“Rabbi, I don’t believe in G-d,” he declared.
I looked at him in surprise. Why would he declare such a thing, unprovoked? I oered some reply, and we boarded the plane and took our seats.
As the chaplain, I was given a manifest of all passengers aboard. My eye was immediately drawn to the one Jewish name on the list - Arnaud Cohen*. I’ll bet anything he’s the soldier that approached me before to declare his atheism, I thought to myself. Of course, he was.
Once we were settled in Africa, I invited Arnaud to join me in my military villa (as clergy, I was given the nicest accommodations on base). He arrived late Friday aernoon, shortly before Shabbos.
“I know,” I began, “that the entire purpose of my military mission is for you.”
Arnaud was taken aback, so I explained the concept of Hashgacha pratis.
“I don’t believe in G-d,” he reminded me, shaking his head.
“Humor me,” I begged. “The sun is about to set. We only have these few precious moments le, since I’ll be heading back to France early Sunday morning. Can you please put on tefillin?”
I made a compelling case, and Arnaud agreed. Shabbos came in just a few minutes later, and I invited him to join my solitary Shabbos meal. I sang the tunes of Kabbalas Shabbos joyfully, and began to sing the age-old tune of Sholom Aleichem.
As I sang, Arnaud the atheist began to sob.
“It’s been twenty years since I’ve heard kiddush,” he cried. “I le my parent’s home so angry, resolved never to have anything to do with G-d ever again. I married a non-Jew, and was proud to be an atheist. You Sholom Aleichem brings me back.”
A servicewoman in New Caledonia asked me to prepare her son for his bar mitzvah. Despite the time dierence, we started to meet over Zoom, and I introduced him to the Alef Beis, brachos, and the rudiments of Judaism.
Once he was reading fluently and davening on his own, I told his mother he was ready for his bar mitzvah. The chaplaincy oice felt it was only right that the rabbi who taught him should be there to celebrate with him.
The government paid for me to visit New Caledonia - during Covid, no less - to celebrate a Jewish child’s bar mitzvah.
As I sat at that strange table with my airline style kosher meals, the bar mitzvah boy’s non-Jewish father eating treif beside me, I reflected on the calling of a shliach - “Ve’atem teluktu l’echad echad - You will gather them, one by one.” Why else would I fly 16 hours to help the lone Jewish family on the entire base?
And yet, the tremendous eort I’d spent on this individual family was amply rewarded. The boy committed to putting on tefillin. By the next Shabbos, their meal looked completely dierent. This time, they ate on paper plates, and the menu consisted of jarred or canned food - the only kosher items his mother could find on such short notice.
I walked into the classroom ready to begin my lesson, but I sensed a certain tension in the air.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“One of our friends has a question, but he’s too embarrassed to ask,” one of the boys volunteered.
I sat behind my desk and smiled. “No one should ever be embarrassed to ask a question.”
“I have a girlfriend,” Ruben*, another boy in the class blurted out.
“Okay,” I responded. In a school like ours, where none of the students came from religious homes, this was nothing unusual. “I just hope she’s Jewish!”
Ruben’s red face and downturned head were all the answers I needed.
I knew we weren’t going to get through the day’s lesson plan. Instead, I launched into a discussion about the importance of marrying (and dating) Jewish. I told Ruben that no matter how diicult it was for him, it was imperative that he break up with his girlfriend.
“I’ll do it now,” he said, pulling out his phone. He quickly punched in a text and smiled weakly. “There. It’s done.”
As I prepared for bed later that night, I reflected on Ruben’s challenge, and how readily he’d accepted my advice.
I pulled out my phone and sent him a quick text, even though it was already midnight. I’m so proud of what you did today, I wrote. All my years of teaching were worthwhile, just for that moment of helping you overcome a challenge and do the right thing.
The next morning, Ruben approached me at recess.
“Rabbi, I want to tell you the truth. Yesterday in class, when I said I’d texted my girlfriend, I lied. But then late last night, I got your text. I was so touched that you were thinking of me so many hours aer school, that I actually did break up with her.”
“Thank you so much,” Mr. Jacoby* said, as I finished aixing the last mezuzah on his doorpost. “Here; I have something for you.” He handed me two checks. “This one is to cover the cost of the mezuzos,” he said, “and this one is a donation for the school.”
I accepted the first check, but took the second and ripped it in half.
“How can I take a donation for the school, knowing your children are enrolled in public school?” I asked him. “Keep the money. Give me your children instead!”
My heartfelt plea was heard. Mr. Jacoby enrolled his daughter in our school, where she continued through 12th grade.
My wife was 8 months pregnant when the ultrasound revealed a worrisome complication. The umbilical cord had bunched up, creating a blockage between the fetus and the placenta. The doctors worried for the baby’s health and shook their heads sorrowfully.
Hoping the cord would loosen, they ordered my wife to rest, and told her to come back in a couple of weeks.
A few days later was Gimmel Tammuz. I caught the next flight to New York, so I’d be by the levaya. We followed the Rebbe’s aron to the Ohel, and, somehow finding a paper and pen, I jotted down a request for a bracha for my wife and unborn baby. My tzetel joined the shower of dirt and rocks that formed the burial mound. I felt an immediate sense of relief and assurance.
When I returned home, I told my wife, “Everything will be fine. When we go to the next appointment, you’ll see.”
A few days later, we went back to the clinic for the next scan. The doctors glanced at each meaningfully, and spoke to each other in hushed tones.
“What’s going on?” my wife asked, nervously.
“We don’t know why or how,” the doctors explained. “But there is absolutely no obstruction anymore. Look at the difference between the last scan and this! I don’t understand how it changed so quickly!”
We smiled. We knew exactly how.
*Names changed to protect privacy
