Non-Jew Shares Rebbe Story, Then Learns It Was Lag BaOmer

East Flatbush resident Avrohom Sherr was stopped by an African-American neighbor who unexpectedly shared a childhood encounter with the Rebbe.

By COLlive reporter

A routine walk to Shacharis took an unexpected turn for Avrohom Sherr, a resident of East Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday morning, Lag BaOmer.

As he stepped out of his home and headed toward shul, an African-American passerby called out to him in Yiddish, “zei gezunt.”

Caught off guard, Sherr turned around. “I wasn’t expecting to hear that,” he later said. Curious, he asked where the man knew it from, and the two struck up a conversation.

The man shared that he grew up on Empire Boulevard, between Kingston and Albany, and mentioned that Sherr looked new to the block. He said he had noticed a photo of the “Grand Rebbi” in Sherr’s window, referring to the Rebbe, and that it brought back a memory from his childhood.

“I remember standing outside watching the Jewish boys running after the Rebbe’s car,” he said. It was during a neighborhood fair on Empire Boulevard.

At one point, the car stopped, and, to his surprise, the Rebbe pointed toward him and motioned for him to come closer. “I wasn’t sure if he meant me,” he recalled, “but my friends told me to go.”

When he approached, the Rebbe handed him a dollar, smiled, and said, “zei gezunt.”

At the time, it didn’t seem like much. He later spent the dollar on ices. “Only years later did I realize it was probably something I should’ve held on to,” he said.

The two spoke for several more minutes, reflecting on how a brief moment like that could stay with someone for so long, crossing backgrounds in a simple, human way.

As the conversation continued, Sherr pointed out something the man hadn’t considered. The details lined up with a Lag BaOmer parade and fair, one of the few times the Rebbe traveled down Empire Boulevard. The realization hit him right there. According to Sherr, the man grew emotional as he connected the memory to that day.

Looking back on the exchange, Sherr drew a parallel to a well-known moment. When a CNN reporter once asked the Rebbe for a message to the world during the Sunday dollars, the Rebbe answered: people should add in acts of goodness and kindness, handing him a dollar.

Standing there on a Crown Heights sidewalk, that idea felt less like a concept and more like something you could see play out. As Sherr put it, “It was just a dollar and a smile, but it clearly stayed with him all these years.”

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