Chief Rabbi of Odessa and Southern Ukraine Abraham Wolf entered the regional TOP-100
National rating of influence "Elite of Ukraine-2021".
He headed the Odessa Jewish religious community "Shomrei Shabbos" and the Odessa Society of Jewish Culture back in August 1998. Now Avraham Wolf is also the director of the Jewish newspaper Shomrei Shabbos, the founder of the Chabad educational complex (which includes kindergartens, primary, secondary, high schools and a boarding school), as well as the geriatric center Mishpaha. In addition, on his initiative, the Southern Ukrainian Jewish University was created, and he is also a member of the Board of Trustees.
ElitExpert agency met with a rabbi, to talk about influence, problems, daily work in the religious communityиnot and about many friends
— International expert club recently "Elite of Ukraine" made the second national rating of influence. The global goal of this rating is to help the formation of a qualitatively new elite in Ukraine - not with gangster, corrupt roots and inclinations, but with high moral values and a high level of intelligence and responsibility for one's country. The club's experts have come up with a way to visually distinguish these two types of elites today - we decided to award diplomas to those laureates of the influence rating who identify as elite - with a "plus" sign! And I am pleased to present such a diploma to you today! А what for вas concept "influence»?
- I will try to explain. I am the same person as everyone else. Each of us has desires, ego, and emotions. We have all the qualities that G-d invested in us: in me, in you, in any person. Each of us wants to achieve something, in different ways, honest or not so much. It's normal, we're human. Adam and Eve, being in paradise, already sinned. We all want what is forbidden to us, we want something more. So, an influential person, in my understanding, is that person who can, first of all, influence themselves.
When I come to work in the morning, like everything else, I want to achieve a lot. But I can't always do this, because some methods of achieving goals are prohibited by moral, religious, municipal or some other laws. And yet, people all the time try to circumvent these prohibitions a little - turn left where there is no turn, make it through a red traffic light at two o'clock in the morning when you are rushing home or, for example, listen to gossip that the Torah forbids. People ask every day to turn a little to the side in order to do something faster, to have more time to satisfy their ambition and ego.
So, an influential person is one who can influence himself and make him live according to all the rules - moral, religious and state.
— And what for вace means elite?
— In my opinion, the elite is a group of people who think how to make this world better and how to make this world right. And, first of all, it starts with ourselves.
— In the rating of the 100 most influential people of the Odesa region this year вthey took a pretty high 13th place…
— Oh, the place in the rating is not so important. The second is important, and everyone should understand this. If a person took the 20th place in the rating out of a hundred people, it means that he was 20% underworked. The numbers are, of course, conditional, and imperfections may be different. It may be that the majority does not even consider it a violation and is ready to put up with it, for example, listening to gossip because it is interesting or telling the truth because it is more convenient. But if you are honest with yourself, then you have to admit that if you did what you wanted in such a situation, and not what you had to do, then you could not influence yourself 100%.
Maybe you don't think so, but I draw such a conclusion for myself.
— Do you think вAre you an influential person, to whom does your influence extend and how does it manifest itself?
— Am I influential? Not sure. If I do not influence myself 100%, I cannot influence other people 100% either. Therefore, first of all, I must correct myself, work on myself, and then, maybe next year I will be in first place, that is, I will influence myself 100%.
And as for the second part of your question - "to whom is the influence spread and how is it manifested", then I have a certain influence. For example, when I speak in the synagogue on Saturday, hundreds of people listen to my lecture.
You are not a rabbi, but thousands can read your words on the Internet. Think about who is more influential, me or you? Therefore, it is always important how you behave, how your words will later affect people.
I influence you not by force or power, not by state or financial opportunities, not by my mind and not by my cabinet, but only by personal example. I would like you to leave here and say: "I would like to be a little bit like him" and then I will be sure that at least one person has been influenced in a good way.
— And hdid that influence your decision and, perhaps, is it still influencing you?
My life, of course, was influenced by my Rebbe - the Lubavitch Rebbe, teachers, parents. Every Shabbat the Pope read the Rebbe's words about helping people, doing something for people, carrying the light. It definitely affected me. In addition, my wife has a great influence on me. It should have been put in the 12th place in your rating (smiles).
However, there are other small things that affect me every day. I will tell you a story that has impressed me for two weeks now. It's a very rare thing when something makes an impression on you two weeks in a row. We have an orphanage in our community, and literally a month ago, my wife and I took another child from the city orphanage under our care. He is three years old, two weeks ago we circumcised him, and on the same day another child from our school was circumcised. This boy is 10 years old. In honor of circumcision, and this is a very important commandment among Jews, an important event, and all relatives and friends celebrate it very solemnly, they gave him a scooter. And this boy, who found out that there was a kid from the orphanage nearby, gave him his scooter! He said - although I won't have a scooter, there is a father and a mother, and that boy from the orphanage has neither a scooter nor parents.
This story delighted not only me, and after it became known, the boy received a lot of gifts from people he did not even know. And there were so many gifts that he probably earned himself another 10 scooters. His behavior really affected me. These are the things that are sometimes so important to convey to people's understanding. A small good gesture made by a child is a hundred times more effective than everything else - politics, power, money.
- Bytuet the opinion that the majority of serious disputes among important people of Odessa are resolved, as if by magic, precisely in your office. How do you manage it?
