Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchok Schwartz a”h, known affectionately as Schwartzie, was a successful and greatly admired shliach. He became an icon to thousands of young Jews who considered him a role model. * With his colorful suspenders and shirts and unique approach, he won the hearts of thousands of Jews and drew them closer to their Father in heaven. * A portrait of a colorful shliach.
By Moshe Shlomo
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It was 5772,” said a middle-aged woman who is close with the family of the shliach, “and my mother, who was very far from anything religious, wanted very much to participate in the Yom Kippur services. The local temple charged a lot of money for a ticket to the services, but our financial situation wasn’t great at the time. My mother had no choice but to give up on the idea and manage with a virtual Yom Kippur service on the videos she hoped to find on the Internet.
“Erev Yom Kippur, a few hours before Yom Tov, my mother was sitting in her living room and reading the local paper. She noticed an ad with the heading: Come to the synagogue that doesn’t want your money! Don’t pay to pray! Chai Center.
“My mother jumped at the opportunity, and since then has been a steady member of the Chai Center. From that Musaf that was full of Jewish content and Chassidic fervor, developed a deep connection between my family and the Schwartz family, a bond that has continued till today.
“The day after Yom Kippur, Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz came to put up mezuzos in our home. I still remember what Schwartzie said at Musaf, a story that I heard from him on many occasions because it was a story he loved to tell:
“A Jew arrives up Above and they start judging him for all he did. Due to his many sins, he was sent to Gehinom, but then an angel dashed over who stopped the proceedings and said, ‘This Jew once tossed two dollars at a beggar! Will he go to Gehinom for this?!’ His fellow angels told him, ‘Give him back his two dollars and let him move on!’ R’ Shlomo finished his story with a big smile and said, this is not how Hashem operates. When a Jew does a mitzva, even the smallest, easiest one, he ignites an eternal light that can never be extinguished, a light that remains with him wherever he goes.”
BEGINNINGS
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchok Schwartz, the son of a popular cantor, R’ Moshe and his wife Esther, was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1946. His parents survived the Holocaust and at the end of the war arrived in the US with two small children. There, they began life anew. But it was in the United States that tragedy struck. Their son Shmuli, ten years old, was riding his bike when a car hit him and killed him. This fatal car accident severely affected his mother. She was not able to deal with the loss and suffered a deep depression.
The parents went to many doctors to try and find relief for her. Finally, one top psychiatrist suggested that despite her older age, she should bring another child into the world. The joy he would bring would help her recover from the death of her son.
They had another son whom they named Shlomo Yitzchok, and he did indeed bring much joy to their home. Esther slowly began to recover from the tragedy.
Shlomo was very interested in mysticism, Chassidus and Kabbala, and when he was nineteen he left Yeshiva University for Tomchei T’mimim in Morristown. His bond and love for the Rebbe were very strong. He was devoted heart and soul to every word the Rebbe uttered.
At the age of 23 he married his wife Alte Shula Deitsch a”h. They joined the shlichus revolution in California where he was appointed as a shliach at UCLA. This campus Chabad House was the first of its kind.
When Rabbi Shlomo Cunin was first starting the spiritual renewal in California, he asked the Rebbe several times whether to open institutions like a shul or kosher dining hall, but the Rebbe said no. When he suggested opening a Chabad House on campus that would be run by Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, the Rebbe gave his blessing and that is how the first Chabad mosad opened in California.
A few years after he married, his wife suddenly passed away and he was left with little children to raise. Despite the great pain, he did not break. He married a second time, to his wife Olivia, and continued with his holy work.
For thirteen years, R’ Shlomo ran the Chabad House at UCLA. He was a familiar figure throughout the campus. Everyone knew the rabbi with the colorful suspenders. He would stand at his spot in the campus square for hours, just to meet Jewish students. He would welcome them with a big smile and a big heart and offer t’fillin or just a short conversation.
A few years later, he opened his own organization called the Chai Center, which he ran from his home in Mar Vista. Every Shabbos, he and his family hosted dozens of guests. Any Jew who visited the West Coast knew about the Shabbos experience at the Schwartz family. It made no difference what your background was.
