By Chaya Chazan
My parents went through some measures of mesiras nefesh to be close to the Rebbe. My father had to spend a significant period of time fundraising for his shlichus in Eretz Yisroel. At first, he left us at home, but when the separation grew too difficult, he asked the Rebbe what to do.
The Rebbe told him to ask the advice of experienced friends, who told him to bring us all over. We left everything we had in Eretz Yisrael and moved to Crown Heights. Though finances were tight and it was hard to be so far away from everyone and everything they knew, my parents understood why they were making such a great sacrifice. At farbrengens, the Rebbe spoke about “Mach duh Eretz Yisroel,” “Make your current place into Eretz Yisroel,” and my father felt as though it was encouragement directed towards him personally.
I was just a bochur, so although I remember hearing my mother crying some nights, I was enjoying every minute being so close to the “action.” We went to every farbrengen, received every kuntres, stood in line for dollars, and spent a year living life on the Rebbe’s timeline. It was exhilarating! Those memories still keep me going.
Having been on the other end of things, I realized that being far away from family and volunteering for a life of challenges has its benefits as well! If you know why you’re doing it, it makes all hardships fade into mere annoyances.
While my wife and I were dating, I told her I wanted a shlichus where I’d be starting from scratch. I relished the challenge of building a community from nothing. Baruch Hashem, she agreed, and we got engaged and married shortly thereafter.
Thanks to Rabbi Yossi Biston, we were able to move from Eretz Yisroel to Parkland, Florida on a temporary shlichus until we found a permanent position. We knew there was no shliach in the state capital, Tallahassee, so we got approval from Rabbi Korf, the head shliach of Florida, to start a Chabad house there.
It was exactly what I’d had in mind: we knew absolutely no one in the city and had nothing to start us off. We were faced with the challenge of building a shlichus from scratch.
Our area covers the entire Florida panhandle, so, while we were based in Tallahassee, we often had to travel hours to Pensacola, Panama City, and other locations. Baruch Hashem, in the last 25 years, we’ve been able to bring other shluchim down to cover those cities full time!
Starting Out in Tallahassee
When we first moved to Tallahassee, it was daunting and overwhelming. Of course, there were Jews around. But where to start? What to do first? Was this even the right place for us? I asked Hashem to give us a sign that we were where we needed to be.
I took a deep breath and decided, first things first. We need a house.
My wife’s cousin had gone to school in Tallahassee, so we asked her for recommendations on where to begin our search. We were directed to a row of apartment buildings. A young man gave us a tour of the unit. He told us he was a college student, and kept eyeing us in wide-eyed surprise when he thought we weren’t looking. Finally, he spoke up, although he was still hesitant.
“I was just speaking with my mom the other day,” he said. “She encouraged me to explore my Judaism and go to synagogue. Do you know any synagogues around?”
I’d gotten my sign, loud and clear.
Building Community from Scratch
We’d arrived in Tallahassee with the clothes on our back and not much else. We had no choice but to get right to work.
We didn’t have a computer, but we had a typewriter. We bought some labels from the store, and equipped ourselves with the latest copy of the White Pages. We sat at our kitchen table, with me leafing through the phone book, reading out Jewish-sounding names, and my wife clacking away at the keyboard, typing out labels for each family.
Pirim was coming up, so we decided to host a Purim party. We went to the library, armed with a floppy disc from the Shluchim Office, loaded with basic “how to” guides and templates for holiday event flyers. We customized the Purim party template, printed it out, and mailed it to our painstakingly typed list.
Baruch Hashem, the party was a great success! We met so many people, and no longer felt like we were swimming in the deep end with no life jacket. Our first month of shlichus had given us many challenges, but also shown us how rewarding it could be.
First Pesach Seder and Financial Challenges
On a high from our Purim event, we enthusiastically began planning a communal Pesach seder. The reservations were pouring in, and our shopping list kept getting longer and longer.
We didn’t have any money saved up, as our move to Tallahassee had been somewhat impulsive. We counted on our good friends, MasterCard and American Express, to fund the sedarim, and swiped our card again and again without paying much attention to the running totals.
Baruch Hashem, the sedarim were beautiful! Many people from the community joined us, and it was a great opportunity for us to get to know them, and for them to get to know one another.
As we counted the days of sefira, there was another accounting taking place. MasterCard sent us a thick envelope whose bottom line was staggeringly insurmountable. We had no sponsors, no generous donor with whom we’d built a strong friendship - we had nothing.
As spring shifted into summer, my doubts rose back to the surface: did Hashem want us in Tallahassee? Had we done the right thing? If it was where we were supposed to be, how would we overcome this hurdle?
I’d never missed a Gimmel Tammuz in New York since the Rebbe’s passing in 1994, but our financial situation made it impossible to buy a ticket. Then I remembered I had accumulated points with TWA, and could buy a ticket with those.
