Reaching Morro de S. Paulo, a small island in Brazil, requires following a long and circuitous route, and it’s the only way to get there. R’ Mendy Gerenshtat and his friends arrived at the location to call with a great voice in the Name of G-d, just as Avraham Avinu did in his time. Their Chabad House was quickly transformed into an active and bustling Jewish center, sometimes hosting as many as a thousand Jews in a single day! We recently met R’ Mendy and heard how G-d reveals Himself in Morro de S. Paulo.
Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry
Morro de S. Paulo is a tiny, beautiful, and marvelous island, considered one of the most famous in Brazil and one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions. Amongst those tourists are many Jews. Based on modest estimates, about twenty thousand Jews, Diaspora Jews and Israelis alike, visit the island each year to relax in its magical scenery, dive in its deep blue waters, and spend a few weeks in its restful atmosphere along its pastoral shores. “When we walk along the street here, we hear Hebrew everywhere and all the time,” says the shliach R’ Mendy Gerenshtat.
Morro de S. Paulo, or “Morro” for short as its tourists call it, is a small and magical vacation town. It’s so small that it has only two main roads. Within the town, there is no entrance for motorized vehicles, and therefore, the only way to get from one place to another is by foot. The sole means of transportation are wheelbarrows dragged by locals. Among the island’s amazing natural phenomena are the tides along the island’s four coasts and its argila, pink regenerative mud.
About two years ago, R’ Mendy Gerenshtat with two other fellow yeshiva bachurim arrived on this magical and primitive island after a year of shlichus in Mexico. Instilled with the spirit of shlichus, the three succeeded within a few months in renting a building in a central location to found a large Chabad House befitting its name. It quickly became a magnet for tourists coming to the island: a synagogue for communal prayer services, daily Torah classes, night-long farbrengens, a vegetarian restaurant, and Shabbos activities that have had as many as one thousand participants at one time.
THE BUILDING ARRIVED AT THE PROPER TIME
R’ Mendy Gerenshtat was born and raised in an atmosphere of shlichus. He is the son of the Rebbe’s shliach in S. Paulo, Rabbi Yaakov Gerenshtat.
However, it wasn’t his status as a resident of Brazil that brought him to Morro. He personally never thought of the idea. He had been directed to the shlichus on this exotic island by none other than the tourists who would come to the Chabad House in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where he had worked for about a year. They lamented the fact that there was no Chabad House in Morro. “For a period of one year, I worked in Playa del Carmen alongside the shliach, Rabbi Brod, and not a day passed by without our hearing tourists say: ‘How can it be that in such a tourist spot there’s no Chabad House?!’
“With the conclusion of our shlichus in Mexico, the three of us – HaTamim Mendy Chaver, HaTamim Mendy Kalifa, and myself – decided to set up camp in Morro. First, however, we wrote to the Rebbe and received a clear answer; the Rebbe wrote about the need to illuminate the darkness of exile in the most remote locations, both materially and spiritually. It was clear to us that we had been privileged to receive a blessing for our journey.
“I first came there by myself to check out the area, and after a few months, we packed up our belongings and the Chabad House in Morro was ready to roll. When we started our activities and discovered the large number of tourists, we were amazed how such a place still did not have its own shliach.
“You walk along the main street and hear Hebrew, far more than Portuguese. There are dozens of residents here who speak a fluent Hebrew due to the numerous Israeli tourists on the island. There are many signs providing directions in the Hebrew language. During the summer, we make Shabbos for more than one thousand participants. There is no hall on the island that can hold such a large number of people, and therefore, we divide the Shabbos meals into three parts – four hundred people each time.”
The early difficulties were many, and it’s obvious that some of them still exist and probably will continue into the foreseeable future. “The biggest problem deals with reaching the island. To get here, you need to overcome a few obstacles. The first stop is Salvador, from there you travel by bus to the city closest to the island, and from there you take a boat to Morro. When you finally reach Morro, you have to make a long and circuitous walk until you come to the Chabad House.