THE ASSIMILATION EPIDEMIC
Along with his tremendous ahavas Yisroel, R’ Shlomo stood firmly on his principles. When he met a young man who was dating a non-Jew, or vice versa, gone were the smiles. On this issue he made no allowances for anyone. A Jew dating a goy? Absolutely not! G-d forbid!
His son, R’ Mendel, told us that he often had the same conversation with his father in which he tried to understand from where his father derived the strength to break up a couple? R’ Shlomo always had the same answer. “I am not afraid, because according to the unequivocal instructions I got from the Rebbe, I know that although in the short run, it looks like I offended them, in the long run, I saved them, because a shidduch between a Jew and a goy will ultimately fail.”
“My father would take the time to explain this concept to people from a statistical standpoint. He was not afraid to say this upfront: You are going to fail.
“When I would ask my father why he took this on as his life’s work, he would answer: I see that we are shrinking and assimilation has become accepted. More and more Jews are marrying non-Jews. This affects me very deeply.”
But Schwartzie did not suffice with warnings. He worked tirelessly to help young men and women marry within their people. He arranged Shabbos meals for singles and devoted days and nights so that Jews would marry Jews. His success was formidable. One often heard him say that the reason his soul came to a body was to prevent assimilation within the Jewish people. “This is why I was created,” he would say.
R’ Shlomo is known as one of the shluchim who made the most shidduchim and was mesader kiddushin at the most weddings in the course of his shlichus (in addition, he prevented dozens of intermarriages). His friends say that wherever they travel in the world, when people hear they come from California, they immediately ask, “Do you know Schwartzie?” And often add, “He married me off to my wife!”
A shliach close to R’ Shlomo said that several years ago he had to visit R’ Shlomo for various reasons, and that Shabbos, as usual, R’ Shlomo organized a Shabbaton for singles and addressed them on the topic of assimilation. “Later on,” said the shliach, “R’ Shlomo told me that he needed chizuk in this matter since a popular Jewish newspaper had recently come out against him for saying certain things on this subject. R’ Shlomo was afraid that, G-d forbid, he would weaken in this matter and he asked me to encourage him because, as he said, this was the reason his neshama came down to a body.
“After the meal, I advised him that we learn together a maamer of the Rebbe, and we opened the weekly D’var Malchus and began learning the maamer printed that week; I think it was ‘V’Ata Tetzaveh.’ We did not finish it that night, so we continued the next morning before Shacharis. In that booklet, the editors included letters from the Rebbe and in a letter printed that week, the Rebbe writes to a Chassid that he is forbidden from being fazed by what they write about him in the newspapers and he should continue his holy work.
“R’ Shlomo farbrenged about this for the rest of the Shabbos: Az mehn lerent adurch ah gantze maamer un mehn horovet oif dem, entfert dir der Rebbe. (If you learn through an entire maamer of the Rebbe and you toil over it, the Rebbe answers you.) That was the nature of the bond between R’ Shlomo and the Nasi HaDor, a deep hiskashrus like that of a son to his father.”
Many Chassidim speak of the sight of the Chassid who would stand and look at the Rebbe for long moments. R’ Shlomo would not manage to get a word out of his mouth. He would just stand and look, stand and cry.
“QUICK RECOVERY”
In honor of his sixtieth birthday, R’ Shlomo farbrenged with the students of the Smicha program in Los Angeles, where he told the following story:
In the year 5725, his father the chazzan, R’ Moshe, became very ill. R’ Shlomo was learning in 770 at the time, and he approached the Rebbe in Gan Eden HaTachton (the hallway outside the Rebbe’s room) and asked for a blessing for a complete recovery. He mentioned his father’s name along with the name of his father’s mother, but the Rebbe asked him to repeat the name a few times.
Afterward, the Rebbe asked, “Moshe from Atlantic City?” When R’ Shlomo answered in the affirmative, the Rebbe blessed his father with a quick recovery. Additionally, the Rebbe instructed that they give his father a blood transfusion as this was needed for him to recover.
