The Klausenburger Rebbe never lost hope, because he knew that Hashem is there in the darkest places, too

Photos: Mishpacha archives, Sanz archives

The Klausenburger Rebbe, healer of broken souls, visualized a revolution: to build a town and a hospital, and to grow a generation of talmidei chachamim who were experts on all of Shas. And there was something else, that resonates louder than ever 30 years after his passing on 9 Tammuz 5754/1994: No matter where you find yourself, don’t compromise and don’t lose hope, because Hashem is there in the darkest places too 

Thirty years ago this week, when the Klausenburger Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam zy”a, passed away, he left standing a world of Torah and chassidus rebuilt out of nothing but his own vision, hope, and unwavering commitment against seemingly impossible odds. Yet the thousands whom he took along for the ride into an unimaginable future — despite his own unfathomable personal suffering — were ever-grateful for this beacon of strength and encouragement that lit up their own dark corners.

Not many of those original followers are still living, but one of his early disciples, 90-year-old Leibush Morgenstern — Rosh Hakahal of the Sanz-Klausenburg kehillah in Monsey — says that his first encounter with the Rebbe, when he was a 12-year-old Holocaust survivor in the Heidenheim DP camp, cemented his relationship forever.

“It was before Rosh Hashanah of 1946, and we heard that the Klausenburger Rebbe would be in the Foehrenwald Displaced Persons camp for Yom Tov,” Reb Leibush remembers. “The Rebbe had spent the past year making his way around the DP camps, organizing minyanim, chadarim and yeshivos under the “She’eris Hapleitah” banner, and a few of us boys decided to spend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in his presence.”

They knew that the year before, when the Rebbe was in Feldafing for the first Yom Kippur after liberation, the Rebbe — who had been separated from his family and had just learned that his wife and all 11 children had perished [his oldest son survived the death camps but died shortly after liberation, before he could be reunited with his father –ed.] — electrified the broken crowd with his heartrending tefillos. When he got to the Vidui on Yom Kippur night, he stopped at each confession to ask, “Ashamnu: Did we even have the ability to sin? Bagadnu: Have we betrayed You? Gazalnu: Was there anything left to steal during these terrible years? This Vidui,” the Rebbe said with a sigh, “is not for us,” and he closed the machzor. But then he continued, “Yet there are sins that we are guilty of. We told Hashem that we can’t take it anymore, that He should end it for us…. How many times did many of us pray, Master of the Universe, I have no more strength, take my soul so I will not have to recite Modeh Ani anymore? For some of us, our bitachon was weakened. So now, we must strengthen our emunah and from this broken place we must rebuild, because that is Hashem’s will for us.”

[The next day, on Yom Kippur afternoon, he gave his famous speech about moving forward despite the devastation to a crowd that had come to greet General (and future US president) Dwight D. Eisenhower, which brought the general to tears.]

How did the Rebbe have the inner wherewithal to grab onto the elusive rays of light, after having lived through so much darkness?