Ep. 50 // The Blessing of Helping Others w/ Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon

Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon is my father and the first shliach in the Far East, which is where he and my mother founded Chabad of Hong Kong and China forty years ago. In this conversation, we discuss his upbringing in Detroit as a child of one of the only Lubavitch families in the city, and the different outlooks his immigrant parents had on their place in their new country. We also discuss how growing up surrounded by different kinds of religious Jews and spending several years learning in Telshe Chicago influenced his own Lubavitch identity and the way he understood the mission of his shlichus. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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

Fifteen year ago, Nissen Goldman was a teenage son of a rabbi in Johannesburg, South Africa finding his own way. After leaving high school, Nissen ended up spending time in Cape Town where his sister and brother in law where on shlichus and ended up in a relationship with the daughter of their shul’s president. Fast forward fifteen years, and Nissen is on his shlichus at University of Cape Town with his then girlfriend and now wife, and has come to the kinnus for the first time as a shliach, together with their eldest son. In this episode, we discuss Nissen’s improbable journey away from shlichus and back, how one can end up in the same and yet completely different place, and the value and risks of writing your own story. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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

Rabbi Nissan Mangel was ten years old when he came face to face with Dr. Joseph Mengele at the gates of Auschwitz and was miraculously spared the fate of too many others. In this episode, Rabbi Mangel shares his journey from his small childhood town in Slovakia to Auschwitz and then England and Canada where he eventually met a number of fellow Lubavitch survivors of the war who invited him into Lubavitch. As he became a chossid of the Rebbe, Rabbi Mangel would go on to work for the Rebbe in a number of capacities, starting by learning chassidus with students in the famous Beis Medrash Govohah in Lakewood and going on to teach thousands of people around the world. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ___ 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

Rabbi Yaakov Winner grew up in Brooklyn and has been the mashpia in Yeshiva Gedolah of Melbourne, Australia for thirty five years. In this conversation we discuss the mashpiim that most impacted Rabbi Winner as he was growing up, and how the role of a mashpia has developed over the years. We also discuss how the idea of hiskashrus and Lubavitch identity has shifted over the years, the importance of definitions and speaking with intention, and most importantly the importance of listening to and learning from one another. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ___ 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

Rabbi Dov Yona Korn grew up in Morris Plains, NJ in a “very Reform” Jewish family and is today the shliach in NYU and several other schools in the Bowery district of NYC. In this episode, we discuss his discovering Chabad in the months after the Rebbe’s passing and the difference this timing made in his own understanding of the Rebbe and Lubavitch. We also discuss how the Rebbe’s ideas are filtered through layers of communal understanding, and how this communal understanding is sometimes in tension with the literal understanding of the individual. ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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

Mendel Treitel grew up on shlichus in Montreal and is today a modern art painter living in Sydney. In this episode, Mendel shares his journey through yeshiva and how a number of special teachers helped him reconcile his artistic disposition with the norms of the Yeshiva. We discuss the challenges in being both a chossid and an artist, the question of individuality and how the art a chossid paints today should be different and unique from the art a chossid painted generations ago. Mendel's work can be found at:https://www.mendeltreitel.com ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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

Rabbi Yosef Katzman grew up and lives in Crown Heights, where for many years he hosted the "Cable to Jewish Life" television show. In this episode, Rabbi Katzman reflects on different pivot points through the years and how these relate to the community's changing attitude towards asking questions. He also reflects on Rosh Hashana "back in the day" and where this leaves us going into this new year. ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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

Rabbi Naftali Silberberg grew up on shlichus in Detroit and today lives in Crown Heights where he is the co-director of curriculum for JLI and host of the Let's Talk Tanya podcast. In this episode, we trace Naftali's years in yeshiva that took him to Oholei Torah in the late 80s and then to Kfar Chabad, where he discovers a life long love - almost despite the yeshiva - for the study of Tanya. We discuss what makes the narrative of Tanya so unusual and how a thoughtful study of the Torah Shebichsav of Chassidus makes it more, not less, relevant for our own day and age. Presented in honor of 18 Elul - the birthday of the Baal Shem Tov and the Baal HaTanya. ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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

Rabbi Michoel Seligson is a teacher and author who lives in Crown Heights. He is also the son of Dr. Avrohom Abba Seligson, a"h, who was known as the Rebbe's doctor. In this episode, Rabbi Seligson shares his father's amazing story of becoming a doctor as a frum Jew in pre-war Europe, his escape to Shanghai and the role he played in saving the Jewish refugees over the course of the war, and his eventual arrival to Brooklyn where he developed a close, private and miraculous bond with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We discuss his father's unique style of being a both a chossid and a doctor, where amongst many others things he showed a true example of what it means to be a "rofeh yedid." ____ Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community. As we look forward to year two and iyH the years after that, I invite the listeners and viewers of this podcast to take part in ensuring this podcast is sustainable and continues to grow. To help support this project please visit: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate ____ 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

Rabbi Levi Avtzon grew up in Crown Heights and lives today in Johannesburg, South Africa where he is a rabbi at the Linksfield Synagogue. In this episode we continue the conversation in recent episodes about the tension between the soft and demanding voices in our community. We discuss the changing narratives in the Lubavitch community and how past demand for conformity has now given way to a therapeutic mindset, and we debate whether or not this change is in fact a true change at all. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new film and live concert production by Yuvla Media based on the Rebbe's first talk, Bosi Lgani. Combining beautiful cinematography with a live performance by a string quartet, this production is a meditation on hope and holding on to a vision even as time passes by. Now you can bring this groundbreaking experience of Bosi Lgani to your community. For more info please visit: https://www.thisworldisagarden.com ____ 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