R’ Shlomo immediately contacted the doctor and passed along the instruction. When the doctor heard this, he screamed at him, “How can you listen to some rabbi who never even saw the patient?” R’ Shlomo insisted and warned the doctor that if he waited until he personally came from New York, it would be too late. Thanks to his uncompromising belief in the Rebbe, his father merited to live many more years, and dance at his own son’s wedding a year later.
Beyond being of good character and having a generous spirit, R’ Shlomo also served as a role model and inspiration for other shluchim. This can be seen from the memorial words written by his good friend R’ Asi Spiegel from Tzfas:
It was when I was visiting California, and I got the opportunity to spend a Shabbos with Schwartzie. “Is the shul far from here?” I asked. This was after the women lit candles and the smells of the Shabbos food filled the house, which was set up for about fifty guests. “We daven on the porch, there is a beautiful view from there,” he answered with a smile.
When I realized that we were about to start davening Kabbalas Shabbos without a minyan, I couldn’t contain myself and asked Schwartzie what was going on. Why couldn’t we just wait for all the guests that were supposed to be coming? Schwartzie then gave me my first lesson of the many that I received from him, as he patiently explained to me what I had never understood previously, “There are Jews who cannot be invited for Shabbos services. They simply will not come. They do not feel comfortable with their Jewish identity, and really do not want to come to pray in a synagogue. The only way to reach them is invite them for the Shabbos meals. Only in that way is it possible to awaken their Jewish spark. Don’t worry, they will soon arrive for kiddush,” he concluded, and began to sing Kabbalas Shabbos in his distinctive voice.
It was the year 1990, after a few good years in 770 of standing on the benches opposite the Rebbe, and I traveled to Nepal on shlichus. I was then a young yeshiva student, innocent and especially lacking in experience as far as spreading the wellsprings. On that shlichus to Southeast Asia, I encountered firsthand the tremendous challenges of life on shlichus. When I returned to the USA, I felt that I needed to get a better understanding of how things worked in the field. What is the secret of the tremendous success of the shluchim? How does one go about it? I decided to look for answers on the West Coast, in California.
It was at the Chabad House in S. Francisco that I heard the name “Schwartzie” for the first time. The shliach there, R’ Yosef Langer, told me, “If you want to understand how to reach assimilated Jews, those Jews completely uninterested in Judaism, you need to meet Schwartzie.” R’ Langer’s eyes were agleam and he kept me spellbound with stories of the Shabbos events and other events that he and Schwartzie would arrange together in the Chabad House in Berkeley. I got the message that Schwartzie was a living legend and I made my pilgrimage to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is the most glamorous city in the United States. It is the epicenter of entertainment production in the fields of film and music, and many people dream of finding fame and fortune in this city. It is a city that creates and inspires dreams. It is not for naught that it is called the “city of angels.” In brief, Los Angeles is the world capital of materialism, “the lowest of the low.”
Amid all this hullabaloo, in which everybody is in competition with the next guy, I discovered the home of Schwartzie which was the exact opposite of everything around it. A simple Chassidic home. Simple in the material sense, but far from simple in the spiritual sense. What transpired in that home was deep. Very deep.
At this point in time, almost fifty years have passed since Schwartzie went to Los Angeles. We have a hard time even imagining how Jewish Los Angeles looked in those days. In that period, kosher food was hard to come by, and to see a Jew with a beard and a yarmulke was a rarity. Even the few religious Jews around did not have the “chutzpa” to take open pride in their Judaism. To put t’fillin on in the street? To put up a sukka in the middle of the city? No Jew even dreamed of doing such things. The Jews that lived in Los Angeles (and throughout the US) hid their Jewishness and tried to avoid calling attention to themselves. The job of the shluchim was to change all that, and Schwartzie was one of the trailblazers responsible for the tremendous changes wrought by the shluchim in California.
Schwartzie was the right man in the right place, and with great talent he knew how to awaken the Jewish spark hidden deep down inside. There are geniuses in mathematics and there are geniuses in science. Schwartzie was a genius in bringing Jews closer. With his unique and free flowing patter and his permanent loving smile, he conquered hearts and taught thousands of Jews to “lift up their heads.”
