FROM SPIRITUAL SEEKER IN INDIA TO CHASSIDISHE MELAMED AND SHLIACH

The bullet from a Palestinian sniper rifle that passed only a few centimeters over his head, the events of September 11 while he was living in New York, along with the news of the new outbreak of violence in Eretz Yisroel, which he then experienced firsthand upon his return home, all drove him to seek answers. * The realization about his religious neighbors back in Eretz Yisroel that struck him during a ten-day silence retreat, and a chance encounter in India, helped him find the answers that changed the entire course of his life. * The fascinating life journey of R’ Yaniv Cohen, today a successful melamed and shliach of the Rebbe.

By Mendy Dickstein

As I sit and listen to the stories of R’ Yaniv Cohen, I have a hard time matching up his stories with the image of the Chassid sitting across from me, who appears like a Chabadnik from birth. However, as we all know, truth is far stranger than fiction.

“I was born to a traditional family in the Ir Ganim neighborhood of Yerushalayim. Although, in my family, kiddush was made every Shabbos and we even went to shul for family occasions of joy and mourning, I grew up as a typical Israeli kid. I lacked basic knowledge of Jewish concepts.”

Most of his army service was uneventful. It was only toward the end that the second intifada began, in which the Palestinian leadership proclaimed war against Jews in Eretz Yisroel.

“That was a difficult period that made a lasting impression on me,” he says.

One of the events that occurred in which his life was saved, happened like this:

“One time, I was stationed at a roadblock to monitor everything that was going on. Suddenly shots were fired toward me and the soldiers next to me by a Palestinian sniper on a nearby hill. One of the bullets whistled right over my head and hit the sign that said ‘roadblock,’ under which I stood. It was a dramatic and frightening moment. It took months for me to recover from the trauma of that episode.”

FROM DISTURBANCE TO DISTURBANCE

Upon being released from the army, like many Israelis, he went to the United States to work and make money. He worked at various jobs and ended up, like many Israelis, working for a moving company in the NY metropolitan area.

“It wasn’t easy, but it paid well. Since I worked with other young Israelis, a special atmosphere developed among us, which gave us the ability to make it through the long days and the work in a pleasant and sociable way. One day, I went to visit friends who lived in Brooklyn. I was passing one of the main streets when I felt a strong yearning for Eretz Yisroel. It was only years later, when I went to 770 for the first time and passed Eastern Parkway, that I realized where I had been at that time.”

While Yaniv was in New York, the 9/11 terrorist attack occurred in which the Twin Towers came down, the Pentagon was hit with another plane, and a fourth plane crashed and did not reach its target. Close to 3000 people were killed in the biggest terrorist attack in the history of New York and all of the United States. Everyone was in shock by the ability of the terrorists to perpetrate such an attack.

Yaniv wanted peace and quiet but that’s when the violence heated up in Eretz Yisroel. These events grabbed his attention and that of his fellow Israelis. “News about the wave of terror gave us no rest. I returned to Eretz Yisroel and the situation was bad. As a resident of Yerushalayim I remember hearing the daily shooting toward Gilo.

“I felt I had to get away and air out from all of the terrible intifada sights I had seen during my regular service, and also the campaign the IDF was waging against the terrorists at that time, which disturbed me greatly. I decided to go to the Far East for an indefinite period of time and clear my head.”

Unlike the Israelis who go in pairs or groups, Yaniv went alone, thinking it would be easier for him to achieve the goals he had set for himself. He landed in New Delhi.

“India is a country with a special character that enables you to disengage from everything and live above time; that’s why I picked it.”

But as the saying goes, a person can run from everything, just not from himself. Yaniv began to occupy himself with exploring various life approaches and seeing which he would choose. “I had been very absorbed in my schooling, getting a degree, and the routine of work. Something was missing from the picture and I felt that everything was on autopilot.”

During his touring, he met many non-Jewish tourists and they often got to talking about Judaism. Each time, he found himself defending the principles of Judaism based on his flimsy knowledge. At a certain point, he realized that he had to really contend with the questions and the need to find answers nagged at him more and more.

At first, he looked for answers in foreign fields. “One of them was a course that entailed being silent for ten days, which, for me, was an experience that shook me up and enabled me to come up with many insights. The central theme of the course was about attaining ‘purity’ and disconnecting from the negativity of the world. As I went through the course, I suddenly realized that I already knew a group with these aspirations; religious Jews, my neighbors back in Eretz Yisroel whom I had never gotten to know well. I had always looked at them from afar.”

LIFE-CHANGING ENCOUNTER

“I decided that as a Jew I had to talk with a rabbi and get clear answers from him. How was I going to find a rabbi in India? The only ones are shluchim of the Rebbe and I soon found a Chabad House.”

A few days later, Yaniv visited the Chabad House of Rabbi Nachman Nachmanson of New Delhi. It was a superficial visit with no deep significance for him, but a door was opened for a major change in his life.

“At the Chabad House, I met someone who was to have a big part in my connecting to Judaism, Chabad and the Rebbe; that was Rabbi Shimi Goldstein. Today, R’ Goldstein is a veteran shliach in India and has had a hand in the life-transformations of numerous people, thanks to his Chabad House in Pushkar. But then, he had just arrived with his young family in order to establish a Chabad House.

“We got to talking and R’ Goldstein told me he planned on going to Pushkar and opening a Chabad House there. I didn’t take it too seriously and we parted ways.

“By the way, Pushkar is a city holy to Indians, as are the animals there. Therefore, it is prohibited to eat meat, fish, even eggs, and to have wine. Opening a Chabad House there sounded like a nice idea but not something that could last there long-term. I, of course, kept those thoughts to myself.

“A few weeks later, I went to Pushkar and to my great surprise, I heard that a Chabad House had been opened and was still around. I was curious to know how it was possible to have a Chabad House in such a place and planned on visiting and seeing it for myself, but I felt something holding me back. Whenever I merely thought of going there, something happened that stopped me. One time, as I was going there, a friend suddenly begged me to go with him on a tour. Another time, I spoke with someone late into the night and didn’t end up going to the Chabad House, which was less than ten minutes from the guest house I was staying in.

“If that wasn’t enough, one morning I got up, determined to go to the Chabad House. To make sure nothing would stop me, I decided to leave right away. I got dressed and went outside and headed over. When I was just a hundred meters away from the Chabad House door, a friend of mine was involved in a serious road accident with his motorcycle. The visit to the Chabad House was postponed again. That time, I was sure there was a higher power that was preventing me from going to the Chabad House and this made me determined to go there, come what may!

“One day, I finally got to the Chabad House and as soon as I entered, I felt a sense of tranquility come over me as though I was entering a familiar, beloved place. R’ Shimi Goldstein was giving a shiur to a few young people. He spoke about s’firos and partzufim elyonim that devolve and descend and other kabbalistic concepts. Although I didn’t exactly understand what he was saying, I was drawn to what he was saying. Until then, the Judaism that I knew was a Judaism of meaningless rituals, a routine of kiddush, bar mitzva, bris, etc. Suddenly, I realized that behind everything that is said and done lies an entire world.

“At that moment, I decided I would spend all my time in Pushkar at the Chabad House. Every morning I went there and began attending classes given by R’ Goldstein.

“After several weeks, in which I learned from morning till night, R’ Goldstein came up with an idea that sounded delusional, but since this was India, anything goes. He decided to start a yeshiva! A Chabad yeshiva in Pushkar, no less!

“The first students in the yeshiva were Rabbi Nadav Cohen (known today for his popular books on the Tanya) and me. Under R’ Shimi’s direction, we learned Nigleh and Chassidus for a number of months. I soon began giving classes to tourists who visited the Chabad House and knew nothing, like me, half a year before.

“I was encouraged in this when I saw a video of the Rebbe talking about a Jew needing to teach another Jew. I felt he was talking to me. Even a Jew who only knows alef-beis needs to teach a Jew who doesn’t even know that. This gave me chizuk and spurred me on to continue learning and teaching others.”

MEANINGFUL FLIGHT DELAY

All this time, Yaniv’s parents in Eretz Yisroel and his extended family did not know anything about the changes in his life. They had heard that he was visiting the Chabad House but did not imagine what this entailed.

With the birth of his nephew, his family pressured him to return to Eretz Yisroel and to end the India chapter of his life. “Although I understood from the Rebbe that it wasn’t time for me to return to Eretz Yisroel and that my staying in India was beneficial for me and for the visitors and mekuravim, I could not withstand my family’s importuning. I bought a ticket from New Delhi to Eretz Yisroel. The flight was on a Thursday.

