From one woman’s remarkable journey to the lessons of Tisha B’Av, discovering G-d’s hand in both our personal lives and Jewish history.
This past week we had the privilege of hosting Mrs. Timmy Rubin from Australia at Chabad. Born and raised in Melbourne, she began searching for meaning, Judaism, and a life of purpose in the 1970s.
She shared the remarkable story of her life, beginning with her first meeting in Melbourne with Rabbi Zalman Serebryanski, of blessed memory, who invited her to study Tanya with him. That very first class marked the beginning of a journey that eventually brought her to Machon Chana in New York and led to a lifetime devoted to Torah, mitzvos, and shlichus.
One theme stood out throughout her story: the deep feeling that every step of her life had been guided by Divine Providence. Many people can point to special moments when they felt G-d’s hand in their lives. For Timmy, it seemed that every chapter, every encounter, and every unexpected turn was another link in an extraordinary chain of G-d guiding her path.
She also spoke about what she does today. Timmy serves as the mikvah attendant at the main Chabad mikvah in Melbourne, a role she fulfills with warmth, dedication, and genuine love. She has a remarkable gift for helping every woman who walks through the door feel comfortable and at ease. Combined with her wonderful sense of humor, she creates an immediate and natural connection with people from every background.
But her work does not stop there. For many years she also volunteered in women’s prisons throughout the Melbourne area. She regularly visited Jewish inmates, lifting their spirits and reminding them that they had not been forgotten.
This is a subject the Rebbe spoke about many times, emphasizing our special responsibility toward prisoners. In that context, the Rebbe quoted the Midrash on the verse, “G-d seeks out the one who is pursued.” Even if a righteous person is pursuing someone who is guilty, the Midrash teaches that G-d still seeks out the one being pursued. (Vayikra Rabbah 27:5; Toras Menachem, Vol. 83, p. 239.)
Years ago, Timmy learned about a 21-year-old Jewish woman who was serving time in prison. Before that, she had bounced between Jewish schools and public schools but never found a place where she fit in. Eventually she fell in with the wrong crowd, became addicted to drugs, and covered her body with tattoos. In one tragic incident she murdered a drug dealer and was sentenced to many years in prison. In the end, she spent 17 years behind bars.
When Timmy first tried to reach out to her, the young woman wanted nothing to do with her. For years she rejected every attempt to connect.
Slowly, though, something changed. She began opening up and eventually agreed to meet with Timmy. From then on, Timmy visited her faithfully, driving an hour each way once a week just to spend time with her and encourage her. The years passed. After serving 17 years, she was finally released from prison just a few months ago.
Not long after her release, Timmy met her at a restaurant in Melbourne. The young woman walked over and said, “Timmy, I’m lost. I don’t even know how to live outside prison anymore. I need a job. I need money. I need to start a new life, but I don’t know where to begin.”
Timmy decided to help. She contacted a Chabad chassid in Melbourne who owns a large company called Melbourne Office Supplies. She tried reaching him by phone, but he was out of town. Instead, she spoke with one of the company’s managers, who is also a Chabad chassid, and said, “I have a young Jewish woman who desperately needs a job.”
The manager asked, “Does she have a resume?” Timmy smiled. “No resume,” she replied. “But she needs a job.”
He said he was willing to give her a chance. Timmy added, “You should know that she has many tattoos, she used to be addicted to drugs, and she doesn’t look like the typical job applicant.” The manager wasn’t discouraged.
“If she’s Jewish,” he said, “I’m willing to give her a chance. On one condition. She agrees to regular drug testing. If she passes, we’ll give her a three-month trial. If everything goes well, she can stay.” She started working and at first she worked only a few days each week. Gradually they increased her hours until she became a full-time employee.
Recently, a representative from the Australian government visited the company. The government offers grants and incentives to help businesses grow, and this company had applied for one.
