The Providential Story Behind Banff’s Mobile Kosher Kitchen

By Uziel Scheiner – Chabad.org

A kosher kitchen has arrived in the Canadian town of Banff, Alberta. The $200,000 project brings for the first time a full-scale commercial-grade kosher kitchen to one of North America’s premier resort towns and tourist destinations. And the whole thing is on wheels.

After two decades of serving the Jewish community of Edmonton, Alberta, Rabbi Dovid Pinson, his wife Devorah and their five children moved to the Banff region this past fall to open Chabad-Lubavitch of the Canadian Rockies. Banff is defined by its imposing snow-covered mountains looming over an idyllic landscape which, with its stunning slopes, hikes and parks, crystalline rivers and steaming hot springs, make it the destination of choice for around 5 million tourists annually.

From the beginning, the Pinsons made making kosher food more accessible for locals and visitors to the pristine region one of their priorities. The answer came in the form of Chabad’s new mobile kosher kitchen, a story of Divine providence and the power of what is possible when determined and faithful people join in the effort of a noble cause.

When Howard Moster arrived in 2017 at the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—in Queens, N.Y., he came with a heavy heart and failing kidneys. The Edmonton transplant, formerly a police detective in Cincinnati, Ohio, had for years been able to work around his underlying medical condition.

Indeed, his years in law enforcement and then running his own private security firm had been defined by physical vigor. Besides barbecuing large cooking events, Moster’s primary hobby was construction; he would habitually renovate people’s homes and even built himself a cabin in Maine from scratch.

But the truth was that Moster had for years been battling polycystic kidney disease, a genetic ailment which disrupts kidney function and can lead to failure. Eventually, Moster placed himself on the transplant list, and began the grueling and indefinite wait for a cadaver kidney.

Rabbi Dovid Pinson, at the time youth director at Chabad of Edmonton, accompanied Moster to the Ohel. Standing at the Rebbe’s graveside, Moster made a promise to himself: If G‑d helped him find a kidney, he would dedicate himself to a major project for his Jewish community.

Returning to Edmonton, Moster continued his wait. Pinson, however, got to work. One way to bypass the transplant list is through securing a gift from a living donor.

Using his extensive contacts and the network that comes with being a rabbi in a large Jewish community, Pinson began to source for a matching kidney donor. Without even knowing for whom the rabbi was searching, a number of people in the community put themselves forward and quietly undertook the process of determining whether they were suitable donors.

With each one there was a different issue. Some were too old, others with a disqualifying pre-existing condition, more still with incompatible blood types and present disconsonant antibodies.

That’s when Rabbi Mendy Blachman, one of Pinson’s colleagues at Chabad of Edmonton, decided to throw his name into the mix. He, too, did not know who Pinson’s intended recipient was. Only after he agreed to undergo compatibility testing did Pinson fill him in.

Blachman went for testing. The results were astonishing and conclusive: He was a near-perfect match—to the point where Moster’s doctor asked him, “Are you sure you guys aren’t related? Because to be a closer match you would have to be brothers.”

‘Thank You for Giving Me the Opportunity’
The rabbis’ immediate priority was to keep Blachman’s identity as Moster’s donor completely confidential. They knew that Moster knowing his donor was someone close to him—one of his rabbis, no less—would likely make him uneasy. He had already turned down a donation offer from a matching young woman because she was of childbearing age and going through pregnancy with one kidney can pose complications. Blachman was a full-time rabbi with responsibilities to an entire community and the young father of five children under the age of 9.

“There were many concerns about what accepting the rabbi’s kidney would mean,” said Moster. But without the knowledge of who his donor was, relieved and grateful, he began to prepare for the transplant.

And so, Moster and Blachman began the multi-legged process of transplanting a kidney. The ordeal consists of a number of tests and check-ups before the actual operation, requiring both men to make regular visits to the hospital in preparation for the procedure. With confidentiality being the highest priority, a careful schedule was implemented to ensure that Moster and Blachman didn’t run into each other in the course of their many hospital visits.

At one point, a scheduling mishap threatened to derail the entire procedure. Moster went in for a routine check-up, and Blachman was scheduled to go in the same day shortly after with enough time so the two wouldn’t meet. But a delay held up Moster’s appointment, and when he finally made it out of the examination room he bumped into the rabbi laying tefillin with a Jewish man in the waiting room.

Immediately, Moster knew. With his rabbi—and kidney donor—standing in front of him, a wave of emotions overcame him. A few weeks later, Howard Moster and Rabbi Mendy Blachman were wheeled into the operating rooms to undergo the transplant. Hours later, the surgery was complete, and days later, Rabbi Blachman, paid a visit to recovering Moster in his hospital room. The men embraced, and Blachman brought out a pair of tefillin which he helped Moster put on. Before leaving, Moster again thanked Blachman for saving his life. Blachman turned to Moster and said, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do such a great mitzvah!”