FROM THE SLUMS OF HOLON TO A WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE

The story of how R’ Tovi Vaheva, who grew up in the Jesse Cohen neighborhood of Holon, became a mashpia and well-known lecturer who has devoted his life to spreading the wellsprings. * About an open miracle with the Rebbe and the prophecy in yechidus which came true thirty years later

By Zalman Tzorfati

Photos by Chaim TouitouOne of the unforgettable segments of the Kinus N’shei Chabad that recently took place in Holon was the awarding of a token of appreciation for her life’s work in chinuch to the preschool teacher, Mrs. Rochel Zamir.

R’ Tovi Vaheva of Bat Yam was called up to the stage.  He is an educator, broadcaster and lecturer.  He spoke from his heart and said, “I owe you my life.  I, my children, and my grandchildren, are all your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

R’ Vaheva’s story is, in a way, the story of hundreds of students who attended the schools that the Rebbe established in the transit camps, development towns, and in immigrant neighborhoods in Eretz Yisroel.  They may not have all emerged as Chassidim, talented speakers, and educators like R’ Tovi, but none of us can estimate how many fruit bearing trees grew from the seeds that were planted in those classes.

CHILDHOOD
IN JESSE COHEN

“I was born on 4 Elul 5724 in the Jesse Cohen neighborhood of Holon.  In those days, Jesse Cohen was considered a problematic neighborhood. Many troubled people lived there, those who came from the transit camps and suffered from difficulties in acclimating to life in their new country.  Many youth watched their parents having a hard time and due to idleness and the breakdown of values turned to lives of crime which did not contribute positively toward the neighborhood’s image.”

Tovi grew up in a good family, traditional on a very basic level.  His father, who came from Egypt, had a religious background, but like in the case of many immigrants, the army and the Israeli melting pot did its work and did not leave him with much religion.  His mother was from Bulgaria.

For some reason, when Tovi turned four, his parents put him in a religious preschool.  They thought he should be exposed to basic concepts in Judaism and a religious preschool seemed like a wonderful idea.  The only religious preschool in the area belonged to Chabad.  Tovi was registered and met his morah, Mrs. Rochel Zamir.

TEACHER AND SHLUCHA

“Morah Rochel is a very special woman,” says R’ Tovi.  “Later on, when I edited her book, I learned her full story and I developed a broader appreciation of her outstanding personality.

“I remember a big picture of the Rebbe in the entranceway.  Of course we did not know who he was and Morah Rochel would tell us about the Rebbe every day so that little by little we began relating to the image in the picture.

“Rochel implanted in us a great love for Hashem, for Torah, holidays, and tradition.  The most significant thing that I remember was the morning assembly.  Every morning we would gather together and Rochel would speak to us about G-d.  Then we started with Modeh Ani and a short prayer.  Ultimately, it was these moments that changed the course of my life.”

Besides being a superlative Morah, Rochel Zamir was first, a shlucha.  It would be correct to say that she was the first shlucha in Holon. She never sufficed with just her work hours.  In the evenings she would visit the homes of her students and try to have an influence on the families.

Tovi finished preschool and as far as his parents were concerned, his religious education had ended.  As it is, he seemed to have absorbed more than enough.  While the other preschool children took off their kippa when they left school, Tovi decided to wear it all day.  He was not yet six when, in Jesse Cohen, he was nicknamed the religious one of the neighborhood.

The next stage was obvious; he would attend the local elementary school which was connected to the Vaheva family’s yard.  Without streets to cross or far to go, he just had to leave the house and walk into school.  Tovi was registered and on September 1, he walked excitedly to school with his knapsack on his back.  He was starting first grade.

AN UNFORGETTABLE TRAUMA

“The teacher walked into class, wrote ‘Hello, First Grade’ on the board and began to teach.  I sat there and the teacher taught and taught.  I felt something was missing.  I did not know what, but something at the beginning of the day was missing.  I suddenly figured it out.  Modeh Ani! I raised my hand and asked, ‘When is Modeh Ani?’”

Tovi will never forget the teacher’s reaction.

“The teacher came over to me, took off my kippa, put it in my pocket, and said, ‘Here there is no Modeh Ani and no G-d.’ 

“I said, with all the sincerity of a child on the first day of first grade, ‘But Morah Rochel said there is Modeh Ani.’ 

“The teacher said, ‘Over here there is no Morah Rochel.  Forget about everything you learned in preschool.’