“I parted emotionally from R’ Shimi and felt I had ‘discovered the light’ in the Chabad House in Pushkar, where it didn’t seem I would be returning. As soon as I sat down on the connecting flight to Eretz Yisroel, I felt something was amiss. The air conditioning had stopped working and the hot, humid air of India filled the plane. It became unbearable. Nobody knew why the plane had not taken off. Now and then, the pilot made a brief announcement about how ‘we are getting organized and fixing the minor problem and will take off shortly,’ but time continued to pass, and it wasn’t pleasant.

“After three hours of suffering, the pilot announced that the technical crew said they could not fix the problem and we had to get off and wait for a different flight. When I asked at information when that flight would be leaving, I was told on Friday, which meant that it would land in Eretz Yisroel on Shabbos.

“I will confess that if this had happened before I became acquainted with the world of authentic Judaism, I would have unhesitatingly boarded that flight. But at this stage of my life, I knew that I had to make what for me was a difficult decision. I told the company agents that I could not take that flight and I had to be given a ticket for after Shabbos. I contacted R’ Shimi and, typical of him, he explained that everything was happening by divine providence.

“He sent me the shliach R’ Elad Cohen and after we arranged the ticket, we knew it would be too much to go back to Pushkar before Shabbos and leave immediately afterward for New Delhi again. We planned on spending Shabbos at the local Chabad House. But that week, R’ Nachmanson was going to Eretz Yisroel for a family simcha and the Chabad House was closed. After a few calls to R’ Nachmanson, he arranged a way for us to get into the Chabad House so we could spend Shabbos there.”

Staying in the Chabad House for Shabbos would seem to be a minor, technical detail that happened because of the problem with the plane, but it turned out that the Shabbos was highly significant for Yaniv.

“Since we opened the Chabad House, we bought basic food items like vegetables, fruits, rice, fresh fish, etc. We figured it wasn’t right to open the Chabad House just for us. On Friday afternoon, we made an announcement at all the guest houses in the area that contrary to earlier plans, this Shabbos too, there would be t’fillos and meals at the Chabad House.

“The feeling I had, hosting tourists for Shabbos t’fillos and meals is indescribable.”

After the uplifting atmosphere of that Shabbos, Yaniv went to the airport. This time, the flight went off without a hitch. After switching planes along the way, he arrived in Eretz Yisroel.

THE TIME OF MY LIFE

His parents, who were not aware of the extent of the changes he made, were quite surprised to see him come home wearing a kippa, tzitzis and a beard. They were sure that he went off the rails.

“I could understand their anger,” he says. “They hoped that after a few days in familiar, loving surroundings with family and friends, I would go back to the way I was. They attributed the change to the Indian influence on my life.”

They were disappointed when he announced that he did not plan on changing; on the contrary, he planned on learning in kollel.

Since he lived in Yerushalayim, he looked for a Chabad place and found the Tzemach Tzedek kollel in the Old City. “As a new baal teshuva who just returned from India, I expected that all the Chabad places of learning would be like Pushkar. I quickly realized this place wasn’t for me, rather, for those who had learned in yeshiva all their lives or most of their lives.”

Despite the mutual endearment between him and Rabbi Chaim Sholom Deitsch, the rosh kollel, Yaniv felt he had to find a different, more suitable place. After looking around, he was recommended the Chabad yeshiva in Ramat Aviv.

“When I got there, I was impressed by the place and felt it was just right for me. The students there had, more or less, gone through what I went through. In yeshiva, I also met my friend Nadav Cohen and we renewed our chavrusa from the Pushkar days.”

The next year and a half, he sat in yeshiva and learned diligently. “This was the best period in my life,” he says wistfully. During that period of intense learning, R’ Yaniv acquired a great deal of knowledge in Torah and the proper fulfillment of mitzvos.

An interesting episode came to pass when an old friend called his house asking to speak to him. His parents told him that Yaniv is in a “yeshiva” (which can also mean a meeting) in Tel Aviv. His friend innocently thought that he must be in a business meeting or work-related meeting, so he tried again a few hours later. To his complete shock, the parents explained to him that their son is in a yeshiva where they study Torah.

The friend could not believe it and decided that he had to see it with his own eyes. When he arrived at the yeshiva and saw for himself that it really meant Yaniv sitting in front of a large Gemara, he was stunned. That experience caused him to take more of an interest in Judaism and led to him progressing in Torah study and mitzva observance.

After a year and a half, the Cohen pair/team, R’ Nadav and R’ Yaniv, were asked to return to Pushkar for a short period in order to fill in for their first teacher, R’ Shimi Goldstein, since he needed to fly to Eretz Yisroel with his family for a family simcha.

