New Lived Avodah Episode: Reb Reuven Donin — A Chossid Who Moved Boulders

Some Chassidim inspired people with warmth.

Others shook people awake.

Reb Reuven Donin did both — with the force of a bulldozer and the heart of a chossid whose life belonged to the Rebbe.

The third episode of Lived Avodah, hosted by Shlomy Segall, explores the life and fire of Reb Reuven Donin, known among Chassidim as “the tractorist of the Rebbe” — a man whose rough strength, sharp honesty, and burning ahavas Yisroel became tools in the Rebbe’s shlichus.

In his first yechidus, Reb Reuven expected the Rebbe to speak to him about lofty matters — learning, davening, teshuvah. Instead, the Rebbe asked him whether he knew how to operate large machinery, like a tractor.

Only later did it become clear: the tractor was not outside his shlichus. It was part of it.

Reb Reuven moved boulders — first in the earth, and later in people. Closed hearts, broken spirits, confused bachurim, Yidden who had drifted far — he pushed, dug, and broke through, not with softness alone, but with truth, with love, and with an unshakable sense of mission.

One of the defining stories of his life took place after his chasunah, when he entered yechidus and gave the Rebbe the key to his home. The Rebbe placed the key in his drawer and said: “If so, I am the baal habayis.”

His home was the Rebbe’s. His kochos were the Rebbe’s. His fire was the Rebbe’s. And everything he had — his directness, his strength, his tears, his love for another Yid — had one purpose: to do what Hashem and the Rebbe wanted from him.

This episode attempts to capture a glimpse of that life: the emes, the hiskashrus, the farbrengens, the ahavas Yisroel, and the avodah of a chossid who could not leave a neshama buried under the rubble.

For more stories and a fuller biography of Reb Reuven Donin, see the Hebrew book הטרקטוריסט של הרבי.

Available now on:

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5V9s1NNqIcC48h2V80GTTO