Homesick for Lubavitch

To celebrate the 100th episode, HFL hosted a live event in Crown Heights attended by friends and listeners of the podcast with a Q&A of HFL host, Bentzi Avtzon, moderated by Shaul Wolf. In this episode, we share the recording of the Q&A where Bentzi answers questions about the inspiration behind the podcast and lessons he learned along the way.____Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpo...

Rabbi Heschel Greenberg is the rabbi of The Jewish Discovery Center in Buffalo where he is a shliach for more than fifty years. In this episode, Rabbi Greenberg shares memories of his father and late Rosh Yeshiva in the Morristown Yeshiva, Rabbi Meir Greenberg a"h. He discusses growing up in a home surrounded by Torah learning and the lessons he took with him to his studies in Lubavitch yeshi...

Rabbi Berel Mochkin grew up in Tashkent and came to Montreal as a boy where his father, Reb Peretz Mochkin, served as the community mashpia. In this episode, Rabbi Mochkin shares how activities of Tzach that he began running as a bochur became a city wide shlichus that has now marked more than sixty years. He shares how on more than one occasion the Rebbe told him to stay in Montreal and how the m...

Rabbi Uri Perlman grew up in Kingston, Pennsylvania and founded the Wilkes Yeshiva which is now based in the nearby town of Canadensis. In this episode, he shares what it was like growing up in a small town community and his crisis of identity that ultimately led him on the journey that would culminate with him opening the yeshiva. We discuss how the position and tone of yeshivas towards bochurim...

Rabbi Moshe Genuth grew up in Cleveland and Eretz Yisroel and today works as a secretary to Rabbi Yitzchok Ginsburgh at the Gal Einai Institute. In this episode, he shares his own journey to the study of chassidus, his initial hesitations to becoming a chossid and what led him to move past them. We discuss his thinking on ego and bittul and how this translates into a world immersed in self-reflect...

Rabbi Zalman Lieberow grew up in London, England and is a shliach today in Flatbush. In this episode, we discuss his memories of how his grandfather, Reb Mendel Futerfas, dealt with the tragic events that shaped Zalman's early life. We also discuss his arriving to 770 as a bochur in the late 80s and the events in the subsequent years that shaped his perspective.____Support this podcast at: htt...

Rabbi Mendy Katz grew up in Miami Beach as part of what was then a very small Chabad community and lives today in Surfside where he works as a director of programs at The Aleph Institute. In this episode, we discuss his growing up in Miami Beach and leaving in the mid 1980s to study in yeshiva in Los Angeles and then Crown Heights. We discuss the euphoric atmosphere in Crown Heights in the late 19...

Rabbi Herschel Lustig was the dean of Oholei Torah Yeshiva, the largest Chabad boys school in America, for more than forty years and today serves as the Dean Emeritus. In this episode, he shares his own personal background of how his family came to Lubavitch and how he studied in different yeshivos before coming to 770. He shares memories from the formative years of Oholei Torah yeshiva that began...

Reb Yitzchok Gniwisch survived World War II as a young infant together with his father and lives today in Montreal with his wife, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. In this episode, he shares his heartwarming story of the years after the war where he was welcomed into the world of Lubavitch by countless individuals who were excited to have "one more bochur in yeshiva." This...

Rabbi Ronnie Fine is a shliach in the Queen Mary neighborhood of Montreal. He grew up in Toronto in a secular Israeli family, and his exploration as a teenager took him to Ohr Sameach in Jerusalem, then to Ner Yisroel in Toronto where he met Rabbi Ezra Schochet who was teaching there at the time. In this episode, Rabbi Fine compares the journeys of the baal teshuvas of his time with those of today...

Rabbi Yosef Minkowitz is the dean of Academie Beis Rivka in Montreal, Canada. In this episode, he shares his memories growing up in Paris in the years following World War II before moving with his family to Brooklyn, NY where he studied in the famous Bedford and Dean yeshiva and then 770. He talks about being part of the first group of bochurim sent as shluchim to the Yeshiva Gedolah in Melbourne,...

Rabbi Lazer Gurkow is a shliach in London, Ontario where he serves as the rabbi of Congregation Beth Tefilah. In this episode, Rabbi Gurkow shares his memories of growing up in Boston in the home of two parents who themselves grew up in the Soviet Union, and his leaving home at six years old to study in Brooklyn. He discusses the difference between being a parent then and today, how a chossid has...

