My Encounter with the Rebbe

Dr. David Luchins served on the staff of US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan for twenty years. He reveals the Rebbe’s influence in bringing down the Iron Curtain.

Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipskar is executive director of the Aleph Institute, which services the religious needs of Jewish men and women in prison. In 1985, they brought a group of prisoners to spend a weekend in Crown Heights, where they attended the Rebbe’s Shabbos Farbrengen.

In 1973, Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan was called upon by the Rebbe to help a teenager at risk. He shares a touching letter that the youth received from the Rebbe.

Dr. Susan Handelman is Professor of English Literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel. Trying to decide on a topic for her doctoral thesis, she decided to ask the Rebbe’s opinion.

Mr. Aaron Noach Blasbalg was a member of the board of Poalei Agudat Israel for 25 years. He recalls a fascinating private audience he and his colleagues had with the Rebbe.

Efraim Steinmetz's father knew the Rebbe in Paris during the 1930s.

Rabbi Ephraim Sturm served as Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council of Young Israel from 1956 to 1992. In the early 1960s, he read an alarming statistic about the assimilation rate of Jewish Orthodox students in American colleges.

Robert Steingut shares a heartwarming childhood account, of what it was like to be the Rebbe’s neighbor.

David Bezborodko was a businessman from a non-Chassidic family, who directed his family’s glass and mirror factory in Paris.

With Germany about to invade France, Asher Heber’s father was unsure whether to escape Paris with his family and leave behind their well-established life. When he consulted the Rebbe for his opinion, the Rebbe suggested some seemingly impossible advice...

Dr. David Luchins' family joined the Tzemach Tzedek Synagogue in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, around 1910. In 1955, when the neighborhood changed, the property was sold for a large sum. The Rebbe was asked where the money should be spent.

After the first El Al plane was hijacked to Algiers, the story began to circulate of the Rebbe’s advice to Ariel Sharon not to board that flight. Rabbi Zev Segal decided to corroborate the story with the Rebbe himself.

Dianne Abrams is an attorney in New York City. Like many before her, the Rebbe gave her a blessing for a child, and it was fulfilled. Like many before her, her meetings with the Rebbe broke many stereotypes and expectations.

Rabbi Chaim Ciment shares a few stories he heard from Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik about his days together with the Rebbe in Berlin.

Dr. Yaacov Hanoka relates how the Rebbe guided him when he first left college and began studying in the Lubavitch Yeshivah

As a rabbinic student at 770, Rabbi Aaron Cousin joined his colleagues in working under the New York State "Released time" program, which allows Public School students to receive religious instruction.

Dr. David Luchins served on the staff of US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan for twenty years. In 1983, he attended a retirement party for Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm of Crown Heights, where she revealed the identity of a most important mentor.

Dr. Yitzchak Block is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. In the mid-1950s, he accompanied a group of college students to a private audience with the Rebbe.

Dov Zlotnik, Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the Conservative Movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, once delivered a sermon on the importance of Family Purity. As he was to discover, for the Rebbe, a good sermon requires a great ending…

Yitzchak Rabin was Prime Minister of Israel, and served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States in the early 1970s. In 1972, he was sent to convey Israel’s blessings to the Rebbe in honor of his 70th birthday.