Thirty long years after Gimmel Tammuz, there’s no question that the Rebbe is still taking care of his children.
It was several years ago during the Yamim Nora’im. I had read somewhere of the significance of visiting kivrei tzaddikim during this time, and it encouraged me to want to go. But where were kivrei tzaddikim in New York? I asked my husband if he knew of any tzaddikim who were buried nearby. He suggested the Ohel of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt”l, in Queens
We are not Lubavitch. However, like any Orthodox Jew, we are grateful for the mesiras nefesh of Lubavitcher chassidim. Like the time my husband found a Chabad minyan for minchah after a concert at Tanglewood in the Berkshires. Or when my daughter and her friends ate meals at the Chabad House in Thailand on a summer vacation. Or when I once forgot to bentch lulav during Chol Hamoed Sukkos and stopped a Lubavitcher teenager holding a lulav and esrog at the corner of Broadway and 42nd St. He was standing there offering the mitzvah to any Jew he saw
Of course, there’s the tangential connection to Lubavitch through my brother…
In 1973, my parents thought he was ready to start school, but the local yeshiva in our hometown, Detroit, refused to accept him at age three because he had missed the cutoff date by a mere seven days. My parents placed him in the Chabad cheder instead. He stayed there until fourth grade, soaking up Yiddish and claiming that his second grade rebbi had to be one of the lamed vav tzaddikim, and then he switched to the local yeshiva.
My connection to Chabad, however, ends there.
I was excited about the visit to the Ohel and asked my mother if she would like to join us. She was extremely excited, even by her usual enthusiastic standards. We picked her up the next morning and she entered the car holding an envelope in her hand.
“I want to give this to you,” she told me.
“What is it?” I asked.
It turned out to be a typed envelope in pristine condition from Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, Lubavitch, 770 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn 13, NY. It was addressed to Mr. L. Stein, 1437 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY. Mr. Stein was my late father.
Inside was a typed letter in Hebrew with the official letterhead of the Rebbe and hand signed by him. It was dated 19 Menachem Av 5623 (1963). The letter was written on the occasion of my parents’ upcoming wedding. The Rebbe wished my parents “brachos of mazel tov and hatzlachah to build a bayis ne’eman b’Yisroel, built on the foundations of the Torah and mitzvos as they are illuminated with the light of Torah, which is Toras haChassidus.”
This was the blessing bestowed on my father, who was Litvish, and my mother, who came from a highly esteemed chassidish family with Satmar roots. I had never heard about this letter and only vaguely remembered my mother speaking of the time she and my father had yechidus with the Rebbe when they were engaged. She had silently held on to this letter for years.
After waving the letter in my direction, my mother promptly put it back in her purse for safekeeping.
When we arrived at the Visitor Center next to the Ohel, we were surprised to see some people take off their shoes and switch them for crocs. There were shelves at the back of the inner building containing numerous cubby holes for the shoes.
My mother and I were intrigued. Ever the affable woman, my mother approached a young Lubavitcher chossid near the shelves and asked him the reason behind the switching of shoes. He explained the significance of the admas kodesh of the Ohel necessitating the removal of leather shoes. Then he left the building and headed to the Ohel. We followed.
The Ohel was packed. Since I had visited many kivrei tzaddikim in Israel, it felt almost surreal to be at a similar site in chutz la’aretz. There were the two matzeivos—one belonging to the Rebbe and one to his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneersohn, zt”l, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe. There were the mispallelim, and there were the kvitlach. But these kvitlach were different—each one was torn in two and sometimes four or more jagged pieces of paper in a high pile in front of the matzeivos.
Davening for oneself and one’s family is always fraught with emotion and appeal. But davening during Aseres Yemei Teshuvah turns praying into pleading. The novel experience of that petition taking place with the assurance of a tzaddik interceding on my behalf as a meilitz yosher charged my prayers with a renewed faith in being granted a shanah tovah.
When we finished davening, my mother and I headed back to the Visitor Center, where we met my husband. We washed negel vasser and stopped to have some tea and cookies at a counter alongside the back wall. My husband wanted us to hurry since it was a workday and we needed to head back. I noticed my mother scanning the room.
“I want to show this letter to someone before we leave,” she said.
I replied that we didn’t know anyone there, but she insisted. After a few minutes my mother spotted the young Lubavitcher man she had spoken to about the shoes. She took the letter from her purse and approached him a second time. She proudly showed him the letter and I watched as he read it carefully. Then she proceeded to tell him of her yechidus with the Rebbe so long ago.
“I met the Rebbe with my then-future husband, who was an architect,” my mother explained. “The Rebbe told us that, as an architect, he should know that if the foundation of a building is designed to be sturdy and secure, then the building will be durable. The Rebbe compared this to a marriage. He said that if the foundation of the marriage is built on solid ground and rooted in solid and shared values, then the marriage will succeed and flourish.”
I watched the man as he listened to my mother. He was focused, not out of sheer politeness to an older lady, but with genuine concentration. When my mother finished speaking, she put the letter back in her purse and said goodbye to the man, and we left the Ohel.
While driving back to Brooklyn, we stopped several blocks away from the Ohel at a red light. I noticed that someone in the car next to ours was gesturing to me. I rolled down the passenger window and recognized the man in the car pulled alongside ours. It was our Lubavitcher man from the Ohel. There were tears streaming down his face.
“I came to the Ohel today looking for a siman from the Rebbe,” he said. “I have been dating a girl for a long time and couldn’t decide whether I should ask her to marry me. When your mother read the Rebbe’s letter to me and told me what the Rebbe said about the foundation of a marriage, I took that a sign from the Rebbe. I am going to ask her to marry me.”
The light turned green. We both rolled our windows back up and drove on. The three of us in the car were stunned. Silently, my mother once more took out the letter and passed it to me.
“Now it’s for you to keep,” she said.
It’s been many years since that day. My mother is sadly unwell, and we can no longer talk about the miraculous heavenly intervention that her actions precipitated. Since that initial visit, I often go to the Ohel on my own or with my husband. I go when I seek solace or comfort or inspiration or guidance. It is a “favorite” on my Google Maps.
I keep the Rebbe’s letter in a special box and take it out from time to time. I think of its enduring power and wonder about the Lubavitcher man whose life it conclusively changed. And I hope that the siman it once provided will continue to replicate in good omens for many years to come.