Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Lewin is a journalist and activist who worked on behalf of a number of Jewish organizations as well as the Israeli government. Today, he resides in Tel Aviv where he was interviewed by JEM’s My Encounter in 2016 and 2024.
It was the summer of 1968, and my father had helped me get a part-time job at a charity called Ezras Torah. Founded in 1902 to help rabbis experiencing economic hardship, Ezras Torah had since expanded to become a general relief society, handing out stipends and assistance to anyone in need. My job was writing out checks, getting them signed, recording who received assistance, and other administrative tasks.
Ezras Torah was close to the heart of the old Lithuanian Jewish community, which had historically been at odds with the chasidic community, and so I was very much in unfamiliar territory. When people came in and recognized me as a Lubavitcher, they would sometimes make a snide remark that could border on verbal abuse. “Oy vey,” one person said upon seeing me. “Those people have even reached here!” It bothered me very much, and eventually, I wrote to the Rebbe.
“I’ve been at this job for two months,” I wrote, “and I keep getting these jabs about being a Lubavitcher. Debating and fighting aren’t in my personality, so I keep quiet. But I feel that my silence implies that their criticisms are correct. I want to leave the job.”
The Rebbe’s answer was quick in coming. He wanted me to keep the job, and he advised me on how to handle the comments: “We are commanded by our sages to distance ourselves from even the trace of conflict. Therefore, you should remain silent.”
After that, my work experience changed. I continued to get those jabs, but with my instructions to stay silent, they went in one ear and out the other. The atmosphere at Ezras Torah suddenly became much more comfortable, even congenial, so I ended up staying there for the next few years.
Now, in the same building as the Ezras Torah offices, on the first floor, was an organization called Agudas Harabonim (the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada). In 1972, their secretary moved to Israel, and I was hired to fill that position.
The Yom Kippur War broke out the next year. It was an intense year in Israel, and from New York, the Rebbe closely followed every development, speaking publicly about it, and pushing for particular outcomes all throughout. We saw how deeply the Rebbe was affected by the war on its first day, when he cried profusely towards the end of the Yom Kippur service.
But, when the fighting raged on into the festival of Sukkot, the Rebbe declared that the mitzvah of the hour was – as the Torah says of Sukkot – “And you shall rejoice on your festival.” And so he insisted that the best way we could help in the war effort was by being joyful.
This was a radical idea. There had already been over 2,000 casualties, and everybody in the Jewish world was feeling very despondent. Other leaders, specifically those associated with the Agudas Harabonim, had a different approach. One such prominent figure, Rabbi Pinchas Teitz, called for a public fast day on the day after Simchat Torah.
Recognizing the opposing views that had formed on the matter, Rabbi Simcha Elberg, who was the chairman of Agudas Harabonim’s executive board, called a meeting. He invited some Lubavitcher rabbis, like Rabbi Mordechai Mentlik, and a number of prominent non-chasidic rabbis. Rabbi Elberg himself was in favor of the fast, but he let everybody have a chance to speak.
The first speaker was Rabbi Mentlik, who got up and delivered a few fiery words. “G-d tells us to be joyful during Sukkot!” he proclaimed. “So fulfilling this mitzvah is the best way to help the Jewish people. How can we celebrate Simchat Torah while thinking about fasts?”
You could see that people were coming around to his side. But then Rabbi Teitz took the floor. “I don’t understand,” he cried out. “How can you dance at such a time?”
It was a heated meeting, but in the end, Rabbi Elberg was still for fasting so that was the final decision. I was then given the task of placing an ad announcing the fast in the Algemeiner Journal, a Yiddish weekly. The next issue was coming out that Wednesday, Hoshana Rabbah, the last of the intermediate days of Sukkot. I was given my instructions at 8:30 AM on Tuesday, and the deadline for placing ads was 2:00 PM.
I didn’t know what to do. If the Rebbe said Jewish people need to be joyous at this critical time, how could I help put out an ad like this? I would have to resign – but then the ad would definitely go in! I decided to buy some time, but knowing that I was a Lubavitcher, Rabbi Elberg got suspicious, and at 10:00 AM, he called me. “Did you go?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I admitted, “but I have until 2.”
He kept calling me throughout the morning and I kept on stalling, until the deadline passed – without the ad.
The next morning, I came into the office, and the phone rang. It was Rabbi Elberg.
“You’re fired!” he barked at me. “How dare you not place the ad as you were told? Get out of the office.”
I understood, of course, but believed I had sacrificed my job to do the right thing. But when I spoke to some Lubavitcher rabbis, they thought that I had made a mistake and that I should try to get my job at Agudas Harabonim back.
At this point, I went to the president of Agudas Harabonim, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the leading halachic authority of the day.
“Do you want to come back?” he asked me. “I think you should. And I can tell Rabbi Elberg to reinstate you.”
But I wasn’t sure. If I had acted improperly, then I wanted to retract everything. But if submitting the ad would have been the wrong thing to do, then I had willingly lost my job over it and had no regrets. If I wouldn’t acknowledge wrongdoing, how could I go back?
So, I wrote to the Rebbe, and soon had his reply: “I spoke about this on Shabbat Bereishit.”
At the public farbrengen in 770 that Shabbat – just a few days after this incident – the Rebbe mentioned the story told in the Talmud of how the sage Choni Hame’agel prayed for rain during a drought, drawing a circle on the ground, and declaring that he would not leave it until his prayers were answered. At first, nothing happened, then a few drops fell, then a torrential downpour, and finally the gentle rain needed to nourish the earth.
But the Zohar tells a different story of a time when the world needed rain. The sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai simply spoke words of Torah – a teaching on the verse, “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers also to dwell together” – and rain began to fall.
Where Choni had to repeatedly implore and cry out to G-d, Rabbi Shimon connected on a higher level, and so he was assured of a positive outcome without needing to pray for it. But even though this calmer approach was superior, and it brought the desired results more immediately, Choni’s prayers were also ultimately answered – they, too, were legitimate. To me, the Rebbe was saying that while he was trying to have a positive effect through joy, like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, it was not a time for bickering with those, who like Choni Hame’agel, were taking a different approach.
So I went back to Rebbe Feinstein, and he instructed Rabbi Elberg to reinstate me.
