SIMPLY TO LOVE THE REBBE

The Rebbe turned to him and said, “I love every Jew with a tremendous love and I hope that due to my love for them, they reciprocate that love in kind.” * It is incumbent on a Chassid to connect and cleave to the Rebbe, the true source of true life, and to be constantly preoccupied with this love, the love of his life.

By Rabbi Sholom Dovber Shapiro
Shliach and Rosh Kollel “Torah Center,” Manhattan

On an ordinary weekday, there was a man whose car broke down on a street in France. By divine providence, this was near the yeshiva in Brunoy, and the driver asked the students to give him a hand which they did gladly. After a brief conversation, they discovered that he was a Jew, and as to be expected in such an encounter, they put t’fillin on with him and invited him to visit the yeshiva. From that point onward, he began to come closer to Judaism and would visit the bachurim from time to time, spending more and more time with them so that when Tishrei came around he joined them on their trip to the Rebbe.

During his stay in 770, he continued to spend a lot of time with the boys, and that is how he got to spend the wee hours of the night attending Chassidic farbrengens, where he discovered the tremendous hiskashrus of Chassidim to the Rebbe. Despite being greatly impressed and inspired by all that he experienced over Tishrei, he had a hard time digesting what to him was the “obsessive” involvement of Chassidim with the Rebbe. The bachurim suggested that he ask the Rebbe directly about this when he would have the opportunity for a private audience at the end of the month. And so, when he stood before the Rebbe in his holy room, he did just that. The Rebbe’s response was: “I love every Jew with a tremendous love and I hope that due to my love for them, they reciprocate that love in kind.” The end of the story is pretty much as expected. The Jew became a full-fledged Chabad Chassid and today his children serve as shluchim of the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach.

We all know the saying cited in HaYom Yom of 26 Shvat: “Love is the spirit of life in the avoda of Chassidus. It is the thread that binds Chassidim to each other, that binds Rebbe to Chassidim and Chassidim to Rebbe. This is both in a direct way and a responsive way, without any barriers, and it transcends the limitations of space and time.”

The tremendous love that exists between the Rebbe and Chassidim is a two-way phenomenon. Therefore, anyone who has the least bit of Chassidic sensitivity ponders and thinks to himself: What about me demonstrates my love for the Rebbe? How much is love for the Rebbe felt in my everyday life?

The most basic instinct that governs all of a person’s behaviors is his love of life. This love is not the result of any occurrence or event which brought him to the realization that it would be a good idea to love life; rather it is his very existence that causes him to be permeated with a boundless love for life. In other words, life is not some added component of the person. As long as his soul beats within him, in everything he does he is alive. Like the analogy brought in Tanya of a person who craves the life of his soul, and when he is weak and debilitated he craves and hungers for his soul to return to him.

So too regarding the love between the Rebbe and Chassidim. The Rebbe is the Nasi of the generation, the Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation through whom all of the divine hashpaos and energy flow passes to every member of the Jewish people, and as such he is the heart and mind of the entire nation.

We merited to be chosen as the Seventh Generation, and we are overflowing with a tremendous bounty of sichos and maamarim, but sometimes it is possible to lose the feelings. We need to constantly review and remember that “Hashem wants the heart.” We need to be authentic, to feel the tremendous love that the Rebbe showers upon each and every one of us. This is something that affects our very existence.

* * *

At a farbrengen on 27 Adar, I heard from a man living in Crown Heights, that he had a daughter on 28 Tishrei 5738, less than a week after the heart event on Shmini Atzeres, and as is the custom, he wanted to give her a name at the Torah reading in the Rebbe’s minyan. These were weeks when the Torah reading took place in the Rebbe’s room with an exact quorum. The new father approached R’ Leibel Groner and tried to use all of his skills in persuasion, but to no avail. R’ Groner would not even hear of the possibility of the man entering the Rebbe’s room. “I will not give my daughter a name, except in the Rebbe’s minyan,” the man exclaimed forcefully, but he was barred entry.

“I guess if I can’t get in, there will be no name,” he thought to himself, but on the other hand there is the instruction of the Rebbe to give a name at the first opportunity. It was already the second day of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, and the young man was circling around in the yard of 770 near the first floor, which was closed off during that difficult period. Suddenly, he noticed that one of the windows was left open, and without thinking twice he jumped and wiggled through the window, walked inside until he got close to the Rebbe’s room where the Torah reading was taking place at that time, and standing there he passed along the name for his daughter for the saying of the hoped for Mi Sh’Beirach.

From this episode we can see what it means to be a Chassid whose very life is the Rebbe to such a degree that there can be no other way!

