A HAKHEL BAR MITZVA CELEBRATION WITH THE REBBE

In a letter that I wrote to the Rebbe on the last day, I wrote: Thank you! Thank you for bestowing the merit upon me and my family, thank you for the hashpaos, thank you for the wonderful hospitality for us all. Thank you for all we got in the Hakhel year.

I was also able to go to the Rebbe with my family for the Shnas Hakhel. The simcha was double for we combined the trip with a bar mitzva celebration for my son Dovid, and it really was a double simcha.

A Chassidic education is a foundation of how we want to raise our children. Today, after our family trip, I know that there is no substitute for the experiential aspect of a Chassidishe chinuch, to go to Beis Chayeinu and be with the Rebbe, to walk around 770, to touch, to “smell.” To absorb, to feel deeply in one’s heart and soul the Chassidishe atmosphere that accumulated in this place for over seventy years.

As part of the chinuch we provide, we speak about the Rebbe, talk about 770, show videos and pictures. But when you go to 770, you reach “the tipping point,” this is it!

It isn’t easy to pack suitcases for the entire family and fly to the Rebbe. Nor is it easy to get the money to make such a trip, to cover the cost of tickets plus a place to stay (Crown Heights is not cheap). At some point there is the sense of stepping out of your normal everyday life and taking a leap into space, and quite a few preparations are needed.

The amazing thing is that the moment we made a decision to go, things flowed smoothly, as though the Rebbe was just waiting for us to make a firm commitment. When you withdraw a few thousand shekels from the bank for the passports and visas, you say to yourself, “This is just the first step. How will I manage with the rest which costs so much more?”

From that moment and on, you feel that the Rebbe is standing at the end of the road and motioning to you with his hand to come. He invites you to come. He wants you to come, you and your family. Men, women, and children, so that they hear and they learn, and the Rebbe, as it were, moves aside all difficulties and paves the way for you like a proper host who takes care of all his guest’s needs.

When we arrived at the end of Adar II, I wrote a pidyon nefesh and asked that this visit go well and that we merit to be fit receptacles for all the hashpaos. What more could I ask for?

Our visit, which lasted two weeks, was packed to the point of exhaustion with ruchnius, with Chassidishkait, hiskashrus and gashmius. It was full in every respect, starting with the t’fillos, with the shiurim of the bachurim, and ending with a fridge that was constantly full and with children who weren’t bored for even a minute. These are seemingly minor things but on a visit like this, even two free hours can be hard for children (with ramifications for the parents) but we didn’t have that.

Our stay there was a far more valuable experience than I could have hoped for. The children learned to recognize places that for me had once been part of everyday life, which is why I did not pay them attention. Thanks to them I stopped, thought and focused. Memories came back to me and I told them about Elul 5747, Tishrei 5748, Nissan 5751, the end of 5752, the K’vutza year, 5753, that continued for me until Nissan 5756, when we married.

I showed the children the different parts of 770, where the Rebbe walked past, where the Rebbe stood, where the Rebbe davened, and where he sat at farbrengens. There are stories about the Rebbe in connection with nearly every part of 770, and this is the ultimate expression of the statement of the Rebbe that you can “get” even from the walls of the place. I told them about many experiences I had on my visits to the Rebbe over the years, while vividly describing to them where the Rebbe passed through, where the Rebbe sat, and where he looked. Suddenly everything took on a whole new life and dimension, so that I myself felt excited to talk about those days.

Every day we sat together, my son and I, and learned for hours together with bachurim, whose chayus has become their trademark. I can tell you I was no less affected than him.

The Rebbe also “arranged” the bar mitzva for us. It was Thursday evening at the end of Adar. We had a farbrengen for the bachurim like every night of Adar. There was dancing with music that night too, but since this was the last night of the month of Adar, the organizers brought more instruments and instead of one hour of dancing, the bachurim used the final hours of Adar for three hours of dancing. They lifted my son, the bar mitzva boy, on their shoulders, his face aglow with Chassidic contentment.

A fancy hall? A band? A trendy bar? Fancy chairs? An exclusive menu? Who needs all that when you have a farbrengen, a keyboard and clarinet in 770. Everything ready made with the addition of the pure joy that only the bachurim can provide.

At the end of a long day, when I went to 770 to look for my son so we could go to the airport, I stood on the side and watched him sitting with one of the older bachurim and learning together. I didn’t have the heart to take him from there, because I saw in him a powerful embodiment of what Dovid HaMelech said, “One thing I asked of Hashem, that which I seek - to sit in the house of Hashem all the days of my life,” just like that deep feeling experienced by a bachur who has sat in 770 for an entire year and it’s hard to leave. It’s hard. It was just at the last minute, when there was no choice, that I told him that we need to leave. That is when I saw, and was happy to see, how connected he was to this place where the seventh generation was educated for many decades, the place where the Rebbe infused tons of k’dusha to the multitudes. And my son, and my entire family, had the good sense to hold out their hands and receive generous portions of this unique hashpo’o.

If that was not enough, during the final hours before our flight home, my wife got a closed envelope from her sister who had a mysterious smile on her face. In the envelope was a dollar from the Rebbe that my wife received as a child in the Hakhel year of 5748 from the Rebbe. This dollar had been lost for years and only now was found stuck away deep inside a drawer. This was another sign that the Rebbe was pleased with us, “bracha v’hatzlacha.”

In a letter that I wrote to the Rebbe on the last day, I wrote: Thank you! Thank you for bestowing the merit upon me and my family, thank you for the hashpaos, thank you for the wonderful hospitality for us all. Thank you for all we got in the Hakhel year.