HaModia Magazine recognizes Chabad Pioneer, Rosh Yeshiva of Tiferes Menachem, as trailblazer of the modern Baal Teshuva Movement in feature article

(Originally appeared in HAMODIA Magazine Inyan - Cheshvan 23 5773, November 8, 2012 edition)

HaModia Feature:

Rabbi Avraham Lipskier:

Fifty Years in Kiruv

A renowned mentor for the baal teshuvah movement marks half a century of service

A woman I knew once went to Venice on vacation. She came back with a very enthusiastic report about an extraordinary artist she had met in the famed Jewish ghetto. “What is so special about his work?” I inquired. “Would you believe it? He makes hundreds of Chassidim out of blown glass!” “Wow!” I answered. “That’s amazing! But I know someone who makes hundreds of chassidim out of real men — Rabbi Avraham Lipskier.” That woman wound up marrying the Italian glassblower, and he wound up coming to America to study with Rabbi Lipskier.

BY DOVID KANTOR

RABBI LIPSKIER TRAILBLAZED a path in kiruv in the 1960s, when there were no yeshivos for baalei teshuvah. At a time when many Jews lived in a spiritual desert and the questing youth of that turbulent era had virtually nowhere to turn for guidance, Rabbi Lipskier began his life’s work.

In 1962, while Avraham Lipskier was still a young rabbinical student studying for semichah, young men with long hair and glazed eyes — the hippie generation— were mysteriously drawn to Crown Heights and would wander into Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. In those days the locals were afraid of them, concerned that they would introduce their children to illegal substances and lead them astray. But Rabbi Lipskier related to them and created a rapport.

Despite the jeans and long hair, those young men were sick of materialism; they craved something deeper. Although they weren’t aware that they had neshamos and certainly did not know what a soul is all about, they were seeking to get in touch with the eternal spark inside themselves. And Rabbi Lipskier knew it.

The young Avraham Lipskier offered them “soul food” — Torah, in particular Chabad Chassidus as espoused by the sefer Tanya. One-on-one learning led to small study groups. After a while, Rabbi Lipskier gave a class at 770 for these young outsiders. They came and went, but all were touched by his very personal love and concern for their welfare. In those days, starting a class for guys who were so removed from Yiddishkeit was unheard of, so new that people did not know who was more meshuga— Rabbi Lipskier or the hippies.

However, Rabbi Yisrael Jacobson, z”l, the mashpia (counselor) of the rabbinical students at 770, encouraged Rabbi Lipskier to continue learning with these boys. The following year, with a blessing from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zy”a, Rabbi Jacobson opened Hadar HaTorah and hired Rabbi Lipskier as the main teacher.

From Small Beginnings

Rabbi Lipskier taught at Hadar HaTorah until 1967, and then, after his marriage to Cirel Baumgarten, he went to Italy on shelichus. In 1972, when he returned to the States, he was offered an outreach position on college campuses by Rabbi Moshe Herson, director of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim in Morristown, New Jersey. Rabbi Lipskier wrote to the Rebbe, who instructed him to accept the offer with his blessings.

Toward the end of the spring semester, Rabbi Lipskier advertised a summer learning program for college students called “Live and Learn.” A short while later, Rabbi Nosson Gurary, director of campus activities at the University of Buffalo, contacted Rabbi Lipskier. He said he was bringing five students from the university to spend Shavuos in Crown Heights. “If they don’t go straight fromCrown Heights to learn in Morristown [at Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim], they’ll go in all different directions and we’ll lose them,” he said.

Rabbi Herson arranged for the students to come ten days early, and Rabbi Lipskier started the summer program with those five students. As it turned out, about two dozen other students attended the program that summer, some for a few days or a week, others for longer.

One of them, Avraham Schwarzberg, wanted to continue learning. Rabbi Lipskier advised him to write to the Rebbe. The Rebbe replied, “Since you were successful where you were until now, you should stay.”

Yeshivas Tiferes Bachurim had been launched!

Motivation

Unlike most yeshivos and rabbinical colleges, which catered to those aspiring to rabbinical ordination, Rabbi Lipskier attracted — and continues to attract —many students who have little or no interest in becoming rabbis. In fact, many students arrive without even knowing how to read Hebrew. They range in age from new high-school graduates to seasoned military retirees. College kids, Russian immigrants, professionals, university professors, and researchers all find the door to Rabbi Lipskier’s office open.

Some graduate in a few years, others visit for a week; some return to college after a summer or winter break, others go on to become rabbis; but no one leaves empty-handed — or empty-hearted. Rabbi Lipskier takes a personal interest in each individual and helps kindle the spark of Judaism that lies in his heart. Every person who has studied with Rabbi Lipskier has gone on to live a more Jewish life.

Having spent nearly fifty years as a Rosh Yeshivah of baalei teshuvah, Rabbi Lipskier has developed a unique method of study that starts with giving the students direct access to the original Torah texts. They acquire the tools of language and logic and delve into Talmud and halachah, and above all, grow in the practice of Judaism. He believes that sincere Torah study must provide motivation to perform mitzvos and help others.