After touring the facility and seeing the scope of the operation, the production, and the management, the representative asked, “Why should we award this grant to your company instead of another? Do you do anything to benefit the community? Do you give back?”
The owner replied, “Actually, we do. One of our employees spent 17 years in prison. When she was released, she couldn’t find a job anywhere, so we decided to give her an opportunity to start over.”
The representative asked, “What’s her name?” At first he hesitated because he didn’t want to invade her privacy, but eventually he told her. She was stunned.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I know her. We went to high school together for a year or two. I remember how she kept transferring from one school to another.” In the end, the company received the government grant.
When you hear a story like this, it’s hard not to see a beautiful example of Divine Providence. By giving one person a second chance, they ultimately brought an unexpected blessing upon themselves.
Tisha B’av
We are now just a few days away from Tisha B’Av. The Mishnah in Taanis (4:6) teaches the five tragedies that took place on Tisha B’Av:
- It was decreed that our ancestors would not enter the Land of Israel. After the sin of the spies, the Jewish people cried on the night of Tisha B’Av and refused to enter the Land. G-d then decreed that the generation that had left Egypt, from the age of twenty and older, would die in the desert and would not merit entering the Land of Israel.
- The First Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Our Sages teach that the destruction came as a result of idolatry, sexual immorality, and murder.
- The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans under Titus in the year 70 CE. Our Sages teach that this destruction came because of baseless hatred among the Jewish people.
- The city of Beitar was captured. Beitar was the central stronghold of the Bar Kochba revolt. After a terrible siege, it fell to the Romans and tens of thousands of Jews were killed. The fall of Beitar marked the end of Jewish hopes for independence at that time.
- The city was plowed over. After the destruction, the Romans plowed over Jerusalem to symbolize its complete devastation and to erase its identity as a Jewish city. The pagan city of Aelia Capitolina was later built on its ruins, and Jews were forbidden to enter.
And as if that were not enough, many other tragedies took place on or around Tisha B’Av throughout Jewish history.
One of them was the expulsion of the Jews from England. In 1290, King Edward I ordered every Jew to leave England. The final deadline for their departure fell on Tisha B’Av of that year.
Approximately 2,000 to 3,000 Jews were forced to abandon their homes and possessions. Jewish communal life in England came to an end for more than 350 years, until Jews were permitted to return in the middle of the seventeenth century.
The Jews of Spain were expelled in 1492, and the final deadline for leaving the country fell one day before Tisha B’Av.
World War I also began during the period of Tisha B’Av, and the chain of events that followed ultimately helped create the conditions that led to the Holocaust.
This raises a simple question. Why does the Mishnah go to the trouble of listing five separate tragedies that occurred specifically on Tisha B’Av? What is it trying to tell us?
Is its purpose simply to depress us by reminding us that this happened, and then this happened, and then something else happened as well?
It would seem that the Mishnah could simply have said that Tisha B’Av is a day associated with tragedy. Why give us the entire detailed list?
Perhaps the Mishnah is teaching us a much deeper message.
When one event happens on Tisha B’Av, it can be dismissed as coincidence. But when, again and again, over the course of more than a thousand years, completely different events take place on the very same date, the sin of the spies, the destruction of the First Temple, the destruction of the Second Temple, the fall of Beitar, and the devastation of Jerusalem, it can no longer be viewed as chance.
There is only one conclusion. A single hand is directing history.
It was not Nebuchadnezzar who truly decided what would happen. It was not Titus, and it was not any other king. They were the agents through whom events unfolded, but the One who directs the world is G-d.
The Mishnah is not trying, G-d forbid, to make the Jewish people feel hopeless. It is teaching the exact opposite.
It is strengthening us with the knowledge that the world is not abandoned or out of control. There is a Master of the world. There is Divine Providence.
And there is an even deeper point. The Mishnah is teaching us not to see these five events as separate tragedies, but as parts of one long process of exile, a process that is ultimately leading toward the true and complete Redemption, very soon.
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