Dear Friends,
“Do I not know yet that, that my path and the doings of our offspring and their descendants are dependent on the path of this sterling young man.”
This was written by the Chasid, R. Eli Chaim Althaus, about a groom, in honor of this groom’s wedding, which took place in Warsaw 87 years ago.
He offered a prophecy – and apparently he knew what he was talking about. That young groom was the man who later became known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe. On that day in Warsaw, 5689 (1928), he became the son-in-law of the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty.
Thousands of people participated in that historical wedding, which took place on the 14th of Kislev. The majority of those Jews died in the Holocaust, including R. Eli Chaim himself, but his prophecy came true.
R. Eli Chaim understood already then, with his acute vision, that this groom would come to step into the shoes of his father-in-law and become the seventh Rebbe of the Chabad dynasty.
Twenty-five years later, this “sterling young man,” who was already the Lubavitcher Rebbe, said to his Chassidim: “That was the day that connected me to you and you to me, and together we will labor for the sake of the true and complete Redemption. May Hashem help us, that we will see the fruits of our efforts.”
Friends, as a Chabadnik, this is one of the most special days for me in the Jewish calendar. As a Shaliach and director of a Chabad House, it is clear to me that this day affected not only the Chabad Chassidim, but every Jew in the world who has been touched – body and soul – by the Shluchim. For they are the emissaries of this ‘sterling young man”, who got married in Warsaw on the eve of the great conflagration of European Jewry, and twenty years later, from his office in Brooklyn, lifted world Jewry from the ashes after that terrible destruction.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski