R’ Zalman Notik, mashpia for Anash in Yerushalayim and Yeshivos Tomchei T’mimim, talks about traveling to the Rebbe, particularly at this time of the year, how to prepare for the trip, and what chiddush there is in the seventh generation. * A holiday interview.
Last year, R’ Notik won a raffle of six tickets to the Rebbe for him and his family to serve as the representatives of all those who participated in the lottery. I asked him:
How does it feel to have won?
On the one hand, I am thrilled about this trip to the Rebbe. On the other hand, I feel a very heavy sense of responsibility, because if you go to the Rebbe as a representative, your behavior has to be altogether different. There is also the feeling of – who am I that I merited to come with my family to the Rebbe? This is a question whose answer is, “Ata yodei’a rozei olam” [You know the secrets of the world], since there is no explanation for why so-and-so won the raffle and was chosen to be the shliach tzibbur to travel to the Rebbe.
Along with the responsibility there is the conferring of strength, because all those who partook in the raffle are partners in your trip and the merit of them all provides the strength to prepare properly.
What practical difference is there when going to the Rebbe as a representative?
Winning the raffle means: 1) that preparing for the trip is on a completely different level. This is because it’s not the preparation of a private person making a trip but the preparation for all the people that I represent. On my shoulders rests the responsibility for all the people who I represent, so that I represent them properly to the Rebbe. 2) In addition to the preparation being altogether different, being at the Rebbe requires that every moment you are there you need to think what exactly is it that you are doing as the shliach tzibbur or, conversely, what you should not be doing. You need to be completely immersed in using the actual time and the quality of the time in a completely different way.
How does one translate the special feeling of Tishrei into actual avoda?
You need to constantly channel the inspiration into action and not suffice merely with feelings and experiences. In order to fully grasp the inspiration of Tishrei, the avoda needs to consist of Torah, T’filla and Chesed, and the avoda needs to be in a manner of relating it to your personal situation.
With Torah, that means an additional chayus in the Rebbe’s teachings, especially in inyanei Moshiach and Geula which is the main thing that the Rebbe says our “koch” should be in now.
With Avoda, we need to try and think Chassidus every day, for at least two minutes before davening, in terms of what relevance does this have to you personally and to think specifically in the Rebbe’s teachings.
With Chesed-Tz’daka, the avoda is to be devoted to bringing merit to others especially in connecting people to the Rebbe and his teachings.
What does preparing for a trip to the Rebbe nowadays consist of when we don’t see the Rebbe and yet we go with emuna and enormous anticipation to bask in his presence?
The preparations nowadays require a kind of meditation that we didn’t have before Gimmel Tammuz. Now, in addition to preparing, we also need a lot of emuna and thinking about the Rebbe being here, and that every Chassid is going mainly to “be seen.” In the past, we went to see the Rebbe while today, sadly, the trip is for the Rebbe to look at you. This looking is what peels away the klipa and reveals the yechida of the nefesh and accomplishes a spiritual awakening. As we know, the gaze of the Rebbe strips away the chitzonius and reveals the p’nimius.
Although the Rebbe looks at you wherever you are, obviously being in the Rebbe’s Dalet Amos is not the same as being in your usual location. It’s like Hashem’s gaze outside the Beis HaMikdash is not the same as it is in the Beis HaMikdash.
When you talk about the Rebbe’s gaze and its impact, can you explain how this is practically expressed in a Jew’s avoda?
When I was on K’vutza by the Rebbe we all experienced the heartwarming sight of all kinds of Jews, rabbanim and those with long hair, standing on line on Sunday, like sheep before the shepherd.
Someone in Crown Heights set up a t’fillin stand to enable those who came to get a bracha to do this mitzva. One stand was set up on the way out of Gan Eden HaTachton in the spot where they would park the Rebbe’s car, and which enabled those who had already seen the Rebbe to do the mitzva. The other stand was mobile and moved up and down the long line of people who stood there in the heat and the cold, waiting to receive a dollar and a bracha from the Rebbe.
Interestingly, there were people who stood there for hours, with nothing to do, who were not willing to put on t’fillin, but when they came out after seeing the Rebbe there was no such thing as someone refusing to put on t’fillin. You might think that at that point he would be anxious to return home after such a long wait, but the only explanation is that seeing the Rebbe peels away the outer klipa from us and exposes the yechida of the nefesh. This has an effect on our thought, speech and action.
In Chassidus it explains that two people in history had a unique power of vision: Moshe Rabbeinu and l’havdil, Bilam HaRasha. Bilam saw a man in a sirtuk and gartel with a Moshiach pin standing and davening and enthusiastically doing mivtzaim, completely immersed in avodas Hashem, but he saw the hidden evil which lies within every one of us. With his gaze he brought the hidden evil to the fore (as in the Rebbe’s explanation that even Yochanan the high priest who served in this position for eighty years, had hidden evil which ultimately came to the fore).
Moshe saw a Jew whose outside did not attest that he belonged to the Jewish people, but with his positive gaze he saw the yechida of his soul with its yearning to be incorporated in its source. This positive gaze exposed the yechida of the person’s soul so that it came to the fore, going past all the outer behavioral levels of the soul of thought, speech and action.