R’ Asi continues:
Even on that memorable Friday night, Schwartzie was happy and full of good humor. He deftly ran the Shabbos table, and I observed everything that was going on in order to learn “the tricks of the trade.” However, the greatest lesson that I learned that Friday night was that the secret to Schwartzie was that he had no tricks. His only gimmick was to be real. His inner, simple truth together with his Chassidic joy conquered people’s hearts.
Schwartzie never put up a building and he never had funding. He was not in it for publicity. Despite the fact that he knew many Hollywood stars and many wealthy Jews turned to him for advice, money did not interest him. He would hold High Holiday services every year in a giant rented hall, and he would publish announcements that said, “Come to the synagogue that does not want your money!”
Schwartzie never had money and he didn’t have the time to waste sitting at board meetings. He simply met with people from morning to night. He spoke and listened. Listened and advised. And all of it with love and a lot of joy. With the tremendous and burning love that he felt for the Jewish people, he would stand on campus, talk to students, smile at them, listen to them, put t’fillin on them, and invite them to Shabbos meals and Torah classes. That is how, without any strategic thinking or long-range planning or public relations, he touched thousands, even tens of thousands.
On Friday nights, his simple home would host a wild assortment of different types, and even when the house was filled to capacity, somehow there was room for more people. During the meal, when everybody was already seated, the door would open again and again and more guests would enter. There was always room for all of them.
SHARED REMEMBRANCES AT THE SHIVA
During the Shiva, many hundreds of Jews of all stripes came to pay their respects. These were people who in some way or another came under the influence of R’ Shlomo, whether during their college days, or at the large Shabbos meals that he hosted, or at one of the gatherings and events that he would organize. Many came to express their gratitude to the Schwartz family for the changes that R’ Shlomo wrought in their lives. There were Jews of every denomination and affiliation, some who met him during his visits to Tzfas, some who participated in his Kabbalah classes, as well as those who had been visitors to his home in California, whether for a Shabbos meal, a class, or just to visit and hear an uplifting word from Schwartzie delivered with his trademark smile. Each one came with his or her story, but the common thread that ran through all the stories was the feeling that he imparted to each one, the love, the attention, the warmth.
Many university students that he had interacted with over the years also came to visit, each with their own story of how, where and when, they encountered the rabbi with the unique hats and the shirts emblazoned with Jewish messages.
Although there were many exceptional stories, one that stood out was the story of Michael Medved, a well-known television and radio personality, who spoke of his connection to Judaism and Chabad, which began thanks to R’ Shlomo Schwartz:
“It was in 1971, and at the time I was a graduate of Yale University and worked as a speechwriter for several high ranking political figures. One could say that throughout my childhood, I was given a Conservative Jewish education, but in actual practice, except for fasting on Yom Kippur, Judaism was not practiced in our home.
“One time, when I was visiting back home in S. Diego, I met my Uncle Moshe, who although not religious at all, was very interested in the topic of the Jewish religion. One day he informed me that he and I would be attending an event entitled ‘Evening With Chabad.’ I was not at all interested, but my uncle insisted, saying that Chabad was one of the last surviving remnants of Orthodox Judaism, ‘I want you to see what this demographic is like before it disappears entirely.’
“During the event, I went out to the lobby for a break, and among the hundreds that were milling about, the bearded rabbi chose to approach me. He came over to me and offered me to put on t’fillin. I had no idea what t’fillin are and what importance is attached to them. After a brief explanation by the rabbi, I declined to put them on. The rabbi then said to me, ‘You look to me like someone who cares about the welfare of Eretz Yisroel.’ When I answered in the affirmative, he continued and said, ‘If you really care, put them on in their merit.’ Here is where the rabbi got me. I had friends and relatives that lived in Eretz Yisroel at that time, and I really cared about the welfare of the Jews there, so I agreed to put on the t’fillin.
“I don’t know what it was, but I felt that I was actually doing something special and that a change was happening inside me. The very next day, I asked my uncle for his t’fillin, and I am sure I can say that since that day I never missed a day of putting on t’fillin. A year later, after the passing of my Uncle Moshe, I added Shabbos observance, which I keep to this day.”
