Rabbi YY Jacobson retraces the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s lasting impact

Photos: JEM, Family archives

wenty-five years after the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s passing on 3 Tammuz, 1994, I can still hear his wise, holy words — how he ignited the Divine spark in every Jew, viewing each of us as an ambassador of infinite love, light, hope, and truth. When you walked away from an encounter with the Rebbe, you forever cast away your sense of inner mediocrity

I was four years old when I entered the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s room, before the bar mitzvah of my older brother Boruch. The Rebbe asked me if I could share a story with him — “A story about Adam, Avraham, or Noach.” I was a shy boy, and I remained silent. He asked me a few times; when I didn’t respond, the Rebbe smiled and continued to converse with my parents.

My brother still jokes with me: “You left that room, and haven’t stopped telling stories since…” Then he adds: “Maybe it’s because you were silent in that room, that you know how to tell a story…”

Twenty-five years later, I still miss the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In my mind’s eye, I can see him walking home late Friday night, one hand in his coat pocket, to eat the Shabbos meal with his wife. The Rebbe walked alone — there were no gabbaim, and no entourage. He would greet every person, Jew and African American, cordially.

During the 60 years of their marriage, from 1928 to 1988, he ate most Shabbos meals exclusively with his wife, in the privacy of their own home. In a home devoid of children, perhaps this was the personal space he carved out for his life’s partner who gave up her husband for the Jewish people.

I miss davening a Minchah with the Rebbe. To see his ernstkeit — the sincerity and yiras Shamayim when he davened — was enough to know forever that G-d is real. He barely swayed, nor did he maneuver his hands. He stood in one place, almost not moving a limb. But he was all deveikus. There was something about his face that still makes me cry: You can see in it all the pain and all the joy of the Jewish People.

The Rebbe would sit by chazaras hashatz on a bench (used moments earlier by the yeshivah boys learning), facing the crowd, with his hand on his forehead, pointing in the siddur, following the chazzan word by word.

And then for a few days, the Rebbe did not place his hand on his forehead. It was strange. Why would he change his custom of 40 years? A sensitive eye in the shul noticed that during the Minchah services of those days, there was a guest from Eretz Yisrael, someone whose body and face were badly deformed. He was also blind. It was hard to look at the person. It became clear that the Rebbe didn’t want anyone to think he was trying to avoid gazing at the disfigured individual.

I miss the Rebbe’s Shabbos and Yom Tov farbrengens.

How to describe a five-hour farbrengen with the Lubavitcher Rebbe? For some moments, you felt you were in the company of the Baal Shem Tov — as the Rebbe sang, danced, and spoke of the purity of every Jewish soul. But then, as he dedicated an hour to delve into a “chatzi shiur” or a Rambam in Pesulei Hamukdashin, you felt you were in the chamber of a world-class rosh yeshivah. And then he became the classic Chabad Rebbe, as he closed his eyes and presented a ma’amar of the Baal HaTanya on the secrets of Atzilus and the Sefiros. You thought you were done, when he would begin a siyum on Horayos, Bechoros, or Eiruvin, and you felt you were in the mechitzah of one of the great minds of the generation. As you could barely hold your breath, he shifted to his brilliant derech in analyzing a Rashi on the parshah.

In between the talks, the singing was electrifying. He made sure to greet every one of the thousand people present with a personal l’chayim, often signaling a special gesture toward an individual sitting in the audience, and you knew that this Jew needed some chizuk.

The song finished, and the Rebbe would present a deep explanation on a particular concept in hashkafah, halachah, or aggadah, and you observed the Rebbe’s unique approach to synthesize all streams of Torah into an integrated whole, where halachah, lomdus, machshavah, chassidus, science, psychology, and emotional healing all meshed into one whole. Then he would begin to discuss the contemporary situation of the Jewish world, and I knew he had his finger on the pulse of G-d’s People. Then, as the crown began to sing the Alter Rebbe’s niggun, his face changed. Suddenly I felt I was in the presence of a tzaddik, one of those rare souls planted from another world into ours, to remind us that heaven and earth are really one.

He finished the fabrengen, the clock showed two a.m., and I stood there, silently, numb from ecstasy. My heartstrings were on fire, as I thanked Hashem for sending such a soul into the world.