Those of you who live in Crown Heights know about Union Car Service, which has been operating here for ten years. Many of us have enjoyed their service, whether traveling within the neighborhood, out of the neighborhood, or to the airport. On a few occasions, not only did I get great service, but I even got to hear some fascinating encounters my drivers had with the Rebbe. This article is about one of the owners of the car service, Mr. Ronny Navon.

Before we get to his miracle story, a little background. Ronny was born in Georgia in the former U.S.S.R. and grew up under the influence of the Rebbe’s shluchim there. When he moved to Eretz Yisroel at the age of 19, he remained in touch with chassidei Chabad.

He married 17 years ago. Like every young couple, the Navons looked forward to having children, but that moment was long in coming. At first they weren’t concerned, but as the years went by they began to worry. They went from doctor to doctor, who were unable to diagnose any medical problem which would prevent them from having children. One doctor after another raised his hands in defeat and told the couple that medical science had nothing to offer them.

In the summer of 5751, Ronny and Esti decided to move to the United States, where her parents live. "Meshaneh makom, meshaneh mazal." They also believed that the merit of being closer to the Nasi HaDor would bring them blessings. They had heard about the miracles that took place in 770, and they were hopeful.

On Friday morning, 20 Elul 5751, the Navon couple arrived at their new home in Queens, and the very next Sunday they went to Beis Chayeinu, where the Rebbe, prophet of our generation, stood and gave blessings and counsel to thousands of Jews who waited to see him. During the hours-long wait to see the Rebbe, Ronny had ample time to review what he planned to say to the Rebbe. He decided not to ask for parnasa, not for a bracha to acclimate to their new environment, and not for a lot of other things for which he wanted a bracha. He would ask for only one thing: children. After seven years of marriage, all other concerns paled in the face of the strong yearning to have children.

The line moved on and it was Ronny’s turn to stand before the king.

Ronny Navon: This was the first time I was seeing the Rebbe," related Ronny emotionally, as though reliving the encounter. "We were taught that the Rebbe is the tzaddik of the generation and a spiritual giant of all generations, and when I stood in his presence I was seized by an uncontrollable inner trembling. It was with great difficulty that I gathered my thoughts, bent towards the Rebbe, and said: ‘Rebbe, we have been married seven years already and we still don’t have children. We ask that the Rebbe bless us with children.’

The Rebbe took two dollars and gave them to me with his assurance: "B’karov mamash" (really soon).

In a moment I had become a happy man. The Rebbe had promised me children b’karov mamash, I sang to myself as I left. I was ecstatic. I was sure it was only a matter of days and my wife would be expecting a child. I anticipated good news b’karov mamash.

A few days later, I felt so impatient that I decided to go for dollars again and ask for a bracha. After standing in line for a few hours, I was facing the Rebbe again. I repeated my request in exactly the same words, and again the Rebbe handed me two dollars and promised me, "B’karov mamash."

This time I waited a few weeks for good news, and when there wasn’t any, I went back to the Rebbe. I made my request for the third time, word for word as I had said it twice before, and the Rebbe gave me the dollars with the promise of "besuros tovos."

I guess I’m stubborn; when the weeks went by, I went back to the Rebbe a fourth time and asked for a bracha. This time the Rebbe gazed at me with especially penetrating eyes. When I finished my request, he took three dollars and gave me the first one and said, "This is for you." Then he gave me the second dollar and said, "This is for your wife." When the Rebbe gave me the third dollar, he said, "And this is for the children who will be born."

After this explicit promise I didn’t have a shadow of a doubt that we would have children. I left 770 feeling great; my joy knew no bounds.

After receiving this explicit bracha from the Rebbe, I remembered a story I had once heard about two chassidim who asked the Rebbe for brachos for children. The first one completely believed in the bracha and bought a carriage, while the second one waited for the bracha to come true. A year later, the first one had a baby, but the second one was still waiting. The latter went to the Rebbe and complained: "We both received the same bracha, so why did my friend have a child and I didn’t?"

The Rebbe answered: "In order for the bracha to be realized, you need to prepare a kli for the bracha. Your friend, who had perfect faith and even expressed his faith by buying a carriage, prepared a proper kli for the bracha, and it was quickly fulfilled. You didn’t believe as fully and you still don’t have the proper kli for the bracha."

My wife and I fully believed in what the Rebbe had said, and we decided to buy a carriage. That week we went to a large baby furniture store in Queens, and when I saw a double carriage I thought that if the Rebbe had promised children, in the plural, it seemed we were going to have twins. So we bought the double carriage. And since I considered this an expression of our faith in the Rebbe’s bracha, I made sure to buy the best carriage in the store.

