JUST A BIT OF WARMTH This is why I’ve come. To see the face of a man who is numb to his own pain and broken by the pain of others. To inhale just a little bit of the warmth of the palpable kedushah

T here are so many reasons I don’t go to tish Friday night.

The kids laziness the cold laziness the distance laziness. But I definitely want to go certainly would go if not for well the kids the cold the distance and what me? Lazy? Oh please.

But one Friday night with the temperature dipping into the teens opportunity knocks. I’m hurrying home from a cousin’s sheva brachos toes and fingertips numb with frostbite when I pass Fifty-Fourth Street.

Fifty-Fourth Street. Skulen. Tish. How many years since I’ve been to tish? But but… the cold. And the kids. I must get home to the kids. And I’m so so tired.

I go probably because I know I’ll never forgive myself for missing the chance and possibly also because just three weeks ago the Skulener Rebbe was sandek at my son’s bris and I want to hold on to that connection.

It takes two wrong tries before I find the door leading to the ezras nashim. But here I stand facing a crowd of tiptoeing neck-craning women and girls. Not a seasoned tish-goer I’ve never mastered the science of weaving through tight packs of people to find a good spot. But I’m here and I desperately want to see the Rebbe.

I hover around until I spy a gap in a far corner. It’s not a good spot. Instead of the backs of women I now face the backs of men. Still I’m determined. I tilt my head at all angles and when several men sway in specific directions at once there’s a crack between the beketshes and I get my treasured glimpse: a snow-white beard and peyos framing a diamond of a face.

For several minutes I drink in the experience. The kedushah the song the tzaddik nibbling on pieces of challah crust his son prepares for him. He can’t eat the Rebbe. For years now he’s supposed to be on a feeding tube but he refuses. He forces maachalei Shabbos down his throat despite the serious discomfort.

I’m still in my spot groping the mechitzah fencing when someone taps my shoulder.

“Excuse me?”

I turn. It’s a young girl 15 years old I judge.

“Can you see from there?” she asks.

My brows arch. Seriously? Does she think there’s room for a mouse next to me? “Uh just a bit when those guys shuffle around.”

“You can come up here ” she says pointing to the bleacher rail she’s standing on. “You’ll have a much better view.”

Oh. She was offering me a spot. I stammer a thank-you.

Kimpeturins don’t stand on bleacher rails. Politely I decline her offer and remain rooted on the bench catching my occasional glimpse of the Rebbe. In the mystical halo that surrounds him the spirit of Shabbos is a tangible thing. His warmth swathes the crowd in holiness. It stretches like the sun’s rays all the way to the ezras nashim over my head to where the high school girl balances on the shaky rail. In this environment a little bit of the warmth permeates every heart infusing a streak of the Rebbe’s kedushah and this is why I’m here this is why I’ve come. (Excerpted from Family First Issue 543)