Avraimka Eisenstein, Chabad Info
We are happy to present to surfers the weekly sectionChaim Shiloh As part of the weekly magazine Friday info, where every week we host one of the Rebbe King Moshiach’s dispatches in Israel and the world, about the activity. You are the great messenger Dodi Kaplin – The Rebbe’s messenger King Mashiach and director of the Chabad house in Cozumel, Mexico.
How did you actually get to Cozumel? What brought you to go on a mission there??
As a young man, I studied at the Rabbinical Institute in Moscow, where I persisted in butchery studies until I was authorized to do so by Rabbi Kogan.
In the last year of school before Passover during school my brother organized a Seder night for travelers in Bolivia and I joined him. My impression and enthusiasm for the character of the Chabad home, caused that after the holiday my brother returned to Israel and I remained in Bolivia alone to manage the Chabad home.
After a period of almost eight months of mission, I found a couple who came there and replaced me (they had actually already received a ready Chabad house) and from there I continued on my way to the group year – group 5688.
After the group year, I opened a Chabad house in Jamaica, and also the Chabad house there after it was ready, I transferred it to a couple who came to live there and work on missions.
After the mission there, I thought to myself that there are so many places in the world that don’t have a Chabad house at all, so that I would simply go for two or three months to each place, open a Chabad house in a certain place and then bring the place to a young couple, so that there would be no They have the initial difficulties.. That was the idea that came to my mind.
So I checked where else is needed and there is still no active Chabad house there… I heard about Cozumel in Mexico, I talked to the rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Mayzlish The Rebbe’s messenger is the Messiah King in Mexico, and I inquired about the place with some Jewish guys who lived there and that’s how it progressed until I got there.
After three months in Mexico we received a blessing from the Rebbe King of the Messiah stay in mexico. In the letter we received, the Rebbe wrote to a rabbi who lived in Mexico in response to his letter that he wanted to go to London, he should stay in Mexico and develop Jewish education in Mexico – in South America, and since then the revolution began, from Cozumel all the young men who were on a mission to open more Chabad houses in the entire area went.
currently, ‘Chabad for the traveler’ In Central America, there are over 11 emissaries of the Jewish people who have active Chabad houses that carry the good news of redemption and bring Jews closer and closer to the rabbi of the Messiah, and in the Jewish People we see visible miracles taking place, and since then there has been a revolution in general Chabad for the traveler In the world, it became more and more and today it is already history.
They always say that “all beginnings are difficult”, give us a small taste of the days of the beginning of the mission.
After three months in Cozumel, in 2009, swine flu raged in the area, there was not a soul on the street, everything became desolate, the country was empty, like in ‘corona’ but only in 2009…
We continued and left the Chabad house open and kept the Jews who had no work and nothing to do, we thought that this was the end and there was nothing more to be done, and the Rebbe wrote us to stay (as I told in the letter), and this gave us the strength to simply continue through this period and increase the the mission
We opened a school and a kosher restaurant, all during this period. In fact, this period of silence from this ‘flu’ brought about all the great development that happened.
What are the main areas in which you deal with mission work today?
We have a community here, so mainly it is the connection to the community, that there will be prayers, minyans and Torah lessons. And of course take care of every Jew in the community, physically and spiritually – with all that is needed.
In addition, there are the many travelers who come to Cozumel, we work to give them the change in consciousness, so that they not only ‘arrived here’ but will return with a ‘redemptive consciousness’, who will think about what it is like to live in redemption.
We try very hard to instill this in all the conversations with the travelers, at the fireside once a week, in evening and morning classes and of course on Shabbat, which is the strongest day of the week, we have over 150 people every Shabbat, and with them we engage a lot in talking about redemptive consciousness.
Of course, everyone is helped physically and spiritually, there is a lot behind the scenes, to take care of money, good administration, and that there will be good food and that everything will be as it should be, then we divide the time for investment in the physical and spiritual aspects.
Do you have any special plans for the future?
We are just at the opening stage Yeshiva for those who have a response In the Cozumel Chabad House and of course the new building which is a very big project that we are entering into, (still a secret…) but soon everyone will know about it.
How do people receive the message of the gospel of redemption and welcoming our righteous Messiah?
I think the message of the gospel of redemption already exists in the world, everyone is already ready, they have already brushed the buttons, I don’t think there is a Jew in the world who does not want redemption or is not ready for redemption.