“At the start of our shlichus, we based our operations out of a local hostel, where we held all our activities during those first few weeks, including on Shabbos. In the days that followed, we looked for a place to rent, but no one agreed to sign a rental contract with us. We didn’t understand why… Only later, when we had already become quite adept in what goes on here did we realize that no one wanted to rent out property at the start of the season.
“After several more weeks had passed, we felt that we couldn’t continue this way. The three of us sat and wrote to the Rebbe, literally crying out, ‘From where will our help come?’ It was clear to us that if we would have our own place, we could double, even triple our activities.
“Then, just a day later, a miracle occurred. A local Gentile entered our room and said that he had heard that we were looking for a place. He told us that he has a very good spot for us; it was presently being occupied by a produce store. However, the store manager was not particularly careful about keeping the place clean, and the property owner wanted to break the lease.
“When we came to see the property, we were amazed. This was a building situated in a central location alongside a large courtyard. We kept our enthusiasm to ourselves. Later, we were informed that this Gentile served as the island’s mayor. His condition for renting us the building was that we keep the agreement secret. We agreed to the condition and then set one of our own: That evening marked the first night of Chanukah. We told him about the holiday and invited him to the lighting ceremony. When he came that evening, he was stunned by the huge crowd. There were many Jews there alongside local residents. After the menorah lighting, he asked if he could say a few words.
“Heavy darkness reigned outside, and the light of the many Chanukah menorahs shined with a most exquisite brightness. The sight was truly heartwarming. The island’s mayor told everyone about the honored people who had come to Morro de S. Paulo, pointed at us, and asked that they honor and assist us in our activities.
“When we arrived the following day to sign a lease with him, he conducted himself honestly with us. We signed the rental agreement at a significantly lower price than the true value of the property. This was a revealed miracle; we had both established a good relationship with the island’s mayor and received property at a very reduced price…”
Since then, the Chabad House has become a brilliantly shining lighthouse spreading Yiddishkait with great illumination. Each morning, we start our daily schedule in the Chabad House with a class in Chassidus, and from then until the evening tourists come in to put on tefillin, talk, and listen. The Chabad House is open to everyone. During the evening, we hold a class in Tanya, followed by a farbrengen that often lasts into the wee hours of the morning. On Shabbasos during the tourist season, hundreds of visitors come to the Chabad House for Shabbos meals and communal prayer services. Near the Chabad House, the shluchim opened a vegetarian restaurant with falafel and fries. “In this way, Israelis can feel at home here while having the opportunity to eat kosher,” says R’ Mendy.
“We would have been happiest to turn the restaurant into a fleishig eatery with schnitzels and shawarma, as the demand here would be great, but to our regret, it’s not possible to bring meat and poultry to the island. There’s no delivery service here, and surely none for items requiring refrigeration. I am now staying in Eretz Yisroel in the first year since my wedding, and as part of my kollel studies, I am learning shechita so that I can eventually work as a shochet on the island itself.”
I FOUND MYSELF AS IF I WAS IN MIDDLE OF A BAD ACTION MOVIE…
One Shabbos, during the height of the tourist season, about one thousand Jews came to the island to get a heaping portion of Yiddishkait. On Motzaei Shabbos, after the tourists had gone their separate ways, I went out to the island’s main street, when a pair of hands suddenly grabbed me from behind and dragged me into a dark alleyway. I found myself standing alone in front of a tall and muscular dark-skinned man. He spoke a fluent Hebrew and yelled at me in a stern voice: ‘Did you come here with your two friends to take away my family’s income? You have nerve! I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve raised my children here. There is no way that some people from the ‘big city’ are going to come here and steal my livelihood!’ The man’s voice became very threatening and he wouldn’t give me an opportunity to respond. ‘Just know,’ he added, ‘anyone who has tried to mess with me paid a heavy price. If you want to return home in a pine box, you just keep it up.’ The man then threw me to the side as if I were a piece of paper and slipped away into the evening darkness…
“To be honest, I was very concerned, trembling with fear. The next day, I decided to inquire among islanders if they knew this man and whether he would carry out his threats. Everyone I asked about this matter gave me reason to be genuinely worried about this criminal.
