UNWAVERING FAITH THROUGH THE YEARS

Over twenty years have passed since Chaf-Zayin Adar 5754, the day of the second stroke, which shook up Chabad worldwide a second time. * We spoke with Rabbi Shlomo Halpern, rav of the Chabad community in Tel Aviv, who was in 770 on K’vutza at the time. He discussed the emuna back then versus the emuna today and concluded with a practical suggestion for the Chassidim who saw the Rebbe.

It was a gray day, toward evening. The first stores were starting to close. Two and three story houses in eclectic styles continue to reflect the unique flavor of Tel Aviv in the 20’s and 30’s.

I hurried into the inner yard of number 27. A small sign on an old wooden door said “Beis Knesset Chabad Tel Aviv.” I had arrived at the legendary Chabad shul of Tel Aviv, the place that hosted the ziknei ha’chassidim, Chassidic personalities from earlier generations, of eighty years ago and beyond. Here, in this place, is where Chabad of Eretz Yisroel was founded, here is where important meetings of Agudas Chassidei Chabad in Eretz Yisroel were held, even before Kfar Chabad was founded. If only the walls could talk …

It wasn’t a burst of nostalgia that brought me here, although in my youth I had davened here often, but a meeting with R’ Shlomo Halpern, rav of the Chabad community in Tel Aviv. I arrived between Mincha and Maariv and R’ Halpern was in the middle of a Halacha shiur about kashering marble countertops and sinks. Thirty days before the holiday is when you need to start preparing and the halachos are more relevant than ever. He reads, explains. When there are questions he expands, and at the end of the shiur he promises that the next day they will continue with the halachos about kashering sinks.

After Maariv there is a short Chassidus shiur while R’ Halpern and I go to the women’s section to talk about Chaf-Zayin Adar 5754.

R’ Halpern was a talmid on K’vutza that year in 770 and he remembers what happened. He not only tells of the events of that time but also offers up a proper perspective on those days and this time, with one common thread from that period until now, the fact that we don’t see the Rebbe and cannot receive more horaos.

“HE REMEMBERED HIS KINDNESS AND FAITH TO THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL”

It is with these words of the verse that R’ Halpern chose to view the time the Rebbe was in Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan. Although the situation was serious and nothing seemed right from a medical standpoint, the Chassidim remained strong in their faith that the light of the Geula was on the ascendancy and if necessary, Moshiach would arise and redeem the Jewish people from here, from the financial center of the world. Some said this is the “crowds of Rome,” and why shouldn’t the great light burst forth from here to the entire world?

“I was on K’vutza. Like all the talmidim on K’vutza we had arrived before Tishrei. During that month we were able to see the Rebbe come out a number of times and encourage the singing of Yechi. Then the talmidim of K’vutza 5753 returned to Eretz Yisroel and we remained with the great hope that the Rebbe would continue to daven with us, to see and be seen, the way it was in 5753.

“Unfortunately, in Cheshvan already, the Rebbe stopped coming out to the public, although there was no official announcement that this was the last time. Every day we waited eagerly to see the Rebbe. Maybe he would come out today, maybe there would be Mincha with the Rebbe, maybe it’s not worthwhile leaving because the Rebbe will come out for Maariv, and so on. We were in a state of constant tension – would the Rebbe come out or not? There wasn’t a moment that we said, ‘Oy, the Rebbe stopped coming out.’ Obviously, as time went on and there was another day and yet another day that the Rebbe did not come out, another week and another month, the atmosphere became gloomier. And yet, to all of us bachurim it was clear that if the Rebbe did not come out today he would surely come out tomorrow.”

In Adar the Rebbe went to the hospital for eye surgery. “The operation was couched in terms of the Rebbe being able to see the public better when he comes out.”

This trip ended disastrously though, when terrorists followed the Rebbe’s entourage and opened fire, killing 15 year old Ari Halberstam, Hy”d and critically wounding 18 year old Nachum Sasonkin. The fact that the Rebbe returned to 770 generated great joy among Anash, especially among the bachurim, but there was simultaneously the tremendous sorrow over the tragedy.

LIVE UPDATES

R’ Halpern, as a talmid in yeshiva, was involved in everything that was going on. He regularly received reports about the Rebbe’s health.

“Back then, the Internet was in its infancy and it was possible to send updates to those who signed up for Lubanet. It wasn’t exactly email but something in between email and a fax,” laughed R’ Halpern. “In order to receive updates you had to be a subscriber to Sprint. I set up a kind of electronic journal with constant updates about the Rebbe.

