Homesick for Lubavitch

Rabbi Dr. Shmary Brownstein is a shliach in Davis, California where he also wrote his doctoral dissertation on the famous series of maamorim, Bosi Lgani. In this episode, we discuss Shmary's growing up in Crown Heights in the early 90s and his decision to leave for Brunoy. We discuss how the conception of past changed over those years and how some of the ideas of Bosi Lgani might inform how we ought to approach staying connected to the past without becoming lost in it.

Rabbi Peretz and Chanie Chein both grew up in Crown Heights and are the shluchim today at Brandeis University near Boston, Massachusetts. They have also recently founded M54, a program founded on the relational connection between learners as they embark on shared yet individual explorations, resulting in profound outcomes. In this conversation, Peretz and I discuss his growing up in Crown Heights in the late 80s and early 90s and his pivotal decision to leave Crown Heights to study in a yeshiva in Israel, only returning after the Rebbe's stroke two years later. We discuss the power narrative holds over us and the need to ground oneself in narrative, but also the need to notice the narrative and to pay attention to one's own thoughts and experiences.

Rabbi Moshe Greenwald grew up on shlichus in Long Beach, CA and is on shlichus today in Downtown Los Angeles. In this episode, we discuss his childhood memories of coming to 770 for Pesach, his coming of age during the turbulence of 1992 and the questions he's had to wrestle with since. The conversations leads us to questions about the possibility of a Chossid's living with uncertainty.

Rabbi Pinny Andrusier lives in Cooper City, Florida where he is a shliach for more than thirty years. Growing up, Pinny found his place less in the structure of yeshiva and more in the adventure of shlichus, which is where he hoped to find his place after marriage. But when the time came, he struggled to find a place in shlichus and almost gave up on his dream, until a note from the Rebbe a few days before 27 Adar changed everything. In this episode, we discuss the challenge of fitting in, both back then and today, and how believing in the other is often the biggest gift we have to offer.

Rabbi Shmuly Avtzon is a Mashpia in the Yeshiva of 770 and director of Sichos In English, an organization founded by his late father and my uncle, Rabbi Yonah Avtzon a"h. In this episode, we compare and contrast our childhood experience and recollection of 27 Adar and 3 Tammuz, him growing up in the thick of the Rebbe's neighborhood of Crown Heights and me growing up across the world on shlichus in Hong Kong. We discuss the shockwaves these events had on our childhood, and whether or not they can be traced to earlier events in Lubavitch history and specifically the history of Dor Hashvii. ______ As a sidetone, I recently worked with Shmuly on a documentary about SIE's new release of Likkutei Sichos in English. You can see more about the project here: https://www.sie.org ______ Homesick for Lubavitch is a project of Yuvla Media. Bentzi Avtzon is a filmmaker who specializes in telling the stories of thoughtful and heartfelt organizations. Business inquiries only: [email protected] Connect with Bentzi Website | https://www.yuvlamedia.com

Marc Asnin is a documentary photographer who lives in New York City.  Over the years, Marc has photographed all kinds of subjects, from the most marginizaled people on death row to his own Uncle Charlie. In 1992, Marc was commissioned by the New York Times to photograph the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Crown Heights community as part of a feature essay, The Oracle of Crown Heights. Just a few weeks before the stroke, Marc’s pictures are from the last and most iconic pictures of that year. In this podcast, we discuss Marc’s first impressions of the Rebbe and the Lubavitch milieu, his reflections on that photograph and what he thinks has made it such a lasting testimony.

Before becoming a full time life coach, Fitz Rabin was a master sofer for over a decade. Over the years, Fitz struggled to identify with some of the practices seen as basic to being a Lubavitcher, namely the study of Chitas. Today, he celebrates 1000 days of learning chitas before shkiya. We discuss the feelings of alienation from mass practice, the search for individual connection and the general tension between being true to yourself within a broader community.

Mrs. Vivi Deren grew up in Nashville, Tenessee as one of the first children of shluchim in the Unites States. Today she lives in Connecticut where she has been on shlichus with her husband for nearly fifty years. In this episode, she speaks about her parents growing up as chassidim in the United States of the 1920s and 1930s, and about her grandparents who raised them. We speak about how the community of Lubavitch in the United States has changed since, and how the Lubavitch ethic of individualism fits with the growth of community. 

Rabbi Yossi Morozov grew up in Brooklyn and was on shlichus with his family for twelve years in Ulyanovsk, a city one thousand kilometers east of Moscow. After being forced to leave Russia, Yossi moved with his family to the Pomona area in New York and became a life insurance agent. In this conversation we discuss his choices to go on shlichus and then into business and the challenges these choices posed to his own Lubavitch identity.

Rabbi Simon Jacobson is known today as a bestselling author and founder of the Meaningful Life Center. But for many years he was one of the transcribers and editors of the Rebbe’s Farbrengen. In this conversation we discuss some of the paradoxes he observed over the years, both regarding the Rebbe’s use of technology in sharing the Farbrengen around the world but also in how the Rebbe empowered his chassidim to think for themselves.