What purpose is there in saying “nishmaso Eden” when it is easier and better to say “nishmaso bi – his soul resides within me”? So too with regard to the Rebbe: I don’t say “nishmaso Eden” but “nishmaso bi” [the soul of the Rebbe Rayatz resides within me]! * Source materials compiled by Rabbi Shloma Majeski. Translations appear in bold; underlining is the emphasis of the compiler.
Translated and presented by Boruch Merkur
In a revealing, personal talk the Rebbe MH”M gave on Purim 5711, just over a month after his official acceptance of the leadership of Chabad, the Rebbe said the following in tears:
“Who am I and what am I?” “Ich veis nit farvos matert men mir – What do they want from me? I dont know why you are connected to me and I to you…”
In the course of expressing these doubts and reservations, the Rebbe turned to one of the elders of the Chassidim and said to him: With regard to the inauguration of the Bayis Sheini, the Second Temple, we find that “the elders who had seen the Bayis HaRishon, the First Temple…wept.” You, who were with the Rebbe [Rashab], nishmaso Eden, and with my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe [Rayatz] – it is indeed a show of discipline on your behalf that you do not cry… With [the passing of] the Rebbe Rashab, there was his only son to take his place, but now…?!
([Reacting to this outpouring of emotion] several of the elders of the Chassidim approached the Rebbe shlita and said that the Chassidim don’t want to hear this kind of talk. One of them called out, “You are the Rebbe – a link on an unbroken chain of leadership starting from the Alter Rebbe,” and he asked for the Rebbe shlita to pour for him a cup of mashke, saying that he wants to receive mashke “from the Alter Rebbe!” The Rebbe shlita smiled and gave him mashke.)
Among the things said in this exchange, the Rebbe made several statements expressing having hiskashrus to him, such as:
“It would appear that you have no other option. In fact, I too have no other recourse”; “I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility”; “I am only a channel [for the Rebbe Rayatz]”; “We must be bound to the Rebbe. I take his place in only a single respect.”
At some point in this talk, the Rebbe said:
After the histalkus of the Rebbe [Rashab], nishmaso Eden, my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, once said that he does not say of his father “nishmaso Eden – his soul resides in Heaven,” for what purpose is there in saying “nishmaso Eden” when it is easier and better to say “nishmaso bi – his soul resides within me”?
(The Rebbe concluded) So too with regard to the Rebbe: I don’t say “nishmaso Eden” but “nishmaso bi” [the soul of the Rebbe Rayatz resides within me]!
***
After singing the Alter Rebbe’s “Niggun of Daled Bavos” followed by “Nyeh Zshuritzi Chluptzi,” the Rebbe MH”M addressed the Chassidim again:
I would like to bless you, as well as myself—
I once heard from my revered father-in-law, the Rebbe, with regard to giving pidyonos, that it is appropriate to give oneself a pidyon, in particular upon the tziyon ha’kadosh, the holy resting place of the Rebbe…
I would like to give the bracha that we should see the fulfillment, on this Purim, of the bracha my father-in-law, the Rebbe, gave in one of the final years of his life in this world – that this should be the last Purim in galus, the last Purim in exile.
And the Rebbe MH”M concluded:
And the Rebbe shlita will lead us to Moshiach.
(Purim, Toras Menachem 5711, pg. 326-327)