Yesterday afternoon I landed in Kennedy Airport. The process of getting out of the terminal was unusually long, because exactly then a flight from China (and Corona-land) had landed. I arrived at the Ohel (the gravesite) of the Rebbe very close to sunset. I wanted to go in before sunset on that Wednesday, but then I saw the extremely long line, all the way to Francis Lewis Boulevard, a line that had started to form 24 hours before then.
That was the 10th of Shvat, and we were noting 70 years since the Rebbe became the head of Chabad. Thousands from all over the world had come here for one day or more in order to be with the Rebbe on this day. They were standing there with me, all of them with books in hand, all of them with white, closely-written pages in their hands. All those pages began with the letters peh and nun, the first letters of the expression pidyon nefesh (literally: soul redemption; a prayer accompanied by a donation).
I don’t know what they wrote in their pidyon nefesh, I don’t know what they were requesting and what they were reporting. But one thing is clear to me: All of them, with no exceptions, wrote to the Rebbe that they were there in order to continue forward, to act more than they had acted until now, either inwardly or outwardly towards the world – but forward.
Because if there is something that the Lubavitcher Rebbe always says and demands it is to go forward, to do more, not to stop, not to rest, not to relax – just to continue walking.
Even then, a moment after he became the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe did not give his new flock of chassidim a moment to breathe. Rather, he said immediately: “Now listen, Jews! In Chabad in general there was a demand that each and every person should labor on his own, and not depend on the Rebbes.”
Live fish swim against the current. Yesterday I saw thousands of live fish.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski