By Yosef Yitzchok Levin

“I Only Wanted to Take Part”

Rabbi Yeshaya Cohen, the Rebbe’s shliach and chief rabbi of Kazakhstan, was not expecting the call. The man on the line, Mr. David Goncharuk, was eager to tell him what had happened.

“Since donating to Chabad of Kazakhstan, I have seen some very unusual things,” he began.

Born in Russia, Mr. David Goncharuk later emigrated to the United States and now lives in Ashdod. Through what seemed like chance, he came across a special publication produced by Kazakhstan’s Jewish community for Chof Av. It described the opportunity to support the Jewish work begun by the Rebbe’s father and continued today by the Rebbe’s shluchim.

The message struck him. As an expression of gratitude to the man who had given the world the Rebbe, he decided to become a partner in the continued growth of Jewish life in Kazakhstan.

He wanted nothing in return. He certainly was not thinking about receiving something in return for his contribution, let alone the Rebbe’s promise of up to five hundred times as much.

Then things began to happen.

“Someone who had owed me $10,000 for twenty years suddenly repaid the entire debt,” he told Rabbi Cohen. “I had long since given up on ever seeing that money.”

Then came another development: He won a case against Israel’s National Insurance Institute and was awarded 180,000 shekels. There were other turns of fortune as well, each arriving soon after he had partnered with the shluchim in Kazakhstan.

“I had to call and tell you,” he said before hanging up.

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Two Levi Yitzchoks in One Year

Reb Levi Yitzchok Zano relates:

“We cannot begin to measure the greatness of Rabbi Levi Yitzchok, but I can tell you what happened in our family.

“My mother-in-law made a special trip to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s resting place to pray that her daughter find a shidduch. Several months later, her daughter, who is now my wife, became engaged to me. My name is Levi Yitzchok.

“Later that same year, a grandson was born and named for Rabbi Levi Yitzchok.

“Within a single year, two new Levi Yitzchoks had joined the family.”

She Walked to the Tziyun

Mrs. Rachel Kirsch and her husband, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Kirsch, the Rebbe’s shluchim in Tzur Hadassah, were traveling to Almaty for Chof Menachem Av. Joining them was Mrs. Kirsch’s mother, Rebbetzin Chaya Cohen, mother of the Cohen shluchim in Almaty.

For several weeks previously, severe pain in her legs had kept Mrs. Kirsch largely confined to her home. At the airport, she requested wheelchair assistance to help her through check-in and to reach the gate.

The service was badly delayed, and she and her husband missed their flight to Dubai, where they were scheduled to connect to Alma-Ata.

Her brothers, Rabbi Moshe Dovid Cohen and Rabbi Shneur Cohen, were booked on a charter flight traveling directly to Alma-Ata. When they heard what had happened, they immediately offered their seats and remained in Israel, allowing Mrs. Kirsch and her mother to board in their place.

While still on the plane, Mrs. Kirsch noticed something unexpected: the pain that had troubled her for weeks had eased considerably.

After arriving in Almaty, they took a vehicle from the Chabad House to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s resting place. By the following day, the pain was gone. Mrs. Kirsch walked normally to the tziyun and back, something she had been unable to do before the trip.

“The pain has never returned,” she says. “My legs have completely healed. I have no doubt that this was a miracle from Rabbi Levi Yitzchok.”

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Three Years, Three Shidduchim

Rabbi Shmuel Nachimovsky relates:

“This past year, 5785, I visited Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s resting place for the third time, to say thank you for a third shidduch in as many years. 

“The first shidduch came after I visited the tziyun on Chof Av. The following year, a second shidduch was finalized on the fifteenth of Av. Then, in the third year, another shidduch was finalized on the thirteenth of Av.

“Three years in a row, I returned with another reason to give thanks.”

The Yeshivah Turned Around

Rabbi Levi Rosenberg, the director of the Chabad yeshivah in Bnei Brak, relates that seven years ago, he traveled to Almaty for Chof Av to pray at Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s tziyun.

At the time, the yeshivah’s administration was grappling with a series of difficult problems. After his visit to the tziyun, one issue after another fell into place.

Five Hundredfold

One year, Mr. Adam Molashvili donated 5,000 tenge, the currency of Kazakhstan. In the months that followed, he earned 2.5 million tenge, exactly five hundred times the amount he had given.

For him, it was a clear fulfillment of the Rebbe’s promise that those who contribute in memory of Rabbi Levi Yitzchok would be repaid as much as five hundredfold.

He later faced a situation in which he could easily have lost the money. He credits the same blessing with guiding him to use it wisely.

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Two Prayers, Two Answers

Mr. Moshe Asher, whose journey toward Judaism began through the Rebbe’s shluchim in Kazakhstan, tells of two prayers at Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s tziyun that were answered almost immediately.

About a year after their wedding, following a miscarriage, Moshe and his wife, Rivka, went to the tziyun and prayed to be blessed with a child. Just days later, Rivka conceived. Nine months afterward, they welcomed a healthy baby boy.

