Over the past 16 years, COLlive has established itself as a community hub, providing a platform for all to voice their concerns, thoughts, and insights, and share them with the world. Of the many topics explored in what are known as “COLlive Op-eds”, every so often, a certain one would stand out — one that focused primarily on the past, but would, remarkably, remain more timeless in the future, than the ones focused on the present.
These were the ones written by individuals reflecting on and sharing their experiences in the Rebbe’s presence, and particularly over the special month of Tishrei, bringing the atmosphere of those beautiful moments to life.
While each one of these articles are worth a full read, this month’s issue features a small collection of highlights from many of these cherished pieces, accompanied by beautiful images of Tishrei with the Rebbe, courtesy of JEM.
Erev Rosh Hashana
Panim
The Rebbe stood at the door of his office to receive panim. The lines stretched at least halfway down Eastern Parkway. Everyone was silent; most carried a book of Tehillim, Siddurim, or Maamarim, while some were just lost in thought. The seriousness there was palpable.
The lines moved quickly. Before you knew it, you were inside 770, climbing the stairs, into the lower heavens, and there was the Rebbe. It was all very speedy. The Rebbe’s holy face had an earnestness that was enough to keep you moving. Once you handed in your request, the Rebbe usually wished you a sealed good year. With that, you were out of the door, but in the Rebbe’s hands.
“On Our Behalf” by Rabbi Yossi Lew, 5772-2012
Rosh Hashanah
Tekios
We girls were crowded together, looking through the gap under the stained glass windows of the ladies section… packed almost too tight to breathe, but nobody minded…
Down below us, was the immediate circle of men and boys standing crushed together tightly around the bima, called “the washing machine”. Only the most determined dared enter…
The enormous crowd miraculously parts, like Krias Yam Suf, and the Rebbe makes his way from his place in the front towards the bima… followed by the Mazkirim carrying large paper bags full of Panim sent from all over the world.
Bags of tefillos and of tears. Bags carrying the deepest of silent tefillos, for a Shana Tova Umesuka, for teshuva, for children, health, life, sustenance, and nachas, for the Rebbe to be gezunt, for an end to Golus.
The Rebbe stands on the bima, the bags of panim placed before him. “Lamenatzeach’ is said seven times, and each time, the heart pounds more in trepidation…
The Rebbe then bends forward, and covers his holy face completely with his tallis, and then spreads the tallis out completely covering the panim. The Rebbe stands in tefilla for a long time. There was absolute and complete silence. Moshe Rabeienu standing in tefillah before Hashem, with the bakoshos of the entire Klal Yisroel.
Our tayere Rebbe, who loves his people so much, stood motionless, sometimes shaking with what seemed like silent sobbing. There are no words that can possibly describe that scene. I beg the Aibishter that I should never forget it, as long as I live…
Then, piercing through the stillness, comes the voice of the Rebbe: “Min Hametzar Karasi Kah…”
Like enormous waves of the sea, held back for eternity, now crashing and roaring, swelling and filling the room in a great crescendo, an answering cry from thousands of throats, “Min Hametzar Karasi Kah…”
As the pesukim end, there is another pin drop silence, then the Rebbe recites the brochos.. Every word is distinct… ‘Boruch atoh…asher kidshanu…’ the Rebbe’s voice lilting upwards. ‘Lishmoa Kol Shofar’…
The amen was thunder…
The shofar sound that followed… seemed to shatter all mechitzos, to uplift and yet break the heart in one moment, with the cry ‘Tatte!’
The huge crowd was utterly still, yet a wave of teshuva seemed to ripple through the stillness.
After the pesukim, the Rebbe returned slowly to the front of 770… As he reached his place, he slowly turned to face the crowd… There was always a light shining on the Rebbe’s holy face, but the lichtigkeit after tekios defies description…
“Memories of Tekios with the Rebbe” by A Shlucha, 5775-2014.
Erev Yom Kippur
Lekach
By the time I came to Lubavitch.. having yechidus on one’s birthday was, for the most part, already a thing of the past. But I enjoyed the unique privilege of having a “yechidus” of sorts… You see, my birthday is Erev Yom Kippur, and every year, the Rebbe would distribute “lekach” standing at the doorway of his office.
In 5742 (1981), a new arrangement was made. The crowds were too big for everyone to get lekach on the one day (and apparently the Rebbetzin voiced her strong concern for the Rebbe to stand for so many hours giving out lekach right before 26 hours of fasting)… So locals were to receive theirs four days before, while the following days were designated for visitors…
I was not happy about losing my special birthday yechidus, but I obediently got on line and received lekach four days early.
On Erev Yom Kippur, I was hanging around outside 770.. wanting to, at least, absorb the atmosphere of the Rebbe’s “court”…on my birthday. A friend of mine saw me there and said, “Nu, did you get your annual birthday present?” “Of course,” I replied. “I already received it three days earlier because of the new arrangements.”
“That doesn’t apply to you, it’s your birthday!” He said. Initially, I adamantly disagreed… But after a back and forth… I’m embarrassed to say, he “somehow” convinced me to go again. Not only was it not my designated day, but it would be my second time – a double “transgression”!
I finally ended up approaching the Rebbe’s door… immediately, he gave me a quizzical look and gesture of his hand (open, palm upward), as if to say, “What are you doing here now, and/or again!?”
Just remember, like everyone else… I was only in front of the Rebbe for about two seconds… Furthermore, in the interim 3 days, the Rebbe had given lekach to thousands of others. Even if someone could possibly recognize and remember someone from a 2 second encounter, 3 days prior, among many others, mostly all with beards and the same hats and jackets, this was too fast to be based on natural powers alone… Obviously, he knew that this soul had already received lekach this year and could “see” it immediately.
Despite being embarrassed… I leaned over to the Rebbe and “explained” in a whisper “Rebbe, today is my birthday,” confident that at least my true intentions were equally not hidden from the Navi Hador.
What did the Rebbe do? He turned around to the supply box of honey cake next to him and rummaged around there for a few seconds (an eternity under the circumstances). Finally, he turned back to me, and in his hand was the largest piece of lekach I had ever seen. With the world’s biggest and warmest smile, he emphatically pressed the piece of cake into my waiting hand, while saying with gusto the birthday blessing: “Shnas Hatzlacha!” – “You should have a successful year!
“Birthday Lekach” From the Rebbe” by Rabbi Dovid Morris, 5784-2023.
Yom Kippur
Napoleon’s March
Avinu malkeinu, there are no words that can possibly describe the power of that niggun sung in 770. The Rebbe’s holy hand banged rhythmically on the shtender with greater and greater intensity, sweeping the whole shul into the niggun…
Somehow, the entire area around the Rebbe, the white mizrach wall, seemed to be lit up with a brilliant light that glowed brighter and brighter, a glow not coming from the electric lamp.
The entire room was filled with the niggun as thousands of chassidim sang with one voice and one heart, in a thunderous melody of hishtapchus hanefesh. The Rebbe, the great conductor of souls, uplifting, uniting and leading all tefillos together through the great doors of shomayim, that we could feel were wide open, hovering above the Rebbe’s place at that moment.
Then, there is a trembling silence. A silence that is stronger and more powerful than any sound, where the neshama is aflame, tugging upwards to be one with its source.
A great, thunderous cry breaks out, shattering the heavens and shattering the heart:
שמע ישראל ה׳ אלקינו ה׳ אחד!
The tiny print in the machzor says that at that moment… every Yid should have the kavana of being ready to give up their life for Kiddush Hashem.
And then, Napoleon’s March begins. The song of victory. Slowly at first, then the Rebbe, looking like a Malach Hashem, completely dressed in white, with his holy face mostly hidden by his tallis, turns…
The Rebbe slowly ascends the stairs placed against the wood-paneled wall of the bima…the niggun intensifies.
סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע שמימה…
“A ladder placed on the ground, and its head reaching the heavens…”
The Rebbe reaches the top step… with one swing of the arm, the niggun reaches fever pitch. The whole room is dancing in place, singing with an indescribable simcha. The Rebbe swings both arms with tremendous energy. The niggun gets louder and louder, faster and faster. The Rebbe adjusts the Tallis which slips from his shoulders, and continues to dance in place.
The crowd strains, hoping to see the Rebbe’s face, and then suddenly, a long awaited moment: the tallis moves and his holy face is revealed, a flaming visage of kedusha. Words cannot describe this incredible and awesome moment – קרן אור פניו של משה…
The niggun becomes a thunderous roar, so fast, so joyous, a huge expanse of people are jumping, dancing, bobbing up and down like the waves of the sea in a storm of joy. A victory of the forces of kedusha, breaking through all barriers.
The niggun ends… and a triumphant shofar blast.
לשנה הבאה בירושלים!
The Rebbe turns to the crowd, his holy face lit up with joy, and with a swing of the hand: “Gut Yom Tov!”
The crowd joyously echoes: “Gut Yom Tov!”
In an instant, zman simchaseinu has arrived.
“Memories of Yom Kippur in 770” by A Shlucha, 5775-2014.
Simchas Torah
Hakofos
On Simchas Torah, there were more people in 770 than it could possibly have held… Chassidim held on to their precious six inches each, and stood on whatever would give them a view – benches, chairs, metal milk cases…Together, they would robustly chant the Atah Hareisa verses.
Before the seventh Hakafah, the Rebbe makes his way slowly down the aisle — a path to the middle of the shul protected on both sides by thick, strong tables to maintain a crowd that would have overwhelmed a World Cup crowd-control professional.
Normally, no chossid would ever stop the Rebbe to talk, much less extend a hand or touch something the Rebbe was holding, but on Simchas Torah, well, it was Simchas Torah. They kissed the tiny Torah the Rebbe cradled in his arm. They beseeched his blessing: “may we meet again next year”, “my father should recover quickly and dramatically”, “I should be successful in your holy work”.
Slowly the Rebbe came to the middle of the shul for his Hakafah, a tiny area fortressed by tables, with crowds on all sides ascending stadium–like to the far reaches of the long room…surrounded by dozens of excited nine-year-old boys.
“Ahhah aha ha ya aya ya” the wordless Simchas Torah niggun, which in music books rises in crescendo. Tonight it started at a crescendo. All attention is now in the middle of the shul. The Rebbe dancing, beaming, lifting the Torah as if an offering to the multitudes towering around him. The singing is boisterous in volume, joyous but reverent, the type that takes all your emotions and stuns them… During the height of the dancing I steal a glance around the room to catch a glimpse of the Rebbe in the eyes of the Chassidim. Sometimes you see more when you don’t look straight on.
Why did I write this piece about Simchas Torah with the Rebbe?… could I have witnessed this, been a part of it, and said nothing?
“Simchas Torah with the Rebbe” by Rabbi Shimon Posner, 5773-2012.
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Thanks for sharing.