Hi All,
This is RootedRabbi, the anonymous editor-rabbi who moderates the Roving Rabbis blog. My job is to track down the rabbis as they rove around the world doing mitzvahs and help them see that the ordinary things that they do are really extraordinary and interesting to our readers. Normally I kick off the summer season by writing about the guys who are about to hit the road. Today, I want to share with you a conversation that I had with a Roving Rabbi who will not be travelling anywhere. Here is the scoop:
Today, my friend Eli (our most avid readers may know him from a previous post) told me that he and his friend had been planning to travel to S. Luis Obispo, a beautiful stretch of California coast. The tickets were booked, the itineraries planned, and the Jewish books had been purchased. But they are not going.
“You see,” Eli explained to me, “this all began on the 10th of Shevat, the anniversary of the passing of thesixth Lubavitcher Rebbe and the day that the seventh Rebbe took his place at the helm of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. The Gift of Life Foundation (a wonderful organization that helps people with leukemia and other diseases find much-needed donors) had set up a recruiting booth right near the Ohel, the resting place of both the sixth and seventh Lubavitcher Rebbes, as well as at the central gathering for all Chabad Yeshiva students. Inspired by the Rebbes’ legacy of caring and love, my friend decided to be tested to be a potential donor.
“Just the other day, he got a call from the folks at the Gift of Life telling him that he was a match for someone who desperately needed his stem cells. As you can imagine, our plans for a summer on the road were immediately sidelined. After all, what greater mitzvah could there possibly be than saving a life?”
So for now, we are not sure if Eli will be able to share his stories this year, at least not the kind of stories one usually sees on this blog. But we are honored and proud that our Roving Rabbis are really living the Rebbe’s message of love and sacrifice for others—even when the view is just a hospital room.
