In the week of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's Day of Rejoicing, I feel the need to share with you what I go through every day.
At the entrance to my house, or if you prefer, at the exit, there is a picture of the Rebbe. It is one of several that hang throughout the house. In the picture in question, you see the Rebbe extending his hand in a calming gesture that says, "Why worry?""
For me, this image symbolizes hope and faith.
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When I leave or enter the house, I am met with the Rebbe's reassuring gaze. "Don't worry, my child. Everything is fine and will be even finer. I am watching over you from above.".
Every time I leave the house, I put coins in the large charity box that hangs below the picture. This hand gesture accompanies me as I leave for another day of work. It is as if the Rebbe accompanies me with his fatherly gaze and tells me, "Go in peace, be blessed. I am here.".
Not looking for "miracles""
I live in a Chabad village and more than once I was amazed to discover that already at the first meeting with someone I don't know, I get to hear some story related to the Rebbe, Chabad, and Judaism. In most cases, these are miracles - acts of miracles, after all, in Lubavitch, miracles roll on the floor.
In the letter of the Rebbe of Rayatz to his son-in-law, the Rebbe of Lubavitch, the previous Rebbe writes: "The young abrechim are also eager to hear some story and miracle, but the older Hasidim scold them. Because in the eyes of the great Chabad Hasidim, the miracles are a kind of insult to the honor of Hasidism, small and lowly, and no one pays attention to it... This is how the older Hasidim viewed the matter of the miracles. And even the famous main stories, here the Chabad Hasidim tell them in a whisper.
""And therefore, here, where the Hasidim of Wahlin, Poland and Galicia, write stories and events, and give us entire books full of wonders, here the Hasidim of Chabad give us entire books on the teachings of Hasidism, assumptions from the words of our rabbis, long explanations and deep intellectual explanations... Our faith in the servants of God, our ancestors, our holy rabbis, does not require any help in signs and wonders. But it was pleasant for us to know this too, that this too brings considerable benefit in the main, which is the study of Hasidism in depth, and the engagement in the work of the heart...".
The righteous man did not leave.
I never spoke to my aunt Zviya, my late father's eldest sister, who was long past the age of heroism. On my father's last Yahrzeit, she pointed to a large silver coin that was set like a necklace around her neck and said that she had received it from the holy hand of the Rebbe.
""Few people have a coin like that," the aunt boasted, adding: "That's not all. After my husband's death, I was privileged to serve for two years as a women's orderly in the Sunday dollar distribution. The shift lasted nine hours, during which I went out to rest twice, and the Rebbe never stopped or sat down or slowed down even once!""
Every week when I study the Rebbe's talk on the week's parashat, I find in his words my personal experience, the point I need to take from the words. My mission for that week.
Twenty years after the Rebbe's voice fell silent, it seems that his words are heard on a higher level than before. The sages have already said about this: "A righteous man, when he retires, will forget everything that the world allows of his life." The righteous man does not leave us. He leaves the body and the limitations of the physical world.
Perhaps this explains how it is possible that, despite the fact that a generation has passed since our people left, Chabad has only grown and grown stronger. The army of emissaries has grown in quantity and quality, and all the questions about Chabad have faded in the face of the amazing reality – Yatir of my life!
Rabbi of all
Last Thursday, a huge gathering was held at Nokia Hall in memory of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. About a dozen people, women, and children came to this sublime event.
That day, at noon, after I gave a lesson to a group of female soldiers at the Tzirifin base, I said goodbye to the base's military rabbi who told me: "See you this evening, at Yad Eliyahu.".
I looked in amazement at the knitted kippah on his head, and before I could even ask the obvious question, he smiled and explained: "Don't look at me like that. I am a Hasid, a transparent Hasid. It's true that I studied in a Hesder yeshiva and it's true that I was a visitor to the house of Reb Chaim (Hagar Chah Kanievsky M.S.), but I love the Rebbe with a deep love and I will come to the assembly tonight.".
One sentence spoken that evening at Nokia Hall brought me back to the force that drives Chabad followers and spurs them to continue despite the great difficulty, despite the lack. Despite the hole that nothing will fill. Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Aharonov, chairman of the Chabad Youth, repeated the familiar Chabad phrase: "The unity of the followers is what will lead them until the coming of our righteous Messiah.".
Twenty years later and we ignore the daily pain and remember that we have a role to play in this world – to actually bring about the complete redemption immediately and immediately. To prepare ourselves, our surroundings and the entire world for the day when "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.".
In closing, I wanted to comment to the organizers of the rally, which was conducted with impressive professionalism, that it lacked a little emotion and Chassidic vitality. Then I remembered that the Rebbe taught us to see the positive in everything, and I decided to refrain from the criticism I have and to reiterate the unity of the situation in which thousands of Israelis took it upon themselves to continue and act in practice to bring the Messiah and the complete redemption for the people of Israel and the entire world, for which we have been longing for thousands of years. Is there anything more important than that?
Two days earlier, when I had finished submitting my program to Kol Chai radio and was sitting with the producer to plan the next program that would be broadcast on the Rebbe's birthday, one of the station's senior officials told me that "we are all followers of the Rebbe." I was amazed. He, who had studied his entire life in Lithuanian yeshivahs and was affiliated with one of the factions of the Torah banner, certainly had no sympathy for Chabad as a child. But he insisted: "The Rebbe of all!"'
I have nothing to add to that. Perhaps I should wish and ask again the King of Kings to send us the Messiah King immediately.
• The writer is the owner of "My Choice", an event host, lecturer and radio broadcaster [email protected]
