By Rabbi Dovid Markel
The story is told of a chassidic man, who, famished and visiting from the Land of Israel enters a hemishe eatery in Boro Park.
After being seated, he’s approached by a Chinaman, clearly a recent immigrant, who proceeds to take his order—in Yiddish!
Throughout the courses, the waiter—who was decidedly not Jewish—converses with the guest in a heavily accented, but intelligible Yiddish.
Upon finishing the meal, the shocked chossid turns to the proprietor in amazement, asking: “How did you find non-Jewish waiters who speak Yiddish?”
“Shh,” says the owner, “they think I’m teaching them English.”
Often, we too, fall victim to the deceit of the above narrative. Frequently, the Lubavitch that we may have come to love or loath is not the Rebbe’s version of Lubavitch, but a caricature thereof. Just as the Chinaman thought he was speaking English, so too we often express to the world a message, which although packaged as the Rebbe’s is somewhat different and therefore our own.
Instead of viewing ourselves within our own paradigms, we should be one with the Rebbe’s vision.
There are Nevler Chassidim, Kremetchug Chassidim, Shluchim, Non-Shluchim, Crown Heights-ers, Frum From Birth Chassidim, chassidim who are Ba-alei Teshuvah, and a whole slew of other meaningless classifications.
We need to cease defining ourselves with superficial definitions that conceal our true identity and embrace the vision that the Rebbe desires of us.
Lubavitch is an awesome institution that has outperformed beyond the capacity that anyone could have possibly envisioned it would have twenty-one years ago—and it is surely not my place to critique the awesome chassidim that make up its corpus.
Whether it is the emissary in New York or Ghana, a home-owner in Crown Heights who opens their house to guests from throughout the world, the businessman who generously donates to countless institutions or the simple chossid who does his part in spreading the beauty of Chassidus—they are all tremendous!
However, we must be exceedingly careful to continue and express the Rebbe’s pure message and not corrupt it due to this that somewhere deep down we are not on the same page.
How many times did the Rebbe beseech us, that we be permeated with his message rather than mimic the externalities of his persona?!
After the physical passing of the Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe said: “Why should I say his soul is in Eden when I can say his soul is within me.[1]” While there are probably many layers of meaning to this statement, on the most simple meaning perhaps it means that the Rebbe was saying that rather than cry about a situation he cannot change and retain the Rebbe as a memory—albeit a heavenly one—instead, he must completely personify the Rebbe.
Perhaps, if we would finally step up to the plate instead of relying on others to do the job, or bemoaning the woes and calamity of our situation, Moshiach would have arrived long ago.
In an awesome talk from the Rebbe from Hoshana Rabba 5752, in continuation to mentioning that all the children of the Tzemach Tzedek were referred to as “Admur” (Rebbe), the Rebbe says:[2]
“We can say, that from this was given the ability to each and every one of us, among the populace of Israel, to take the ‘breadth’ and ‘expression’ of the title ‘Admur’ (Rebbe)!”
Surely the Rebbe’s words were not merely hyperbolic, but indeed, no matter how bombastic it may sound, as the Rebbe there says, “that we shudder when we hear such a sentence,” nevertheless, this is what the Rebbe demands from us.
The third Lubavitcher Rebbe, commonly referred to as the Tzemach Tzedek, once remarked that he has two and a half chassidim.
When pressed as to who the half was, he said that it was Reb Hillel Paritcher, who was only a half of a chossid since the other part of him was Rebbe.[3]
Although the simple understanding of the above story is that Reb Hillel Paritcher himself was similar to a Rebbe, another explanation is that he was so attached to his Rebbe that he was absorbed in his persona.[4]
In a certain sense, we must completely personify the Rebbe, to the extent that he becomes our entire identity.
The essence of the Rebbe is that he is the Yechida of the Jewish people—he feels the needs both physical and spiritual of the Jewish nation, because his soul is intrinsically bound with each and every Jew.
We too are forbidden to sit on our laurels. We must tap into the very depth of our own souls and toil and sweat for the spiritual and physical benefit of each and every Jew—the world over.
When we do so, not only will we be intrinsically bound with the Rebbe and every Jew, but we will quickly bring about the time where we will once again be reunited with our dear Rebbe—with the coming of Moshiach, now!
[1] Toras Menachem, Vol. 2 Pg. 326.
[2] Sichos Kodesh, 5752 Vol. 1 Pg. 168.
[3] Sefer HaSichos, 5684 Pg. 52.
[4] Heard from Rabbi Elimelech Tzweibel.
