Erev Gimmel Tammuz, when questions arise, I visited the mashpia, R’ Zushe Posner, one of the veteran shluchim that the Rebbe sent to Eretz Yisroel, to hear answers. R’ Zushe makes no concessions to anyone and he demands living with the Rebbe not for ourselves, but for the Rebbe! * Part 2 of 2
THE REBBE WILL REVEAL HIMSELF THE WAY HE WANTS
R’ Zushe, as I mentioned, doesn’t necessarily stick to the journalistic line I try to construct. He “farbrengs” while I struggle to keep up with the pace. “How do you think the Rebbe will look when he appears?” R’ Zushe challenged me. “Like 5754, like 5752, like he did in the 80’s, the 70’s? With a black beard or a white one?” R’ Zushe is one of the few people nowadays who saw the Rebbe throughout all those years, starting in the 50’s.
We’ve changed roles, I see. You are asking the questions and I am supposed to answer.
I avoid answering and wait to hear R’ Zushe’s answer. He says:
I don’t have an answer either. The Rebbe might appear with a black beard or a white beard, and maybe he’ll appear as the Rebbe Rayatz or the Alter Rebbe. Or maybe like the Baal Shem Tov or like Moshe Rabbeinu. What is definite is that he will appear as he understands he needs to appear and be revealed as Moshiach. What I want or think makes no difference. I don’t “adjust” the Rebbe to myself but try and see how much I can adjust myself to the Rebbe and his wishes.
In my shiurim with young men in Lud I tell them: Put your head into the maamer, not the maamer into your head.
What’s the difference?
Putting your head into the maamer means, adjusting your head to the maamer that is being learned, not adjusting the maamer to your way of thinking. Often there are maamarim that sound like they contradict one another. When you don’t try to adjust the maamer to your head, or in our case, when you accept the Rebbe and understand that the Rebbe is the Rebbe, he will be revealed, he will do, he will give and distribute what he wants, when he wants, and only if he wants. If the Rebbe does not give out dollars or kos shel bracha, he is no less Rebbe. The absence of giluyim (revealed manifestations) do not affect the Rebbe.
Until Gimmel Tammuz, the Rebbe appeared to us in a manner of giluyim like these and others. Now, the Rebbe decided he is not appearing as he did all the years. It is foolish to think that in order for the Rebbe to be “alive,” or in order for us to be able to receive “hashpaa” from the Rebbe, we must organize one ceremony or another whether of “yechidus,” or “kos shel bracha,” or “giving out dollars.” It is the same Chabad mistake that we must understand and explain “where the Rebbe is now” and “what he is doing.”
The problem is that you are going to try to encapsulate a five hour farbrengen in five lines and try to convey a farbrengen in writing. I am doubtful about whether that will be understandable …
THE YOUNG ONES “LIVE” WITH THE REBBE
I will try to understand. In your farbrengens you speak passionately about going to the Rebbe and the importance of being in 770. To the best of my knowledge, you also greatly encourage davening with the Rebbe. Doesn’t that contradict what you said now? It used to be that going to the Rebbe and seeing him was an inseparable part of hiskashrus. Today, when we don’t see anything, why is it important to go?
I do not accept the difference between the way it used to be and today. I went to the Rebbe for Shavuos. They sang the niggunim and it was really something; I was very moved. I saw young fellows that were “living” with the Rebbe at that moment. I do not know about the very next moment or the moment right before that, but they were “living” with the Rebbe.
I often hear from adults who say, “Oy, what will be with the youngsters. We saw, but they …” I am starting to think that we grew up in a “Gan Eden of fools,” while the kids coming to the Rebbe now are the ones who are living “etzem.”
Meaning?
We thought we got giluyim but we really got nothing. We thought we “understood” the Rebbe, but we understood the way a donkey understands human beings.
