Touching Moment at Grand Canyon

By COLlive reporter
Photos by Binyomin Lifshitz

It’s been an annual tradition that members of the Marina Roscha Synagogue and Jewish Community Center in Moscow travel to New York for Shabbos Selichos, the one before Rosh Hashana.

They fly out together with Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar and spend time at the Rebbe‘s Ohel in Queens to pray for a happy and healthy new year for themselves and their families.

Several Shluchim from Russia often join the trip that includes visits at Lubavitch Headquarters and the Rebbe’s room at 770 Eastern Parkway, and the reciting of Selichos in the Rebbe’s home on President Street.

Coordinated by Israel Rozmarin, the visit included a stop at the Grand Canyon National Park with breathtaking views into the deep inner gorge of the Colorado River and later an 8th Day concert in Phoenix.

While standing on the lookout and breathing in some of the nation’s cleanest air, a participant named Yitzchak Valadarsky took out a shofar and sounded it, as customary during the month of Elul.

Fellow tourists cheered him on and then a woman approached him and asked that he blow the sounds once more. He agreed and she said she was most grateful.

Rabbi Lazar, identifying that she was Jewish, reminded her that the actual mitzvah of hearing the shofar will be coming up in a few days, on Rosh Hashana day. He recommended she visit a local Chabad center near her home, which she said is in Los Angeles.

The woman then took out her cell phone and called her mother, proudly telling her that she met a group of Jews on her trip, heard the shofar and was blessed by a rabbi for a sweet new year. She asked to sound the shofar again for her mother via phone.

At the conclusion of the third round of shofar blowing, the woman requested to speak with Rabbi Lazar.

“I want you to know that for the last 7 years, since I was diagnosed with cancer, I have been going back and forth from the hospital to my home and have not been anywhere else,” she relayed.

“Today is the first day since I was diagnosed that I decided to leave my home,” she added. “I decided to come to this wonderful place where you can see the beauty of the world, and asked G-d to give me a positive and encouraging sign.

“When I heard the familiar sound of the shofar, I was very moved. When I came closer and saw a group of Jews and a few rabbis, I knew that G-d heard my request. So when you asked that I go to synagogue on Rosh Hashana, I immediately agreed.”

Rabbi Lazar, who heard her story in awe, blessed her again for a good year and long life. He requested that she take upon herself another mitzvah like lighting Shabbos candles every Friday at sunset, to which she agreed.