“We lived with the Rebbe every day, every hour, literally. Was there an improvement or the opposite, G-d forbid. Every announcement from the doctors or from the secretaries was quickly conveyed through this service as well as over the Moshiach beepers, to thousands of subscribers, and through them to tens of thousands of Chabad Chassidim all over the world who followed the situation and anticipated good news. Throughout this period there was no despair for even a moment. We constantly waited for the Rebbe to come out for Mincha or Maariv.”

The way you describe it, there was constant anticipation of the Rebbe’s appearance. If only nowadays we lived with that anticipation.

Every generation has its type of anticipation. Today too we need to live with emuna and anticipation, to really live with the feeling that any minute now the Rebbe will come out to us. But back then it was a different kind of anticipation. (Thoughtful): It was a feeling like being in a movie, “we were like dreamers,” and we knew that we were in a dream-like situation from which we could wake at any moment. This situation became even more extreme on Chaf-Zayin Adar 5754.

Do you remember what happened that day?

On Chaf-Zayin Adar I woke up to some unclear news that something had happened. It wasn’t clear what had happened until the secretaries said it was another stroke. I remember being surprised and saying: Why are the secretaries repeating what happened two years ago? The words “Chaf-Zayin Adar” and “stroke” were so familiar that I was sure it was a mistake and had to do with the old news of two years before.

As time passed we heard the terrible news that it had happened again on the same date. It was hard to accept and believe. It was clear to us bachurim that it was temporary, just a preparation for something. That was the feeling.

Two days earlier the Rebbe had been brought to the hospital for being in a poor neurological state but when the second stroke occurred, the Rebbe was transferred to Beth Israel. At that point, a new era began in the lives of the Chassidim in general and the bachurim in particular. Many went to Manhattan in order to be with the Rebbe in the hospital [The Rebbe was on the 7^th floor and the Chassidim stayed in two rooms designated for them on the first floor – MZ]. Some remained there all the time and some went there often.

As a talmid in yeshiva I could not stay there all the time, but I went to Manhattan twice and even three times a day to be with the Rebbe, to feel close. Sometimes I would go early in the morning until Shacharis. I would also go during the afternoon break and sometimes at night too.

What did you do there?

We would sit and learn in the hospital’s shul on the ground floor. There were also t’fillos there for the Rebbe’s recovery and occasionally Kinusei T’filla which were attended by hundreds of people from Crown Heights.

On Shabbos I would eat and sleep at the hospital. We didn’t budge from there. We were waiting for something to happen and if it happened on Shabbos, we wanted to be there.

What do you mean – what did you think would happen?

To us it was clear that if something would happen, it could only be positive. I can’t point at something specific. Some said the Rebbe’s condition was so bad that there could only be the hisgalus of the Rebbe as Moshiach, but those were generalities. Nobody could pinpoint it. Some believed there would be a miracle and the Rebbe would return to 770 and everything would go back to normal. Nobody could say precisely what we were anticipating, but this I remember well, that we only expected something positive.

Were you informed of the Rebbe’s condition?

We knew the significance of a stroke but your mindset is different when you’re talking about a Rebbe who is a spiritual entity and not simply a physical being. This wasn’t my grandfather or father but the Rebbe, and with the Rebbe everything is measured differently. For this reason we did not know what or how. As Reuven Dunin would say, “What exactly did you understand before that now you do not understand?”

Once, in one of the sichos, the Rebbe complained that they were looking at a person of flesh and blood (meaning himself) during the davening instead of looking into the siddur. R’ Mendel Futerfas farbrenged afterward about this and explained it in depth, the crux of his words being that if we view the Rebbe as a human being, that is a big problem …

So we never looked at the Rebbe as someone to whom something could happen. When we spoke about the health situation as being this way or that, to us it was an abstract description. On the one hand you felt bad and you prayed for improvement in the situation. On the other hand, you didn’t relate to this as an ordinary physical issue; you knew that the Rebbe is the Rebbe and not a person like us. There was definitely a huge difference in what you thought and what a rational person was going to think in such a critical medical situation, and yet, there was not even the slightest consideration for those thoughts. Not because of stupidity or naïveté or denial, but because it was obvious to us that the Rebbe is not an ordinary human and things work differently for him.

What moment or event stands out in your mind from that time?

(Thinking and answering carefully): I think Pesach night 5754, in the auditorium of a nearby school. We were a relatively small crowd. Many bachurim chose to hold the Seder in the dining room of 1414 and then they walked to Beth Israel. Anash, of course, were at home with their families. We were a handful of bachurim. We had to thoroughly clean the auditorium and kasher the place. We got the food from the truck that delivered food for the Seder that took place in the Chabad House in Manhattan. Pesach that year began on Motzaei Shabbos and Shabbos morning we still ate chametz.