“This was traumatic for me.  I remember it until today.  It shook me up.  I felt I could no longer stay there.  At the first recess I took my briefcase and ran home.”

Little Tovi told his surprised parents that he was not staying in that school for even one more day.

“They did not know what to do with me.  The only thing they could do was call Rochel Zamir.  She came later on and my parents asked her to get this silly idea out of my head about Modeh Ani, and convince me to forget everything I had learned so I could go to school.  Do you understand what sort of assignment they gave her?”

But Mrs. Zamir took it in stride.  Instead of convincing Tovi to forget what he learned in preschool, she began talking to his parents about switching him to a Chabad school.  They were concerned about the distance and mainly about the level of learning.  The attitude at the time was that religious people knew nothing.  Tovi remembers the conversation.  “How will he turn out?” asked his father. 

“As a good Jew whom Hashem loves,” replied Mrs. Zamir.

“The next day we walked together to the Chabad school in Holon.  By the way, when it came time for my younger brother to go to school, my parents did not hesitate.  They sent him to Morah Rochel and the Chabad school.”

THE REBBE CALLED ME TOVI 

“I was very satisfied and grew up like all the kids who attended that school.  We learned Torah and limudei kodesh along with secular studies on a high level, as expected of a school where most of the students came from irreligious homes.  In sixth grade, R’ Amos Karniel became the principal and I began to see what is the true image of a Chassid.  He was really a special person and he fascinated me.  For my bar mitzva, I had my first significant experience with the Rebbe.

“I was in seventh grade and one day, R’ Karniel called me to his office and said that now that I was becoming bar mitzva, I should write to the Rebbe.  I didn’t know how to go about it and he took pen and paper and began writing the letter for me.

“Now I have to pause and tell you something.  My name Tovi was originally Yom Tov.  That is what my parents    named me, but since I was a little child I hated this name.  I couldn’t stand it.  My father suggested two alternatives, Yomi or Tovi.  I chose Tovi and that became my name.  I no longer responded to anyone who called me Yom Tov.  When teachers, substitutes or others who did not know me, would read my name ‘Vaheva, Yom Tov,’ from the attendance list, I did not respond and they would mark me absent.

“One day, my father got a letter from one of the teachers which said he had to attend a meeting with the principal about my frequent absences.  It was only after I explained to the principal the reason for my so-called absences that he wrote Tovi in large letters on all the forms and Yom Tov in small letters.  After that, even the teachers who did not know me called me Tovi.

“When we wrote the letter to the Rebbe, R’ Karniel said, ‘You have to write to the Rebbe the name you got at your bris.’  I said, ‘No problem, if nobody else will see it, I’ll write that name.’

“To my delight, a response from the Rebbe arrived very quickly and to my immense surprise, the Rebbe addressed it to Tovi!  We were in shock because nowhere had my name Tovi been mentioned in the letter.”

SHLICHUS IN HIGH SCHOOL

Tovi finished elementary school and was faced with some choices.  His parents thought his religious education had come to an end and that Tovi should continue his schooling like every other typical Israeli.  However, Tovi was still not willing to give up his Modeh Ani that had, in the meantime, become Shacharis.  Morah Rochel came into the picture again as did R’ Karniel, and the compromise was a government-religious high school in Holon.  But there too, Tovi was unhappy and he quickly switched to a yeshiva high school in Bat Yam.  He also stayed in touch with Rochel and R’ Karniel.

Tovi began his shlichus and his devotion to hafatzas ha’maayanos as a student in this school.  At that time, two bachurim from the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad, Levi Wilyamowsky and Yoske Lieder, began doing outreach activities in Holon.

“R’ Karniel immediately told them that if they want to do activities in Holon, they should contact me and we should work together.”

That’s what happened.  They contacted Tovi and quickly became very close.  Tovi was a clean-shaven student in the yeshiva high school and they were two T’mimim from Kfar Chabad who wanted to start a Chabad house in Holon.  Tovi deepened his connection to the Rebbe and Chabad and became an ambassador who spread the wellsprings.

“At the yeshiva high school, it was customary that every Erev Shavuos the children from the preschools nearby would come to the yeshiva to hear a bit about the holiday and to see a Torah.  In the yeshiva, they regarded this as a burden which they had to do in order not to make a chilul Hashem.  Each time, one of the rabbis would volunteer to make a quick tour with the kids.

