When a 16-year-old girl from Melbourne begged the Rebbe to help her convert, the Rebbe guided R’ Chaim Gutnick to reveal that she was already Jewish. When asked later how he knew, the Rebbe said that it was obvious…
A sixteen-year-old girl from the Balaclava suburb of Melbourne, Australia, wanted to convert to Yiddishkeit. Seeing her sincerity, Reb Chaim Gutnick brought her before a Beis Din, but they turned her down, reasoning that she was too young to make such a decision.
The girl became so anguished that she fell ill, and she wasn’t eating or sleeping. Upon Reb Chaim’s suggestion, she wrote a long letter to the Rebbe explaining why she felt she had to be Jewish, pleading her case for conversion.
But she received no response. Instead, the Rebbe wrote a postscript in an unrelated letter to Reb Chaim, asking, “What’s happening with the Yiddishe girl from Balaclava who wrote me that long letter?”
That was enough for Reb Chaim. Understanding the message, he immediately set out to see her parents. After much discussion, the mother admitted that she was hiding her Yiddishe identity because of the Holocaust…
Sometime later, Reb Chaim was in yechidus. “Among chassidim it’s accepted that the Rebbe knows these things,” he said. “I don’t mean to be chutzpadik, but I want to ask for a rational explanation…”
The Rebbe smiled and said, “Only a Yiddishe meidel could have written such a letter.”
From The Weekly Farbrengen by Merkaz Anash
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