As soon as I bought the carriage I went to Rabbi Groner’s office and asked him to inform the Rebbe that I had bought a double stroller for the twins that would be born because of the Rebbe’s bracha. I was sure this news would give the Rebbe nachas.

A few months went by and my wife was still not expecting a child. It was Lag B’Omer, a day when Chabad Rebbeim gave brachos especially for children, and I wrote to the Rebbe again that we bought a double stroller, and asked that on this special day the Rebbe should give us his bracha again for the quick fulfillment of his bracha.

Months went by and we still weren’t expecting children. Every so often, I wrote to the Rebbe. I wanted my letters to be written in the style of a chassid, so I asked the T’mimim in 770 to help me write it properly. This was after Chaf-Zayin Adar 5752, and most of the time the Rebbe responded to my letters with a nod of his head.

I would usually give my letters to the Rebbe via his secretaries, Rabbi Groner or Rabbi Klein. One time, when I mentioned in a letter that I was expecting the Rebbe’s bracha to be realized with twins, I asked Rabbi Groner whether that wasn’t a chutzpa on my part to ask for twins. Rabbi Groner assured me that not only didn’t the Rebbe view it as chutzpa, but the Rebbe liked it.

The next day, when I went to the secretaries to see if they had an answer for me, Rabbi Groner told me that when he read the letter to the Rebbe, the Rebbe nodded his head in satisfaction, and when he mentioned twins, the Rebbe’s pleasure and joy was apparent.

Throughout this time I was particular about davening in the Rebbe’s minyan. I had the beeper that informed me when the Rebbe was coming out on the balcony. When I got a beep that the Rebbe was coming out for Mincha, I would drop everything and rush over to daven.

Ten years went by. They were very difficult years, years of tests and emuna, but baruch Hashem, we can say we withstood the test. We were 100% convinced that the bracha of the tzaddik of our generation would be fulfilled.

Even two years ago, when we moved and my wife momentarily hesitated about whether to take the carriage with us, I told her emphatically that the carriage was a sign and testimony to our strong faith in the Rebbe’s bracha, and that we were taking it to our new home with the bitachon that b’karov mamash the bracha would be fulfilled.

I had made good resolutions in a number of areas, especially in the Rebbe’s takanos of Chitas (daily Chumash, T’hillim, Tanya) and the daily Rambam. I learned the Rebbe’s and Rebbetzin’s chapters of T’hillim by heart, and often while traveling I would say them to myself and feel a special closeness to the Rebbe.

In my work at the car service I make sure that every car is equipped with a pushka and a Chitas. In general, I tried to use my work at the car service as a mean of disseminating the Rebbe’s messages, with emuna that in this way I was connecting to the Rebbe and becoming closer to him. When I drive I often hear people’s stories. People tell me their problems and I tell them about the Rebbe’s takanos, for whoever fulfills them merits much blessings and success. I am sure that over the years I have gotten hundreds of people to check their t’fillin and mezuzos and to fulfill the Rebbe’s takanos.

More than anything else, I tried to talk to my passengers about the importance of ahavas Yisroel, the mitzva that is considered a great principle of the Torah. I had heard what the Rebbe said regarding the importance of ahavas Yisroel, which is the key to the existence of the Jewish people in general and chassidim in particular.

In recent years I’ve asked the Rebbe to fulfill his bracha, and I’ve put these requests in the Igros Kodesh. Often I received explicit answers in which the Rebbe acknowledged receipt of my letter and wished me besuros tovos regarding children.

In Tishrei of a year ago, I received an answer in the Igros Kodesh that I should donate money to mosdos chinuch al taharas ha’kodesh, not only in the U.S. but around the world, and that this merit would stand by us for children. The Rebbe continued in that letter to say that certainly after the birth of the children we would make sure to give them a chassidic education.

Nine months ago we finally began realizing the Rebbe’s bracha. After years of strong emuna, with no doubts that the moment would arrive – it did arrive. I received the good news in the middle of a routine trip in Crown Heights. My cell phone rang and my wife told me in tears of joy that the results of her blood test showed positive.

I was stunned. I stopped the car and began crying like a child. They were tears of joy for a seventeen-year hope that had been realized, tears of happiness for ten years of faith that were going to be vindicated.

I informed the Rebbe that very day that his bracha was being fulfilled. Then I told Rabbi Groner, who I had been in close touch with over the years. Rabbi Groner guided us regarding special hanhagos during the pregnancy and told us about directives he had received about this from the Rebbe.

Two months later, when during a routine doctor visit we were told it was twins, we were ecstatic. We saw how the Rebbe’s bracha was being fulfilled precisely.

Nine months of waiting passed and on Tuesday, 7 Cheshvan 5762 at 10:20, the twin boys were born.

