Guiding Hand
“In everything you hear or see, in everything that becomes known to you, there is a message specifically for you. As a person with free will, you may decide how to interpret these messages”
-The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
The Rebbe’s advice and influence extended far beyond the human arm could reach. Be it training school or library, a London diamond dealer soon saw, through his private audiences, the Rebbe’s hand “behind the scenes,” steering the vocational, as well as spiritual, lives of thousands. The Avner Institute presents here an exclusive excerpt from Learning on the Job: Jewish Career Lessons. This book, published by Hasidic Archives, collects the Rebbe’s teachings for business people, providing lessons, guidance, and inspiration from various careers.
In loving memory of Hadassah bas Schneur Zalman
Don’t Deny Them a Livelihood!
It was March 1972, and thousands of people from around the world had arrived at Lubavitch world headquarters for a grand Hasidic gathering, or farbrengen. The Rebbe was turning 70, but he was not slowing down.
“Age makes my life more exacting,” the Rebbe told a New York Times reporter. “My age is demanding more of me.”
At the gathering, the Rebbe refused personal presents, but requested a much larger commitment from his Hasidim and himself: 71 new Chabad institutions.
“I think that is a very good challenge, not only for me. It is a very good challenge for them,” the Rebbe told the reporter.
Standing in the packed synagogue, London diamond dealer Bobby Vogel felt he had to participate in the new initiative, but how?
Mr. Vogel had recently established a diamond-setting school. It began when an acquaintance got in trouble with the law and could not find employment. The diamond dealer taught the man how to set diamonds. When he had mastered the trade, Mr. Vogel decided to employ him to teach others.
At his manufacturing center in the London diamond district of Hatton Garden, Mr. Vogel dedicated an entire floor to the trade school. Many from the Hasidic community applied. There was a nominal fee, but the diamond dealer rarely collected it, and actually provided a weekly stipend for those who had no other employment.
Many in the diamond district viewed the school with skepticism. Not only was Mr. Vogel wasting money, they said, he was creating competition for himself.
In addition to the operating expenses of the school, there was the cost of the diamonds that the students practiced on. Often they were chipped or broken in the process, and became unusable. For Mr. Vogel, however, the satisfaction of providing a livelihood for others made it all worthwhile. “What will I take to the next world?” he would ask. “The broken diamonds from the trade school.”
That day in 1972, Mr. Vogel decided that the school would be his birthday present to the Rebbe—one of the 71 new Chabad institutions.
In a private audience, he told the Rebbe of his intention, and suggested naming it “Lubavitch Trade School.”
“G-d forbid!” the Rebbe said.
Mr. Vogel was taken aback. Was the Rebbe rejecting his gift?
“It could be that a Hasid of another community would want to learn a trade,” the
Rebbe told Mr. Vogel, “And because it is called ‘Lubavitch,’ he won’t join the setting school. How can you withhold a Jewish person’s livelihood?”
Not Just a Business Trip
Diamond dealer Bobby Vogel was radiant with the love of life. The owner of N. Vogel and Company would travel regularly to Sweden, Switzerland and Gibraltar, and the Rebbe would invariably encourage him to spread Judaism wherever he went.
Before one of his trips to Sweden, the Rebbe gave him one hundred dollars, telling him to purchase mezuzahs for the Jewish community there. “Make sure that you meet all the members of the Jewish community,” the Rebbe said.
On another occasion in the early 1970s, the Rebbe told Mr. Vogel to give his best wishes to the president of the congregation in Gibraltar. The territory has a small Jewish community.
“I would like to have a Jewish library in Gibraltar,” the Rebbe said, and asked that Mr. Vogel bring it up when he met the president. “A special room should be dedicated for the library, and you should donate the first Jewish books.”
It turned out that the Rebbe had more than books in mind: “It could be that a Jewish girl and boy will want to read various books,” the Rebbe said with a smile. “They will go to the library, meet each other, and the outcome will be another Jewish family.”
A room was duly dedicated in the local Jewish day school for a library.