On the second day of Passover, my friend and I were heading to the Chabad house after enjoying the festive holiday meal with the local Chabad rabbi, Rabbi Block, and his family. Aside from running the two public seders, we were also scheduled to teach some Torah classes over the course of the holiday, so we decided to review some of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings during our walk.
At one point, we paused while walking down a residential street and spent a few minutes there preparing our holiday thoughts.
That night, as the seder was getting underway, a woman approached Rabbi Block and asked if she could speak to him for a moment.
“Since I’ve started coming to the Chabad house,” she began, “I have slowly been growing in my religious observance. My children are young now, but the one thing I really want them to have is a proper Jewish education. My husband, however, wouldn’t hear of it. I begged, I pleaded, I cried, to no avail.
"This afternoon, my husband and I were standing in our kitchen when we saw two yeshiva students standing right in front of our house—something we’ve never seen before here in Plano! We watched, fascinated, as the boys stayed there for a few minutes, speaking to each other in such a refined way. In the middle of the silence my husband turned to me and said, ‘You know what? I’d like our boys to grow up just like them!’ And then he said something I couldn't believe, ‘And I want to send them to Yeshiva…’”
When we arrived in Texas, we thought that the only way to fulfill our mission was by delivering passionate speeches, wrapping tefillin with countless people, and distributing hundreds of matzahs. It turns out, by merely walking the streets of Plano while discussing some Torah, we were able to impact an entire Jewish family without ever exchanging a word.