— Yes, people come here to solve their problems. Unfortunately, there are a lot of disputes. Where there are people who work, where there is money, ambitions - there are always disputes. When people come to my office to resolve a conflict, the first thing I do is cancel any previous opinion I have about these people. It might be close, or it might be people I'm seeing for the first time. These may be Jews or representatives of other nationalities. I am not asking them to judge, I am trying to bring them to an agreement. I can say that 99% of people leave this office very satisfied, because both parties feel and know - my attitude towards them was the same, I had no preconceived opinion about any of them. It was easy for them to come to a common solution, as I tried to bring them to a place where both parties would feel better.
— How does it turn out that with these questions they come to вam, why precisely k вum?
- I have no questions why Jews come. I have questions about why non-Jews come to Rebe. There was a case when non-Jews came to me, I saw them for the first time. They had a dispute that I don't understand. There you need an accountant, auditor, lawyer, I don't have such education. They say, brother, you know, we don't even need you, we need your office, that's the main thing that you have - a holy place. In the end, they left here smiling. Maybe because only good things are done in this office, people are really thinking about how to help people, that's why it works, people believe in this place, in this holiness. I do not know…
Another dispute was between two judges, both non-Jews and not even Odessans. They came here and, thank God, I managed to reconcile them. At the end, one of them said to me: "Can you teach me this Jewish code? How could you reason with us and bring us to reconciliation?"
Thank God, I can do it. The main thing is to treat your work with love, treat all sides of the conflict honestly and impartially, and then you will succeed. People feel it. If it is insincere, they will feel it too.
— Tell me in this and what is your daily work like??
— I leave the house in the morning and think how I can help one more person, how to make one more child more pleasant. And in the evening I come home and ask myself - did you manage to do one more good thing, did anyone receive soup or help or just advice today. That is, from morning to evening I try to make sure that all the tasks that I planned for myself were completed. And my plans are to make more light and good in this world, to feed one more child, one more old man, so that the people in the nursing home are well-groomed, and the children in the orphanage are warmly dressed. I think about it all the time. He left in the morning, came home at ten o'clock in the evening, and then my wife and I talked late into the night about what we did or did not do. Then I go to bed, in the morning I go to work and I have lived like this for 30 years.
— I heard that The Jewish community is now building a new oneI go to school...
— Yes, now we are building a new Chabad school in Vysokye Pereulok, at the corner of Vodoprovodnaya Street, with the funds of patrons. Today, more than 1000 children study in our institutions on Seminarskaya Street, Evreyskaya Street, Bazarnaya Street, Devolanovsky Descent, and General Bocharov Street. The new school is a four-story building with an area of about 5 square meters with sports, assembly and conference halls, a dining room, and a swimming pool - in this way, we will be able to unite all children in one complex. Construction is being carried out next to an existing high school. Instead of its old buildings, we want to build a new one, but this is in the future.
Today, Odessa is considered number one in the post-Soviet space in the development of the Jewish community. Our community is one of the largest in the Jewish world, where there are so many different types of organizations under one roof - three kindergartens, two junior schools, a high school, a children's home for girls, a children's home for boys, a Jewish university, a home for the elderly, and all religious institutions, including 4 synagogues. Of course, there are more communities, but so that there are so many established under one roof - no.
— А вI have to deal with politics? Сare you lazy вaccording to the political situationher? I ask этот вопрос is not accidental, after all religion in the post-Soviet space very tight connectedа with politics.
— I am not involved in politics. She does not interest me and has never interested me. I know that the president of Ukraine is Volodymyr Zelensky, but I don't even know who the prime minister and other ministers are. They do their work, I do mine, we don't interfere with each other.
I know the mayor and his deputies, because it is connected with the work of schools and kindergartens. Sometimes I have to call the social departments and solve some problems, then the secretary helps me with this.
I do not understand politics, but I support any government, because without government there would be nothing not only in this country, but also in the whole world.
— Concluding our conversation, I would like to hear your attitude to the complexities of life. Today in Ukraine, it is often quite difficult to live, no matter whether you are a rich person or a poor one. It's hard to earn money, it's hard to raise children, it's hard to obey the law: wherever you look, you're surrounded by difficulties. Do you have such problems, and how do you overcome them?
— In my lexicon, the words "complications" and "problems" do not exist at all. When they come to me and say: Lord, I have such difficulties! I say: you have no difficulties, you have tasks, challenges, let's figure out how to solve them!
You know, this morning I read the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He said that all the difficulties that a person faces on his life path are not problems, but just trials. It's like a sport. You do sports - your muscles hurt, but it strengthens you, you become stronger, healthier, more experienced, it helps you rise to a higher level, and then life is much easier. Therefore, do not treat tasks and questions as problems and difficulties.
I received all the vaccines against COVID-19, and after the last vaccination I got sick. I didn't even know I was sick. I had to fly away, took a test and it showed a positive result. Then I lost my taste and smell, a day later everything returned, and exactly a week later I had a negative result. Many people have died from the coronavirus, some have been sick for months, some are still suffering from post-covid syndrome. Why didn't I have any of this? Because I took the "problem", which I call a test, and put it into myself - my body produced antibodies, and I passed it much easier.
After the crisis in 2008 and 2014, the community had difficult moments and million-dollar debts in Odessa banks. No one knew about this, only me and the bankers who lent us money and were sure that one day we would return it. We did not close schools, kindergartens, orphanages, or universities. All this costs a lot of money every month, but I knew we would get through it. It only strengthens so that it will be easier later. And then it became easier, and today we go further and develop further. I have no problems, no difficulties. There are tasks and tests and we pass them. Therefore, thank God for the trials!
Interviewed by Elena Ovchinnikova
Photo: Sergey Lyashonok
