I learned that with the Rebbe at the wheel, I’d reach my destination. But who knew that my friends could also come along for the ride?

As told to Rivka Streicher

Hy father has a connection with a rebbe in Brooklyn, a luminary of a person, albeit a small following. The Rebbe’s not one for kavod, he does his own thing — but even his humility can’t hide his light.

I wasn’t really part of it. Growing up, we didn’t daven with this rebbe or go over to him to vintsh a gut yom tov. It was a relationship my father developed later on.

Until the Rebbe drew me in.

It happened one evening, when the Rebbe came over to my father at Maariv.

“How’s Esther doing?” he asked.

“Esther?” My father wasn’t sure whom the Rebbe was referring to.

“Yossi’s Esther,” he answered simply, referring to my little daughter.

My father was bemused. “I think she’s okay,” he said, “but I’ll check in with Yossi.”

“What’s her mother’s name,” the Rebbe pressed. “I want to daven for her.”

Turns out the Rebbe knew something we didn’t. Our baby daughter had a serious infection, and just about then, when the Rebbe asked after her, it flared up. Shortly afterward we had to take our little baby, burning and sweating from fever, into the hospital.

While we were at the hospital, I got a call from an unfamiliar number. It was the Rebbe, calling to find out how Esther was faring. I jumped.

He’d known. Somehow, he’d known something was up even before we did. What moved me even more was the genuine care in his voice as he reassured me. His deep concern, his broad pleitzes… I became a chassid then and there.

The relationship has brought many blessings to my life. But perhaps foremost is that I’ve been able to connect others to my rebbe, and thereby help them as well. So it’s a story of a shidduch or two, but it’s also a story of commitment to Torah learning.