Regarding the publication of the Redeemer’s identity, I think that everyone who knows the Rebbe is ready to accept the Rebbe as a king and the Messianic King, it all depends on the attitude and the manner in which one speaks.
For example, there was a traveler here who said that he doesn’t believe in Judaism and doesn’t want to enter a Chabad house, and he entered to get a discount on something that we helped travelers with, so I approached him and asked him what are you looking to do in life? He told me I want to go to Africa, help There and make the world better, because I think there are many things in the world that need fixing and that is my religion.
I told the guy who really seemed to be ‘not connected’ to Jewish affairs, that if he came to the Chabad house in the evening I would tell him a special story about someone who already thought like him but did it in a big way.
He lit up and arrived in the evening, and we sat together and I told him about a 3-year-old boy who was called ‘Menachem Mendel’ and who had a dream to see the future redemption, to do it in practice and to see how it is possible to fix the whole world, and he also did it, and his name is the Lubavitcher Rebbe and now Do it through us, through the messengers, and you can be a messenger of the Rebbe to bring the world to a decision for redemption.
He liked it very much and began to study matters of redemption and Christ. I mean, he didn’t want to put on a tefillin yet, but matters of redemption and Christ turned him on more because that was exactly his thing. I think that how you approach the matter is the most important, throwing slogans is good but it doesn’t always catch the people, slogans close to explanation, but don’t forget the explanations either.
We would love for you to share with us some special story that happened to you on mission.
I remember when I heard that there was no Chabad house in Jamaica and I still didn’t know where it was, I said I’m making a vessel, I want to open a Chabad house there, even though I don’t yet have the money and everything needed to go on a mission, so I made a ‘Yahiva’ cap with the inscription ‘Chabad House Jamaica’, and I started walking around with it, I didn’t even know where Jamaica was exactly, but I just said I was going to open a Chabad house in Jamaica because there is no Chabad house there, and so it was…
And here the following amazing thing happened: I was sitting at 770 on the conference stage and suddenly I saw an American guy, asking someone “Where is this guy who walks around here with a cap that says Chabad Jamaica”? So they directed him to me.
The guy told me that he repented and went traveling in Jamaica for many years, and now as a repentant when he heard that a Chabad house was going to be opened in Jamaica and decided he wanted to help, and gave me 5,000 dollars to open a Chabad house in Jamaica and asked to come there with me.
And so it was, he came with me and helped open the Jamaica Chabad House…
From this story you can see that first of all you need to start wanting to live on mission, ‘I want to be on mission’, even if you don’t yet know where and what, as soon as a person says it, the way will be found for him and the right place will be found for him and everything will work out as it should, this desire should To have an absolute and perfect desire to do a mission.
One who lives in the consciousness of a mission is much more of a follower and everything happens in a more serious way, because when we are on a mission we must be much more self-aware, we are being looked at, we must always be ready with a word of Torah, always have the right insight.
As for those who live in the community who can slip under the radar, nothing happened if you didn’t know something, no one expects you, in the mission it’s not like that, you are constantly expected and then you constantly expect yourself and that’s how you become much stronger and the rabbi is more God-fearing And much more connected to Rabbi the King of Messiah and the gospel of redemption.
To conclude: what do you have to convey to your brothers the messengers and to the National Assembly in general, in our position in the year of ‘the audience’?
The crowd year is a good time, everyone is constantly looking for a ‘reason to party’. You have to catch people and call them, you don’t have to wait for a special date, but just catch people and tell them, let’s sit in this house, invite some guys and sit, in a house there and more, all the time thinking about events, because at events it’s a good time to talk and everyone listens Because there is an ‘event’ and ‘something special’, every lesson is to turn it into an event and increase the circle of friends.
And in general to strengthen the people who will do the ‘crowd’ in their homes, not just anything that will be an ‘organizing Chabad house’, but the people themselves will initiate actions of the crowd.
Something personal I want to convey, sometimes we are so busy outside and forget the inside.
The audience is, first of all, to gather together all the forces of my soul and myself, to check that I am okay in my internal affairs, that we are doing things right, and after that the children, the family and the wife, and in this way to break out more and more, so don’t forget that, because sometimes we are so connected Stressed and for the big actions and then forget the small actions.
The system of the Chabad News Center – Chabad Info, wishes Rabbi Kaplin and his family great success in the mission!
Here is a small glimpse of the great activity:
