I returned home safely after a wonderful visit to Brooklyn.
It was a couple of days of very little sleep and much satisfaction. Material, but mainly spiritual satisfaction.
What a great gathering of Jewish community leaders from around the world. Joint meeting sessions and workshops gave us an understanding and recognition of the many issues that occur in the Jewish world and in the world at large.
The highlight was undoubtedly, the gala banquet on Sunday evening with nearly 5,000 Chabad emissaries, friends and supporters. It was an amazing and fascinating evening and a very impressive production. There were many headlines and presentations of large projects and successes of Chabad activities worldwide in the last year.
The truth is, however, that what moved me most was a conversation over coffee on Shabbat morning, on the steps of the synagogue with an old friend of mine from Yeshiva years. It was specifically the stories of his activities in his assigned place, an island located at the edge of Canada, which gave me food for thought.
This is about my friend, Rabbi Meir Kaplan who was sent about nine years ago to Vancouver Island. When he arrived there, he found it to be a beautiful place physically, but spiritually the exact opposite. Today the situation is totally different. With his own ten fingers, together with his wife Chani, he built a strong Jewish community, offering a huge array of Jewish activities.
But the next thing he told me touched me very much, and only after my conversation with him, was I able to internalize what true devotion and self sacrifice he has for these activities.
Where he lives there is no Jewish school yet. For his children, who are already school aged, he is not willing, under any circumstances, to give up on their Jewish education.
So what do they do?
Every morning, after putting on their school uniform(!), they go into a specially designated room in the house, which is their school. There, each child has his own computer and connects to his virtual classroom online. Their friends are children of Chabad Rabbis who are in similar places with no Jewish school. This is how they learn every day, every week. They have a serious curriculum with home work, tests and other educational projects.
Meir tells me that it is definitely not easy. As parents they have to be a lot more involved in the study material and what goes on in “school” in general, than parents of children who go to regular school. However, the satisfaction and ‘Nachas’ are enormous.
This is really an amazing story. I know Meir very well. If he wanted, he could have been a successful and popular Rabbi in any big Jewish Community in the world. I’m talking about a person who is a great Torah scholar with great pedagogical and leadership skills. Despite this he chose, along with his wife, to specifically go to a remote place to revive the Jewish life there, which was dormant for years.
I can imagine that Meir will read this blog. So I would like to say to you: You are the true warriors for the future of the Jewish nation, you are standing at the front, and I support you and I bless you. May G-d grant you much strength to continue in all your amazing work and may you have lots of true Yiddishe Nachas from your children.
Rivky and the children join me in wishing you a Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Chaim
Here is a picture of the ‘school’ at the home of the Kaplan Family in Vancouver Island:
