I'm sitting here on the floor. Literally. I'm so tired I can't move. I'm hungry but too lazy to make dinner. I'm happy that I didn't have to take care of kids all day. No, I sat in the office and worked on the computer, watching the counselors shepherd around their herd. Okay, I also ran to and fro setting stuff up for camp. It was a lot of work and it's still not all done. But not having to deal with kids all day- I call that a good job.
I need to go shopping, I need to toivel some dishes, I need help bringing something over from my house, I need to do laundry. I have to do all of this on my own. I want to give in to self-pity, I really do. But for some reason I can't. I'm better than that. So I sit here on the floor and don't do anything I have to do. Great.
Today is Gimel Tamuz. If you were to ask me what that means to me I'd say, well firstly it is my little brother's birthday. He turned 14 today. He is not so little anymore. But he is still my baby :)
Gimel Tamuz is such a conflicting Yom Tov. Ask ten different people and you'll get ten different answers. Some people would not dare to mention the Rebbe's "histalkus". I don't know what they think happened on Gimel Tamuz, but apparently the Rebbe never left. Then I ask, so why do you go to the ohel? What is there? They have no answer.
Sometimes it makes no sense to me how people talk about the Rebbe, or rather lack of talking. People beat around the bush, they mumble, they tell themselves whatever they have to in order to keep on going. And those are only the quiet ones. Then you have the ones who throw benches, who beat up grown men, who besmirch the Rebbe's holy name, and all in the spirit of what they claim is right.
Do you say yechi? Do you not say yechi? Are you meshichist? Are you anti? Are you a closeted mishichist? Do you wave a yellow flag? And on and on.
It is all so stupid. What's it any of your business what anyone else does. I say live and let live. And when people fight, especially claiming it's in the name of the Rebbe, I am pretty sure it makes the Rebbe sad, not proud.
What does Gimel Tamuz mean to me? I don't know. I walk down the street and see signs that say, make a hachlata for Gimel Tamuz- get a mashpia. Well, I already have a mashpia, she just never answers her phone. Hey, at least I could check that off on my shidduch resume.
When it boils down to it, to me it is all on the inside. I can't explain it to you because it is a feeling. Yes, I can learn the Rebbe's teachings, I can follow his horaos and hope that in that way I can make a difference, or connect to the Rebbe, or fulfill my spiritual "duty".
And admittedly, I don't even do any of that. So does that make me a 'bad' person? Or not a chossid of the Rebbe? I'd hope not. And then again, who are you to tell me whether or not I am a chossid? That is up to the Rebbe.
Someone asked me if I'm going to go to the ohel tonight. My response: "well it is going to be so packed....". That may not be a reason to not go. But I like going at night when it is secluded and I can feel like I am actually having a private moment, without being pushed or shoved or feeling like people are staring at me.
What does Gimel Tamuz mean to me? It means that despite everything we've been through in the past 17 years, we are still standing. We are still going strong. It means that even though there are 'tznius' problems, and people hurting each other, we are still Chabad, and as well known as Coca Cola. It means that the wellsprings have finally spread out to the farthest corners of the Earth. It means that I see a black hat and I think, my people.
Where was I 17 years ago? For awhile I was confused about that. We moved to Crown Heights when I was 3. Gimel Tamuz happened when I was 4. So where did that whole year go? Then I figured it out. The Rebbe was sick and not in 770. My mother tells me I got a dollar when I wasa baby. But I don't remember.
To me, the Rebbe 'lives' in a video machine. He is alive on the pages of a sicha. He is in 770, he is at the ohel, he is inside of me, and next to me, and surrounding me. I go to the ohel and sometimes I cry. Sometimes my eyes are blurred ad I can't even read my pan. I don't usually read my pan, I figured the Rebbe knows what I have to say. He knows me better than I know myself. Sometimes I feel like I am made of glass, like I am see-through and the Rebbe sees it all. You can't hide it from him.