[MMA: When I showed this line to my chavrusa, he told me a story he heard from R’ Zushe which will illustrate the “Zushekeit” of what he said: “R’ Zushe had a set place at the Rebbe’s farbrengens, facing the Rebbe. His relatives who had their own places kept a spot for him but he always stood and never sat. Next to him stood a young person who was not able to see the Rebbe from where he was standing. He asked R’ Zushe, ‘What is the Rebbe doing now?’ R’ Zushe said: I don’t know. The bachur did not understand his answer. ‘What do you mean you don’t know – is the Rebbe standing, sitting, clapping, saying a sicha, saying l’chaim? What don’t you know? Don’t you see him?’ R’ Zushe answered, ‘How can I know what the Rebbe is doing?’ That’s a Rebbe, Elokus as it is clothed in a physical body, not on my level and not with my understanding. You ask me, ‘What is the Rebbe showing that he is doing? What is the Rebbe allowing me to see? Questions like that I can answer.’”]
R’ Zushe continued, “In contrast to that, I saw the young bachurim standing before Shacharis at 9:55, or before a farbrengen, looking ready and alert. The chair and lectern are ready and they sing Yechi, waiting, anticipating, asking: ‘Rebbe, we are ready, come in, redeem us. We want to see you! We want to see you! We want to see you!’ R’ Zushe repeats that line, his voice hoarse, choked up. He nearly screams it.
After a minute of pointed silence, he shares a special yechidus he had.
“In 5726, I went to see the Rebbe for what is called ‘private yechidus.’”
But before R’ Zushe could tell me what happened, he had to pour out his heart:
“In 5741, the Rebbe stopped the private audiences and the ‘collective yechidus’ began. There were many men who could not bear this ‘concealment.’ I told them, ‘I don’t understand you. You, who yelled at the elders in 5710 for not being devoted to the Rebbe, are now complaining about the Rebbe deciding that now, this is yechidus? Who decides what yechidus is? The Rebbe is the one who decides and now, this is yechidus!
“True,” R’ Zushe admits, “it’s hard. We got used to a certain way of yechidus, but we need to be devoted, not to our desires but to the Rebbe’s. If there is no devotion, then it’s like living like communists. You go with the party line and when the party changes the line, you also change, and this is a problem. Oh, what a problem!”
Let’s go back to the yechidus …
In yechidus, the Rebbe asked me whether I put a note at the gravesite. I said I had given it to the Rebbe. The Rebbe asked, “Were you at the gravesite?” I said yes.
“Did you read the maaneh lashon?” I said yes.
Then the Rebbe said, “In the maaneh lashon it says you need to read the note at the gravesite …”
I said, “I brought the note to the Rebbe!”
The Rebbe looked at me and asked when I was returning to Eretz Yisroel. When I said I was flying in two days, the Rebbe said, “Fine, you won’t have a chance to do it in the next two days, but submit the note to the secretariat and when I’ll be at the gravesite, I will take the note and read it.”
What is the significance of this?
That I went to the gravesite because you’re supposed to go, but I gave the note to the Rebbe. I actually gave the note to the secretaries. Whether the Rebbe read the note at the gravesite or not is none of my business.
THE GOAL: TO GET CLOSE TO THE REBBE
You’ve touched on an interesting topic of submission to our Rebbe. I’d like to ask you about the phenomenon of being mekarev Jews to Chabad Chassidus with an emphasis on the Chassidus of all the Rebbeim, not necessarily the seventh. What singles out someone who connects to the Rebbe with an emphasis on learning the Rebbe’s teachings (including/especially the D’var Malchus of 5751-2)?
R’ Zushe was taken aback by the question. Each part of the question sets him off.
“Our Rebbe?” What does that mean? Wasn’t the Rebbe Rashab ours? And the Rebbe Rayatz and the Alter Rebbe? We are not talking about tzaddikim, holy and pure ones that appear in different ways in every generation. We are talking about “Rebbe” and Rebbe is one thing only.
Now I will answer your question. The difference is not what you learn but how you learn! Just like you can learn Gemara and forget the One who gave the Torah, so too, you can learn Chassidus, know Chassidus, and even be an expert in Chassidus, and not be connected to the Rebbe. It makes no difference whether it is the Chassidus of the Alter Rebbe or the Rebbe. There can definitely be a situation in which someone learns the latter sichos of the Rebbe but he is learning and he is not really connected to the Rebbe.
When you learn and teach Chassidus you need to ascertain that the bottom line of the learning is to bring the person close to the Rebbe. If the goal is to bring a person close to Chabad, we’ve missed the point.
