By Rabbi Mendy Goldstein – Buckeye, Arizona

This past Cheshvan, I received an unexpected email from a local woman who was preparing to move out of state. She explained that she wished to donate some Jewish artwork and books. Though we had never met, her name sounded familiar; she had RSVP’d for Chabad of Buckeye’s very first Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, the first ever held in the city’s history. She did not end up attending, and all our attempts to reach her by phone and in person went unanswered.

Buckeye, Arizona, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. New neighborhoods are rising almost overnight, with families relocating from across the country. Yet despite its explosive growth, Buckeye had never had any organized Jewish presence, no synagogue, no Hebrew school, no Jewish center of any kind. From a small town just two decades ago to a city of well over one hundred thousand residents today, it has become a large city without any Jewish infrastructure.

That changed this year when our family moved to Buckeye on Shlichus to establish a Chabad House. Jewish life is taking root in the city for the very first time.

I immediately replied to this woman’s message and arranged to stop by her home that very day.

She had neatly laid out various pieces of Jewish art and books, but within moments, something on her dining room table caught my attention. There lay two kuntresim from the Rebbe: Kuntres Chof-Beis Shevat, accompanied by a five-dollar bill, and Baruch She’asah Nissim, together with a single dollar from Yud Shevat.

When she saw me notice them, her face lit up. “I know how precious these are to you,” she said, “because they have always been so precious to me.”

These treasures had been given to her many years earlier by someone who had received them directly from the Rebbe. She kept them close throughout her life, always near her bedside, through move after move. Her most recent move was just months earlier, when she relocated to Buckeye to be near her daughter. But only weeks later, her son-in-law received a promotion that required the family to move once again.

Even before arriving in Buckeye, she had already decided that her next relocation would be her chance to downsize. She hoped her children would take her meaningful Jewish belongings, but they showed little interest.

When she opened a local magazine and saw the article announcing the arrival of Chabad of Buckeye, she immediately felt the Rebbe had guided her steps and her treasured belongings to be exactly where they were meant to be.

In her heart, she believed these kuntresim and dollars from the Rebbe were destined for the new shluchim, to be cherished and to channel their blessing into a city that had never before known organized Jewish life. By giving them to us, she felt she was becoming the Rebbe’s messenger, carrying his bracha into Buckeye.

She had planned to surprise us with these gifts on Rosh Hashanah, but last-minute family plans brought her out of state for Yom Tov instead.

As she placed the kuntresim and dollars into my hands, I had a powerful realization. This encounter, this gift, this moment of unmistakable hashgacha pratis, was happening during Cheshvan, exactly one year after we had written to the Ohel asking for the Rebbe’s bracha for our new shlichus, shortly after receiving approval from the Head Shliach of Arizona, Rabbi Zalman Levertov, to establish Chabad in Buckeye. I felt this was the Rebbe’s way of encouraging us to continue our vital Shlichus here.

As we build Jewish life from the ground up in one of America’s fastest-growing cities, we are laying the foundation for the very first center of Jewish life in Buckeye,  the westernmost corner of the Phoenix metro area.

Please donate to our campaign and partner with us in our growing shlichus to Buckeye, Arizona.

Donate today: charidy.com/buckeyeaz