“It turned out that this questionable individual ran several businesses on the island. According to local residents, this was a very dangerous fellow and it would be highly inadvisable to get into a dispute with him. They told me about a gunfight he had been involved in two years earlier along with another seriously violent incident, yet the local authorities had acquitted him of any wrongdoing. ‘He’s a real psychopath; don’t fall into his hands,’ warned one of my local Gentile friends. This was a real breaking point for our shlichus, just weeks after our arrival.
“We decided to write to the Rebbe, and we would act in accordance with the answer we received. I have to admit that I was embarrassed to write to the Rebbe, because I had resolved shortly before leaving for this shlichus that I would be stringent about learning Torah with someone on a daily basis. However, due to the difficulties and hardships of those early days, I actually still hadn’t been able to fulfill my resolution.
“During this period at the Chabad House, there was a young Israeli with us who had been born and raised in B’nei Brak, although he had since abandoned a Torah observant lifestyle. This young man had grown up in one of the most prominent Litvishe families, a grandson of one of the giants of the Litvishe community. At first, he estranged himself from anything that even smelled of Torah tradition. He would visit the Chabad House each day, talk with us, enjoy the atmosphere, but he would not agree to learn Torah or fulfill mitzvos.
“The following day, Sunday morning, he was the first person I met in the Chabad House. I shared with him the details of the disturbing experience I endured the previous evening and my desire to write to the Rebbe, but that I was ashamed over my failure to fulfill the resolution I had made.
“He listened, thought for a moment, and then surprised me by saying, ‘I’ll learn with you.’ At that moment, I forgot everything. I brought s’farim and we started learning. He had a very sharp mind, and after we finished studying Nigleh, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity. I went over to the library, brought over a copy of the Tanya, and we learned Chapter 32 of Likkutei Amarim together. I saw that he was very stimulated by the learning and I thought to myself: The whole shlichus has been worth it just for this. This young man told me that he hadn’t opened a seifer in the past ten years!
“After learning for about an hour, I sat down to compose a letter to the Rebbe with deep solemnity. I wrote about the exhausting stages of establishing the Chabad House and the great success we had experienced, now all in danger due to the threats being made by this Gentile with a dubious reputation who demands that we leave. The answer I received appears in Igros Kodesh, Vol. 5, pg. 290. I read the answer together with this young man, and the two of us were positively thunderstruck for several long minutes. I couldn’t have hoped for a clearer answer:
And it is known that a tzaddik, and in particular a nasi in Israel, when he gives some mission to a Jew, together with the shlichus he also gives him the required strengths to fulfill the mission in the best way possible, both regarding the shlichus and regarding the shliach, and we understand from this that the spiritual strength of the shliach will thereby increase, as will his physical strength.
And to reinforce the explicit words of Scripture, I hereby affix my blessing that together with the members of his household, sh’yichyu, they will celebrate the upcoming holiday of Pesach in good health, with proper kashrus, joy, and a long and good life. May he and his wife have much Yiddishe and chassidishe nachas from all their offspring, sh’yichyu, and may he stand for many years on his holy watch, both as a shochet and a gabbai in those matters for which he had been appointed by my holy and revered teacher and father-in-law, the Rebbe.