I need to understand the differences between “Lubavitch” and “Chabad,” between a tzaddik, kadosh and tahor and a Rebbe.
The Alter Rebbe founded Chabad Chassidus. He appointed his disciple, R’ Aharon Strashele, to guide the older Chassidim, and the Mitteler Rebbe to guide the younger Chassidim. After his passing, R’ Aharon began conducting himself as an Admur. His behavior was like the Alter Rebbe’s in that he davened fervently, as opposed to the Mitteler Rebbe who prayed with restraint. Furthermore, R’ Aharon would say “more fascinating and more appealing” Chassidus than the Mitteler Rebbe. Many Chassidim flocked to R’ Aharon who perpetuated Chabad Chassidus, as it were, while the Mitteler Rebbe moved to Lubavitch.
One of the Alter Rebbe’s great Chassidim was R’ Moshe Vilenker, about whom it was said “he prepared for yechidus (with the Alter Rebbe) for seven years and remained another seven years in Liadi in order to internalize the yechidus.” He also followed R’ Aharon, at first, but then he went back to the Mitteler Rebbe. When they asked him what he thought of R’ Aharon, he said, “a tzaddik, kadosh and tahor but not a Rebbe.”
In the following generation, the Tzemach Tzedek had a number of sons, nearly all of whom became Admurim. The main one among them was Maharil. The Tzemach Tzedek himself promoted him and he performed miracles. When the Tzemach Tzedek passed away, Maharil started Chassidus Chabad-Kopust (Chabad, as opposed to Chagas) and the Rebbe Maharash remained in Lubavitch where he barely had a minyan of followers.
Once, when they wanted to describe the difference between Lubavitch and Kopust, they said that in both they learn maamarim, daven with avoda, etc. but in Kopust, on Simchas Torah, they did not say “Shnayim Mikra” because they were busy with the maamer that the Rebbe said the day before. In Lubavitch, they said Shnayim mikra even though they were busy with the maamer. In other words, being a Lubavitcher is not worth it. Being Chabad is a privilege; being a Lubavitcher is demanding, a losing proposition and not worth it. But a Lubavitcher is with the Rebbe and belongs to the Rebbe.
To a Chabadnik, everything has to make sense, chochma, bina, daas. He has an explanation for everything; otherwise, he adjusts the situation to his understanding. A Lubavitcher knows that he does not understand, does not know, but he belongs to the Rebbe.
You speak in a bitter tone about those who see the Rebbe as someone from whom to ask brachos. What do you suggest to a shliach who encounters difficulties on shlichus? How should he rise above it and move forward?
R’ Zushe was taken aback.
“Chas v’shalom! I don’t make fun. It just hurts me to see Chassidim managing with the situation and making writing to the Rebbe with the Igros Kodesh an ikar. When you write to the Rebbe, it makes no difference how, first start to cry and think or say: Rebbe, I want to see you, I would want to give you a letter, but I have no choice because I don’t see you. I must write in other ways.
The main thing is to see the Rebbe, b’karov mamash, b’gilui mamash.
WHEN THE REBBE FARBRENGED IN R’ ZUSHE’S HONOR
R’ Zushe Posner was born in 1936 in the United States. His father was the Chassid, R’ Sholom Posner. When the Rebbe accepted the nesius, R’ Zushe was fourteen and he attended that historic farbrengen.
After the terrible tragedy in Kfar Chabad in 5715, with the murders of five boys and their youth leader, R’ Zushe was one of ten T’mimim who were chosen to be the Rebbe’s shluchim and representatives to Eretz Yisroel. Before their return to the US, R’ Zushe received a telegram which said he should remain in Eretz Yisroel. He returned to New York two years later, in Tammuz 5718/1958, but he realized that his shlichus is in Eretz Yisroel. He waited for instructions from the Rebbe.
One day, R’ Chadakov called him and said, “Return to Eretz Yisroel next Monday.” The instruction was to work in chinuch under the auspices of the Reshet Oholei Yosef Yitzchok. In yechidus, the Rebbe spoke about the shlichus he was going on.
