Reflections on Gimmel Tammuz
By Rabbi Shimon Raichik
As I stood by the Ohel this last Sunday in the corner ripping up the pidyonos brought from Los Angeles (They allow a little extra time. I don't read the personal requests in pidyonos only my own and those I write with special requests for others) I watched three different groups of people coming and going making their requests, each in their own way.
After completing the process I stood there kind of staring at the Rebbe's matzevah while lost in thought and whispering some words, as if in another world. I said to the Rebbe; “I'm here, I want to be connected, I want to fulfill my shlichus, the way you want it to be.” It’s at moments such as these that one can feel as if they are standing in front of the Rebbe. It's not just going through the motions of the reading of the Mayna Lashon, lighting the candle and tearing up the pan, it's much more; it’s about how we are connected. If we take the time and prepare, we are transported to a place that is beyond time and place.
To really feel that connection begins with the preparation of going to the mikvah, saying Mayna Lashon, writing the pan and giving tzedaka. Sometimes we really can feel and be moved at that moment other times it's quiet.
On another occasion, this last Lag B’Omer I was by 770 and the Ohel. In 770 they took out the Moshiach Sefer Torah. Erev Shabbos, the ninth of Shevat 5730-1970 in honor of the 20th Hilula of the Previous Rebbe the Sefer Torah of Moshiach was completed The Previous Rebbe said that we will go to great Moshiach with that Sefer Torah. At the moment when I kissed the Sefer Torah I had a flash back to 1970 at the fabrengen. There it was in front of my very eyes, the connection, now as then, it was real, it was there. The question is; will we live it or will we just leave it to memory.
Back at the Ohel I saw young people, people who were not by the Rebbe. They were not there, but they were nevertheless very connected with a strong and powerful connection. The reason they can be connected is because the connection is and always was something that is beyond time and place.
Rabbi Elimelech Tamarkin was from the Chassidim that the Rebbe instructed to remain in Russia to keep the flickering flame of Torah and Yiddishkeit alive behind the Iron Curtain. During the 1980’s during a trip to the Soviet Union, Rabbi Berel Levy O.H. took a video of Rabbi Elimelech speaking to the Rebbe in Yiddish. He faced the Rebbe with a profound heartfelt request. He asked that since his circumstances have not afforded an opportunity to enter into yechidus he's asking the Rebbe to give him something in it’s place, that should be considered as if he entered into yechidus. He even recommended that it be a nigun. When Rabbi Berel Levy went into yechidus he showed the Rebbe the video. The Rebbe asked him to replay it again. When he replayed the video the Rebbe burst out in tears. The Rebbe said to Reb Berel to tell Reb Elimelech that when he would sing the Daled Bavos nigun that it would be in the place of yechidus.