Letters of Thought: Faren tzum Rebbe'n

Picture of the Week:

770 on Yud Shvat last year . . . during the blizard of '07,

G-d willing tonight I will be flying to Crown Heights Brooklyn to spend Yud Shvat, the day the Rebbe accepted the leadership of the Chabad Movement.

To a Chossid being by his Rebbe, in the Rebbe's shul, by the ohel, is paramount.

When speaking to one of my Grandfather's cousins, an older Jew by the name of Mottel Kandelshein, he recounted his memories of Kovel (A town formally in Poland but now in Ukraine) . . . one of those distinct memories was of Chassidim who were "Oileh Regel zayn tzum Rebbe'n", Chassidim who traveled to see their Rebbe (in his case, Kotzk) . . .

I've always made every effort to be by the Rebbe for Yud Shvat . . . So far I haven't missed a year since entering Yeshivah -even the great distances of Poland were not able to deter me.

The question does, however, ask itself . . . What connection do I have a Rebbe whom I've never physically seen?

It's a question that all Lubavitchers must struggle with on some level or another . . . Even those who were there must ask themselves how they now relate.

On an abstract level I do feel a connection the Rebbe . . . in the realm of knowledge and idea.

But to see myself standing before the Rebbe -there I at times fall short.

The truth is that there is one realm where I do 'feel' my connection . . . on Mivtzoyim.

A Rosh Yeshivah or the like need only close his eyes and recall a Yechidus -a private audience, receiving a dollar or a kuntres -Chassidic discourse in booklet format.

I feel closest when I wrap the worn leather straps of my tefillin around another Jew's arm (I do not go on mivtzoyim to feel this said connection -I go because I have an obligation to help out my fellow, whenever and wherever), when I shake Lulav with an aged Russian . . . It is then that I see that something far greeter is at hand. I know who I am, I'm not the most outgoing person . . . Yet to bring a fifty year old Lawyer vacationing in Venice to tears when he puts Tefillin on for the first time, a Russian youth who is too cool for himself to get Bris, to speak in front of crowd of 300 tourists sitting by a Shabbos meal . . . Something is going on.

Whatever it is though, how we do bring out this connection, when standing in the Rebbe's room, when reading letters by the Ohel, we must connect to that point of inspiration which connects us to our Rebbe . . . and then bring it out in all levels of our life.