Carrying On Family, Community

By Yisroel Besser, Mishpacha Magazine

The bungalow door slams. A midsummer breeze rustles through the trees; the sound of children laughing, a ball bouncing on pavement. At the kitchen table of the spacious summer home in upstate New York, Rabbi Hirshy Minkowicz speaks.

He speaks of his wife, his best friend, his partner in building a haven in the wilderness. He speaks of her sudden passing, how he and their eight children lost the most important person in their lives in a single instant. He doesn’t speak in hushed tones, and he hasn’t ushered me to a quiet corner or private balcony for our conversations.

Hirshy Minkowicz is a Chabad shliach, accustomed to living in the public eye, rarely at a loss for words. His family — parents, siblings, nephews, and nieces — wander in and out, listening as he expresses truths that few other men would be able to articulate.

“We’re a close family,” he says, shrugging when I ask him if he wouldn’t prefer privacy, “and everyone knows what I feel.” So we sit in Monticello, drink ice tea, and speak about life. About challenge. And the story I hear is part chassidishe maiseh, part hashkafah lesson — a narrative bursting with resilience, faith, and determination.

In Our Blood

The smile which rarely leaves Hirshy’s face is tinged with pain, his good-humored eyes hooded with sorrow — but it’s clear that he’s made a decision: The smile is what you’ll see, the hearty laugh what you’ll hear.

The yichus lesson with which he opens our conversation is relevant. His father is a descendant of Reb Peretz Chein, the legendary chassid who’d seen the Mitteler Rebbe, second rebbe of Chabad, and several subsequent rebbeim. As an elderly man, Reb Peretz saw the future Frierdiker Rebbe as an infant.

“My mother’s parents weren’t chassidim, they were Polish survivors. The friends with which they came over to America mainly abandoned Yiddishkeit once they got here, but my grandparents wouldn’t let go. My zeidewas a simple tailor, but he sent his daughters to Bais Yaakov, to summer camp, and then they became chassidim.

“You could say that survival is in our blood. We hold on tight.”

Hirshy grew up in Crown Heights and went through the Lubavitch system. “It wasn’t always clear to me that shlichus was my future — my family has an entrepreneurial spirit — but the dream was always there.”

At the age of 18, Hirshy went to Columbus, Ohio on a shlichus internship program. “I had never been on an airplane before, and it might have just been that opportunity that motivated me,” he laughs.

With the question of his destiny still unresolved, Hirshy got engaged to Rashi Lieberman in 1997. The energetic kallah, one of 17 children, displayed the insightfulness and encouragement that would mark her future successes from the outset.

“She let me know that she would be happy with whatever path I chose, whatever would be best for our growth and happiness as a couple, as a family.”

Nothing Insignificant

Hirshy, a serious student of Hashgachah pratis, shares a fact about his wife’s early years. “My father-in-law had spent time on shlichus in Capetown, South Africa, and Rashi had been born there. She only lived there until she was four years old, but we believe that nothing is insignificant.

“Now listen…”

On the 2nd of Elul, 1997, the Minkowiczes were married. Hirshy joined the kollel in Crown Heights, he and his wife basking in the glow of a blissful new life. One day in the early spring of 1998, Rabbi Yossi New, head shaliach to the state of Georgia, arrived in Crown Heights.

The Atlanta-based rabbi had traveled out to suburban Alpharetta just weeks earlier for a pidyon haben. He had noticed cars parked the length of the block, and was surprised that the new parents had invited so many non-Jews to a religious ceremony.

When he entered the house, Rabbi New quickly realized that the large group of friends were all Jewish, just like the baalei simchah.

“It’s time that you guys had your own Chabad House,” Rabbi New told the partygoers, and, being traditional and respectful toward Yiddishkeit, they agreed. “Call me when you’re ready,” the host had said to the rabbi.

So Rabbi New arrived in Crown Heights to find the right couple to meet the spiritual needs of the thriving young community outside of Atlanta.

Back then, the procedure was that young couples wishing to go on shlichus signed up for their preferred assignment. While some had the pioneering spirit necessary to establish a new Chabad House, others wanted to work for existing programs, with a guaranteed salary and kehillah infrastructure; still others opted for chinuch positions. That year, there were only a handful of couples interested in launching their own operation, and the Minkowiczes were one of them.

Hirshy stops the story to make a point. “Only in Chabad do you have to beg for a mission, rather than be encouraged, huh?” he says brightly.

Rabbi New saw potential. He invited them to Georgia for a Shabbos.

“I came to shul early on Shabbos morning,” recalls Hirshy, “and I took a random seat. I sat next to this very serious and respectful young man; as soon as davening was over,

Rabbi New introduced me to him. Turns out he was Warren Modlin, the fellow spearheading the Alpharetta project. He would become my closest ally in the coming years. I even felt the Hashgachah in my choice of a seat.”

The Minkowiczes drove out to North Fulton County on Sunday morning and they were amazed at what they saw.

“Everything was new. It was this vast expanse of land, and developers were building up parcel after parcel, meeting the demands of an increasing wave of young families looking for the better value of suburban living.”

The sparkle and bloom of the area spoke to them. “We felt this energy, this promise of a bright future in the fresh construction all around us. We loved it.”

But more than the buildings, it was the people of Alpharetta that drew the couple.

The Jewish community was comprised of many newly arrived immigrants from South Africa. The unrest in that country had convinced them to relocate to America.

Accustomed to a certain climate and way of life, the South Africans, who formed a close-knit group and wanted to settle near each other, appreciated the slow place and generous sunshine in the South. Alpharetta was booming with South African Jews.

Rashi, whose neshamah had come down to this world in distant South Africa, understood the significance of this. Alpharetta would be home.

On the 2nd of Elul 1998, exactly eight weeks after Rabbi New had come to Crown Heights seeking a couple of dreamers, the Minkowiczes celebrated their first anniversary on the moving truck. They had arrived.

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