Robert’s grandmother handed him a neatly folded dollar bill, tucked into a card displaying the Traveler’s Prayer. It was 1997, and he was visiting his recently widowed grandmother in Boro Park. “The Lubavitcher Rebbe gave this to your grandfather. Keep it with you; it will protect you on your travels,” she explained.
Robert was vaguely familiar with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement through the Tzivos Hashem program he had participated in as a child. He remembered receiving newsletters and stickers in the mail, addressed to him at his home on Long Island. Although he didn’t fully grasp the significance of her gift, he trusted his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor and passenger on the SS Exodus 1947. He carefully slid the dollar into his wallet, where it became a permanent fixture.
Fast forward twenty years. Robert, now a successful and widely sought digital forensics expert and private investigator, was cleaning out his wallet. Old receipts, loyalty cards, and loose change spilled out. But the dollar? Nowhere to be seen.
After an exhaustive search, he had to concede: the dollar was gone.
Over the years, Robert’s connection to Chabad had deepened. As a bachelor, he attended services at the Chabad Outreach Center in Valley Stream and participated in telephone Torah classes organized by the Jewish Learning Network. In 2014, he married his wife, Rachel, and the couple settled in Queens, near the Rebbe’s Ohel, which he visited often.
Robert began putting on tefillin daily, a practice he maintained through the births of their three children, Aaron, Madeline, and Michael, but at some point he stopped. Occasionally, however, when he saw a mitzvah tank near his Midtown Manhattan office, he would stop in to visit and wrap tefillin.
While browsing online in the summer of 2024, Robert stumbled upon artwork featuring a dollar from the Rebbe. An admirer of the arts, and understanding the special significance of the dollar, he made the purchase.
In an effort to authenticate the dollar’s origin, Robert reached out to Chabad.org’s Ask the Rabbi service and met Rabbi Eliezer Zalmanov, Chabad emissary in Northwest Indiana and a member of the Ask the Rabbi team. It turned out, the Hebrew writing on the dollar translated to a date within the last year. This dollar was not handed out by the Rebbe.
In his email, Robert asked how to obtain a genuine dollar—one given out by the Rebbe. Rabbi Zalmanov responded with an offer that Robert could not refuse: If Robert would commit to enhancing his Jewish observance, Rabbi Zalmanov would give him a dollar from his own personal collection.
“Having grown up in Crown Heights and being fortunate to have been able to see the Rebbe regularly, I have a collection of approximately 100 dollar bills that I personally received from the Rebbe over the years,” says Rabbi Zalmanov. “Although I am generally reluctant to part with any of these dollars, I know that the Rebbe’s purpose in distributing them was to bring benefit and blessing to another person. So when Rob’s email to Ask the Rabbi ended up in my inbox, among several dozen that I respond to on a weekly basis, I knew there was a bigger picture at play. So I made him the offer.”
Robert stepped up to this challenge and made the commitment to resume putting on tefillin daily. On a trip to New York to pray at the Rebbe’s Ohel, just prior to Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Zalmanov presented Robert with a dollar that he had received from the Rebbe on one of his birthdays.
Robert’s commitment is still going strong. Every morning, he wraps tefillin and sends a selfie to Rabbi Zalmanov as a way of staying accountable. Over hundreds of messages, a deep friendship has flourished.
The daily ritual keeps Robert connected to G‑d and provides him with the opportunity to take time to pray for his wife and children, as well as loved ones who have passed away. His children now join in the morning routine, helping him wrap the tefillin straps while learning the prayers. They even pop up in his selfies from time to time.
“I never imagined that an inquiry on Chabad.org would lead to this,” says Robert. A lost dollar led to a rediscovered mitzvah, a friendship, and a renewed commitment to living a life filled with meaning. “This experience has been a reawakening. I am grateful to have connected with Rabbi Zalmanov, whose spark rekindled my flame, spreading light into my daily life.”
Today, the dollar Robert received hangs in his home office in Dix Hills, NY, framed alongside a photograph of the Rebbe distributing dollars at 770. The dollar may have found its place on a wall, but the connection it sparked has taken root in his heart, where it will continue to grow.
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