From Businessman to Plumber

By Rabbi Eli Hecht, Director of Chabad of South Bay in Lomita, CA

People ask, “what do you Shluchim do all day?” Well, there really is no real same day. As every day is different and a test. Let me explain with a recent day’s work.

This past week was a bit tough for me.

I caught a cold and was sick, but was determined to daven in Shul with a minyan. After minyan, I taught my Shulchan Aruch class and stayed to counsel a family that came by.

At 12:00, after paying some bills and answering some phone calls I thought I would leave and get some rest. But as the saying goes in Yiddish, “mentch tracht un G-t lacht” – man thinks and G-d laughs.

As I was about to leave the phone rang. I let it ring and ring and waited for it to go to voicemail. For some unknown reason, I felt the call was important and after the third time I answered the call. A man asked me, “Do you have a pair of teffilin I could use?” I wanted to tell him not really, as I was planning to leave at that very moment. Needless to say, I followed my Yetzer Tov, my good inclination, and gave him directions to Chabad and waited an hour and a half for him to come by.

A nice young businessman came in and said that he was the one that made the call. He hadn’t missed putting on Tefillin for the past 13 years, but this morning something had happened and he had missed putting them on. He could not keep his mind on his work and reached out to a Chabad House for help.

“What a story,” I thought to myself. “The Rebbe taught us to think positive and do good, and the rest is commentary.”

When I eventually got home that day I encountered a plumbing problem and called the plumber. When he came I asked him if he was Jewish. He said, yes, he was Jewish. He took a look at my large Judaic library and said that he could not be a good Jew as he did not have a Jewish education.

During the discussion, he explained that he was orphaned at an early age. It seemed like an opportunity to ask him to put on Tefillin. He agreed and I told him that he was officially Bar Mitzvahed, which pleased him to no end. He even took a selfie picture of me and himself wearing the Tefillin to show his non-Jewish wife and child.

All in a day’s work.

The Rebbe teaches us that where we go may be predestined, but what we do there is free will. Remember, wherever you are, you can help another Jewish person identify with our noble heritage.