A Father and Son, and the Rebbe

Every summer, I read two or three books while sitting at the neighborhood pool, usually after swimming what laps I can during the too-brief, adults-only period at 10 minutes before the hour.

First up this summer was “Letters for Life: Guidance for Emotional Wellness from the Lubavitcher Rebbe,” drawn from letters that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson wrote to people seeking his advice.

Not what you may think of as a beach (or pool) read, but “Letters for Life” brought an event in 1991 full circle for me in 2025.

Beginning in 1986, Schneerson would stand for hours on Sundays outside his office in Chabad’s headquarters, at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, and dispense a dollar and a blessing to people who lined up for blocks awaiting their opportunity to be in his presence. The idea was that the dollar would be given to charity, an act benefitting both the giver and an unknown recipient. Some people kept the dollar from the Rebbe and gave another to charity.

Though Schneerson (1902-1994) held countless personal audiences, including with journalists, he did not hold news conferences or grant interviews.

That is what made Sunday, Oct. 20, 1991, unusual.

Several months prior, the Rebbe had told adherents: “What more can I do to motivate the entire Jewish people to clamor and cry out, and thus actually bring about the coming of Mashiach [Messiah]? . . . I have done whatever I can: from now on, you must do whatever you can.”

As CNN’s national weekend editor, I enjoyed a reasonable amount of freedom in determining what stories were prepared, beyond breaking news or issues of importance in Washington, D.C. The network did not have a unit dedicated to covering religion, so I looked to fill that gap with reports from a variety of faith traditions.

I had dealt with the Chabad for access to its satellite signals of Chanukkah Menorah lightings around the world. With no expectation, I requested an interview with the Rebbe for our New York bureau.

The response was to have a reporter at “770” on Oct. 21. That is how the Rebbe came to pause his routine and speak with correspondent Gary Tuchman.

Tuchman asked Schneerson: “Rebbe, could you tell us the message you have for the world about Mashiach, the message you have for the whole world about the Mashiach?”

The Rebbe replied: “The Mashiach is ready to come now. It is only on our part to do something additional in the realm of goodness and kindness.”

Tuchman asked: “So people should be doing goodness and kindness for him to come?”

The Rebbe answered: “At least a little more. Then Mashiach will come immediately.”

Schneerson gave Tuchman two single dollar bills, “a double portion of charity,” he said.

That was it, an encounter of less than two minutes.

The clip aired that night on CNN newscasts.

Thirty-four years later, it still lives on the Chabad website.

My contact at Chabad was Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, the director of chabad.org and for more than three decades Chabad’s director of public relations.

Chabad ventured online in 1988 and chabad.org, which launched in the fall of 1993, was one of the first 500 domains registered after the World Wide Web debuted publicly in 1991. For an organization grounded in outreach, the online world was, pun intended, a God-send.

Shmotkin and I have talked on the phone and exchanged emails, but met in-person only once, in June 2004 at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, during an American Jewish Press Association meeting in Atlanta. We sat in the lobby and talked, oblivious to the dozens of other people in the room. At one point, Shmotkin asked if I ever had wrapped tefillin. I had not, yet declined his invitation to do so.

Over the years, I remained on Chabad’s holiday list, receiving shmura matzo for Passover, a hanukkiah for Chanukah, and shelach manos at Purim. I received invitations to Chabad holiday gatherings and to celebrate the birth of Shmotkin’s children.

My great-grandfather, Solomon, was born in 1847 as Schneur Zalman Schechter, named for the founder of Lubavitch, indicating that his parents, Isaac and Chaya, living in what then was Moldova, were relatively early followers of that movement.

I am Jewish, but to be honest, on most days, agnostic. I appreciate the role that religion plays in society and find it worthy of coverage. As a journalist friend says, “Religion is always in the room.”

Which brings this story to 2025.

One of Zalman Shmotkin’s children, Rabbi Levi Shmotkin, is the author of “Letters for Life.” In early March, Zalman contacted me, letting me know that Levi would be in Atlanta, speaking at the recently created Buckhead Jewish Academy.

I met with Levi before his talk. We sent his father a photo of me wrapped in tefillin. My attitude had mellowed, and I was willing to do with the son what I might have regretted not doing two decades earlier with the father.

I stayed for Levi’s talk, and we got together the next day for more conversation, much to Zalman’s delight.

It’s mid-July, which means I have another couple of months of swimming — and reading — at the neighborhood pool. I just need to decide what book comes next.