“The Rebbe MH”M writes explicitly that I have nothing to worry about, and when the leader of the generation sends a shliach, he also gives him the required strengths to fulfill his shlichus. Tears welled in my eyes. I felt that the Rebbe was giving me a booster shot: I’m with you and you have no reason to be concerned…
“I’ll never forget the reaction of that young man as he told me, ‘Look, I lived my whole life in B’nei Brak. I never believed in the stories of tzaddikim. What I have seen here is a revealed miracle…’
“If that wasn’t enough, we continued to read the Rebbe’s reply on the opposite page, and our amazement grew even more intense. The Rebbe clearly wrote about the study schedule I had resolved to keep, yet had not fulfilled due to the lack of time:
On his question on the matter of his learning schedule, studying eighteen chapters of Mishnayos each day, and these studies are thereby superficial in value, and he is left with little time for other studies and he asks for my opinion on this:
In my opinion, he should continue with his good custom of reviewing eighteen chapters each day, and in particular as according to his letter, there is also a kind of vow here. Furthermore, he should learn only certain Mishnayos each day in a more studious manner, and thereby with both of these in hand, he will also have sufficient time to study other Torah subjects…
“This young man was extremely moved, and then shook my hand to make a promise: we would learn Nigleh and Chassidus together each day for the duration of his stay in Morro. It’s interesting to note that while this young man planned to stay in Morro for five days, he eventually remained for almost two months… When his stay in Morro ended, he returned to Eretz Yisroel.”
And how did the story with this Gentile bully end?
“I decided not to be afraid of him. After a few days, I met him on the island’s main street, and instead of showing fear, I smiled at him. He was surprised. When I met him again, I stopped him, pulled a picture of the Rebbe out of my pocket, and told him: ‘I have come to Morro as his emissary.’ I then told him about the Rebbe and his activities throughout the world, explaining to him that we have no intention of taking away his livelihood. Our activities are offered free of charge. He looked at the Rebbe’s picture for a good long while and then said, ‘Fine, lots of luck to you.’
“We went our separate ways, and I haven’t heard a complaint from him since. Once in a while, I meet him in the street and we acknowledge one another with a nod of the head…
“I customarily tell this story during the Friday night meal. Its influence is so great that on Motzaei Shabbos, there’s a line at the Chabad House for writing to the Rebbe through Igros Kodesh.”
T’KIAS SHOFAR AFTER ROSH HASHANAH
Together with his widespread activities with tourists, he does not forget the island’s local Jewish resident community. “There are many Jews living on the island, and we work with almost all of them,” says R’ Mendy Gerenshtat.
Why ‘almost all of them’?
“There’s one Israeli woman here who is married r”l to a local Gentile, and we still haven’t found a way to get to her heart. Besides her, there’s an Israeli man living here who is something of a celebrity back in Eretz Yisroel. He runs a non-kosher hostel and restaurant, or as he calls it, ‘Israeli Restaurant Kosher Mehadrin Bagatz’ (an acronym for Israel’s secular High Court of Justice).
“When this Israeli realized that we had come to the island with the intention of settling here, he publicized a film in which he tells about the young Chabadnikim who had come to take away his livelihood. He was extremely angry at us, and we heard this from every Israeli who visited him and afterwards came to me. He had wanted to come to the most remote location possible and find some peace and quiet from Judaism, and now we came along…
“One day, his approach completely changed. It was the day when the release of R’ Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin was announced. The feeling of joy was tremendous, and we took some mashke and decided to share with him what was in our hearts. We came to his store in a state of great jubilation and euphoria. It took him a bit of time to understand why we were so happy. ‘Great is the mouthful that draws near those who are distant’ – and we gave him a L’chaim as we told him about our good friend who had been released from prison. ‘How old are you that you have a friend who has already been in jail?’ he asked, and we proceeded to tell him the story of Rabbi Rubashkin, with all the miracles he experienced and his tremendous self-sacrifice. We sat with him well into the night. Finally, he understood that we had not come to do him any harm, and since then we have become good friends.
“The following day, he invited us to put on tefillin with him after many long years of declining to do so.
“It turned out that this Israeli lived with a local non-Jewish woman, and incredibly, shortly after establishing friendly relations with us, he decided to break up with her. ‘She isn’t right for me,’ he shared with us.
“There’s another moving story about a Jewish woman living on the island named Graciela. She was born and raised in Salta, Argentina. She came for a tour of the island as a young girl and was captivated by its magical qualities.