On another occasion, they prayed for a friend who had been searching for a shidduch. He had been meeting a young woman, and the relationship appeared to be moving toward an engagement when, without any clear explanation, the shidduch seemed to taper out.

Moshe and Rivka went to the tziyun and prayed that the shidduch would resume and reach a happy conclusion.

They had barely stepped away from the tziyun when Rivka’s phone rang. It was the young woman’s parents. They had decided to move forward.

Not long afterward, the couple stood beneath the chuppah.

“He Will Live Seventy Years”

Rabbi Shmuel Kuperman and his wife, Chani, serve as the Rebbe’s shluchim in Chistye Prudy, in central Moscow. They traveled to Almaty for just two days, visiting Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s tziyun on both days to pray for matters weighing heavily on their hearts.

As they left the tziyun on the second day, they received two pieces of news, both concerning the requests they had just made.

Their son in Tzfas had welcomed a healthy baby girl, making them grandparents. At the same time, a donor they had approached for help covering their Pesach expenses agreed to fund the entire amount. They had been waiting anxiously for his response. It arrived just as they emerged from the tziyun.

Rabbi Kuperman’s connection to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s tziyun runs deep through his own family.

His father, Reb Boruch Kuperman, had been born with a life-threatening heart defect. Minutes after his birth, doctors noticed that the infant’s face had turned blue. Tests confirmed their fears, and they told his parents that he was unlikely to survive more than a few hours or, at most, several days.

Refusing to give up, the parents hurried to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok and told him what the doctors had said.

“Do not worry,” Rabbi Levi Yitzchok replied. “He will live, and he will live for seventy years.”

Despite the doctors’ prognosis, the baby recovered and grew to adulthood.

His parents kept Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s words to themselves. They did not even tell Boruch. Only near the end of their lives did they decide that he should know the story of his birth and the promise they had received.

After turning seventy, Reb Boruch would often say with a smile, “Every additional day I live is a gift from Hashem.” He treasured each one.

Shortly after celebrating his seventy-first birthday, Reb Boruch passed away.

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Exactly Five Hundredfold

The Sandroi family of New York was away in the mountains for the summer when a fire broke out in the basement apartment where they lived. Their absence spared their lives, but they returned to find their home gutted by the flames.

Sometime later, the family received an insurance settlement. The amount was exactly five hundred times the donation they had made on Chof Av, in keeping with the Rebbe’s promise.

The Miracle They Never Knew About

Mrs. Chaya Yisraeli relates:

“I have a friend who is not yet observant. On several occasions, entirely on her own initiative, she gave me money to donate in the merit of her daughter, who had been waiting a long time to have a child.

“I chose to send the money to Chabad of Kazakhstan. I knew of the Rebbe’s promise, and that the Rebbe would not remain indebted.

“Recently, my friend told me that, baruch Hashem, her daughter was nearing the end of her pregnancy.

“It brought to mind the teaching of our Sages that a person may experience a miracle without ever recognizing it. The mother did not know where her donations were going, and her daughter may not even have known that the donations had been made. Yet the bracha traveled from Rabbi Levi Yitzchok’s tziyun to a family that had no idea where it had begun.”

The Call Came as They Left

Shlomo and his wife, whose full names are being withheld, had been married for several years without children. Neither was observant when they married, but over time Shlomo grew closer to Torah and mitzvos and eventually began studying at a yeshivah for baalei teshuvah in Jerusalem.

When he learned about the Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok, and the prayers answered at his tziyun, Shlomo resolved to travel to Almaty with his wife.

At the tziyun, they recalled the teaching of our Sages: “One who prays for another is answered first.” Instead of focusing only on their own pain, they prayed for a family friend whose shidduch had stalled. The young woman had unexpectedly ended the meetings, and no one knew whether the relationship would continue.

“We asked that if they were meant for one another, the shidduch should resume and move forward,” they relate.

They had barely left the tziyun when the call came: the young woman wanted to begin meeting again. The shidduch moved forward, and the couple soon married.

Then Shlomo and his wife saw the rest of the teaching fulfilled. Not long after their visit to the tziyun, they learned that they were expecting. Nine months later, they welcomed a baby boy.

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Nearly Two Million Shekels

After contributing to the Chof Av campaign for two consecutive years, Shemaryahu and Yocheved Butman shared their story:

“The first year, we donated 2,000 shekels, divided into ten monthly payments of 200 shekels. Later that year, we received the keys to an apartment in Charish that we had purchased several years earlier for 600,000 shekels. Within another year, its value had risen by 300,000 shekels.

“That year, we again donated a similar amount. We then signed a contract on another apartment for 1.9 million shekels, counting on the sale of our first apartment to finance the purchase.

“Within months of our donation, the value of the new apartment had nearly doubled. The apartment we had purchased for 1.9 million shekels was now worth approximately 3.5 million. Together with the increase in value of our first apartment, our total gain came to nearly two million shekels.

“We had donated 4,000 shekels, and the Rebbe’s promise of ‘up to five hundredfold’ had been fulfilled in full. Multiply our donation by five hundred, and the result is almost exactly what we gained.

“Since then, we have made sure to contribute to Chabad of Kazakhstan every year.”