At the ohel of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt’l, on his yahrzeit on the Tenth of Shevat.
The penetrating frost and the driving wind and snow confined millions of New Yorkers to their homes. Not only were pedestrians afraid to take an extra, unnecessary step, the automobiles which normally do not stop, neither by day nor by night, as well as the “Sambatyon on wheels” on that day had to cease under the stress of nature’s rage.
On that paralyzing day, in an antiquated Jewish cemetery, such a phenomenon occurred that no words could express other than, “the everlasting life of a tzaddik.”
Nothing could deter this group of people, numbering in the thousands, from making their pilgrimage on that tenth of Shevat to visit the gravesite of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, zt’l. And on the anniversary of his passing, people were standing in close quarters, having in mind the image of his unforgettable, awe-inspiring, reverential appearance. Through the recitation of Tehillim and quotes from the Zohar, they hoped to renew and strengthen the chords that bind their souls with his soul there in the eternal life.
On that day, a piece of Heaven descended between the four granite walls that encircle the “tziyon” of the Rebbe, who entered Jewish history as the “Rebbe of self-sacrifice.” The spirit of Rebbi Shimon ben Yochai and his group of students unite here through the esoteric passages from the holy Zohar with this tzaddik who does not rest even in his afterlife because Jews continue to be confounded with troubles in this world.
Who can be bothered with the frost when souls encounter and experience the lingering void with its mysterious secrets about life and death, about the entire being? Who, then, is bothered by the cold, standing unbending, while the snow covers the letters that tear, unto this very day, deep into the hearts and open each time a new wound with their unbelievable reality. Here is concealed the holy ark.
While it is quiet all around, a still small voice pervades each corner. However, a loud cry without doubt pierces the Heavens and reaches the throne of G‑d. One word is screamed out—Rebbe! It is a cry in the sense of “the cry of their hearts.” The hearts pour out with nostalgia and yearning to the infinite and to his true servant because the “thread” which ties the Rebbe to his chassidim and the chassidim to their Rebbe is boundless and transcends the limits of the present.
Chassidim encircle just as they stood previously around the tisch (table) and drew from the sparkling wellspring. Many stand with Ma’anei Lashon [translator’s note: book of supplications read especially at a graveside] and pray with deep and intense feeling the prayers and passages. Many stand motionless with their eyes shut and hear again what they already had been privileged to hear from the Rebbe.
• • •
Here stands an elderly Russian chassid, one of the numerous legendary soldiers of a revolution not particularly Lubavitch, while under the Soviet regime. He stands next to the snow-covered grave, and in his thoughts he sees a picture of the Rebbe’s visit to Moscow in the middle of the Yevsektsiya’s acts of incitement against the Jews and Judaism. At that time, at the beginning of Adar, the Lubavitcher house of prayer in Moscow was fully lit just as if there never existed the possibility of government harassment. It had been a long time since it was so bright in the only chassidic shteeble then in Moscow.
However, it was now the month of Adar, when there is a specific commandment to increase joy. In addition, the Rebbe had come for a visit to Leningrad and is scheduled tonight to deliver a chassidic discourse. The shul is packed, among those in attendance stand secret agents, and the Rebbe sits alongside the bima and says, “Know well, fellow Jews, the miracle of Purim gives proof to the strength of the Jews at that time. They would not permit Achashverosh and his subjects to convince them that they should assimilate . . . The strength of the Jews at that time came from the 22,000 little children whom Mordechai assembled to study Torah, though the government forbade it. The little children said to Mordechai, “We are with you in life and death.” Thus the children defeated the wicked Haman.
Yes, the Russian chassid remembered very well that evening in Moscow. Suffering Litvakovs were warning that Yevesektzia would not be quiet and would create examples to stop the Rebbe from preaching chassidus in public that evening. However, Mordechai did not bow nor prostrate himself. No, it is hard before Purim, the eve of a great miracle. There is nothing to fear! And the Rebbe’s voice became even stronger and more resonant.
This spiritual war is eternal and is relived in every generation . . . however, “In upholding the studies of young children we will succeed . . .”
Those words passionately spoken by the Rebbe over 50 years ago, today resonate with the same courage and resoluteness as they did when they were uttered in the Yevsektsiya-besieged Moscow. Two burning tears roll down from the chassid’s eyes which were already focused on the white hill near the monument.
• • •
And there, near the wall of the Ohel, near the stubborn yahrzeit candle which refuses to be extinguished from wind or storm, stands a young man with a blond beard who looks at the fire in the yahrzeit candle which is struggling—just as the ba’al hahilula [term used for the commemoration of a yahrzeit] whom we are praising, so is she heroically fighting for her right to illuminate and bring warmth. He looks and sees a picture of the Leningrad terminal at the time of the Rebbe’s death sentence in 1927 which was commuted, sending him instead to the distant land of Costrama.
