The Mission of Our Generation

The story of a regular Jewish doctor—and how the Rebbe turned him into a Shliach.

Russian Circumcisions

Good Shabbos! 

A Chabad colleague of mine recently met a Jew from the Former Soviet Union. 

The man had gotten out of the then-USSR in 1972, when he was but a little boy of five. Upon arrival in the United States, an elder Chabad Chasid in Cleveland, Ohio named Rabbi Zalman Kazen saw to it that both he and his 17-year-old brother received proper Jewish circumcisions. He didn’t remember who the mohel was, but he did remember that Rabbi Kazen stood by him during the bris. 

In terms of Jews getting out of the Soviet Union, 1972 was a special year. In that year, thousands of Soviet Jews were allowed to leave, and many of them made it all the way to Cleveland. There, Rebbetzin Kazen, who chaired the Chabad Women’s Organization in Cleveland, set up a non-profit along with her husband whose entire purpose was to help the new immigrants with all their material and spiritual needs. Because they were also native Russian speakers (they also came from Russia), they were able to speak the immigrants’ language and greatly influence them in Jewish matters. 

Now, one of the mitzvos that those precious Jews managed to immediately connect to after arriving in the United State was the mitzvah of bris milah (circumcision). In the Soviet Union, Jewish circumcision was considered an illegal action and what’s worse, many mohalim were arrested over the years, imprisoned and exiled for many years. What’s more, unlike Western countries and especially the United States, where most males are circumcised in infancy, circumcision in Russia was not common at all. 

As a result, the overwhelming majority of Russian Jewish immigrants at the time were uncircumcised. And when they ultimately emerged into freedom, they practically danced for joy over the opportunity to finally do this mitzvah. In them was fulfilled the ancient teaching of the Sages, “Every mitzvah that they accepted joyfully, like milah… they still do with joy” (Talmud, Tractate Shabbos 130a). 

The Adult Mohel

However, while Cleveland’s mohels were experts at circumcising babies, there were none among their ranks at the time sufficiently practiced in circumcising adults. 

So the Kazens would send groups of Russian Jews to New York to be circumcised there. But the travel costs, hospitalizations and so on were enormously expensive—creating an urgent need to solve this problem. 

Back in those days, there was a Jewish doctor in Cleveland who was close to Chabad. His name was Chaim Tzvi (Henry) Romberg. Dr. Romberg donated and helped a lot when it came to acclimating Russian Jews in Cleveland.

So one fine day, Rebbetzin Kazen pressured the good doctor to learn the discipline of circumcision so as to solve the problem. At first, he hesitated, but after repeated and various requests, he agreed to ask the Rebbe about it. The Rebbe replied that not only should he do it, but should learn how to circumcise babies and adults alike; the Rebbe then blessed him with great success. And so, armed with the Rebbe’s blessings, Dr. Romberg became a certified mohel in short order, and the official mohel of Cleveland for immigrants from the USSR. 

But that wasn’t the first time the doctor had a connection with the Rebbe. 

That same year, a few months earlier, the Romberg family faced a fork in the road of their life. Dr. Romberg was then just starting his medical career, and he needed to decide whether to remain in Cleveland or to go live in some other major U.S. city with a larger religious infrastructure, or to make aliyah to Israel. 

Now, Dr. Romberg already had a connection with the Rebbe at that time, and he knew that before making such a fateful decision, he had to consult with the Rebbe. 

And so, after Pesach of 1972, Dr. and Mrs. Romberg traveled to New York and merited a yechidus, a private audience with the Rebbe. Dr. Romberg had already written to the Rebbe about the three options, and he now added that until now, while living in Cleveland, he had merited to help many Jews come closer to Judaism. 

So the Rebbe told them that it was incumbent upon them to stay in Cleveland. “A general never leaves his soldiers, not even to sleep,” the Rebbe said. And since they were doing very important work in Cleveland relating to spreading Judaism, they had to continue doing so. 

So they then asked the Rebbe, “Is it impossible to do the same work in Israel? The same need exists there, too!” And the Rebbe said two things. Firstly, everything is mixed into politics and camps in Israel, making it harder to spread Judaism there, while in Cleveland, everything is open and no one will bother them in working in spreading Judaism. Secondly, Israel already has plenty of people who can do that work, while in Cleveland, no one will do their work for them. 

But the Rombergs then asked: Isn’t making aliyah to Israel also a mitzvah? To which the Rebbe replied that their work in Cleveland falls into the category of pikuach nefesh, or saving lives—and pikuach nefesh supersedes virtually every other mitzvah in the Torah. The Jewish children that they were drawing close in Cleveland would grow up and establish Jewish families, making their influence last generations. 

As for the idea of moving to another U.S. city, the Rebbe told them that in Cleveland, they were already well-established and familiar with the community, and that the community was familiar with them. Going to another city would require them to start everything all over from scratch.

So the Rombergs returned to Cleveland with double the energy, and the Rebbe’s words prompted them to get involved with Russian Jewry. Dr. Romberg studied circumcision and moved on to perform hundreds of circumcisions, and all free of charge and with a sense of great mission. 

