TANKS AGAINST ASSIMILATION
Rabbi Yosef Shmuel Yehoshua Gerlitzky
After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Rebbe pushed for increasing efforts into Jewish outreach. Over the course of the next year, he introduced four new “mitzvah campaigns” — in addition to the tefillin campaign that he launched in 1967, before the Six Day War — calling on Chabad chasidim to promote Torah study, mezuzah, owning Jewish books, and charity. (There would be five more such campaigns over the next few years — for Shabbat candles, kosher, family purity, education, and love for a fellow Jew, for a total of ten.)
By this time, I had been studying in the Central Lubavitcher Yeshiva at 770 Eastern Parkway for a couple of years, having arrived there in the summer of 1970. Together with the other yeshivah students, I enthusiastically joined in these outreach activities, or “mivtzoyim,” as they became known.
Later that same year, there was a terrible terrorist attack that took place in the northern Israeli town of Maalot, in which over a hundred high school children were taken hostage, and over twenty murdered during the rescue attempt. Once again, the Rebbe spoke of the imperative to spread Jewish observance through the mivtzoim. It was in the wake of those events that outreach activities with the famous “mitzvah tanks” began in earnest.
Back then, the mitzvah tanks were not yet the fancy mobile homes they are today; they were just plain old trucks decorated on the outside with different Jewish-themed banners. On top of the vehicles, we strapped speakers playing lively chasidic music. Then, we hauled a few tables from the shul at 770, brought our tefillin and a few basic Jewish books — prayer books, Chumashim, and Tanyas — and spread out across New York City.
It was the yeshivah boys who took the initiative in making the mitzvah tanks, but the Rebbe took a real liking to them and encouraged them tremendously.
One day, I and a few yeshivah colleagues had gone out on the mitzvah tank to the Bronx. We were on the way back when one of the boys looked out of the window and saw the Rebbe’s car driving alongside our vehicle on our left side. The Rebbe was being driven back from the Ohel, the resting place of the Previous Rebbe, heading to Crown Heights, just as we were. In a moment, we were all glued to the windows of the tank. When the Rebbe saw the mitzvah tank traveling next to him, he opened his passenger’s seat window, and began vigorously waving his hand in encouragement. Again and again, his hand whirled around in time with the chasidic music blaring from our speakers, and on seeing this, we began jumping and singing with even more excitement. The scene lasted for a few minutes until, at one intersection, the Rebbe’s car suddenly turned right and onto another street.
continued on reverse
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An oral history project dedicated to documenting the life of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. The story is one of thousands recorded in over 1,700 videotaped interviews conducted to date. While we have done our utmost to authenticate these stories, they reflect the person’s recollection and interpretation of the Rebbe’s words.
