By Rabbi Ruvi New – Director of Chabad of East Boca Raton
A Rabbinic friend of mine, who is not a Chabad Rabbi, once shared with me how he and many of his colleagues watch the banquet of the Annual Conference of Chabad Rabbis ( Kinus HaShluchim) held each year in New York and how they draw inspiration from it.
Meeting him last Thursday in New York for a brief birthday visit to the Ohel, I shared with him that typically the Ohel would be packed now with Shluchim from all over the world converging on New York for the conference.
In referencing his comment to me from a while ago as to the inspiration he draws from watching the banquet, I told him, that while the banquet is always an inspiring event, the real action happens at the “after-party”. By “after-party”, I was referring to the all-night “Farbrengens” – informal Chassidic gatherings at “770” that typically take place after the banquet. Huddled together in groups ranging from tens to hundreds, Shluchim share inspiring stories from the field, personal moments with the Rebbe, and what continues to inspire their work. Unlike the more formal banquet, these gatherings are more organic, more personal, and more intimate. Interspersed with “L’Chaims” and soul-stirring Chassidic melodies, these gatherings last until the crack of dawn and often beyond that…
The formal announcement of Conference organizers a few weeks ago that the Conference this year would be virtual in light of the pandemic was a sobering moment for Shluchim. The annual conference is a highlight of the year that we all look forward to with great anticipation. It recharges, reinvigorates, re-energizes and fills the soul tank with fuel for the year. The thought of being denied this much needed and anticipated annual energy booster, was shall we say, dampening.
And then a WhatsApp message pops up on my phone on Sunday night after the virtual gala banquet: “ let’s keep the post banquet Farbrengen tradition going, happening now on zoom”. The rest is history. What ensued is, without exaggeration, one of the greatest displays of brotherhood and camaraderie ever known to mankind. This year’s zoom “after party” Farbrengen did not not break with the break of dawn on Monday morning, or Tuesday morning, or Thursday morning. No, for four days and nights straight – ninety-six uninterrupted hours, in what is an unofficial world record for the longest zoom in history, Shluchim from time zones all over the world Farbrenged which each other, sharing experiences, reflections, memories, insights, sharing soul; soul to soul. ( There was even a reported “support group” for Shluchims’ wives’ whose husbands had gone awol – addicted to the Global Farbrengen that just kept on going and going…. )
At various points of the zoom, individuals who had uniquely close relationships with the Rebbe, like the Rebbe’s secretary Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky and various doctors who attended to the Rebbe over the years, joined and shared their up close and personal encounters with the Rebbe.
At any given point over the course of the four days and nights, there were at a minimum seven hundred Shluchim on the zoom and at “peak hours” the zoom room maxed out with one thousand participants.
Volumes of stories were shared about the Rebbe’s impact on communities all over the world, large and small, the gammitt of which is staggering and impossible to encapsulate or summarize – from the improbable and unconventional chain of events and encounters that led to the building of buildings, to the isolated Jew in a far-flung corner of the world who rediscovered their connection to their Jewish heritage, because the Rebbe didn’t forget them and never gave up on them and the Jewishness inside the Jew.
How the Rebbe – one individual- so profoundly impacted the lives of every one of his Shluchim/emissaries, as shared by the myriad of personal moments and reflections by all the Shluchim, and how that impact continues to manifest in the communities they serve, is testament to a phenomenon unique in the annals of Jewish leadership and Jewish history.
In the Torah portion of this week, YItzchok blesses his son Jacob “And may He give you from the dew of the heavens to the plentifulness of the earth” – a blessing that coveys and empowers spiritual enlightenment “the dew of heaven”, and material abundance – “the plentifulness of the earth”. Rashi observes a grammatical anomaly in the first word of the blessing: rather than Yitzchak saying “may He give you”, he say AND may he give you. The AND is out of context, as it is not a continuation of what was previously stated. Explains Rashi: “And” means that this blessing is a blessing that will keep on giving. He will bless you AND he will bless you again and again and again.
Like our Patriarch Yitzchak, who blessed his son Yaakov and the “House of Jacob” that he was destined to build, again and again, the Rebbe continues to bless the “house of Jacob” – we the entire Jewish people, again and again, with the depth, profundity and practicality of his teachings: “the dew of heaven” and with material bountifulness: “the plentifulness of the earth”, as people the world over continue to stream to the Ohel, the Rebbe’s holy resting place, recognizing the Ohel as a portal to Heaven and source of blessing for every facet of life, from health, to well being, to marriage, to financial matters.
An annual conference relegated to virtual reality – unleashed real love, unlike any other conference before: a brotherly love among the Shluchim and the profound love we all share with our Rebbe, reflecting back his love for each of us and for every Jew wherever they are: a love that gives and gives again.
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Beautifully written