“One year, the children came but there was nobody to welcome them.  Someone asked me if I would do it and briefly explain about Shavuos.  Of course I agreed and I spent nearly an hour with them. The next morning, after davening, over ten preschools with their teachers were waiting outside.  Word had gotten around about the fascinating program for the children.  The next day even more kids came and preschools began pouring in from Holon and the entire area.  They all heard that the yeshiva had a program for children about Shavuos and the children loved it.

“The enormous demand forced me to refine the program and raise it to a professional level.  I wrote an entire program with a play and gave it to Morah Rochel.  She looked it over and critiqued it.  I directed other students so they could do the program and it became a tradition in the yeshiva to the point that, one time, Morah Rochel brought the staff of the district oversight team of the Education Ministry to see the program and they couldn’t stop raving about it.”

THE FIRST YECHIDUS

Tovi became a Lubavitcher and one of the staff of shluchim in Holon, but he had not seen the Rebbe yet.  Levi and Yoske did not stop telling him that it was not right for a bachur who was a shliach of the Rebbe and establishing a Chabad house not to have gone to the Rebbe even once.

The flight to the Rebbe was another challenge that his parents had to overcome.  But just as they ended up supporting him until then, in the end they gave their blessings for the long trip to New York.

Before that, he wrote a pidyon nefesh to the Rebbe for his birthday.  That was shortly after he found out that the t’fillin he had put on since his bar mitzva were pasul from the get-go. He bought two new pairs from a sofer in Kfar Chabad, Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam.

“A few months later, I received a response to my letter at the end of which the Rebbe wrote, ‘It would be proper to check your t’fillin so that they are kosher as per the law.’  I showed the letter to my friends and they were all in agreement that it referred to the t’fillin I had already replaced.  Since, between sending the letter and receiving a response I had already bought new t’fillin, there was no need to check them now.

“In the end, after speaking to one of the mashpiim in Kfar Chabad, I sent the new t’fillin to be checked.  We were horrified to find that all the parshiyos had been inserted upside down.  So that was another open miracle of the Rebbe.”

Tovi was 16 when he went to the Rebbe for the first time.  He was joined by a bachur named Dovid Veknin who later became the rav of the yishuv Menahemya and a few years ago they also became mechutanim (relatives through marriage) with R’  Veknin’s son Chaim marrying R’ Vaheva’s daughter.

Tovi arranged an appointment for yechidus for his birthday and made the proper preparations. It was toward the end of the period when the Rebbe received people for yechidus.  On the line were hundreds of people and they each got fifteen seconds with the Rebbe.

“I went in with the note on which I had written at length about what I was doing, and I asked a number of questions with the main one being whether I should switch to the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad or remain in the yeshiva high school.

“The Rebbe read the questions and seemed lost in thought.  Then he answered the questions.  As for where to learn, the Rebbe said I should stay where I was, and in the end he blessed me that I should have outstanding success in spreading the wellsprings in writing and verbally, in Eretz Yisroel and the world over.”

THE PROPHECY WHICH WAS FULFILLED

“I spent three entire minutes in the Rebbe’s room.  When I went out, all the bachurim and men who were there pounced on me.  They said three minutes were a very long time and they tried to figure out why I had deserved this.  I felt wiped out, as though I had returned from a difficult trip.  The entire yechidus I made the effort to concentrate so as not to miss a single word, and as soon as I went out I did chazara with the bachurim and wrote down the yechidus.”

Tovi returned home.  Several years later he went to learn in the yeshiva in Kfar Chabad and married.  He settled in Holon and then moved to Bat Yam and has dedicated his life to shlichus.

“Over the years, I have seen the fulfillment of what the Rebbe said in yechidus.  For decades, I wrote and edited Chassidic works for shluchim and Chabad houses in Eretz Yisroel.  Then I was asked to do a two hour radio program about Judaism which was the most listened to on Radio Gal until it was shut down.  In this I see the fulfillment of the Rebbe’s bracha of ‘in writing and verbally.’”

In recent years, R’ Tovi Vaheva is a sought after speaker at Chabad houses and outside of Chabad.  He gives dozens of shiurim, lectures, and workshops on various Jewish topics.  Every Friday night he gives a shiur to hundreds of young people in Bat Yam under the auspices of R’ Lugassi’s Oneg Shabbat program.  Lately, his lectures have been featured on the yahadut.tv site and thus, the Rebbe’s prophecy about “in Eretz Yisroel and the world over,” is being fulfilled.