The Rebbes Dollar

The Rebbe Dollar! 

This was a family who came to the United States of America from Moscow, Russia in the late 70s. The boy who eventually became a member of our community received a Bris in Moscow from a visiting American Mohel at 8 days old, but his father was never circumcised.

By remarkable stroke of Divine Providence, when they first came to the United States of America, one of the first people they met at the Chabad Centre they visited in their city was the Mohel who had given the boy his bris in Moscow. The Shliach talked to the father of the boy about importance of Bris along with the rest of Yiddishkeit - but he never actually was able to make the decision at his age to go ahead with it.

The son told me that he had heard from family members (either from his father or

his cousin, who himself was circumcised later in life) that the Shliach was

discussing his family as well as other Russian families in his city with

the Rebbe (it seems in a private audience). He said that his family was the first refusenik family to arrive in that city, but the Rebbe knew many more refuseniks were coming and the Shliach’s discussion with the Rebbe was about how to help all of these new Russian families. 

In that context, the Shliach had mentioned to the Rebbe the issue of the father still needing a Bris. The Rebbe asked that he conveyed to the father; if he gets a Bris, he will receive a dollar from me. The son told me the phrase “receive a dollar from me” always stuck in his head. Why didn’t the Rebbe say “I will give him (or send him) a dollar?”

 Years later, the son was living on the West Side and became engaged to be married. The wedding was held in another city and the officiating Rabbi was also a Shliach. On the way to the wedding the son noticed his father was somewhat quiet and reserved but he didn’t think anything of it.

Under the Chuppah his Kallah was surprised to see a small bottle of red

wine that the Shliach mixed in to the white wine to be used for Sheva

Brachos.  This bothered her since she wanted only white wine (which is

customary) so there would be no chance of spilling red wine on the dress.

Obviously in the middle of the Chuppah she didn’t say anything and at any

rate, fortunately no wine spilled.

At the wedding, his father didn’t dance at all and the son thought that was

odd. The son finally asked him about it. After all, it is his wedding, the

most special day of his life, and his father shouldn’t dance with him? The

father said that he didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but in honor

of his son’s wedding, and in order to be a complete Jew for his son’s  wedding, he finally had a Bris. The well-known expert Rabbi Shain was the Mohel.

He then explained that the red wine at the Chuppah was the wine over which the

Brachah was said on at the Bris.

One of the Sheva Brachos was held at the Deli Kasba restaurant on the West

Side. In attendance at the Sheva brachos was Lubavitcher Chassid who was a close friend of the Chosson, and was even his roommate for a while before the wedding.  When he heard this entire story told over at the Sheva Brachos, he was very impressed with the great spirit of mesiras nefesh of the father, out of excitement he exclaimed: you deserve a dollar from the Rebbe for what you did! And he pulled out one of his personal  dollars he had received  from the Rebbe from his pocket and gave it to the father.

Incredibly, the date written on the dollar, which was  of course the date that this friend has received the dollar from the Rebbe years earlier, before Gimmel

Tammuz, was the exact date (day and month, though obviously not year) which the father had received his Bris, days before his son’s wedding!