In light of the Rebbe’s directive that we should publicize the wonders and miracles Hashem does for us, to hasten the Geula, we publicized our miracle to all our friends and family. Two weeks ago I publicized the miracle to hundreds of shluchim I had gotten to know over the years, who had come for the Kinus HaShluchim.

On Wednesday, 14 Cheshvan, the twins’ brissin took place at the Georgian shul in Queens. The entire congregation heard about the twins who had been born after seventeen years of waiting in the z’chus of the Rebbe’s bracha, and the shul was packed with members of the community and rabbanim.

Rabbi Groner attended the brissin. He and his wife had been with us during the difficult moments and strengthened our faith in the Rebbe’s bracha. Rabbi Groner’s presence made a strong impression on the hundreds of people in attendance, especially after his terrific talk in which he skillfully wove together dozens of miracle stories of the Rebbe that he was witness to, and inspired the crowd to believe in the Rebbe’s prophecy about the imminent Redemption.

I kept repeating the story of the Rebbe’s brachos, and told everybody that this story was one of thousands of miracle stories which prove that the Rebbe is chai v’kayam and continues to run the world, and who very soon will be revealed to all as Melech HaMoshiach.

Rabbi Aharon Chein, the Rebbe’s shliach for the Georgian community in Queens, did the brissin. We named my oldest son Adam Daniel, and his brother, Ariel Avner. Before the brissin, Rabbi Groner said that when he had twins, the Rebbe gave him instructions about how to do the brissin. Rabbi Chein followed these instructions, and then delivered a drasha with stories of the Rebbe’s miracles.

The seuda became a powerful demonstration of emuna and bitachon in the Rebbe’s words. There’s no doubt that in the wake of this event, the emuna of the hundreds of participants in the Rebbe’s prophecy that our generation is the generation of Geula and that we will immediately see the fulfillment of the Tzaddik HaDor’s holy words was strengthened.

MIVTZA MEZUZA

As it says in the article, Ronny Navon has convinced many Jews to fulfill the Rebbe’s holy mitzva campaigns. What follows are two interesting stories I heard from him on a trip:

Four years ago, my wife and I were staying at the Concord Hotel in the Catskill Mountains, where thousands of Jews go in the summer months. On our first day there, when we entered the main dining room, I noticed that the main door did not have a mezuza. I thought I was mistaken and asked my wife to check. After we realized that they had forgotten to put a mezuza there, we decided we wouldn’t eat until we had done Mitzva Mezuza and made sure to tell the manager about the oversight.

I went to look for the rabbi in charge, and found him about fifteen minutes later. I told him that something "small but significant" was missing. I showed him the main door of the dining room, which was missing a mezuza. He was so moved by our having noticed and bothering to point it out, that he hugged us and thanked us.

Since I don’t have a beard, he was surprised that I was so bothered by the missing mezuza. I explained that I was from Crown Heights and was a chassid of the Rebbe, and he taught us that Mivtza Mezuza is of vital importance.

Within hours a mezuza was put up on the main door, and the story made a kiddush sheim Lubavitch.

A year later I was able to fulfill Mivtza Mezuza again, this time in Mexico City. I went for a walk with my wife in the Polanko neighborhood, a Jewish area which was founded forty years ago by Jews from Poland. This neighborhood boasts a beautiful shul called Menora, so named because of the huge menora in the front of the shul.

One of the gabbaim gave us a tour and again I noticed that one of the doors was missing a mezuza. I realized that in a shul that had cost millions, they weren’t being cheap about putting up mezuzos. They had simply forgotten this doorway. I was happy at the z’chus I had to be able to point this out to the gabbai. That very day a mezuza was put up. Once again I had the privilege of being the Rebbe’s shliach for this important inyan.

A year ago I had to go to Kennedy Airport to pick up a couple who had arrived from Brazil. On the way from the airport I spoke with them and asked whether he had put on t’fillin. I was shocked when he said: "Ronny, I’ll tell you the truth. Not only haven’t I put on t’fillin today - I haven’t put on t’fillin even one time since my bar mitzva!"

I was thrilled at the z’chus I had to put t’fillin on this man, and he was amenable to the suggestion. When we got to our destination, I put t’fillin on him and then we sat and talked. It turned out that they hadn’t had children in ten years, and they had also been to the Rebbe for dollars around the same time that I had been there. The Rebbe gave him a dollar and said: "This is for you." Then the Rebbe gave him a second dollar and said: "This is for your wife." When the Rebbe gave the third dollar he said: "This is for the children you will have."

It was exactly the same bracha I had gotten, and I hope they hear my story and if they still don’t have children, that they are strengthened in their faith that the Rebbe’s bracha will be fulfilled.