. They would also periodically visit the local Conservative synagogue.
“Most of my friends were Jewish, and when they celebrated their bar-mitzvah, I decided that I wanted to have one as well. In an amazing case of Divine Providence, the Conservative ‘temple’ burned down a few months before my bar-mitzvah, and the ‘minyan’ moved to the events hall of the Orthodox school. Among the conditions for renting the hall was arranging for separate seating. I would walk an hour to the shul and back, while accompanying my paternal grandmother, who was Torah observant. Thus, it could be said that I celebrated an Orthodox bar-mitzvah,” said Rabbi Siev.
Just like any other normal American boy, he invested long hours and days in playing football, hockey, and other sports. However, as he grew older, he gave up his sports dream. Since he was only an average student, he enrolled in a small college in upstate New York to study business administration. “There was a great deal of anti-Semitism at this college. Since most of the students were not from the New York City area, they didn’t have much contact with Jews. They expressed their anti-Jewish sentiments without restraint while the Jewish students suffered quietly.”
When Mordechai and his friends came to the college they decided to put a stop to this, once and for all. “One day, we went to the room of one of these anti-Semitic bands and threatened them in no uncertain terms. From that moment on the rules of the games changed – the punishment would fit the crime. Jews would no longer be subject to their humiliating tactics. I headed a group of Jewish students and we would go around wearing ‘Star of David’ chains and other Jewish symbols – and the harassment ceased. This was quite ironic, as I didn’t know much about Judaism besides for my being a member of the Jewish People.”
REVEALING A NEW WORLD
At a certain stage, when Mordechai felt that he had completed his studies at this college, he and some other friends enrolled in the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he discovered Chabad activities for the first time. “I saw a sign on campus with the words ‘Chabad house.’ I asked my roommate, who was also Jewish, about the meaning of this sign. He told me that this was a place where they hold Jewish activities run by two young Orthodox rabbis – Rabbi Nosson Gurary and Rabbi Heschel Greenberg. One Shabbos I decided to go and see for myself what they had to offer.
“I remember my first encounter with this rabbinical duo. Since I hadn’t been raised in Brooklyn, I had never met such distinguished looking Jews. I knew very little about observant Jews, apart from the fact that they mumble some ancient text and drink a cup of wine once a week. The first meeting took place on Shabbos, when I came in during the Friday evening prayer service. The z’miros and the overall atmosphere instilled in me a wonderful feeling of calm. The Chabad house was located in a small and modest room filled with a group of happy and smiling young students.”
Until that moment, Mordechai had thought that there was no unique depth to Judaism, and Jews were a people like anyone else – Italians, for example.
“Before eating the Shabbos meal together, they asked us to do Netilas Yadayim and explained its meaning. I became a regular weekly guest at the Chabad house. I learned something new every time and my curiosity grew more and more intense. After the seuda I would join another group of students for an informal farbrengen with Dr. Dovid Lazerson, a college educated baal t’shuva who had come back to his Jewish roots via the shluchim. We learned from him about Ahavas Yisroel. He would bring anyone and everyone into his home.”
The connection with Rabbi Gurary grew stronger each Shabbos and their meetings started to take place much more frequently.
“I took part in the Torah classes and I periodically accompanied Rabbi Gurary on his outreach activities at the university. Anyone familiar with him knows that he’s a real ‘L’chat’chilla Aribber’ Jew and this is the secret of his success. I would go with him through the student dormitories, meeting Jews and speaking with them earnestly about their Judaism. During my first summer break the shluchim organized a ‘summer yeshiva’ program, and I took part as well.”
At the end of the summer yeshiva, Mordechai put on a yarmulke for the first time in his life. However, he had a dilemma what to do when he got home. In the end, he put it in his pocket! “My parents had already noticed that I was not the same young man they had sent to college. For his part, my father said that there are many kinds of religious Jews.”
After the summer break Mordechai returned for his third and final year of college studies at SUNY-Buffalo. Meanwhile, he had gone into a spiritual decline. “Of all people, it was specifically a non-Jewish student who got me back on track. During a lengthy discussion, I told her that I was becoming more and more interested in the traditions of my forefathers. She reasoned that the best thing I could do was to follow my conscience, not what people tell me to do, and observing ancient traditions is always a good thing. It was quite a paradox that gentiles were encouraging me to get closer to the traditions of my people.”
GETTING CLOSER TO YIDDISHKAIT AND FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM
During Mordechai’s junior year in college he was appointed vice-president of the SUNY Buffalo Jewish Student Union. In this role he worked to intensify the level of Jewish identity and instill fear in anti-Semites, both on and off campus. With the passage of time, he had become very close to his Jewish roots. One of the final stages in this process was when Rabbi Metzger from Crown Heights came to spend Shabbos at the university. “He spoke in very convincing terms about Yiddishkait, and this proved to be a major factor that led me to make the commitment to begin keeping Shabbos, kashrus, and putting on t’fillin. I felt that the Torah was the true path in life, not just some historical legacy. I decided that the moment had come to stop sitting on the fence.”
