SOUL ENCOUNTERS ON THE ISLANDS OF HAWAII

Our daily routine began by immersing in the biggest mikva in the world – the Pacific Ocean. Then we learned a Maamer Chassidus, davened Shacharis, ate something and set out in the search for Jewish families…

Fifteen years have passed, but for Rabbi Shmuel Hendel of Matteh Moshiach in Eretz Yisroel, the story is still as fresh in his mind as it was the moment it transpired. It is a mivtzaim story that took place in Hawaii, during the year following his year on K’vutza, when he went on Merkos Shlichus with his friend, Dovi Scheiner:

“We spent weeks in Hawaii, going from cities to towns, hopping from island to island in the search for Jews.”

They started out in Honolulu with the shliach, R’ Itchel Krasnianski, but soon moved on. They had a list of names and they tried meeting Jews scattered throughout Hawaii.

We didn’t just rely on the list but looked in local phone books. “We called any name that sounded Jewish. Most of the time they weren’t Jewish, but by trying, we added more people to the Chabad House list.”

THE TERRIBLE PLAN THAT WAS CANCELLED LAST MINUTE

“The first half of our trip was spent on Hulu Island, one of the biggest islands in the state, which is made up of eight main islands. Many tourists visit this island because of the active volcano there in the middle of the ocean. You can see it only by flying in one of the small planes that goes from island to island. We didn’t go there to tour but to find Jews, and our first visit was to the home of a Reform rabbi.

“We got into a lively conversation. His wife was a Holocaust survivor who survived the camps and she told us about those terrible years. We listened to her and then gave her a Jewish-Chassidic perspective. Since it was Elul, we blew the shofar. Once we went to the rabbi, we could go to the rest of the people in the community. But we were also looking for those who weren’t listed anywhere. That’s how we found a woman in one of the villages there.

“The woman had actually met up with bachurim a few years earlier, who had been in the area for Merkos Shlichus. It’s interesting how hashgacha brought this older couple to such a distant village whose inhabitants were fervent Catholics. She told us a story that gave us the inspiration to continue, a story which taught us how important our work was.

“She said that for some time she had started thinking about converting. All her friends went to church on Sunday and told her about it and she felt left out. When she discussed it with her husband, he laughed it off. He knew a thing or two about Judaism and told her that it made no difference what she did; if she was born to a Jewish mother, she would remain a Jew all her life and so why should she bother.

“This made her push off her decision for a number of months, but her close friends’ stories convinced her to go to the priest. As she passed the mailbox she was taken aback to see a bundle of booklets from the Chabad House in Honolulu.

“This was before Pesach. She said she had no idea how someone at the Chabad House knew of her existence. She had not known about the Chabad House and had no idea what Chabad is and who the Lubavitcher Rebbe is. She took the bundle and went back inside. She looked through the booklets and the stories about Jewish history, about the significance of the approaching holiday, and she changed her mind about going to the priest.”

T’FILLIN? WHAT’S THAT?

That was the first moving story that R’ Hendel remembers. An even more moving story took place on the second island, Maui, where they spent most of their time, unfolded in the following way:

We had hardly anything to eat. We had taken food from the shliach, but not all the refrigerators in the hotels we stayed in were working properly. A lot of the food spoiled, and for many days we just had Pepsi and nuts.

Our daily routine began by immersing in the biggest mikva in the world – the Pacific Ocean. Then we learned a Maamer Chassidus, davened Shacharis, ate something and set out in the search for Jewish families.

We visited the home of a friendly gentleman who was familiar with the Chabad House. To our delight, he told us about an event he was organizing for the Jews of the city to take place in a few days and he invited us as his personal guests. We were happy to attend, and along with quite a few gentiles from mixed marriages we also found and met many Jews.

When we finished visiting all the Jews on our list and those we added from the event, we still had a few days left. We began looking up Jewish names we found in the phone book. Each day we visited a few homes, talked with the people living there and spoke about holidays and other Jewish topics. People were excited to meet young people from Eretz Yisroel presenting themselves as rabbinical students doing a research project on the state of Jewish life in the Diaspora.