“How did we come to her? That’s a story unto itself. The first time I came to Morro was to check out the area for our eventual shlichus there. One day, I met a group of young Israelis walking along the city’s street and they asked if I would blow the shofar. I hesitated. It was already after the month of Elul and the Rosh Hashanah holiday. However, I eventually decided to honor their request and blow the shofar. It’s still possible to stir the heart during Aseres Yemei T’shuva…
“That night, I heard a knock at the door to my room in the hostel where I was staying. I opened the door and standing there was a woman who identified herself as a Jewess named Graciela. She asked if I was the person who had blown the shofar, and when I replied that I was, she burst into tears. After she had calmed down, she said that she had been raised in Salta. While her parents were not Torah observant, she did have one Jewish memory: the family walking to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah to hear the sound of the shofar. Hearing my shofar blowing that afternoon reminded her of her late father, the years of her childhood, and the fact that she belonged to the Jewish People.
“She inquired when I was planning to leave the island, and she asked permission to come to me each afternoon just to hear T’kias Shofar… I happily agreed. Shortly before Yom Kippur, I left Morro to return to 770.
“About a month after we came back to the island, she appeared at the new Chabad House with a moving story straight out of the tales of the Baal Shem Tov. She said that the shofar blowing had awakened a deep longing within her for her father’s home, and she had become contemplative. Her Gentile husband attributed this to a state of depression and he began to taunt her. After several weeks of quarreling, she decided to leave him. She took her three children and moved to a nearby town. Now, she had come to visit the island after a month’s absence.
“Naturally, I was very happy to hear her story and gave her encouragement. Sometime afterwards, she happily informed me that she had finally left this Gentile for good – all thanks to the sound of the shofar.”
WE IMMEDIATELY ORDERED A PLANE
Thousands of Jews of all ages pass through the Chabad House each year. For many of them, it’s the only time they ever visit a warm, frum environment. Who knows when and how the visit will influence them? In contrast, there are a fair share of Israelis for whom the visit to the Chabad House becomes something more serious and meaningful to them. They establish a closer connection with the shluchim, and our efforts already begin to bear fruit from that first visit.
“We had a young man by us named Meir. He was raised in B’nei Brak, but he left home immediately after his bar mitzvah and shook off the yoke of Torah and mitzvos. While he was a very pleasant fellow and agreed to help us in all that we needed, he adamantly refused to put on tefillin. All efforts to convince him went for naught. Before he continued his tour as planned, we succeeded in getting him to promise that he would put tefillin on someone once a month – even though he personally wouldn’t put on tefillin himself – take a picture and send it to us.
“Since then, we received a picture from him each month putting tefillin on a Jew he met.
“After about four months, the T’mimim working in Playa del Carmen, Mexico sent us a picture of him putting on tefillin. It turns out that he went into the Chabad House there and on his own asked if he could put on tefillin… He had another request: the T’mimim should take a picture of him wearing tefillin and send the picture to us…”
Rabbi Gerenshtat has many more thrilling stories and shared one of them with us: “Golan is a young Israeli, whose connection with us had already been established during our second week in Morro, and it has remained strong ever since. His mother is a well-known personality in the Golan Heights and his family has a connection with Chabad. One morning, my mobile phone rang, and on the line I heard the voice of a young Israeli. He sounded quite worried as he told me about his friend, who had been lying in bed for days with a high fever. The local doctor who examined him claimed that his life was in danger, suffering from a bacterial infection. He added that if he didn’t get to a hospital quickly, he might not make it.
“You have to understand that there is no hospital on the island. There is one doctor who comes once a week and gives an initial diagnosis to those islanders in need of medical care. Leaving the island by the regular route would not be a viable option, especially not for someone in his condition. We quickly realized that the only way to save his life would be to fly him to the large city of Salvador, which had a modern hospital.
“We quickly publicized all over the island that we were looking for a plane, and after just a few hours, a pilot called me and offered to come to the island for one thousand shekels. The fee was paid, and this young man was transported and was immediately placed in an intensive care unit, where he received life-saving medical treatment. The doctors claimed that if treatment had been delayed much longer, he might have been left with a lifelong disability, assuming that he could survive… For us, this was a lesson in how the Chabad House is the home for all matters Jewish.”