What gives this added vitality to Torah study — and in consequence all our cherished traditions? Rabbi Lipskier says it is the study and implementation of Chassidus, [and in particular a profound attachment to the Rebbe]. This approach, he says, is responsible for his success in stirring Jewish hearts and building not followers but Jewish leaders.

Mentor of Thousands

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Rabbi Lipskier’s remarkable service as an emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in spreading Yiddishkeit. Stories abound of Rabbi Lipskier’s direct impact on Jewish souls, year after year. He has earned not just the respect, but the love, admiration, and gratitude of untold thousands around the globe. Many of them came in with long hair and many questions, and they left with long beards and many answers.

Over the decades, Rabbi Lipskier’s former students have seen their Jewish identity and life blossom. Numerous alumni work as career professionals in diverse secular fields; many more have gone on to serve in leadership positions in Jewish communities the world over — as teachers, yeshivah principals, Chabad sheluchim, and Rabbanim. Others have remained connected as lay leaders in their communities or have taken on the position of ultimate responsibility and inestimable value as fathers of their own Jewish families.

Rabbi Lipskier’s success is based on his vast knowledge, his empathetic heart, and his humble and unswerving connection to chassidus. He seems to get through to anyone and everyone who walks in the door, knowing just what they need to hear.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a prolific author of books on Chassidus and Kabbalah that have inspired even secular Jews to greater attachment to Hashem and the practice of His mitzvos, is a perfect example. In a recent conversation he reflected on Rabbi Lipskier’s profound influence on him during his formative years in Chabad.

“I had always bucked the system, loathed formal study and protocol. But, while a second-year undergrad in music composition at UBC [University of British Columbia], I had started keeping Shabbos, wrapping tefillin, and learning Torah. In the early summer of 1975, I hitchhiked across America — took some buses, too —from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Morristown, New Jersey.

“Yeshivah was very intense. I felt I was losing my balance, pulled back and forth through extremes ... pushing myself way too far, then falling back into depression. There were times I was flying high. And there was a point when I felt, for the first time in my life, that there was no G-d.

“I sat in Rabbi Lipskier’s home and spoke with him about it. He didn’t say I was nuts. He didn’t laugh it off. He told me that the Rebbe had just spoken that Shabbos about the four who entered Paradise, and how Rabbi Akiva ‘entered inpeace and left in peace.’ “He left in peace,” the Rebbe explained, “because he entered in peace.”

Everything he did was directed toward a goal, toward peace between soul and body, heaven and earth.

“Since the Rebbe had just spoken about it, he said, it could be the message I needed to hear. And he explained clearly how life had to be ordered so that everything could be absorbed without shattering the vessels.

“More than the words he spoke, the attitude he projected stuck with me and guided me for many years.”

Rabbi Lipskier continues to be accessible as a mentor to his talmidim the world over. However, he does not see them only as his students, but as colleagues and leaders with a mission — to strengthen Jewish life everywhere, filling the physical world with goodness and holiness, making it a place where the Divine Presence can dwell.

Rabbi Lipskier is currently the Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivah Tiferes Menachem, now in its thirteenth year, in the picturesque community of Seagate, Brooklyn. The yeshivah and its alumni will be conducting several new initiatives to mark this occasion and to celebrate Rabbi Lipskier’s fifty years of work as an educator and mentor.

❚ Frumma Rosenberg-Gottlieb, Tzvi Freeman, Tzvi Jacobs, and Mendel Cohen contributed to this article.

Continued below

URGENT APPEAL:
Yeshiva Tiferes Menachem is FLOODED and temporarily CLOSED due to Hurricane Sandy. YOUR HELP IS DESPERATELY NEEDED TO REOPEN

Yeshiva Tiferes Menachem, Rabbi Lipskier’s Yeshiva, just three houses from the seashore, was hit especially hard by the destruction and devastation in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in Sea Gate, Brooklyn.

The storm surge brought six feet of floodwater into the building and caused extensive damage to the building and property. Currently, the students have been evacuated until flooding recedes, utilities are restored and repairs are made. The yeshiva is in urgent need of assistance.

While the yeshiva seder continues to function off-premises, the bochurim require space for learning, an apartment, food, warm clothing, etc. The Yeshiva dining room, kitchen, laundry room and storage facilities were all completely destroyed, and repairs are estimated to be at least $100,000. These expenses are more than the yeshiva can currently afford to meet.

Rabbi Avraham Lipskier and his colleague, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Greenberg, have been maintaining Tiferes Menachem with complete self-sacrifice for the last thirteen years. They have been at the forefront of teaching Baalei Teshuva according to the Rebbe’s directives and tirelessly maintaining a wholesome learning environment for five decades with astounding success. Today, many of their students have blossomed into shluchim, rabbonim, mechanchim, and askonim all over the Jewish world.

Let’s show them our appreciation and help them to continue their essential work. Contributions are desperately needed now. For more information on how you can help email or call 718-265-1437.

To donate on-line, click here:

Please send checks payable to:
Tiferes Menachem
c/o Rabbi Avrohom Lipskier
1516 Union St. #1B
Brooklyn, NY 11213