Flying on Yom Tov

Dr. Romberg had another encounter with the Rebbe, this one very unofficial. It was on Simchas Torah of 1978. That Shmini Atzeres, the Rebbe endured a heart attack in the middle of Hakafos, and the Rebbe insisted on finishing the Hakafos, going up to his room, and then going into the Sukkah to make Kiddush and coming back to his room before agreeing to allow doctors to check him out. 

Now, every doctor who saw the Rebbe then expressed his opinion that the Rebbe had to go to the hospital immediately. But the Rebbe gave notice that he was not budging “from here,” meaning, 770. No doctor was willing to take responsibility for treating the Rebbe if he wasn’t in the hospital. They argued that without the necessary equipment, it was a life-threatening situation, and they couldn’t take responsibility for that. 

So at about 6:00 a.m. the next morning, the Rebbe had a second heart attack, and this one much more serious. At that time, there was a doctor named Dr. Richter who was waiting outside the Rebbe’s office. Rabbi Leibel Alevsky, who was a close friend of Dr. Richter, asked him how he could help. Dr. Richter said that if he could get a doctor to treat the Rebbe as the Rebbe wanted to be treated, it would be very helpful. 

Rabbi Alevksy, who had already been the Rebbe’s shliach to Cleveland for several years, was also very close to Dr. Romberg and called him right away. Bear in mind that this was on Yom Tov; so Dr. Romberg, who was about to head out to the holiday prayers at shul, heard a message from Rabbi Alevsky on his answering machine (remember those?) in a state of panic, shouting, “Dr. Romberg, the Rebbe needs you!” So he picked up the receiver and Rabbi Alevsky told him briefly what had happened in 770 and asked him to rush to New York. 

And so, still dressed in his holiday best, Dr. Romberg got into his car, drove to the airport and grabbed the first flight to New York. When he landed at JFK Airport and got into a taxi, the driver asked him: Isn’t today Simchas Torah? What are you doing in a cab? The surprised doctor told him that he was traveling to save someone’s life… but asked the Israeli cab driver what he was doing, working on the holiday? So the driver told him that he had to support two families: his own in New York, and his parents in Israel. 

Well, when Dr. Romberg arrived at 770, several doctors were already there, but before long, he was admitted into the Rebbe’s office. The Rebbe received him with a smile. 

Dr. Romberg asked the Rebbe whether, what with all the doctors already in Brooklyn and on the scene, it had been permissible for him to fly on Yom Tov. The Rebbe gave him an interesting answer: In the era of the Tanach, they didn’t have the yearly calendar like we are used to having today. Instead, the great Sanhedrin would establish month by month which day was Rosh Chodesh, based on the testimony of witnesses who would testify to having seen the new moon—and based on Rosh Chodesh, that’s when all the holidays would be set. 

The Rebbe continued by quoting the Mishnah (Tractate Rosh Hashanah 22a), which says that for purposes of declaring the new month, the Sages permitted the violation of Shabbos— meaning that if witnesses saw the new moon on Friday night while a good distance from Jerusalem, they had to violate Shabbos so as to travel to the Sanhedrin and testify that they saw the new moon. The Halachah is, the Rebbe went on, that even if they got to the Sanhedrin and found that another pair of witnesses had already gotten there before them to testify, the court would still accept them and it wouldn’t be considered a violation of Shabbos. 

Why would that be? The Mishnah (21b) says that otherwise, “One would hinder them for the future”—meaning that if their testimony would be rejected and they would see themselves as having violated the Shabbos for no reason, they wouldn’t rush to testify the next time they might see the new moon on Shabbos, because maybe someone else would have gotten there before them and they’d be afraid of violating Shabbos for no reason. And so the Sages permitted every group of witnesses to violate the Shabbos. 

The Rebbe concluded: If with declaring the new moon, which is not a life-threatening situation, all witnesses were allowed to violate Shabbos, including those that would turn out to be unnecessary, then certainly when it comes to an actual life-threatening situation is it allowed and necessary to violate the Shabbos—because the next time, the doctor may hesitate, thinking that maybe some other doctor got there first and that he wouldn’t be needed, which could (G-d forbid) cause a true life-threatening situation (Sichos Kodesh 5737, Vol. I, pg. 342). 

So Dr. Romberg stayed at the Rebbe’s side for a full week after the holiday, together with all the other doctors who had come. 

The Lesson

And here’s the lesson in that story: In our generation, the Rebbe sent shluchim (literally, “sent ones”) everywhere—and the Rebbe’s shluchim weren’t just card-carrying Chabad Chasidim in black hats; rather, every Jew who met with the Rebbe was immediately made into a shliach of some sort by the Rebbe. 

The Rebbe taught us that a person doesn’t live where it’s comfortable for him but where he is able to contribute more to society. The Rebbe himself lived by these rules, and, of course, demanded the same from all who sought his advice. 

Gimmel Tammuz is now upon us. Let us all continue in the Rebbe’s ways and ask ourselves that one important question: How can I do my part in spreading Yiddishkeit?