Shluchim come home

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of November 20, 2009/ 3 Cheshvan 5770

Talk about Jewish Time: I was two-and-a-half-hours late to the closing banquet of the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim and didn’t even miss the fish.

After several missed opportunities to attend the annual gathering in Brooklyn of Chabad emissaries from around the world, this year everything fell into place — except the family obligation that made me so late — and I experienced firsthand what I’d been promised was a fascinating and enjoyable event. It was.

In all, there are some 4,000 Chabad emissaries in 76 countries around the world — including 665 in Israel, at last count — and in every state except the Dakotas and Mississippi. Even New York City doesn’t have too many venues that can accommodate a sit-down dinner for over 4,000 people. The New York State National Guard Armory on Bedford Avenue near Eastern Parkway can, however, and did so in style.

It was more than a good meal, however. It was also a pat on the back from the home office to a group of people who live their lives far from home (in some cases very far); it was a live multi-camera television production and webcast (internet service in nearby Crown Heights was reported to be straining under the load of so many Lubavitchers tuning in from home); and it was a chance to showcase for the uninitiated, and for those who bear reminding, just what Chabad is and what it does each day for Jews around the world.

One of the video presentations shown on the dozen or so large screens in the massive room showed Chabad emissaries from around the world. One young rabbi caught my attention on account of his hometown: Kinshasa, Congo, in Central Africa.  A search online reveals that Rabbi Shlomo and Rebbetzin Miriam Bentolila have been heading the Chabad House there, serving 13 African countries, since 1991. (They come up fifth in a Google search for Kinshasa, by the way.)

In addition to a number of other members of the media, my dinner companions included Rabbi Sholom Elishevitz, originally from Brooklyn but now a resident of Bellevue, WA, and his father-in-law, Pesach Laufer, of Crown Heights. Mr. Laufer’s brother and three of his children serve as emissaries of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l. Over the appetizer he shared a conversation he had with his daughter, Goldy and her husband, earlier that day.

“They broke the news to me today: ‘Dad, we’re going to China.’”

As a parent, what was that like, I asked?

“I’m a strong believer in the Rebbe. We miss him. I miss him. He knew what he was doing,” Laufer replied.

His son-in-law, Rabbi Sholom Freundlich, stopped by the table a little while later.

“The real credit goes to my wife, for agreeing,” he stressed, diplomatically. He and Goldy “had a number of options that came up over the last couple of months,” he said. They decided on Tianjin, China’s sixth-largest city, located about an hour’s drive from Beijing or 25 minutes on the new bullet train. The couple plans to depart for their new home “within the next couple of months.”

There were somber moments; certainly the thought wasn’t far from anyone’s mind that this week marks the first yahrtzeit of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah a”h. They and seven other hostages in their Chabad House were among 170 people murdered last year in the massive terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Also, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, who heads Chabad’s massive network of emissaries, took a moment during his remarks to remember “five children of shluchim lost this year,” including his own grandson, Levi Yitzchok Wolowik a”h, of Cedarhurst.

Rabbi Yudi Shemtov of Yardley, PA, delivered a keynote address, stating, “Globalization, Chabad Lubavitch-style, has already taken place.”

A highlight of the evening, which ended at about 11:00 P.M., was a roll call of the shluchim from around the world. Called out variously by region, country or state, they briefly stood and were acknowledged on the video monitors and by thunderous applause.

When it was over, the band, seated on a second-floor balcony over the podium, sprang to life and the entire room sprang to its feet. Even in the cavernous armory, there’s not a lot of room for 4,000 plus people to dance, so most settled for circling their own table. Viewed from the second floor video, audio and lighting control room, one saw dozens of black and white concentric circles, moving clockwise and counter-clockwise, swaying in time with the music.

The gathering is “the largest representation of the Jewish people that happens in one room,” said Rabbi Motti Seligson of Chabad.org, looking around.

“Think about the number of Jews who are represented here tonight,” he said. “Think of Rabbi Wolowik in the Five Towns and the number of people [he affects] locally, and multiply that by four thousand.”