By Hillel Fuld
I love the Internet!
I walk into the Ohel where the rebbe is buried and as soon as I walk in, I hear “Hillel Fuld! I need to come to the Ohel to meet you?!”
Mind you, I’ve never been here before…
Yaakov Yarmove then proceeds to tell me how he enjoys my posts and how much fun it is to follow me.
Not gonna lie, it’s always weird when I meet someone offline who follows me online but to meet this Chabad man at the Ohel was different level!
He then proceeded to tell me all about the Ohel and why people come here to pray.
I don’t believe in coincidences and there’s a reason I met this man. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure in the future, I’ll figure it out and I’ll let you know!
As for me and Chabad, I’ve had many incredible experiences with them, but I’ll share three.
1: When my mom was pregnant with me, it was the holiday of Sukkot and they were eating in their sukkah when my dad smelled fire. He went inside to check and a massive fire blew him down a flight of stairs.
Their house burned down in its entirety. They lost everything.
Two things survived. Their ketuba (marriage certificate) and a dollar from the rebbe (The rebbe used to give a dollar to anyone who came to visit him so they can give charity.)
Again, I’m not Chabad but this was undeniably supernatural.
2: Whenever I am in Silicon Valley, I struggle to find kosher food. There are very few solutions. Consistently, over the years, the Chabad there would meet me and bring me steaks prepared exactly how I like them.
Of course, they never asked for anything in return, but every time I visited the Bay area, their kindness enhanced my experience significantly.
3: Many years ago, we had an emergency landing in Billings, Montana. The airport there was the size of an average bedroom. The staff took out their phones to take a picture of the airplane because they had never seen one so big.
So there we were, in Billings, Montana, hundreds of Israelis, no customs, and no ability to do anything, let alone eat anything.
There isn’t exactly a large kosher food scene in Billings, Montana.
Chabad drove three hours each way to bring us kosher pitas, hummus, and deli.
Bonus story: When we were in Vienna last Sukkos, the Chabad there made our holiday infinitely more meaningful.
In general, what Chabad does for the Jewish people is just beyond words and there is absolutely zero debate that the rebbe left the biggest impact on the Jewish people out of any other human in the last few hundred years, if not more.
This was quite a beautiful experience.