Mordechai Siev became Rabbi Nosson Gurary’s right-hand man. “Shortly before Sukkos, it was decided that SUNY-Buffalo would have a sukka. Up until then the university administration had prohibited Rabbi Gurary from building a sukka. We went to the office of the dean and met with a woman there. It turned out that the dean who had rejected the sukka construction every year was on sabbatical, and the woman was serving as interim campus director. Rabbi Gurary explained to her that the grand rabbi of the Jews had requested that the university also have a sukka, and she granted her consent without hesitation. We finished building the sukka just a few minutes before Yom Tov.”
In Kislev 5736, Mordechai’s third year at SUNY-Buffalo, Rabbi Gurary organized a trip for students to Crown Heights to meet with the Rebbe. “He brought us to 770 and pushed us inside. The first time I saw the Rebbe was when he was sitting on his chair, and everyone was passionately singing a Chassidic niggun. My whole body began to tremble. I felt that I was standing before a king.”
By the time Mordechai completed his undergraduate studies, he was a full-fledged Chassid who had already made several visits to see the Rebbe. “During a visit to Eretz Yisroel, I went to study at Yeshivas ‘Ohr T’mimim,’ but I didn’t feel that it was for me at that stage. When I returned to the United States I began learning in the baal t’shuva program at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown, New Jersey. This was during Elul 5738. The whole atmosphere of the month of Divine Mercy and Slichos with all the maamarim, sichos, and farbrengens in the yeshiva was a source of tremendous spiritual pleasure that transformed me into a true Chassid of the Rebbe.”
Erev Yom Kippur 5739, the bracha for the T’mimim. “While they told us to prepare ourselves, nothing in the world could have prepared us for this lofty ritual, as the Rebbe blessed his bachurim like a father to his sons. Throughout that Tishrei, I couldn’t understand how the Rebbe managed to function virtually without a break.”
REQUESTING A BRACHA IN THREE WORDS
In 5740, Mordechai married his first wife, Chana a”h, and with the Rebbe’s bracha, they set out for Philadelphia to serve on shlichus at the University of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of these very successful and vibrant activities, he received an offer to go on shlichus to work with the Ascent Institute of Tzfas, where he had served as a counselor during his journey to Eretz Yisroel five years earlier. Rabbi Siev’s condition was that he must receive the Rebbe’s bracha. “On Motzaei Shavuos, I stood in the long line to receive Kos Shel Bracha from the Rebbe’s hand. However, I didn’t know how to ask him about the shlichus in the shortest way possible, and thereby not to take up too much of the Rebbe’s valuable time.
“A friend of mine standing with me at that moment told me, ‘Request a bracha for shlichus in Tzfas, and the Rebbe will already know who you are and where you have been. If the Rebbe blesses you – you’re on your way.’ This is exactly what I did. As I stood before the Rebbe, I repeated those three words. The Rebbe replied, ‘Bracha V’hatzlacha,’ and I moved on. Suddenly, I heard that they were calling me back. Filled with fear and anxiety, I returned, and the Rebbe gave me a bottle of mashke and said to me: ‘When you arrive in Tzfas, make a farbrengen with this bottle.’ I was so excited that I was unable to drive back to Philadelphia. One of the Penn students who came with me did the driving instead.”
Not long afterwards, the Siev family left Philadelphia and made its way to Tzfas. Upon his arrival, R’ Mordechai immediately joined the Ascent staff, while his wife joined the faculty of the Ohr Menachem Chabad school for girls. Over the twenty-seven years since then, Rabbi Siev has continued his shlichus as one of the senior members of the Ascent team.
What is the secret to your success in spreading the wellsprings of Chassidus?
“It’s all a matter of adhering to the Rebbe’s instructions and guidance. We give every Jew, without exception, the same level of respect and consideration – no matter how he looks, how much money he has, how old he is, or what he has gone through in life. I really enjoy helping people, down to the last detail. When we host guests at Ascent, while I may look like a rabbinical figure, I have no problem with getting them a toothbrush, or even pillows and blankets.
“A few months ago, a young bride came to Ascent and invited me to the happiest day of her life. Since she looked like a girl from a Lubavitcher home, I couldn’t understand what connection I had with her. She then told me that several years earlier, during a very confusing time in her life, she came to Ascent, and I had spent many long hours listening to her troubles. It was our demonstration of concern that brought her back to the fold and now she was about to get married according to the law of Moshe and Yisroel.”
