I wrote this for Rosh Hashanah in 2008 and never published it until now. With the yahrzeit of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson just passed, this is a good time to post it. 

I had a challenging spiritual path while growing up in Texas. Although Jewish, family disruptions led to an upbringing as a Southern Baptist. As a teen I moved away from Christianity and returned to Judaism. I embarked on a search reminiscent of the physical wanderings of my great-great-grandfather, Chayyim Schwarz, who became the first ordained rabbi in Texas when he moved there from Posen, Germany, in the early 1870s. He had his smicha from Rabbi Meir Lob Ben Yehiel Michal, the eminent scholar-rabbi known as the Malbim. I like to think his spirit, his neshama, found and guided me as I struggled to find my way as a Jew.

A spark of Reb Schwarz lighted the way as I visited Israel, became familiar with Jewish liturgy, married under a chuppah in a synagogue and studied Hebrew. I imagined that he stood beside me as a proud guest at my son’s bar mitzvah in 2007 – a passage neither I nor my father had experienced. I had persevered and restored the spiritual link across generations, from 1870s Texas to 21st century Connecticut. As the Hebrew phrase goes, l’dor v’dor – from........

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