“Rav Goldstein, who kept close tabs on our progress in yeshiva and growth in all areas of Judaism, felt that there was nobody more suitable to take his place in his shlichus. This was because we had been there before and knew the place, and also because we knew the mentality of the Israeli tourist who shows up at the Chabad House.

(Emotionally): “That is how within two years of my coming close to Judaism, I was transformed from an Israeli tourist with no real background in Judaism, to somebody running a Chabad House. This was tremendously exciting for me and felt to me like I had come full circle.”

The “brief period” that they were called to service, turned into six months of shlichus. During these months, the two carried out many activities in the Chabad House related to the holidays, in addition to running the davening services on Shabbasos and weekdays, as well as hosting Shabbos meals for guests. “I have to admit that after Rav Goldstein returned to Pushkar, it was hard for me to part from the place.”

TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM THE CHILDREN

One day, a tourist came to the Chabad House who wanted to do some serious learning. She joined the classes given by R’ Shimi and was completely involved in the studies. After returning to Eretz Yisroel, a shadchan made the connection between her and R’ Yaniv. “The shidduch progressed and we married,” says R’ Yaniv with a big smile.

In the time before the wedding, R’ Yaniv was asked by Rabbi Axelrod to be the director of the dormitory of Tomchei T’mimim in B’nei Brak.

“I was very happy to work in a place of Torah and enjoyed the bachurim who learned from morning till night. I would often sit in the zal, learning and listening to the shiurim and farbrengens that took place there.”

After marrying, R’ Yaniv began teaching. For him, as well as for many others who became baalei teshuva, there is a fascinating synthesis between his own learning and being a teacher, as he relates:

“For two and a half years I filled in large parts of what I hadn’t learned until I went to India, but I was still missing a lot, especially Midrashim, Chumash and Gemara. As my children were growing, these gaps became real issues. Sometimes, I didn’t know the answers to simple questions that came up in my children’s learning.

“I began working at teaching a ‘mechina’ (Pre-1A) class, and by preparing lessons for young children on the weekly parsha, I found that I was learning far more than I taught. Over the years, I became a second-grade teacher and then taught older grades and I acquired a lot of knowledge on subjects that a person who becomes a baal teshuva at my age is usually not exposed to. That brought me back to the video that I told you about in which I saw the Rebbe saying that someone who knows alef-beis, should teach others who don’t even know that. It seems there is a benefit for both the giver and the recipient.”

Today, R’ Yaniv teaches in a Chabad school in Holon whose principal is Rabbi Yehoshua Shimoni and is under the general leadership of Rabbi Dovid Gurary. “Every morning, I thank G-d for being able to work in chinuch Chabad, especially in such a wonderful school.”

WEEKLY REPORT TO THE REBBE

During his years as a teacher, R’ Yaniv studied many teaching methodologies from experienced teachers in various courses. He considers one of the keys to success in chinuch to be writing a weekly report to the Rebbe about the class.

“I see that when I am particular about this, the atmosphere in class is completely different. Anyone with some understanding of chinuch knows that running a classroom is a complicated job that requires handing all kinds of situations, not all simple, both with students and with parents.

“Writing to the Rebbe has an immediate effect on the teacher. When you know that at the end of the week you are going to report about each student, how many progressed, about the quality of the learning, etc., you do things differently.”

R’ Yaniv recommends this to his fellow teachers:

“In Chassidus it explains that there is opposition to things that are really important. Every teacher (and Chassid) needs to ask himself: Is it easy for me to write to the Rebbe every week?”

R’ Yaniv is involved in the Chabad activities in his neighborhood of Pardes Katz on the outskirts of B’nei Brak, working with the Chabad House director, also a teacher, Rabbi Dovid Hillel. The largest activities of his work throughout the year are a public seder and Rosh Hashana meals for the public. “If not for my doing this, it is likely that these people would not have the opportunity to celebrate the holidays.”

To sum up his life, R’ Yaniv says:

“Now and then, I look where I was and where I am now and the path I traversed from then until now. When I think about it, I feel a strong need to thank Hashem for privileging our generation with the Rebbe’s nesius. Since through his work and that of the fabulous shluchim everywhere in the world, I and thousands more Chassidim like me, were enabled to enter under the wings of the Shechinah and got to know the beauty of Judaism as it is explicated in Chabad Chassidus.”