The need for patience and perseverance is something all roving rabbis are cognizant of, whether they are stationed in fast-paced Shanghai, China, or sleepy Warwick, Rhode Island. We are dealing with the most precious commodity—our eternal heritage—and we simply cannot afford to lose any potential "customers".

Around 1:30pm the other day, we were driving through downtown Santa Monica, California. We'd spent the morning visiting various businesses and a medical center, offering tefillin, Jewish reading material, and a listening ear, and we were deliberating over our next steps. With lunch break over, and no prior arrangements, it wasn’t practical to approach people at their workplaces. We decided we would park the car, stand at a street corner, and invite the passersby to put on tefillin, something which, after years of practice, was second nature to us.

“Excuse me, are you Jewish?” was our refrain for the next thirty minutes.

Plenty of people passed by, but no one was interested in the tefillin.

Another thirty minutes passed. Clearly, it was time to move on to greener pastures.

It sounds cliche, but at that very moment, a gentleman with a flowing white beard approached. “Excuse me sir, are you Jewish?” we asked.

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “My name is Eliyahu, and I am so happy to see you!”

We soon discovered that Eliyahu was born in El Salvador to Jewish parents, who bequeathed him with a Jewish name, but little else on the religious front. Consequently, he spent years searching for meaning and spirituality, without success. He knew he was Jewish, but had never met a rabbi, or had the opportunity to practice Judaism. When he moved to California recently, his search continued, but as a stranger in a strange land, he hadn’t found anyone to guide him on his journey. He was thrilled to have met us standing in the street, and we promised to put him in touch with the local Jewish community.

Oh, and good things come to those who wait. In Chabad parlance, there’s something special about helping first-timers don tefillin, (especially when the person in question is several decades away from his bar mitzvah) as was certainly the case with Eliyahu from El Salvador.

A lot of nice and interesting things happened to us while walking on the boardwalk. Just to mention a few:

Yesterday we met two guys who were sitting and talking, One of the men—who had never put on tefillin in his life—did so for the first time, right then and there. The reason he was in town was to meet his prospective in-laws. Our conversation flowed naturally to the importance of marrying Jewish.

We met a guy who was on his daily jog. We asked him if he would like to put on tefillin, and he readily agreed. He began to cry. When he calmed down, he explained to us that his uncle had just passed on without leaving any heirs. He was a special person who had done much kindness for others all his life. We helped him say the Kaddish memorial prayer for his beloved uncle.

We met a Yom Kippur War veteran who had lost both his legs in the war—which itself is quite humbling. We shared a beautiful story about when a group of wounded Israeli war vets visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe. After addressing the group, the Rebbe asked to personally greet every one of the heroes. One of the men later went on to relate how the Rebbe thanked him for his sacrifice. It was that simple “thank you” that allowed him to move on and put back together the pieces of his life.