THE REBBE AND THE HIPPIE’S RIDDLE

In the middle of the farbrengen, the Rebbe suddenly began talking about the youth who are self-destructing around the world, who seek answers to their questions, referring to the hippie movement that captivated youth in the western world at the end of the 60’s and into the 70’s. The Rebbe spoke about the problems with transcendental meditation and suggested a creative solution for kosher meditation. * Few noticed a hippie standing near the farbrengen bima with his long hair who listened closely to the simultaneous translation. * Nearly 40 years after that farbrengen, Rabbi Yitzchok Chaviv, shliach for French-speakers in Yerushalayim, discovered the story behind that surprise sicha. * Who was that hippie? How did the Rebbe solve the riddle of his life in yechidus?

We were sitting after davening in the Chabad shul in Gilo, Yerushalayim and farbrenging in honor of my father’s birthday. My father is Rabbi Yitzchok Chaviv, shliach and director of a Chabad House for French-speakers.

After saying L’chaim and exchanging heartfelt wishes with people in the community, my father told a story that happened nearly 40 years ago. Although I had heard snippets of the story, this was the first time I was hearing it in full. This is what he said:

It was Tammuz 5739/1979. I was a young man and I flew to the Rebbe for 12-13 Tammuz. When I arrived, I discovered a problem with my return ticket which I had to fix at the airline’s office in Manhattan.

In Manhattan, I couldn’t find the address and I tried calling the airline so they could help me. My English was poor and there was nobody in the New York branch who spoke French. I stood there, feeling frustrated, putting coin after coin into the public phone as I tried, in vain, to communicate with the people at the airline.

Suddenly, I heard someone address me in French. “Hey, do you need help?” I turned around and saw a hippie, around 20 years old, with long hair, a beard, and a huge backpack. He was wearing colorful hippie-style clothes.

Although his appearance was off-putting, his voice was pleasant and he seemed to mean well. I gave him the phone and he translated what I said into fluent English. He quickly straightened out the problem so that I was able to find my way to the office.

INTERESTED IN MEETING THE REBBE

I thanked him for his help and he asked me whether I’m from France. I said I was. He asked, “What are you doing here?”

I told him that I am a Chassid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who lives in Brooklyn and came on a visit.

“You are Lubavitch? Listen, I grew up with a woman who might be my mother and she is Jewish. Once I realized I might be Jewish, I have a hobby to trip up rabbis. Whenever I see Jewish rabbis, I ask them a lot of questions to challenge their faith and their knowledge, until they lose patience and send me away. I’ve done this a few times and it worked rather well.”

Every new sentence he uttered was more bizarre than the previous one, but when you meet a hippie with a beard full of braids wearing colorful rags in the heart of New York, you don’t exactly expect to find the epitome of logic. Yet, what he said sounded bizarre even by hippie standards.

He did not wait for me to react but went on. “There is just one rabbi who I couldn’t get to lose his cool, no matter how much I tried to annoy him. He remained composed. That rabbi also belongs to Lubavitch. His name was Rabbi Yehuda Matusof from Nancy (later shliach in Cannes). It would be interesting to meet the rabbi of the only rabbi that I couldn’t infuriate.”

WAS THE WOMAN JEWISH?

I suggested he join me in going to Crown Heights. He didn’t think twice about it and we got on the train to Crown Heights. On the way, I got a better picture of his complicated life. He was raised within a cult in a mountainous place in France far from civilization. Life on the commune did not consist of normal family units. He never knew who his father was. Among the women who lived there, there was one who took care of him more than the others did and he assumed she was his mother, although he was never told that outright. That woman once told him she is Jewish.

When he reached his teens he decided to run away from the cult and he began traveling around France. He went from place to place and was fed by good people whom he met on the way. He once showed up in a Jewish community and mentioned that his mother is Jewish. The people were excited and told him that according to Jewish law he too is Jewish and they gave him food and money.

He began visiting Jewish communities and telling about his Jewish origin. Beyond always being received nicely, for him it was a sort of connection to the roots he wasn’t sure were his.

Doubts about his mother’s identity and about his being Jewish bothered him. That, along with his curiosity and anarchistic temperament, developed into a strange hobby of annoying rabbis.

After wandering around France, he continued to Canada where he lived for a few years with a group of hippies. From there, he went to the United States and arrived in New York.

THE REBBE BEGAN TALKING ABOUT MEDITATION

As we continued to talk, we arrived in Crown Heights. That day, there was a farbrengen for 13 Tammuz. I got him earphones so he could hear the farbrengen in simultaneous translation. We got spots fairly close to the farbrengen bima, below the Rebbe’s table.

The farbrengen began. The young man was hypnotized by the sight of the Rebbe and the atmosphere: the crowding, the niggunim, the silence, and the sichos. Then the Rebbe began talking about Jewish youth who are being lost. The Rebbe spoke about young people seeking answers and searching for spiritual meaning in idol worship and mentioned transcendental meditation which had a huge following in the U.S. at the time.

The Rebbe said that meditation itself is not something outright negative since it helps those who need healing. The fact that it is used by some as idol worship with the burning of incense, adopting bowing positions and uttering the names of gods was not a reason to outright shun meditation. Those who needed it should be encouraged to do meditation while contemplating holy things.