Rabbi Siev maintains contact with hundreds and thousands of Jews who have come his way. When I asked him for some unique stories, he explained that each time a Jew gets closer to his Creator it’s a moving story of its own. However, R’ Mordechai agreed to tell us a few stories:
“In 5755, a couple of American students arrived. They had been traveling through Greece with their non-Jewish friends, when they decided to change their itinerary and make a short trip to Eretz Yisroel.
“While they were visiting Yerushalayim, they met someone (to this day, I don’t know who this was) who told them about ‘Big Mo’ in Tzfas. When they came into Ascent, they asked to meet me. We sat together and chatted, and I discovered that they knew absolutely nothing about Judaism. We started talking about sports, and I connected it to Jewish topics. This twosome originally thought that they would hang around at Ascent for a few days, but they ended up staying for three months.
“On Chai Elul we gathered for a farbrengen and I told them that they had to make some good practical resolutions. One of them promised that he would marry a Jewish girl, while the other said that he would refrain from eating non-kosher meat. For these guys, these were very heavy decisions. A few years passed after they left Ascent and I received a wedding invitation in the mail: The student who had promised that he would only marry a Jewish girl was getting married in New York. Since the date of the wedding was close to the International Shluchim Conference, the timing worked out just right for me to attend, and I did. It was most surprising to see that this wedding, held in Manhattan, was conducted according to the law of Moshe and Yisroel.
“A year later, I received another invitation from the second young man, and when I arrived at his wedding, I was even more surprised. He had become completely Torah observant. We remain in contact with one another to this day, and he sends his children to learn in Orthodox schools.”
R’ Mordechai then told us another fascinating Ascent story: “One Shabbos, as I was making a farbrengen, a young man and woman came in and asked if there was a swimming pool in town. Naturally, I couldn’t direct them to a swimming pool on Shabbos, but it also wouldn’t be proper to send them away empty-handed. Therefore, I sent them in the direction of the Ari’s Mikveh… When they came back a few hours later, the young man said: ‘Rabbi, I never saw a pool like that before. As soon as I got in and felt the cold water, I experienced a real spiritual elevation.’
“Two years later, I went into 770 to daven Mincha. At the conclusion of the minyan, a young man wearing a proper Chassidic hat and suit came up to me and asked if I recognized him. When I failed to remember him, I asked him to tell me who he was. The young man then reminded me that I had sent him to the Ari’s Mikveh. Deeply moved by this revelation, we went outside together, when a young modestly dressed woman approached us. It turned out that the two followed a process of t’shuva together and then each went his/her separate way. Now, they are just a few weeks away from their wedding, scheduled to take place in Crown Heights.”
THE HAPPY RECAP
Rabbi Siev is an endless source of moving stories and we asked him to give us one more at the conclusion of our interview. “During Chanukah 5748, just as I was beginning my work at Ascent, a group of young Jewish college students from the Hebrew University overseas program arrived from Yerushalayim. They were just starting their life journey, each one with his own dream. One wanted to be a Reform rabbi, another wanted to be a Conservative rabbi, one a chazzan, another a teacher, etc.
“I listened to their dreams, and in the brief time I had with them, I tried to infuse them with some words from the Torah of Truth. One of the high points of their tour was going to the Ari’s Mikveh, but when we got there, no one wanted to go in. I then remembered when I went to the mikveh for the first time in my life together with my mentor, Rabbi Gurary. Without saying a word, he got undressed and went in. I decided here that I would do the same, so in the manner of Nachshon, I took the plunge and everyone followed me.
“The rest of the story is no less amazing. Some years later, I traveled to Los Angeles. I went into a music store, where I met an Orthodox Jew who greeted me with great enthusiasm. ‘Do you remember me?’ he asked. I did remember him and I was quite stunned. He told me about his friend who wanted to be a teacher, and how he too had become Orthodox. However, this friend did not neglect his dream, as he became a melamed in a cheider in Boston. When I asked about the one who wanted to a chazzan, he told me with a smile that he had also become a baal t’shuva, and he too had fulfilled his dream as a chazzan in an Orthodox shul in Boston. Yet, he had no knowledge about what had happened to the fourth member of the group.
“A few years ago, after I had already forgotten the whole episode, I set out on a fundraising trip for Ascent. As I was waiting at the Lod Airport terminal, I saw a chareidi man running toward me. He gave me a warm embrace without saying who he was. As he started telling me where we had previously met, I felt a lump in my throat. This was the fourth young man, the one who wanted to become a Conservative ‘rabbi’. Instead, he did t’shuva, completed his rabbinical studies in Yerushalayim, and was then on his way to New York for his wedding, preparing to establish a home based on Torah and mitzvos…”
As someone who has been involved in outreach work for so many years, are there different approaches to do doing outreach from what existed thirty years ago?