Though there was danger to everyone with regard to the prisoner, the station depot was filled with people who wanted to bid farewell to the last general of the past proud Russian Jewry. The prisoner bound in chains and under the strict watch with ready arms, suddenly turned toward the people and said: “Only our bodies were sent into exile, merely the bodies but not the souls. When it comes to Torah and mitzvos we are not thrust under any foreign power and no coercion will be able to deter us from our convictions. With our old stubbornness of a stiff-necked people and the strength of self-sacrifice of all the generations, I call out, ‘Do not touch my anointed ones, and do not harm my prophets.’” (Divrei HaYamim 1 16:22)
The young blond-bearded man was reared in one of the secret yeshivos for which the Rebbe nearly paid with his life. He hears and comprehends the declaration made at the Leningrad station. “Only the body is in exile but the nations have no jurisdiction over the soul.”
• • •
And here is a chassid from Russia already somewhat Americanized, yet he stands like a soldier with the Ma’aneh Lashon and recites with a feeling of deep haunting sorrow, “Welcome our master, teacher, and rabbi,” and at the same time he can see the Rebbe on his visit to that small province in 1934 as he hears again the thunderous voice of the Rebbe, “Jews, I love you! All the dangers to our life that we had to endure were for the sake of the work done for the public. It was in the time of the World War and then in time of hunger, sickness, need, and being pursued. Allow me to say, Jewish people, that you are very dear to me!”
• • •
It is only 30 years ago that our great leader died, and notice how astonishing the words ring out. Not only did he love each Jew without bounds but he regarded it as a privilege, an attitude needed for enduring the suffering of Jews and Judaism. He was a great zealot and at the same time the great lover of the Jews—a combination which today is nothing more than a scarcity.
Among the Jews and students who stand near his monument, we find many people he brought closer to the light of Torah and Chassidus. There are returnees to Judaism who were drawn to a full and complete life of Torah and Judaism through the magnetic fire of the one who replaced him for the past 30 years, may he live long. They are grown men, many of whom are family men, but in their faces lives a kind of naïveté, or better yet a truthful completeness, a completeness that the Lubavitcher yeshivos with the name Tomchei Temimim have always demanded from their students.
One begins to imagine what it was like when the Rebbe, zt’l, was brought down on a wheelchair from the ship Dratgingheim on the ninth day of the second Adar in the year 1940. Though physically ill, the spiritually powerful, heroic individual was able, in his ten years, to light a fire that created and accomplished much. We see the fire that has no comparison in this land that has such incisive fervor and loving warmth. This “pillar of fire” which demonstrated his full glory is here now on this cold winter day among the four walls of the ohel where he reposes. It is a “pillar of fire” which joins heaven and earth and illuminates the way of being beyond the world but simultaneously within the world.
• • •
The holy group of people assembled around the monument of the Rebbe, zt’l, have their own congregational leader who stands for many hours on that day with fear and trepidation in prayer with his lips hardly moving and a sound is not heard. The congregational leader is the closest confidant and chassid of the Rebbe, who always looked up to him with the same unbending trust as the Jews to Moshe at the time of the splitting of the sea. The Torah bears witness that, “They had faith in Hashem and in Moshe, his servant.” Today he is his spiritual heir and is now the leader. He stands now as the one who is going to perpetuate Chabad’s golden chain which goes from Liozne through Liadi, Lubavitch, Rostov until Brooklyn.
Who can fathom the strong attachment when both come from the one and same holy source and one continues where the other could not? Who knows to what heights his thoughts climb and how deep each emotion runs? Perhaps he is praying with the hope that the Rebbe, zt’l, would stand at his right to help him continue to guard with the same self-sacrifice and pain, the spiritual heritage—the G‑dly inheritance. He should guide him to lead the Jewish people who see in him the leadership quality that they had seen in the Rebbe.
Perhaps he moves his lips in prayer for the thousands of Jews whose names were sent to him from all corners of the world, from the sands of the Sahara Desert in Africa to somewhere in the American South, where a Lubavitch emissary has planted a kernel of faith. Every note with names which pass through his hands contains human Jewish lives, joy and sorrow, hope and despair. Everyone is a whole world.
Just as a leader in the middle of the silent prayer, so stands the Lubavitcher Rebbe at the monument of his own Rebbe. His gaze encompasses the hundreds of notes, the torn pieces of paper mixed in with the clean snow covering the fenced-in grave.
Every so often the wind picks up another torn piece of paper and carries it away on its wings into empty space and every so often a new torn note falls on the white snow and fills that empty spot. The prayer leader, with his quiet gaze, accompanies each flying note and receives each fallen request with “great mercy from the source of mercy and honest benevolence.”
Every so often his gaze extends to the monument opposite the booth erected to protect him somewhat from inclement weather during his multiple monthly visits. And in a moment his eyes return affixed to the Ma’aneh Lashon and to the notes that were sent to him from Jews the world over. These he has answered in short but with deep feeling that they will be acknowledged at the graveside of the Ba’al Hahilula.
His eyes go very far to the land which he constantly carries in his thoughts and his heart to her Jews who stand at the barricades prepared for any eventuality making sure that no calamity occurs—to the land that Heaven helped the Jews expand her borders which the enemies and supposedly good friends want to tear into pieces.