The Rebbe spoke about this at length, and the hippie left the farbrengen in turmoil. He had never heard a rabbi talk so openly and clearly about transcendental meditation, analyze its components, and with the precision of a surgeon clean away the detritus and use it for holiness.

MYSTERY SOLVED

The young man asked whether he could meet with the Rebbe. I explained that the Rebbe receives people briefly and told him how to arrange an appointment.

He was given an appointment for a little more than a week later. Throughout that week, he remained in Crown Heights and we met from time to time.

On the day of his yechidus he was very nervous. On the days that he was in 770, he had learned that the Rebbe is not just another great rabbi but something else entirely. I saw that he needed to be alone, so I merely explained how a yechidus went and left him.

Late at night, I left the big zal and saw him sitting on the grass at the entrance to 770, under the Rebbe’s window, completely withdrawn into himself, his head between his knees and sobbing. I realized he was after the yechidus. I stood nearby and waited for him to tell me what happened.

He slowly calmed down and then looked at me with reddened eyes and said, “I am a Jew. That’s for sure.”

He said that the Rebbe solved the mystery that had been with him all his adult life. When he entered for yechidus, the Rebbe looked up and even before he gave the note or said anything, the Rebbe declared, “You are Jewish.”

Now he knew with certainty that he was Jewish. I wanted to ask him what else happened in yechidus, but I felt the time wasn’t right to quiz him. He was in an emotional upheaval and had to digest the revelation, mainly to understand what it meant, what the significance was for him, and what he needed to do with this new information.

He remained in Crown Heights a little while longer while I had to fly back to France. We parted and did not keep in touch.

CLOSURE IN FRANCE

Two years went by. It was a Friday in the summer and close to Shabbos when I heard knocking at the door. I opened the door and couldn’t believe my eyes. There stood the hippie, dressed in the same colorful way, with a beard and long hair.

For a few seconds we looked at one another in shock. It was too fantastic to be real. The hippie went nuts and began banging himself as though to check whether this was for real, as he shouted, “Tabernacle, tabernacle,” (apparently, a French-Canadian swearword that conveys amazement over something impossible).

Once he calmed down, I brought him in and he asked whether he could join us for Shabbos. I said of course and rushed to finish the Shabbos preparations.

At the Shabbos meal he filled in the missing part of the story. He said that the yechidus with the Rebbe shook him up and he decided to keep Shabbos. Till today, I do not know whether it was a request or suggestion of the Rebbe or his own idea, but what’s definite is that when he left the yechidus he decided that his Jewishness would be expressed by his observing Shabbos.

He did not know Halachos and he thought keeping Shabbos meant spending Shabbos with a rabbi. He continued wandering the world as a hippie and every week he found a shliach, rabbi or a Jewish community where he could spend Shabbos.

He completed a long trek across America and then continued with a group of hippies to Europe. At a certain point, he returned to France, still making sure to spend Shabbos with Jews.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN TOULOUSE

He arrived in Toulouse, a quiet city in the south of France. It was the height of summer, in August, and most people were on vacation. The shliach Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Matusof was not in town. He was with mekuravim in the mountains.

After not finding the shliach, the young man continued looking for Jews according to his order of preferences: a shliach, a local rabbi, a community. The local rabbi was also not in town and he looked for the address of a shul in a local guidebook. He found the address of the old synagogue in Toulouse that was described as a historic site. He went there but found it closed.

Shabbos was approaching and he didn’t know what to do. The old caretaker of the shul noticed him. She explained that the rabbi and most people were away on vacation which is why the shul was closed at this time of year.

Seeing how disappointed he was, she remembered that that week she had noticed Mr. Zuckerman, the shliach of B’nei Akiva, in the city. “Maybe he is at home,” she said and she gave him the address, 7 Rue Malaret.

Rue Malaret is not a long street and building number 7 was hidden behind other buildings. The entrance was from building number 5 but there was no way of knowing this from the outside. He began looking for number 7. He walked along the odd side of the street, and then again, counting the buildings one by one, 1, 3, 5, 9. Building 7 did not appear to exist.

Then he thought he hadn’t remembered the number correctly and he crossed the street to number 8 and looked for the name Zuckerman on the mail boxes. He didn’t find Zuckerman but he noticed the name Chaviv. That sounded Jewish to him and he decided to try his luck. “Maybe they can explain where Zuckerman lives,” he figured. Two flights up and we stood face to face, two years after that Tammuz in 770.

“He was still looking for a place to land, but spiritually, his soul seemed to have found peace.”

The hippie, who had come for Shabbos, stayed with us for over a month. This time he did not attempt to deflect. We sat and learned and he began to make significant strides in Torah and mitzvos. After a month, he was fully observant. He had t’fillin that he got from a shliach in Texas, and the tzitzis that he had undertaken to wear he began wearing over his clothes. It fit well with his hippie getup. They were his new hippie clothes.

He then told us he was leaving and I don’t know what happened to him. He was still looking for a place to land, but spiritually, his soul seemed to have found peace. He left us still looking like a hippie, but fully observant of Torah and mitzvos.