By COLlive reporter
Photos by balebatim.net
Over 1500 members of the Jewish community and friends of Chabad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, gathered Monday for an evening of tribute and early observance of the Rebbe‘s yahrzeit on Tammuz 3.
But participants of the evening at the Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel & Convention Center in Retiro were told by the guest speaker that “relating to Gimmel Tammuz as a day of remembrance is wrong.”
“Remembering is an act of recalling the past. The Rebbe is not to be remembered, rather felt and seen although he is not with us physically,” stated Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, Chair of the umbrella Agudas Chassidei Chabad International.
“When one had the merit of meeting the Rebbe for a private audience “Yechidus,” you did not see physicality and did not look around the room. It was an all spiritual experience,” he said.
EXHIBITION & DISCUSSION
The evening began with a cocktail reception and with live music and an exhibition of photos and videos of the Rebbe, curated by the JEM organization, presented by its director Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin.
Following a video of the Rebbe’s message of “Ma Zaroi Bachaim Af Hu Bachaim,” heartfelt nigunim were sung by Yossi Loloyan, Mendy Aboud and Meir Parmet accompanied by a live band.
The emcee Rabbi Tzvi Lipinski, director of Beis Chabad Palermo Soho in Buenos Aires, then invited Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, Head Shliach and Director of Jabad Lubavitch Argentina, to share words of inspiration.
Rabbi Grunblatt later appeared on screen in a round-table discussion with Mr. Eduardo Elsztain, Mr. David Koner, and Mr. Marcelo Sued, reliving their special moments with the Rebbe and how they continue to live with the Rebbe. The video was produced and directed by Rabbi Shike Birman and the ORT studio.
The Rebbe’s impact in Argentina and the world over was emphasized in remarks by Guillermo Borger, the first Orthodox man elected to head Argentina’s largest Jewish organization AMIA.
MISREAD TITLE
In his keynote speech, Rabbi Shemtov took the crowd on a journey of the Rebbe’s influence in the halls of power, and the Rebbe’s impact on historic and world changing events.
While the invitation to the evening identified him as the Rebbe’s Ambassador in the White House, Rabbi Shemtov said he preferred the description “messenger.”
“Diplomatic relations are mutual. So where is the U.S. Ambassador to Lubavitch? There isn’t one. And then there are the lobbyists who come to ask and take. What we do can be called lobbying as well, but our goal is to bring and give.”
As an example he mentioned the the Rebbe’s role in strengthening U.S. – Israel relations, at times even without Israel knowing of it. “The Rebbe was not a not a world leader but leader of the world,” he stated.
He spoke against the “museuming of Yiddishkeit,” saying that “you can’t put a living thing in a box. You don’t know what Yiddishkeit is if you want to archive it.”
As an example he mentioned how U.S. Vice President Joe Biden quoted from the Rebbe about the importance of doing and moving forward at the inauguration of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
“The Rebbe said never to remain idle, not to remain satisfied with a situation, but to strive to do more and better,” said Shemtov. “And the one who understood it, from all the Jewish people there, was a non-Jew,” he concluded his speech, which was translated in real-time by Rabbi Natan Grunblatt.
As the evening, just meters from the River Plate in Buenos Aires, came to a close, Shluchim in in Argentina were thanked for their efforts and Mr. David Koner, R’ Chaim Lapidus and Rabbi Shloime Taubenfliegel were thanked for their sponsorship and dedication.
As for the crowd, they took to immediate action. Every person had a chance to write a personal “pan” note to the Rebbe in which they notified which good deed “hachlata” they were taking upon themselves in honor of Gimmel Tammuz.
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u are ROCKKK!
was awesome! Incredible professional job!
I was there.
The end of golus. And to say otherwise is to be a fool.