Our Guest’s 3 Questions

Mendel Kramer is 10 years old and he goes to the Cheder Tzeirei Hashluchim at the Ohel. He is on Shlichus with his family in Merrick, NY. He wrote this story for Jewish Kids Got Talent:

Does anyone know the song “In a small college town”? Well, that song reminds me of a story that happened at my Chabad House:

It was one Friday night after the Shabbos meal. Everyone in my family was tired and we went to sleep. Meanwhile, my father went to a sheva brochos of the David family (his ba’alei batim).

On the way, when my father was waiting on the corner of Sunrise Highway and Hewlett Ave. next to the train station, he saw a man who looked Jewish standing without a Yarmulke with a suitcase and my father stuck out his hand and said “Shalom Aleichem, Good Shabbos!” and asked him what he was doing there.

The man said, “I just came from Eretz Yisrael and I’ve been sitting here for four hours and now I’m going to Dunkin Donuts to use the bathroom.” My father asked him, “Have you eaten anything?” He said “no”, so my father brought him to the sheva brochos.

The David family is known to be welcoming to guests, and no one leaves their house hungry. Even though they came at the end of the meal, he was served a full meal and ate well.

After the sheva brochos my father told him “now is shabbos and you can’t go on a train,” and my father invited him to my house to sleep. Although he didn’t want to stay by us for Shabbos at first, my father convinced him to stay.

It was 3:00 am and “he discusses Yiddishkeit all through the night”, telling my father the following story:

He came from a frum family and whenever he would ask his parents questions on Yiddishkeit, they would always scream at him “We are not allowed to ask questions on Yiddishkeit, Na’aseh v’nishma!”

So then he went to college and others started asking him questions about Yiddishkeit and he didn’t know the answers. He became anti-religious and made an anti religious group against Yiddishkeit!

Then he went into business and did very well. One of his secretaries, a non-Jewish lady became friendly with him and he moved in to her apartment. One day she came to him and said, “I want to marry you!”

He thought to himself “I think this is going a bit too far. I cannot marry a goy!” So he told her, “Let me go to Eretz Yisrael for a year and think about it,” and he went to Eretz Yisrael.

But his non Jewish friend kept calling and texting him to “please come back” and after four days in Eretz Yisrael, he was on a plane back. He thought, “How can I just go back to her apartment? If I go back, I will have to marry her. Let me think this through one more time. I will go to Merrick where no one knows me, there are probably no Jews there, and maybe I’ll rent an apartment there and have some time to think about it.” That is where my father met him, at the Merrick train station, with his suitcase.

So my father said “It is already very late now and I want to go to sleep but if you aren’t tired, here is a book of letters from the Rebbe that you can read, maybe it can answer some of your questions.”

Then the man opens up the book to any random page and jumped up and said “Wow, this is amazing, is the Rebbe talking to me? Is this random or is this some kind of message? This letter says what just happened to me! The Rebbe writes: “I trust that when you visited the western wall you observed the Lubavitcher men engaged there in the tefillin campaign” (the letter and the spirit pg. 250).

“That is just what happened to me at the Kosel! The Lubavitchers asked me to put on tefillin and I did!” He said. The next morning, my father woke him up to go to Shul. At first, he didn’t want to go, but after several attempts he agreed to come to Shul, and he sat down, right next to me. But he left after a few minutes of being there. After spending a whole day talking and learning and enjoying a true Shabbos day, he seemed to have changed totally!

He willingly went with us and davened Mincha and Maariv with a lot of Kavana!

And then, after Shabbos, my father sent me out of the room, and they sat down to talk. The man said that he had three problems:

1: What should I do with my anti-religious group? How can I tell them that now I believe in Hashem?

2: My whole family hates me and they do not want me to enter the house so how can I return?

3: How can I go back to this lady and tell her that I don’t want to marry her?”

So my father answered him:

1: Just like you were able to make and convince others to join an anti-religious group, you are very influential and you can change them and convince them to change too.

2: Go back to your family and even if they seem angry at first, stay calm and show them that you have changed, and they will be happy to see you.

3: Just do not go back to that lady. And if you want I can speak to her for you.

Go to the Ohel and daven to Hashem to give you the strength that you need to overcome this. The Rebbe will help you.”

A few days later, he called my father and told him that he went to the ohel, and he feels a lot better. He feels that he will be able to overcome this challenge!

Before Rosh Hashanah, my father got a call from his mother thanking him for everything and told him that their son has changed – he is a new person – and they welcomed him back home with open arms.

So now as we sing this song, we have a new version of it, just one difference:

In a small Merrick town
there was a young man feeling down
His future was uncertainty
“Oh, what will become of me?”
A Chabad house is nearby
the young man gives it a try
“Maybe direction there I can find
and have peace of mind.”
He discusses Yiddishkeit
All through the night
But he cries, “I don’t belong
I am too far gone.”
The shliach says, “Not true,
Hegam shechoto Yisrael hu
No matter where you may roam
you can always come back home.

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