WHEN TWO TOURISTS DISCOVERED THAT THERE WAS NO SEIFER TORAH
The Chabad House in Morro de S. Paulo is teeming with activities all year round, and thousands of Jews pass through its doors. During certain months of the year, it becomes a bustling Jewish center with sometimes more than one thousand Jews visiting each week. “After the carnival season in Brazil, many of the tourists stop for a rest in Morro before returning home. During this period, our Jewish guests number in excess of one thousand.
“In the first year of our shlichus,” Rabbi Gerenshtat recalled, “the Chabad House wasn’t ready for this. We arrived in Morro and got used to the fact that every Shabbos, about one hundred and fifty tourists came to the Chabad House. Then, suddenly one Friday, you realize that the number of Israelis on the island has tripled and quadrupled. I’ll never forget the pressure we were under. By G-d’s great kindnesses, the People of Israel is a marvelous nation. One announcement making its way among all the tourists brought dozens of volunteers to the Chabad House within a few minutes, and they helped in preparing all the food for us – they cooked, baked, cut, peeled and cleaned everything.”
In connection with this story, the case of the Chabad House’s Seifer Torah is another example of a spiritual arousal coming from the tourists themselves. “Among those who came to help with the cooking were a group of youngsters from Ashkelon with a warm place in their hearts for Yiddishkait. When we finished the Shabbos morning minyan, they discovered that we had no Torah scroll. They asked for an explanation and they heard that it simply hadn’t been possible on our first trip to Morro to bring a seifer Torah with us. ‘We’ll bring one,’ they offered. On that Motzaei Shabbos, I called my father and he agreed to give us one of the Torah scrolls in his Chabad House.
“Yochai and Eliran, two of the young men from Ashkelon, put a halt to their tour and set out on a journey lasting thirty hours – traveling by boat, car, and bus – with the objective of bringing a Seifer Torah to the Chabad House, which has served us to this very day. When the Torah scroll arrived, we held a joyous dedication ceremony as we danced through the island’s main street, joined by many Jewish tourists. Even the local Gentiles heard for the very first time about the holiness of a Seifer Torah and they too participated in the merriment… The next day, even the island’s mayor came to ask for the reason of this celebration…”
Rabbi Gerenshtat then suggested that I shouldn’t leave without hearing the story about the Pesach seder they made during their first year in Morro. In his opinion, while it was an amazing miracle, the story also carried an important moral. “At first, we rented a hall that provide places for about four hundred people. We thought that would be more than enough. A few days before Yom Tov, we realized that our estimates had been in error, as by then six hundred tourists had already registered for the event. Since there was no larger hall on the island, we decided to hold the Pesach seder outdoors in the courtyard of a local hotel. In the meantime, everything appeared to be going smoothly. The matzos and wine had arrived on time, as did a sizable quantity of meat – and then an unexpected problem arose.
“A few days before the Seder night, it rained extremely hard and the meteorological forecasts predicted that on the Seder night, there would also be very stormy weather. As a result, we wrote a letter to the Rebbe and asked for a bracha. The Rebbe’s answer dealt with the subject of eruv. Then, it suddenly hit me. On Shabbos, when we’re missing tables in the Chabad House courtyard, the tourists take tables out from the Chabad House, thereby creating a problem of moving them from one domain to another. This is something that we hadn’t noticed before, and we resolved to deal with this matter in the appropriate manner. Incredibly, the Seder night came and the rains stopped…
“Towards the end of Shulchan Orech, one of the tourists came in to bring plates for the meat course. As soon as he went outside, there was a torrential rainstorm for a full minute, and then it suddenly stopped. This provided us with a welcome opportunity to speak about the answer we had received from the Rebbe before Yom Tov. There were hundreds of Jews there – young people from Tel Aviv, kibbutznikim – who also were privileged to participate in a proper Pesach seder, and hear about the mitzvah of making an ‘eruv’, for the first time in their lives. Since then, this has been an area of mitzva observance in which we show extra care…”
RESPECT AND APPRECIATION FROM THE ISLAND RESIDENTS
From the island’s non-Jewish population, the shluchim receive royal treatment – literally as in the days of Moshiach. “When I came to Morro for the first time and went out to the city’s street,” R’ Mendy Gerenshtat recalled, “a local Gentile, a fisherman by trade, stuck close to me and begged me to bless him. I’ll never forget his pleas: ‘You belong to the Chosen People; please bless me that the Creator of the World should grant me success,’ he pleaded. At first, I refused, for who am I and what am I that I can bless him… However, when he promised that if he catches kosher fish in his net, he would bring them to the Chabad House, I agreed. Ever since then, every few weeks, he comes to us at the Chabad House with fresh fish.”
