Rabbi Mendel Lipskar is the Executive Director of Chabad of South Africa. He also serves as the rabbi of the Shul at Hyde Pak in Johannesburg.
He was interviewed Johannesburg, South Africa in August of 2014 by By JEM’s Here’s My Story team. Here’s his story (download PDF version):
After completing my education in the Chabad yeshiva in Montreal, I came – along with other students – to study for a couple of years at the Chabad yeshiva in New York, and as was the custom, I would get to have an audience with the Rebbe on the occasion of my birthday.
It was a short audience, a few minutes long, in which the Rebbe would give me a blessing, but it was also an opportunity to ask for advice or guidance.
That year, I was having great difficulty with my Talmud study partner – we were constantly at loggerheads with each other. Whatever he would say, I would contradict; whatever I would say, he would contradict.
When I had a chance to speak with the Rebbe, I told him that I thought there was something wrong with me that I was arguing with this guy all the time, and I asked him for guidance in this regard.
The Rebbe said to me, “It would appear that you have a gift for pilpul.” By pilpul, he meant the ability to analyze conceptual differences in the various Talmudic rulings by focusing on the apparent contradictions in the text. He encouraged me to perfect this method. And suddenly, a situation that had seemed to be quite negative appeared before me as a tremendous opportunity for self-improvement.
Suddenly when I met studied with my partner, I had a completely different sense of what our argument was all about. It was something positive – we were arguing because we were dissatisfied with a shallow reading of the text; we each wanted to find a deeper meaning.
When the study period in New York was up, it was decided that the out-of-town students – those from Montreal, Newark and Paris – would be return to the yeshivas from which they came. The Rebbe himself explained this decision to us – and the fact that he went through the trouble was itself quite extraordinary.
He began by telling us a metaphorical story from the Zohar about a prince who was sent far away to – “merchakim” was the word the Rebbe used – a distant place where he’d able to grow and develop much more than he would have in the palace, in close proximity to his father.
Then the Rebbe spoke about the importance of serving far away, and I remember thinking what a privilege it would be to go far away – to merchakim, a distant place – as the Rebbe’s emissary.
Years later, when I was on my way to South Africa to serve as the emissary there, the Rebbe sent me a blessing – via another emissary – in which he referred to me as going to a far-off place, again using this word merchakim.
Now, he could have referred to me as going to South Africa, but he chose that very word which had first anchored my commitment to far-off service.
A couple of years later, a similar thing happened.
I was visiting New York before returning to South Africa, and in a talk that Shabbos, the Rebbe again referred to merchakim. He announced that there is somebody at the farbrengen who is about to return to his post in a distant place, and he has my blessing.
The fact that the Rebbe used that specific word felt to me like a wonderful gift. That word said to me that the Rebbe understood what I was thinking, was paying attention to me, and was supporting my work as his emissary. It meant the world to me.
Thank you for sharing , with the Rebbe’s inspiration
You and your Rebbitzen have been instrumental in what Chabad in South Africa is today .compared to 40 years ago.
May You Klayb nachas from all Anash and sympathizers
We are Lucky to have Shluchim who were given so much from the Rebbe. May they always give him Nachas
It’s gotta be the best place out there!
That is really a perspective change!
Thank you for sharing