“The technological media makes people crazy. In the past, I would sit with a Jew and talk with him for hours while his mind was totally free to listen. Today, I try to summarize the message in as short a manner as possible. You can see hundreds of people sitting on a train or a bus, and instead of talking among themselves, each person is immersed in his own electronic device. This presents us with a very complicated challenge. In any event, one thing that hasn’t changed is the Jewish soul thirsting to hear the inner depth of Torah.”
What about the subject of Moshiach, which the Rebbe calls “the only remaining shlichus”?
“I speak clearly with people about how the Rebbe is ‘the leader of the generation,’ the ‘Moshe Rabbeinu’ of the generation, and the only Jewish leader who cares for every Jew, no matter who he/she is. In my opinion, we need to explain the concept properly and give them a clear picture of what it all means. As a result, intelligent people will eventually draw their own conclusions.
“With regard to publicizing about Moshiach, it largely depends upon the person with whom you are speaking and what he knows about the subject. Throughout the years of my shlichus, I have always spoken to people as individuals, not using one approach for everyone. I know some Jews who are incredibly inspired when they learn Chapter 32 of Tanya. Others are deeply moved by Chapter 2 of Tanya, ‘Basi L’Gani,’ or ‘Shaar HaYichud V’HaEmuna.’ The same thing goes for ‘Moshiach’ – I speak with each person according to his/her own spiritual ‘vessels.’”
MARCHING THROUGH THE SNOW TO SAVE JEWISH SOULS
“When I was a student in Yeshivas Tiferes Bachurim in Morristown, I would go out with my friends each Friday for Mivtzas T’fillin in northern New Jersey. My job was to drive the minivan to take all the T’mimim out on mivtzaim. After finishing our route, we would often continue straight to Crown Heights to spend Shabbos in 770 with the Rebbe. One Friday during the winter of 5741, it started snowing very heavily during the morning hours. I told the guys that we had to leave early, since we didn’t want to get stuck along the way and risk not arriving at 770 in time.
“We hurried through our usual mivtzaim routes, but as the snowfall got heavier and heavier, the police started closing roads. I quickly began driving toward Brooklyn, hoping that the bridge would remain open. However, these hopes soon proved false, as we saw the looming traffic jam with a large force of New York City police officers closing off the bridge. When we realized that we wouldn’t make it to Brooklyn in time, we tried to head back to Morristown. Unfortunately, the roads to New Jersey were also blocked and huge traffic jams clogged every route we tried to take.
“When we saw that we had only five minutes until Shabbos, we parked the vehicle at an intersection, left all our belongings inside, and started walking toward the city of Livingston. While we knew that there was a shliach in the city, we didn’t know exactly where he lived. We started looking for houses with mezuzos. We came up to the first house and knocked on the door, but the woman who saw us through the peephole said that she didn’t have any money for a contribution and refused to open the door. The same thing happened at the second house. At the third house, a Jew opened the door and cheerfully welcomed us.
“He told us that today was his father’s yahrtzait, adding that he had been particular to say ‘Kaddish’ in a minyan he led every year. This year, however, he had been worried that the inclement weather would prevent him from continuing the annual tradition. He prayed to G-d for help, and we walked in… He warmly accepted us as his guests, and after we davened Mincha and Maariv together in his home, he showed us how to get to the shliach’s house, where we spent the rest of Shabbos.
“This is the first part of our amazing story. The second part took place seven years ago, when I traveled to the United States to sit Shiva for my father a”h. While I had been planning on spending Shabbos in Crown Heights, a raging snowstorm left me and my family on Long Island. In any event, I did what I could to arrange for a minyan. That Friday I asked the local shliach in Huntington, Long Island, Rabbi Asher Vaisfiche, what he could do. He promised that he would try and find me a minyan, but due to the poor weather, he could only find two Jews, making us a total of four. At a certain point, it sadly became clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to say Kaddish.
“Suddenly, just an hour before Shabbos, Rabbi Vaisfiche received a call from several bachurim who had been on their way from 770 to their mivtzaim route when they got stuck due to the snowstorm. They asked if they could spend the Shabbos with him… When he asked them how many they were, they replied, ‘Six bachurim…’ He happily invited them to come, and it was only when they arrived at the Chabad house that they realized how an incredible case of Divine Providence had left exactly six of them stranded on Long Island.
“The shliach told me that this was the first time since he came out on shlichus that he also had a minyan for T’hillim, as it was Shabbos Mevarchim. Yet, I remembered well how in my youth I too had been involved in a very similar story…”