Rabbi Gerenshtat uses the tremendous honor and appreciation that he receives from the island residents to spread the teaching of the Seven Noachide Laws. “A week before I traveled to Eretz Yisroel, the principal of the island’s only school came to ask if I would give over a class to the students about Jews and Judaism. I agreed. When I arrived at the school, I was surprised to see half of the island’s population waiting for me there… It turned out that the parents joined their children and the hall was filled to capacity. Naturally, I took advantage of the opportunity to speak for a full hour about the importance of observing the Seven Noachide Laws.”
Since their first day on the island, the shluchim have had the support of a Mr. Marco, a local Gentile hostel owner, in whatever they need. “Marco speaks fluent Hebrew, as do many of the island’s residents,” says R’ Mendy. “We stayed with him during our first days in Morro, and he has made efforts above and beyond to help us. He closed off a kitchen for our exclusive use, placed rooms at our disposal for Torah classes and Shabbos meals – all without accepting any payment. He is a certainly a Righteous Gentile. He traveled everywhere with us and even arranged meetings for us with the mayor and other local authorities on the island who could be of assistance in our activities.
“A few months ago, we had a frank discussion, and at the appropriate time, I asked him why he goes out of his way to help us. He replied with an answer that truly moved me. According to him, he regularly meets people who are only interested in money. However, when he met us and saw that our entire objective is to help other people without taking any money, it moved him to see that there are such people in the world, and he decided to come to our assistance…”
I see that Moshiach is an integral part of your activities. How is this accepted among the guests and tourists?
“We give Moshiach Campaign activities the greatest possible publicity. Anyone who comes into the Chabad House knows that the Rebbe is chai v’kayam and all of our vast programs are in his merit. Those who aren’t Torah observant ask no questions; they consider Moshiach to be no different than any other mitzvah. Those who do ask are mainly tourists with a religious background. This is the point at which we look at the Rambam and other s’farim on halacha, and we show them how everything is written and we’re not just talking about some sentiment or feeling among Chassidim or mere slogans.
“Just recently, one tourist told me that he and his friends had been touring for several months throughout Central and South America. They went into Jewish centers in every city they visited, and they developed a kind of prognostic compass, which helps them to know if the center they are about to enter will be enjoyable, pleasant, or boring. They already realize that when there’s a Moshiach flag waving at the entrance, this is a Jewish center that it would be appropriate for them to enter…
“It would seem to me that this can illustrate how much publicizing Moshiach only brings Jews closer to Yiddishkait, and surely doesn’t drive them away.”
TO BUILD A TENT, TO BUILD A BUILDING
At the present time, there are four T’mimim in Morro de S. Paulo who have just completed their year on k’vutza and are taking over the outreach activities. Earlier this year, R’ Mendy Gerenshtat got married. In the meantime, he is remaining in Eretz HaKodesh and learning in kollel while he prepares to return to Morro, this time together with his new wife. His big plan, now beginning to take shape, is to purchase a parcel of land on the island and build a spacious facility that can hold all local Chabad activities. When he finds an appropriate donor, he intends to build this large Chabad House with a mikveh, a large events hall, a synagogue, a restaurant, and guest rooms – just like Avraham Avinu in his time, when he erected a tent and called out in the name of G-d, Master of the World.