THE REBBE WENT PUBLIC WITH THE PROCLAMATION OF ‘YECHI’

At the Kinus HaShluchim 5753, in front of thousands of shluchim, the Rebbe sent a clear message: I am going out before you with the proclamation of Yechi in order to accomplish this in the world. * The moving speech by Rabbi Yisroel Hershkowitz, shliach and rav in Ofakim, at the Kinus HaShluchim banquet, Motzaei Shabbos in 770.

I’d like to share something personal and painful with you that I experienced about a year ago. It is something that instilled an essential point of truth, the essential point of Yechi, within me.

It says about the time preceding the Geula that “the hearts of fathers will be returned through the sons.” Rashi explains that the hearts of the fathers will return to Hashem through their sons, since our children will draw us close to the truth.

This verse was fulfilled with me too, with just a small difference in that in my case it happened with my daughter.

DOING WHAT 
THE REBBE WANTS

Shortly before the passing of my daughter, Chaya Mushka [Ed. – age 23, contracted a serious infection which proved fatal], she was hospitalized in Beilinson Hospital, waiting to be operated on.

About two hours before the surgery, the surgeon, who is considered the top doctor in this field in Eretz Yisroel, came into her room. He informed us that the operation was very dangerous and it could result in her death. I and my daughter, who was fully conscious, immediately exclaimed, “So why do it?”

He explained that without an operation, her condition was even more dangerous. My daughter said that if so, she preferred leaving the matter up to G-d.

We had to inform the doctor of our decision. We did as the Rebbe advises and consulted with a doctor-friend. In critical situations such as these, the only doctor-friend who could understand the situation and be considered a friend of the family is Rabbi Elimelech Firer [Ed. – a Belzer Chassid, chairman and founder of Ezra L’Marpeh, matches sick people with the best hospitals, physicians and treatments available for their conditions, and provides a myriad of other services for the ill]. We somehow managed to reach him. After he was apprised of the situation, he said he was aware of the Rebbe’s instruction to consult with a doctor-friend, and as a doctor-friend he said she must have the operation.

I went back to my daughter who, moments before, had said she did not want the operation and would rely on G-d’s kindness, and told her what R’ Firer said. She said, “What does the Rebbe want me to do now?”

I said, “Chaya’le, the Rebbe wants you to sign the consent form.”

She didn’t say another word. She signed the medical form and added the word “b’simcha.”

She left this world while on the operating table, but she managed to teach us a lesson in pure truth. In the most difficult moment, she cared about one thing: What does the Rebbe want? When she knew what the Rebbe wanted, she did it, without blinking an eye, and happily too!

A YECHI DANCE AND 
THE INCREDIBLE CALM

After Chaya Mushka signed, I had to take care of some technical matters with the doctor. That took about ten minutes and my wife stayed with her in the meantime. When I came back, I saw that she was very calm. She waved but did not speak, like after HaMapil.

She went in for the surgery in a state of utter calm. In the middle of the operation, I asked my wife, what made her so calm all of a sudden? Earlier, she was agitated about the surgery. She knew that not everybody makes it.

My wife said that during those ten minutes that I was with the doctor, Chaya’le wanted to get out of bed. She was attached to all kinds of equipment and it was no simple matter to let her out of bed, especially when we had delayed with the consent for the surgery and there was a time pressure.

But she insisted that she had to get out of bed and so my wife helped her. She then stood there facing my wife and put her hands on her shoulders and began dancing Yechi with her, as she always did, every night, before going to sleep, quietly and in a p’nimius’dike way.

She danced two times around and got back into bed. After that Yechi dance, she was completely calm. She was connected to the Rebbe.

ALL THE SHLUCHIM DANCED AND SANG YECHI IN FRONT OF THE REBBE

Exactly twenty years ago, right here, we stood here, thousands of shluchim, at the Kinus HaShluchim banquet 5753, and we all danced and sang Yechi.

