Rabbi Yitzi’s First Visitors in New York

By COLlive reporter

The first group visiting Rabbi Yitzi Hurwitz on his special visit to New York were students of grades 5 and 6 of United Lubavitcher Yeshiva Ocean Parkway (ULYOP) in Brooklyn.

Rabbi Yitzi, the Chabad Shliach who is battling the ALS disease, was flown by Hatzolah Air from Los Angeles to participate in his youngest son’s Bar Mitzvah in Crown Heights.

He welcomed visitors and was glad to meet the students on Thursday, Hei Elul. The boys said the 12 Pesukim, sang a niggun and wished him brachos for a speedy and complete recovery.

“As Chazal tell us, the giver of an act of chesed gains more than the recipient. While the primary purpose of the visit was to visit Rabbi Yitzi and lift his spirits, it is safe to say that the boys’ spirits were even more uplifted,” the school’s administration said.

Every teacher wants his students to live with feelings of emunah, simcha, perseverance, growth mindset, and strives to be mechanech his students to grow, spiritually and emotionally. How does a teacher impart these messages? What is the most efficient curriculum to teach these concepts?

Rabbi Zalman Friedman and Rabbi Shmuel Wagner, the rabbeim of grades 5 and 6, felt that the answer is to experience it in real life. And there is no better living example for all these messages (and more) than Rabbi Yitzi.

Before going, the boys heard Rabbi Yitzi’s story and anecdotes of what happens in his house in California where people come to inspire and leave inspired. The boys wrote down lessons that they learned from Rabbi Yitzi and took hachlotos in merit of Yosef Yitzchok ben Bracha.

These lessons and hachlotos were collected and given to Rabbi Yitzi, as yet another artifact of testimony to the inspiration and real-life teaching that he instills.

The boys left in a serious, yet positive mood, encouraged and motivated to learn from Rabbi Yitzi to never give up. In Rabbi Yitzi’s own words to the boys during the visit, “You can all be amazing!”