On that hot and hazy day though, we didn’t manage to get into a single house. In some instances, we discovered that the people were not Jewish. In other places the people were not home or the address was incorrect. We were about to call it a day, feeling rather disappointed. When we got to the address on the list we had made for the day and nobody was there, we planned on going back to the hotel. As soon as we set out I saw that we were seriously low on gas. I pointed this out, but my friend didn’t seem concerned. He figured that even if the needle was flickering on empty we could still drive a few more kilometers and we would definitely make it back to the hotel.

Well, on a fairly quiet highway, with orchards on either side, the car began sounding like it was choking and it slowly came to a stop. The cars behind us began honking and we quickly moved the car to the side of the road. We were exhausted and low in spirits. We hadn’t met a single Jew that day and now we were stuck. Who would come help us?

We tried stopping cars, but nobody volunteered to stop and help. We looked odd to the locals with our hats and jackets in the heat. A long time passed and then we saw a motorcycle coming out of a path in the orchard and heading toward us. A motorcycle is easier to stop because you can look the driver in the eye. Maybe his conscience would encourage him to stop and help us.

He stopped, parked his motorcycle and came over to us. At first we were nervous because he was a big guy and full of tattoos with rings in every possible place. He wore sunglasses so his eyes were blocked from us, which was unnerving.

“We are stuck without gas,” said my friend.

“How do smart guys like you do something so stupid?” he asked jokingly.

We knew he was right and didn’t respond, and then he said a line that made our antennas go up.

“I thought members of the tribe were smarter than that.” So that told us he was Jewish and we asked his name.

“Bill Aronson,” he said.

“You live at … right?” we said, citing an address on our list.

“Right!” he said in astonishment. “How did you know that?”

“We were there a quarter of an hour ago and you weren’t home,” we said.

The conversation took off and then he told us that although he lived nearby, he had never been in that orchard before. He said he worked in real estate and a friend told him about a building in that area. That morning, after much deliberation, he had decided to check it out. He told us that his wife was not Jewish. She was a Buddhist and he didn’t think that if he was home that he would have invited us in.

My friend went off with him to get gas. He had been on his way to pick up his children from the preschool. On the way, he had met his wife and she agreed to pick them up instead. So he came back with a jerry can of gas and we had time to talk. He said that the only one in his family connected to Judaism was his mother. So when he visited a monastery the year before, he had himself videotaped shouting “Shma Yisroel” and sent it to his mother to make her happy.

We asked him if he had ever put on t’fillin. He had no idea what we were talking about. When we asked him to put on t’fillin before sunset, he wasn’t willing to do it until we spoke some more about the significance of his being Jewish. Then he rolled up his sleeve. We also blew the shofar for him and explained the reason for doing so. This was all new to him. He was very moved and cried. We spent a long time standing there and talking.

After we parted ways, we realized why we hadn’t found him at home. If he had been home, it is unlikely that he would have put on t’fillin for the first time in his life while his gentile wife and children were around. Suddenly, all our feelings of having wasted the entire day disappeared and were replaced with great satisfaction over having reached another Jew.

Fortunate are we for being Chassidim! If that man would have been at home, we wouldn’t have been successful. If our gas tank was full, we wouldn’t have met him. If he hadn’t decided that day to check out the property, we would not have met. Hashem had arranged it all and it took place just as it was meant to be.

YOMIM NORA’IM 
ON SHLICHUS

The shlichus I’m telling you about took place in 5757. I had spent Tishrei in 770 for ten years in a row and I planned on flying to New York at the end of Elul. But the shliach urged me to stay at least for the Yomim Nora’im. The compromise was that I would write to the Rebbe and open a volume of Igros Kodesh for an answer. The answer was amazing; whenever I think about it, I get excited all over again.

The first letter on the page was addressed to my maternal grandfather. At that time, he served as a rav in Eilat and he asked the Rebbe whether he could tell people who asked about the age of the universe about how Hashem first created worlds and destroyed them. The Rebbe told him no, but what caught my attention was the fact that my grandfather sent the letter during the Yomim Nora’im when he was on shlichus.

The second letter was addressed to R’ Refael Wilschansky. The Rebbe wrote him that he would be happy to see him on Sukkos. That answer was clear enough!

So that year I remained in Hawaii for Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur and then took a flight to 770.