"My Rabbi"

I "met" Rabbi Kazen during the winter of 1996. I had just completed seminary in August of 1995 in Chicago and returned to Canada and I was feeling very alone. I was the only observant Jew in my small city and, as the months passed, it was really becoming difficult for me.

I entered the Worldwide Web in about February of 1996. One day on a whim I made a search for Chabad which led me to Chabad.org. I so desperately sought anything Orthodox, having lived and worked in the Lubavitch community in Skokie, Ill. I was now teaching here in my small city at the local Hebrew school but I felt like an outcast, as the school was Conservative and everyone looked at me as though I came from a different planet. One day when I was reading my Chabad emails on Tanya, I noticed something at the bottom with contact information for YYK. So I sent an email. This began a continuous email "friendship" with Rabbi Kazen.

The closest Chabad rabbi lived about an hour from me and it was Rabbi Kazen who led me to this rabbi and his wonderful wife. Yet, even after becoming friends with the nearby Rabbi and Rebbetzin, Rabbi Kazen remained "my Rabbi."

I was always amazed that no matter how hard that great man worked, he always found time to send off an email to me. We corresponded usually about two or three times a month from that first "meeting" in February of 1996 until about three months before he passed away. There were a few times when I received a surprise email in my box asking how I was doing since he hadn't heard from me in a while. Little me, one young woman amongst, no doubt, thousands of others who emailed the Rabbi. And yet, he remembered me.

I, like many others, did not know Rabbi Kazen was ill. I recall the day I turned on my computer and read the obituary. My heart dropped. My beloved Rabbi, my friend was called home.

Rabbi Kazen's soul shone brighter than the most dazzling diamond, and it is still touching millions of Jews around the world today through his great legacy—Chabad.org.

I for one, look forward to the resurrection of the dead to meet "my Rabbi" face to face in the world to come.

Shoshie