Reb Simcha Gottleib lives today in North Miami Beach where he practices Chinese medicine and works on different literary projects. Back in the 1960s he lived on a probiotic farm in Binghamton, NY where he and his friends sought refuge from the excesses of both the cultural standard bearers and the hippies that sought to tear them down. It was there that he met Reb Meir Abuhesera which would lead h...

Mrs Hadassah Carlebach was born in the Soviet Union less than a decade after the Communist revolution to Rabbi and Mrs Shneur Zalman Schneerson, second cousins of the Rebbe Rayatz. In this episode, she shares vivid memories of growing up during those times, as observed from the unique vantage point of her family, before leaving for Paris with her family just several years before World War II.She s...

Reb Don Wolf grew up and lives today in Melbourne, Australia where he runs a real estate and construction business. The child of Holocaust survivors, Don grew up in a traditional household that slowly became closer to the Lubavitch community in Melbourne at the time, a group of fascinating individuals led by Reb Zalman Serebryanski, Rabbi Itche Dovid Groner, Reb Nochum Zalman Gurevich and many mor...

Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe lives today in Springfield, MA where he serves as the rabbi at Congregation Bnei Torah. In this episode, we discuss the "temimus," the simple faith, of his grandfather who served in the British armed forces during World War I, and how one can work to retain that simple faith. We also discuss the chassidic approach to temimus, how intellect can sometimes seem to threate...

Reb Gershon Schusterman grew up in Brooklyn and today lives in Los Angeles. Almost forty years ago he was on shlichus in Long Beach, California when his first wife and mother of their eleven children suddenly passed away. In the years since he remarried, raised his children and continued to build his life, but he has also spent his time thinking about the religious and chassidic approach processin...

Rabbi Leibel Korf grew up in Crown Heights and is a shliach today in Los Feliz, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. In this episode, we discuss what it was like growing up in Crown Heights in the home of the famed chossid Reb Pinye Korf a"h and his father Reb Sheia Korf a"h, all in close proximity to the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the environment of 770.The episode is a beautiful survey of three g...

Tzvi Burston grew up in Crown Heights and lives today in Los Angeles. After an accident during his birth, Tzvi was diagnosed with cerebral palsy which resulted in his being wheelchair bound the rest of his life. In this episode, Tzvi shares what it was like growing up as a boy with disabilities in Crown Heights in the 90s, what it was like to interact with the Rebbe and 770 despite his limitations...

Rabbi Mendel Cohen grew up in Montreal and has been on shlichus to Sacramento for over thirty years. In this conversation, he lays out the case for optimism for Chabad chassidim thirty years after Gimmel Tammuz, why younger chassidim should be encouraged to think about their strengths and not what they're missing and how his commitment to study hours of Torah each day helped him come to this o...

Rabbi Meni Even Israel was born and raised in Jerusalem and lives there to this day. In this episode, we hear what it was like to be raised by his parents, Rabbi Adin and Chaya Even Israel (Steinsaltz), and how their iconoclastic personalities fit and didn't fit into the general Chabad identity. We discuss a number of fascinating anecdotes from his father's interactions with the Rebbe, and...

Rabbi Michoel Gourarie grew up in South Africa and today directs Binah, a center of adult learning and growth in Sydney, Australia. In this episode, we discuss his parents very different Chabad family histories and what led them to South Africa. We discuss how the study of Chassidus impacts an individual, the potential and the limits of engrossing the mind in the study of G-d, and the need to meas...

Rabbi Mendel Zirkind grew up in Crown Heights and was recently appointed to fill the position of his late grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner a"h, as Moro D'asra of the Chabad community in Melbourne, Australia. In this episode, we discuss the challenge of "filling the shoes" of such an enormous personality and on a more general level, finding our own place in a heritage wit...

Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie is a shliach and author in Yorba Linda, California. In this episode, we discuss his recently published book, "Undaunted: How the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn Saved Russian Jewry, Reimagined American Judaism, Ignited a Global Jewish Renaissance."We discuss his approach to learning and writing about a Rebbe's life and the lessons he learned fr...

Rabbi Yitzchok Kaufmann grew up in Minnesota and today is a teacher and lecturer at The Mayanot Institute in Jerusalem. In this episode, we discuss the elusiveness of Emunah, how what seems so obvious to one person seems impenetrable to the next, and how we all struggle to fully define it. We discuss the importance of an embodied Emunah, one that resides in the lived experience and history of the...