Today, Michael Medved has observant grandchildren, and he is one of a long list of Jews that R’ Shlomo succeeded in touching their souls and affecting a drastic change in their lives.
Many spoke of how because of a smile that R’ Shlomo threw their way, they decided to change their plans of marrying outside of the faith. “He was a traveling tzaddik,” says Mr. Scott Jacobs, a friend of the family. “He took the deep approach of Chabad and succeeded in conveying it to thousands in the most simple and digestible way.”
The Hillel rabbi at the university where R’ Shlomo served as a shliach for thirteen years, Rabbi Chaim Feller, had this to say, “People will say a lot of things about him. Some will come and say that he was different or strange, and he actually was unusual, different than others. Very different than the image of a shliach that I was familiar with. But what made him truly unique was the fact that he succeeded in bringing close hundreds if not thousands to Yiddishkait. The charm that shot from his eyes, the love for every Jew simply for being the progeny of Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov, a love that cannot be understood by others, this is a love that you don’t regularly see by every rabbi or even shliach; he simply accepted every single Jew.
“R’ Shlomo did not project an image of being a big rabbi, he did not give lengthy speeches, he did not give over deep exegetical analyses. Despite his tremendous knowledge of a given topic, he always chose to convey it in the simplest terms, and most importantly with love.”
His son and successor in shlichus, R’ Mendel, describes his father’s work as a shliach, “You could see on my father his devotion to shlichus, twenty-four hours a day.” His second son, R’ Moshe, shliach in Boston, adds, “Beyond the colorful shirts and funny hats that he wore, my father was mekushar to the Rebbe and shlichus with every fiber of his being.”
A SHLIACH TILL THE VERY END
R’ Shlomo did not abandon his shlichus even during his final days, as he lay in the hospital completely detached from his surroundings. On his table was a copy of the weekly D’var Malchus, a yarmulke with the Chai Center emblem, and the newest copies of Beis Moshiach which he enjoyed reading on Shabbos afternoons. The doctors and nurses on staff in the hospital were impressed by the sight of the magazines which proudly display the Rebbe’s picture on the cover. Even they recognized and understood what this meant to him.
Until his final moments, the words that were constantly on his lips were “shlichus,” “Rebbe” and “Moshiach.” He was always concerned about how to better add and improve, and he was never satisfied. He constantly looked for ways to do more and more and to advance as much as possible.
In the cemetery in Tzfas, there lay many prominent rabbis and great tzaddikim. On the Friday of Shabbos Shira, the day before Tu B’Shvat, they were joined by a unique individual, a true Chassid and mekushar to the Rebbe with all his heart and soul
That doctor who had advised his parents to bring another child into the world could never have envisioned that Schwartzie would come to the world to not only bring cheer to his mother, but also to bring joy to and bring closer thousands of Jews. His birth symbolized his life’s mission, to make Jews happy, to extract them from the sadness of exile, and to bring the world closer to the Ultimate Redemption.
THE SIX DAY WAR
During the days leading up to the Six Day War, the situation in Eretz Yisroel was very depressed, especially for students from abroad. Most yeshiva students began to leave for their homes in America, England and other countries.
R’ Shlomo and his friends who were then learning in Toras Emes, merited to receive a telegram from the Rebbe, instructing them to remain in the Holy Land, despite the situation.
The national newspaper Maariv even publicized the letter in the hopes of raising the spirits of the residents of Eretz Yisroel. Foreign yeshiva students from other yeshivos showed the Rebbe’s letter to their Litvishe Roshei Yeshiva, who often responded that they could not take such a responsibility upon themselves, but the Lubavitcher Rebbe has “broad shoulders.”
B”H
13 Iyar 5727
Brooklyn
To the young men, the students, Ives, Langsam, Rodal, Schwartz – sh’yichyu,
Shalom U’Bracha!
Enclosed is a copy of the wording of the telegram that K’vod K’dushas Admur Shlita sent them today!
(Free translation)
“In answer to their telegram – they should learn with diligence and industriousness along with all the students, and surely, surely, He will not slumber and will not sleep the Watcher of Yisroel, and they will report good news.”
“Menachem Schneersohn”