On Sunday afternoon, 9 Elul, a day before his flight, R’ Dovid Raskin called R’ Zushe’s sister’s house where he was staying and said that since he was going on shlichus to Eretz Yisroel, a tzeis’chem l’sholom (farewell gathering) would be taking place in his honor, on the part of Tzach, in 770 at the end of seder in the yeshiva.
Barely a minyan of bachurim were there during the gathering. There were a few crackers and R’ Raskin, the rosh yeshiva – Rav Mentlick, and R’ Zushe Posner were on the improvised table of honor. The small number of people did not stop R’ Raskin and R’ Mentlick from delivering fiery speeches as though speaking to hundreds of people.
“During the farbrengen,” said R’ Zushe, “I noticed that R’ Chadakov peeked in now and then, but I did not attribute any significance to it. Suddenly, he walked into the zal and announced: If it will be orderly and quiet, the Rebbe will come in for a few minutes.
“Until the Rebbe walked in, there was a minor commotion with everyone trying to inform his friends about what was about to happen. Some went to use the public phone. Still, even when the Rebbe was there, the crowd was small; no larger than a few dozen.
“At 10:55 at night the Rebbe walked in. Everyone stood up, of course, and I stood up too. The Rebbe sat in his usual place. When he saw me, he told me to sit down. You can imagine how I felt. I remained standing. After a few minutes the Rebbe said: Is there no bench here?
I remained standing but I leaned on the table a bit.
The Rebbe began his talk by referencing the “honoree” of the event: “The main reason for this farbrengen is the trip of a shliach to our holy land, to work himself, and give over to others so they also work (and with the additional advantage therein) in a way of shlichus – in chinuch al taharas ha’kodesh, especially in the mosdos named for the Rebbe, my father-in-law, and consequently, this is also called working as an emissary for the one for whom it is named.”
During this surprising farbrengen, the Rebbe used unusual terms about those involved in holy work, shlichus and chinuch.
In the middle of the sicha the Rebbe turned to R’ Zushe and wished him: “May Hashem bless you with success that the shliach take the inyanim of shlichus in their entirety and bring those inyanim there to Eretz Yisroel, in their entirety. And consequently they will be words from the heart and they will enter the hearts of the listeners, to influence the teachers, male and female, so that every one of them acts with alacrity, enthusiasm and joy, to bring the word of G-d to every place that will be assigned to them. Especially in the schools named for the Rebbe, my father-in-law, that the pupils, boys and girls, be ‘seed blessed by Hashem’ and ‘a generation of the upright will be blessed.’” (A hanacha of this sicha was even edited afterward by the Rebbe and publicized.)
Today too, fifty years later, this event is considered exceedingly rare, that the Rebbe should come out and say a sicha in honor of one person.
CHINUCH CHALLENGES IN THE AGE OF THE TABLET
As someone involved in chinuch, I would like to hear your views about how we should handle the Internet, the media, and exposure.
Oy vey, it’s a problem, it’s a really big problem. I can’t give any tips. There is a saying from the Tzemach Tzedek that three jobs cannot be done by old folks, and one of them is a mechanech.
Chinuch is hard, very hard work. It’s avodas perech, but there is no choice. We must be mechanech and there is no opportunity to rest and rely on someone else to do the work.
With all the technological developments, we need to remember that we cannot fight them. To obliterate the issues is impossible. We need to know how to handle them. Before all else, the most painful situation is that many mechanchim simply don’t know what the talmidim know. Whether it’s an iPod, Tablet, Facebook. The problem is simply that it is not being handled altogether, their heads are in the sand, as though if they don’t know about the problems, they don’t exist.
A few weeks ago a group of children visited me. When their mashpia came in I said to him, listen, they know and understand better than you (about learning, about Chassidus and about olam ha’zeh too).
It is important for me to clarify here: There is no such thing as kosher Internet. Not Rimon (an Israeli black-list filter) or anything else. One of the children showed me a piece of plastic, a USB. When you insert it into the computer, you are connected to the Internet for free.
I once heard a saying in the name of the Rebbe Maharash. When they wanted to check someone out to see if he was a Rebbe or not, they would ask him for a segula against “foreign thoughts.” There simply is no such thing. You have to fill your head with words of k’dusha, and consequently, there will be no room for foolishness.