“Why did you come to Nepal?”
“I am a shliach of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Like every Lubavitcher kid, my dream in life was to be a shliach. My wife and I came to Nepal to give spiritual and physical sustenance to Jewish travelers. The Chabad House is their home away from home.”
“You and your wife adopted a non-Jewish Nepali boy. How did that happen?”
“There are many children living on the streets of Kathmandu. When we first met him, he was dirty and starving. He was injured from being attacked by street gangs. He wore plastic bags as clothing because his real clothes had been stolen. He asked us for food and we gave him. When he came back the next day asking for more food, we told him that if he wants food and shelter then he must go to school.”
“Why did you help him?”
“In the Book of Isaiah, Gd gave Jews and non-Jews a commandment to ‘settle the world from chaos’. We learn from the Sefer HaChinuch that the world is supposed to be a place where people live a peaceful life, where people have their material needs met – with education and with love. Here in Nepal, it is very easy to fulfill this mitzvah. Today, Baruch Hashem, my kid is thriving. We never have to tell him to study. He understands that education is a ticket to a better life.”
“There are many children on the streets, some involved with drugs, others who are adopted but then return to the streets, what made you take a chance on him?”
“Hashem gave us ten commandments but there is an eleventh commandment too. We are forbidden from judging or prejudging any person. We never know what happened in a person’s life. We must respect their experiences.”
Contributor: J.R. Rothstein
