A surprise meeting on Kingston Avenue between two shluchim this Kinus turned into a meaningful encounter, as a story that began nearly fifteen years earlier came full circle.

At the time, a young university student from Brazil came to study in Beijing. When his first Shabbos arrived, he decided to check out the local Chabad House, run by longtime shluchim Rabbi Shimon and Dini Freundlich. 

During the meal, he watched as Rabbi Freundlich warmly welcomed a Chinese government official who had joined the community. At one point, Rabbi Freundlich turned to the guest and explained that he was there on the Rebbe’s shlichus – and told him, “The Rebbe thought about everyone in the room, including you.” He pointed directly at the guest.

Standing off to the side, the student felt those words strike something deep, and he couldn’t get them out of his mind. 

“I thought that if that was true for him, a Chinese gentleman, then it was certainly true for me”, the student recalled.

That brief moment stayed with him. Over the next years, he moved to Eretz Yisroel, learned in Yerushalayim, and continued strengthening his connection to Yiddishkeit. Fast forward to today, that young student is Rabbi Avraham Niv, and is today proud to serve as a shliach of the Rebbe in Yerushalayim.

Rabbi Freundlich – who had long forgotten the fleeting moment – was completely taken aback hearing the story and meeting the former student now standing before him on Kingston Avenue, as a fellow shliach.

“The Rebbe thought about every single person”, Rabbi Niv concluded. ”Each of us can make a revolution by bringing a Yid closer. Sometimes you say something to one person – to a Chinese gentleman – and you end up affecting a university student standing quietly on the side.”

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