It is essential to know that the Rebbe is showering unlimited bounty and blessings on every Jew out of his tremendous love, the only question is, do I feel it and what am I giving in return. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains that “The nourishment and life force of the nefesh-ruach-neshama of the ordinary people is from the nefesh-ruach-neshama of the Tzaddikim and Chachomim, the leaders of the Jewish people in their generations.” He goes on to explain that there are those who don’t receive that nourishment in a “face-to-face manner,” but rather in a backhanded fashion. In the Rebbe’s sichos, he makes mention of a situation described as “they turned to Me the back of their neck,” which is to say that it is possible to be standing right next to a precious treasure and turn one’s back to it. The Rebbe is being mashpia! It is up to us to receive that in a manner of “face.”

A MATTER AFFECTING THE ESSENCE OF THE SOUL

On 27 Adar 5752, Anash and the T’mimim were waiting for the Rebbe to return from the Ohel, and as was the custom did not daven Mincha until the Rebbe’s return. To a certain degree, it can be said that we are still waiting for the Rebbe to return and then we will daven Mincha and Maariv, and afterward perhaps there will be a sicha or even a distribution of dollars or a kuntres. Certainly, we have merited many great revelations since then, and especially the encouragement of the proclamation “Yechi Adoneinu” before the eyes of the entire world. However, as long as we have not merited the complete revelation of the Rebbe, our life is not a life.

It is explained in Chassidus that when a person experiences something that affects the very essence of his soul, this reveals within him essential and lofty soul powers. That is exactly how our intense love for the Rebbe and our desire to see our king must awaken within us a state wherein we will do whatever is in our power and even beyond our power to bring about the complete revelation. And this should find expression in each Chassid wherever he may be at; in his travels, his thoughts, his speech and actions, that he work tirelessly with all of his powers and live with the Rebbe at every step.

As the Rebbe writes in a letter: They should contemplate that this is detaining the Geula, T’chiyas HaMeisim and meeting up with the Rebbe, my father-in-law, and his father etc., etc., can it be that you are not pining? And is there any effort that would be considered difficult in their eyes just to attain that? And these are things as they are in a literal sense, and not in a way of clever allegory.

How does one get in touch with this feeling, especially in the difficult moments before the Geula? The Rebbe writes in the HaYom Yom of 14 Shvat: “By our holy forebears, in addition to arousing divine mercies for their mekusharim, there was an avoda, when alone, of bringing their mekusharim to mind and pondering their love and hiskashrus in a manner of ‘as water reflects a face’ (i.e. reciprocation), which arouses the inner faculties of the one being thought about…”

THE REBBE SHOWS
US SUCH LOVE

And “as water reflects a face,” the Rebbe Rayatz tells us in a letter: The Chassidim-Mekusharim had the practice of establishing a special set time to arouse feelings of love for their Rebbe. Simply, to love the Rebbe, with a love that is felt tangibly in the heart, like a fleshly love towards a wife and children. During that time, they would picture to themselves a yechidus with the Rebbe, the hearing of a Chassidic discourse or a farbrengen with the Rebbe.

In simple words, each one of us needs to contemplate in a deeply personal fashion how the Rebbe shows each one of us such great and powerful love, lifts us up and brings us close to him in a very real way. How the Rebbe cares about us and everything that is going on in our lives, down to the smallest details, something which we are witness to in thousands of stories where the Rebbe showed how much he cares about the life of each Chassid.

During the period when the custom of going in for yechidus on one’s birthday was discontinued, there was an occasion when R’ Mordechai Shusterman had the opportunity to go in for yechidus in connection with a family simcha close to the time of his birthday. As he waited his turn, he asked one of the secretaries if it was okay for him to mention his birthday, and he was answered in the negative. When he went in for the yechidus and handed the Rebbe his pidyon nefesh, the Rebbe asked him why he doesn’t mention anything about his birthday. He answered that the secretaries ordered him not to mention it. To which the Rebbe responded, “They have to, but at least I remember!”

The awareness that the Rebbe is an integral part of the life of a Chassid should awaken within us a doubled and redoubled love from the depths of the heart – in a manner of “as waters reflect a face” – much like the love one has for his very life, which causes him to crave to connect and cleave to the Rebbe, and to be constantly preoccupied with this love, the love of his life.

The Rebbe told the shliach, R’ Yitzchok Dovid Groner, that when a Chassid wakes up in the morning, before the morning blessings or after the morning blessings, he should picture to himself the image of the Rebbe.

That is a Chassid and that is his very existence!