So too, when we go to the Rebbe, although we cannot see him, we stand facing him and we are seen. The Rebbe gazes upon us and removes the outer klipos from us, revealing the yechida within. The gaze of Moshiach affects us all.
At the same time, this does not exempt us from doing our own avoda. We are not Poilishe Chassidim who rely on the holiness of the tzaddik to elevate us. The bachurim as well as the girls need to stick to the learning schedule arranged by the Hachnasas Orchim organization and use every minute for t’filla and Torah, thus becoming receptive to the Rebbe’s gaze.
In addition to keeping to the s’darim and using every moment for k’dusha and yiras Shamayim, we always need to look around and see whether anyone needs help. As brothers and as one family we need to stretch out a hand and support one another. This, above all else, makes us into a vessel for all the brachos and hashpaos.
In our generation we see great interest in going to the Rebbe. Is there a chiddush here, something we did not see in earlier generations?
Traveling to the Rebbe was always a foundation in the darkei ha’chassidus. The spiritual elevation as well as the divrei Torah and Chassidus that the Chassid absorbed from the Rebbe lit up his soul and the souls of his household for the rest of the year. When a Chassid returned from the Rebbe, the entire family was uplifted and was included in the Chassidishe hergeshim that he absorbed.
That’s the way it always was. In our generation, the seventh, the chiddush is that not only the father serves as the channel to convey the inspiration to the rest of the family, but other family members go too. The wife and children might also go to the Rebbe and bring home the Sh’china from the beis midrash of Nasi Doreinu.
In more recent years, when the light of the Geula is shining ever more brightly, a special emphasis has been placed on the bachurim, the Chayolei Beis Dovid (and the Achos HaT’mimim) going, and they are the ones who bring the k’dusha home to their parents, fulfilling the prophecy, “and returning the hearts of the fathers through the children.” They bring the atmosphere of Tishrei with the Rebbe home for the rest of the year.
What about now, as we anticipate the immediate hisgalus of the Rebbe?
In the last twenty years in which we have not seen the Rebbe and we don’t hear his sichos, the number of people going to Beis Rabbeinu Sh’B’Bavel hasn’t diminished; it has grown. How is it that families that struggle daily and don’t have enough money to cover the month’s expenses, spend what they don’t have and wander around 770 for an entire month, not seeing and not hearing, and sometimes not even being able to daven in peace as they are used to the rest of the year back home? Social pressure is not a factor when speaking about such an extended period of time. And the incredible thing is that when these bachurim and girls return home after Tishrei, they create a Chassidishe environment with all the spiritual energy they got in 770.
Those who want to see miracles should look at this miracle which takes place, before our eyes, every year. We just need to open our eyes to see it…
Every Chassid who comes to 770 and sees the bachurim who came from Eretz Yisroel and other countries, knowing that their coming has no rational basis, knows that the Rebbe brought them to him. The Rebbe is the one who generates that feeling in our hearts to come to him. He is the “magnet” who draws us to the place of the future Mikdash, and he is also the one who creates the financial miracle that takes place every year in which all the tickets are paid for.
At the same time, we want to see the Rebbe encouraging the singing of the March on Motzaei Yom Kippur. We want to see the Rebbe giving out lekach, kos shel bracha, etc. We want to see the Rebbe.
In previous generations, the emphasis was on being with the Rebbe for Rosh HaShana, while in the seventh generation the emphasis is more on Sukkos-Simchas Torah. Why is that?
By Chassidim there is a feeling for the Rebbe’s inyanim, and Simchas Torah is the Rebbe’s day since it’s his ushpizin. This is why Chassidim want to be with the Rebbe on this day.
Aside from that, in earlier generations, right after Rosh HaShana began the avoda of “and Yaakov went on his way,” while the Rebbe expanded this to Yom Kippur, Sukkos, and Simchas Torah until 7 Cheshvan.
The month of Tishrei is the avoda of t’shuva. How does one implement the avoda of t’shuva for the entire month with the Rebbe?
I would say that the difference between the inner shift when you are not by the Rebbe to when you are by the Rebbe is like the difference between t’shuva tataa and t’shuva ilaa.
When you are not by the Rebbe, the month of Tishrei mainly engenders the shame for all the wrong things we did all year and it arouses a genuine feeling of remorse. When you’re by the Rebbe, the emphasis is not so much on digging into the past, even though the shame is greater; rather, the desire to connect with the source of our soul, to the Rebbe who is the root soul of every individual, causes one to be drawn like a spark to a flame. So the cleaving with G-dliness is not with a feeling of pain and distance because of the shame, but with a feeling of closeness, that the Rebbe is looking at us and awakening the essence of our souls.
On the one hand, Tishrei with the Rebbe makes us feel ashamed as a result of the very fact that the Rebbe is looking at us, but that same gaze arouses the soul, for the root of the soul of every Chassid is connected with the root of the Rebbe’s soul which includes all souls. When the neshama is in the presence of the Nasi Ha’dor it is aroused to G-dliness. Just being by the Rebbe arouses the soul and reveals our desire to approach G-dliness.