• • •
Thirty years have flown by since that Sunday in Shevat, when he recited Kaddish at the recently covered grave. It was not a Kaddish signaling a closed era or the end of a chapter, but surely a signal for a stronger continuation, for further plowing, planting, and sowing—more than the years when Chabad was in Liozna, Liadi, Lubavitch, and Rostov.
It is quiet all around. Only the still, small voice of Jews in quiet prayer is heard. And in the quietude of the nightfall one can think that he sees the smile of the Ba’al Hahilula, and from his eyes beam a look of pleasure in the direction of the barely moving figure who stands many hours in the booth and does not display the slightest sign of weariness because he is now in a world where there is no tiredness.
As the day, the tenth day of Shevat, started to wane, the piece of Heaven that had been lowered amidst the four marble walls returned to its place in the seventh heaven. But this time with it, it took a piece of the earth which on the day had become a part of heaven. v
Originally published in the Algemeiner Journal, January 25, 1980. Translated
by Mr. Victor Cohen.

Yud Shevat: A History
On Shabbos morning, January 28, 1950—10 Shevat 5710—the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, passed on to his eternal rest. The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, was overcome with grief; for months afterwards, his every reference to his father-in-law would summon forth a well of tears. Though he was the natural choice for succession, he steadfastly refused to take on the role of “Rebbe.” It was a full year before he succumbed to the entreaties pouring in from all corners of the globe and officially accepted the mantle of leadership.
But from the very start, it was clear that he meant to carry on his father-in-law’s work to reach out and embrace every Jew, no matter how geographically or spiritually distant from his people. On February 7, a mere ten days after Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s passing, the Rebbe appointed Rabbi Michael Lipsker as his emissary, “shaliach,” to the Jews of Morocco.
The institution of sending emissaries is without doubt the Rebbe’s most revolutionary contribution to Jewish life today. It is no exaggeration to say that it transformed the face of Judaism in the second half of the 20th century.
The concept is both profound and simple. The Rebbe wished to reach every Jew on the face of the earth and to inspire in them an increased commitment to Judaism. But to reach every Jew is a task technically impossible for a single human being. So he raised an army of young men and women and said to them: I empower you to act in my stead. When you go out there—to New Jersey or to Alaska, to Belo Horizonte, Brazil or to Chelyabinsk, Siberia, it will be as if I myself am going there; as if I myself am giving that class, koshering that kitchen, or conducting that Passover Seder.
An emissary, shaliach, is a legal concept in Torah law, by which one person can appoint another to perform an action in his place. The Rebbe took this Torah concept and transformed it into a calling and a way of life for dozens, and then hundreds, and then thousands of young families.
The Rebbe did not allow his emissaries the luxury of mindless obedience to his dictates. Instead, he insisted that their programs and activities must arise from the particular strengths and inclinations of the emissary and the particular needs and circumstances of his locality. It was the Rebbe’s unique type of leadership that could combine this with the fact that each emissary was suffused with the awareness that he or she is acting as an extension of the Rebbe’s very person—which was what empowered them to overcome the otherwise insurmountable difficulties that lay in their path.
The Rebbe felt a special kinship with his emissaries. When his wife, the Rebbetzin, passed away in 1988, his first request was “to notify [our] children, the emissaries.” Before the Rebbe left his office on the day he suffered a stroke, in March of 1992, he arranged his desk—ordinarily covered with stacks of books and papers—leaving one item on its cleared surface: the three-volume album containing the pictures of his emissaries.
On January 17, 1951, the Rebbe formally accepted the leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch by delivering the traditional discourse of Chassidic teaching, maamar, at a gathering marking the first anniversary of his father-in-law’s passing. On that occasion, the Rebbe said (free translation):
“Here in America people like to hear things expressed in the form of a ‘statement’—preferably a provocative and shocking statement. I don’t know if this is the best approach, but as our Sages have said, ‘When you come to a city, do as its custom.’
“The three loves—love of G‑d, love of Torah, and love of one’s fellow—are one. One cannot differentiate between them, for they are of a single essence. And since they are of a single essence, each one embodies all three.
“This is our ‘statement’: If you see a person who has a love of G‑d but lacks a love of Torah and a love of his fellow, you must tell him that his love of G‑d is incomplete. And if you see a person who has only a love for his fellow, you must strive to bring him to a love of Torah and a love of G‑d—that his love toward his fellows should not only be expressed in providing bread for the hungry and water for the thirsty, but also to bring them close to Torah and to G‑d.
“When we will have the three loves together, we will achieve the Redemption. For just as this last Exile was caused by a lack of brotherly love, so shall the final and immediate Redemption be achieved by love for one’s fellow.”
At that gathering, the Rebbe also laid down what was to become the leitmotif of his teachings and activities: that ours is the generation entrusted with the task of bringing to fruition the very purpose of creation, which Chassidic teaching defines as “making a dwelling for G‑d in the physical world.” Ours is the generation, said the Rebbe, which will herald the Age of Mashiach—the era of goodness and perfection which is the end-goal of man’s millennia-long effort to bring to light the divine image in which he was created. (Chabad.org)