Rebbe's words impact local rabbis
MICHAEL MIKLOFSKY
Staff Writer
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson's humanitarian ways helped shape the lives of Chabad's Arizona rabbis.
For more than 14 years - before Schneerson, also known as the rebbe, fell ill - Rabbi Shmuel Tiechtel, executive director of Chabad at Arizona State University, and his family watched as the rebbe led their congregation in the Crown Heights neigh-borhood of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Tiechtel said that it was the rebbe's peacefulness, warmth and non-judgmental attitude that he admired most, and it was those traits that inspired him to open Chabad at ASU center in fall 2003, and many of his siblings to start Chabad centers of their own.
Today, many of his 12 siblings have centers throughout the world, including Nashville, Tenn.; Berlin, Germany; North Miami Beach, Fla.; and at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, to name a few.
With his wife Chana, who is the associate director of Chabad at ASU, their 1-year-old son Tzvi and other relatives, Tiechtel visited the rebbe's gravesite on June 22. He said that waiting in line with thousands of others brought back fond memories of his childhood, when he would wait in line on Sundays to receive a dollar from the rebbe to give to charity.
"I probably waited on line for about an hour and a half, but the waiting didn't bother me. It wasn't like a waiting to get a ticket, 'When will I get in?'" Tiechtel said. "I felt like I'm going to a very holy place to appreciate everything that such a special person did for me."
And Tiechtel was not alone. He estimates that more than 10,000 people, both Jews and non-Jews, showed up at the rebbe's gravesite to pay their respects. Among that group were 11 of the 12 Arizona Chabad rabbis.
Tiechtel said that he has not forgotten his childhood with the rebbe and that in forming Chabad at ASU, he tried to emulate many of the good qualities that he saw as a child.
"We saw from the rebbe and we learned from the rebbe how to care for every single person and that's really our purpose: to show every person how he or she is important and can have an effect on this world," he said. "The rebbe's unconditional love really inspired so many of us."
The rebbe's influence has had a large impact on the Chabad movement in Arizona, too. In 1977, the rebbe sent Rabbi Zalman Levertov and his wife, Tziporah, to the state to "reach out to the Jewish community in Arizona and bring more awareness of spirituality to the community," Levertov said.
"The rebbe's work was that no Jew should ever be left behind and when he sent us to Arizona, that was the goal that we had: to reach out to every Jew in Arizona," he said.
Today, Arizona has seven Chabad centers. The most recent is Chabad of North Phoenix, which opened in spring 2004 under the direction of Rabbi Mendy Levertov, Tziporah and Zalman Levertov's son. The other Chabad centers are located in Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Tempe and Tucson.
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