If the Rebbe were here with us, would I be running to farbrengins? Waiting on line every Sunday for a dollar? Dressing and acting more tznius and being aware of my behavior? I'd like to think so. But I don't know how it would be.
You can say whatever you want about Gimel Tamuz. But make no mistake. The Rebbe is very much alive. He is not just a picture on your wall. He is not just a possession, 'my Rebbe', he is not just a very well-known 'holy man from Brooklyn'.
My relationship with the Rebbe is 'complicated'. People say you have to work on your relationship, you have to put in effort and maintain it. While that may be true, the connection is always there. The Rebbe doesn't get 'insulted' if you don't write. I believe that the Rebbe knows who I am, and that he cares about me, the way only a Rebbe could. And I know that even if I don't go, and even if I don't write, and even if I don't learn- I know that my Rebbe isnt going anywhere.
So what does Gimel Tamuz mean to me? It means everything. It means a heart and soul connection that can never be broken.
It means that I am proud to be Lubavitch, that my connection to the Rebbe is only my business. That you don't need to understand it, just feel it. And it means that you can never take that connection away from me.
"You can take a girl out of 'Lubavitch', but you can't take Lubavitch out of the girl."
Happy spiritual Gimel Tamuz.
First off, people have a hard time saying Histalkus and stuff for a very good reason. If someone R'L loses a sibling, a parent, talking about their death isnt an easy thing. How much more so the Rebbe, who to chassidim isnt just a father, but a role model and the person who we look to for everything, literally the middle man between us and G-d, it is hard to say the word histalkus about him.
ReplyDeleteNo in regard to going to the ohel, yechi and all that, I really dont want to get into 'politics' but sort of feel someone has to answer it for the sake of clarfying this issue which so many ppl have.
Gimmel Tammuz was the day when the Rebbes Guf was laid to rest in the ground. Fact. Now, gimmel tammuz changed nothing in the sense that the rebbe is still with us, as it says that a tzaddik is actually with his followers more after his histalkus than before. It also changed nothing in regards to the idea of the Rebbe being Moshiach or saying yechi.
As the Bartenura writes in his pirush on migilas Rus, that in every generation there is someone born who is fit to be Moshiach. And as the gemara in sanhedrin 98 says, that the different talmidim of different yeshivas all held that their rebbe was moshiach, and would try coming up with different rimazim and things to prove it. Lubavitchers therefore believe, and have a right to do so that the Rebbe is moshiach. It is a concept which has been found many times through Jewish and chassidic history. Now onto the concept of the Rebbe still being able to be moshiach after Gimmel Tammuz.
In gemara Sanhedrin, 98b, the gemara says אם מן חיי הוא כגון רבינו הקדוש, ואם מן מתייא כגון דניאל איש חמודות. That if moshiach is from the living, he is someone like Rabbeinu Hakadosh, and if from the dead, it is someone like Daniel. The Abarbenel similarly writes in Yeshuos Meshicho, Iyun Bais, Perek alef, that 'dont ask if moshiach can come from the dead or not, because that was already answered in the gemara in sanhedrin when it said 'if from the dead itll be someone like Daniel'. So thats that.
In the recent years there have been those who have said that Moshiach cant come from the dead, because that is lehavdil a xtian belief that their 'messiah' will also come from the dead. First off, to point out the absurdity in that, just because they believe something we cant? Should we also r'l stop believing n the entire concept of moshiach because they lehavdil have a similar belief? Of course not! First off, Judaism as the first religion had the concept first. Second, their belief is different. They believe that he will fall into the hands of his enemies, be killed and then resurrected, things which we dont believe in. Thirdly, as the Rambam writes in hilchos melachim perek 11, that xtianty deals with the concept of moshiach for a good reason. Hashem made them have that concept in order to bring that idea to the world to prepare them for moshiach.
Again, none of the bove was intended to start an argument or to try pushing an opinion on someone, but simply to clarify a topic which was mentioned here which is not clear by many.
Thank you for the enlightenment. You get the award for the longest comment. I think this can be a post on its own.
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