Amazing Stats

I remember when Rabbi Kazen was starting Chabad In Cyberspace. He was a neighbor, but I also "met" him online using a program called IRC (which most people today probably don't know or remember). It was like a big chat room, with a bunch of people chatting all at once. You followed your own, as well as everyone else's conversations at the same time.

The "chat rooms" we would both go to were called Channel Israel, and Channel Jewish. It was incredible to see how much light Rabbi Kazen was spreading in those "channels." He also made numerous contacts with people whom he continued to influence in "real life" as well.

I remember going down to his basement, which was his hub at that time, and he showed me how he entered and sent out L'chaim publications to a huge amount of people via their individual emails. He also showed me statistics that he was able to pull up on the computer: how many people he had been in contact with (I don't remember if at that time there was a "website" – on mosaic or lynx – but there was some way he was counting people who were affected by Chabad in cyberspace).

It was incredible to see the amount of people, the amount of countries represented and how those numbers continued to grow and swell.

I know that he has to be looking down from Heaven, getting nachas at how incredible Chabad.org has become.

May you continue to have much success, and may we have the complete redemption speedily, when "those who repose in the dust will arise and sing," so that he can come and once again take the helm of the flourishing organization that he started.

Liba Shaffer-Goldman