I can still feel the mixed feelings we had then. On the one hand, it was a seder that was as remote as could be from a seder with the Rebbe. On the other hand, it was the closest to the Rebbe. It had a certain dimension of galus.

Was it the feeling of children exiled from their father’s table?

We were exiled from somewhere – we were exiled from the Rebbe’s court, from 770, from yeshiva. And yet, of all Anash in the world, we were the closest to the Rebbe. There was a feeling that that night, a night of Geula, we would merit the great redemption and we, a small group, were at the epicenter of the world. It was definitely a very special feeling.

TO BELIEVE TODAY

R’ Halpern did an exceptional job in describing the feeling of excitement and anticipation that he and his fellow T’mimim felt throughout this long period, that at any moment they would get word that the Rebbe was coming out to the public.

Have you had that feeling since then?

No, not at all. We were living with the Rebbe constantly, literally at every moment. To us, another day of this concealment was out of the question.

I remember that some of us bachurim were talking and one said that some had gotten used to living without the Rebbe and were simply going about their lives. To us this was horrifying because we lived with the Rebbe constantly. We could not understand how one could live as usual. This feeling was one we had from Cheshvan 5754 and it became stronger after Chaf-Zayin Adar.

In some ways, the situation then, in 5754, was like the situation today, over twenty years later, in which we cannot see the Rebbe. Can we learn from the emuna of that time?

As I said earlier, Chassidim never regarded the Rebbe as an ordinary human being, not before 5752 and not after the stroke in 5754, and not after Gimmel Tammuz. And this is the essence of emuna. We have a Rebbe since 5710 and this reality that we have a Rebbe exists till today. It was correct in 5710, in 5752, and now.

You really think that there is no difference between 5710-11 and now?

From the aspect of the Rebbe’s essence, there is no difference. From the aspect of giluyim and what our eyes can see, of course there is a difference.

I’d like to go back to what I asked you earlier. Back then, there was a daily, constant anticipation. We were not complacent. Today, sad to say, we have lost that feeling. What can we do to strengthen the anticipation as it was then?

There is no such thing as “like it was then.” Every generation is different and every day stands alone. There is no day like yesterday and there is no day that is like tomorrow. You cannot live and believe today “as we once did.” We need to believe today the way we need to believe today.

As to your question, of course we need to strengthen the concept of “Rebbe,” and then the anticipation will be that much more intense and tangible. The more we strengthen our consciousness and that of the younger generation towards the Rebbe, the more our anticipation for the hisgalus with be strengthened. We do this by living with the Rebbe and talking about him in the present tense.

The children of our generation never saw the Rebbe, so he is abstract to them. We need to bring the Rebbe into their world and awareness as much as we can. Unlike earlier generations, we have plenty of pictures and videos of the Rebbe. More than that, we can write to the Rebbe and open to answers in the Igros Kodesh. We have all the means not only to live with the Rebbe but also to turn it into something alive and tangible, and this ups the anticipation.

As for the bachurim nowadays, as well as the baalei t’shuva who have joined Lubavitch in the past twenty plus years, unfortunately, Chaf-Zayin Adar 5754 and the founding of Chassidus Chabad in 5533 are both dates in our history, nothing more.

As Chabad Chassidim who were by the Rebbe, who lived, experienced, saw, and breathed Rebbe, we have a big responsibility to tell and breathe life into the events and feelings of those times. So yes, we are still too young to feel like one of the elder Chassidim who reminisces about generations past, but still, if we were there, we need to transmit this to our children, to people who want to hear and know.

There are diaries and written descriptions of those years but there is no substitute for a Chassid who was by the Rebbe for Tishrei or any other time of the year, who tells what he saw and experienced by the Rebbe. We need to feel that the Rebbe is our Rebbe and we have the job and responsibility of conveying the messages and experiences.

Here and there, I hear bachurim discussing among themselves things that the Rebbe said and did (People often ask how to instill emuna within the young bachurim nowadays and I think that boruch Hashem they are sufficiently infused with hiskashrus to the Rebbe. I think we have a lot to learn from them!), but they need to hear about the events of those days in a way that makes the Rebbe a living, current reality.

***

I went back out to the Tel Avivian street. The stores were all closed and only restaurants were open and busy. Night had descended on Tel Aviv.

A moment before turning off the street I gave another glance at the Chabad shul where the meeting was held and the decision made that Chabad Chassidim in Eretz Yisroel would accept the Rebbe’s nesius, and I realized that it all continues as before. What we need to do is to live it and breathe life into it until the full and complete revelation.