I am not a journalist and I don’t have the ability to describe events, but take a look at the last sicha the Rebbe said to the Kinus HaShluchim in order to understand what the Avodas HaShlichus is today.

I was here for Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah 5752, and I heard the Rebbe say at the farbrengen that the main and only thing that remains for the shluchim to do is: Kabbalas P’nei Moshiach Tzidkeinu.

These words of the Rebbe need to constantly reverberate in our ears. The Rebbe demands that as long as we don’t have the actual Geula, and as long as we haven’t merited that the entire world proclaims Yechi, we have a job to do, to make it happen.

In order to get the world to accept Moshiach, the shluchim need to live with it, first and foremost living with the sichos of 5751-5752 in such a way that it becomes a real part of our lives. It needs to be clear to us that this whole Yechi business is an inseparable part of Chabad Chassidus of the seventh generation and there is no way to separate things.

To illustrate: Many Lubavitchers and shluchim do not know that until Purim 5736/1976, it was not Chabad practice to put on Rabbeinu Tam t’fillin before marriage. Only singular individuals were told to do so earlier; otherwise, it was done in connection with one’s marriage. Then, on Purim 5736, the Rebbe announced that from then on, bar mitzva boys should begin using Rabbeinu Tam t’fillin.

Would anybody think that it is possible to be a Lubavitcher Chassid, who learns all the sichos of the 1950’s, of the 1960’s, but stops before Purim 5736 and does not put on t’fillin of Rabbeinu Tam after the bar mitzva?!

If such a Chassid existed, then even if he was an oved who learned and davened sweetly, yet he did not put on Rabbeinu Tam t’fillin because he only lived with the sichos of the first 26 years, it would be very hard to speak of such a person, who stopped in the middle of the way, as a Lubavitcher.

If there was a Chassid who passed 5736 but got stuck in the Rebbe’s mivtzaim and would say he was living with the Rebbe’s first thirty years, but he did not connect to mivtzaim, could he be referred to as a member of Chabad?

We wouldn’t say he was completely disconnected, but a Lubavitcher Chassid of the seventh generation must be utterly devoted to the Rebbe, to all his horaos, without exception!

There is no such thing as a partial Chassid. The one who establishes what Lubavitch is and what is not Lubavitch is the Rebbe himself.

All this is by way of introduction, so we may understand the current situation. After the Rebbe spoke clearly in 5751-5752 – saying that the Nasi HaDor is the Moshiach who will redeem the Jewish people, starting with the expression that the Rebbe used regularly, “Nasi Doreinu Moshiach Sh’B’Doreinu,” and then expressions like “Moshiach Menachem is his name,” providing explanations about the reason why the Midrash says that Moshiach stands on the roof of the Beis HaMikdash is to allude to the Beis Rabbeinu Sh’B’Bavel which is outside Eretz Yisroel and there Moshiach stands and announces to the Jewish people: “The time for your redemption has arrived” – ever since the Rebbe began speaking so clearly about his identity as Moshiach, it has become an inseparable part of the Lubavitch reality.

If you learn all the Rebbe’s sichos and horaos until 5751 and stop there, you are just like the person who learned all the sichos until 5736 and stopped there and did not put on t’fillin Rabbeinu Tam after bar mitzva. True, this was Chabad practice until 5736, but after 5736, putting on Rabbeinu Tam t’fillin after bar mitzva became part and parcel of being a Lubavitcher. If you want to act like a Lubavitcher does, you do not wait for Rabbeinu Tam t’fillin for when you get married.

In the same way, belief in the Rebbe being Moshiach is an inseparable part of Chabad Chassidus, and it is impossible to be a Lubavitcher Chassid without this belief.

WHEN THE REBBE GOES BEFORE US, SUCCESS IS ASSURED

In the description of Eliezer’s shlichus, it does not say his name in the entire parsha. He is referred to as “Eved Avrohom” or “the servant” or “the man,” but never as Eliezer since he was utterly battul to Avrohom Avinu. His existence was solely as a servant of Avrohom, without any expression of an independent existence.

The Rebbe raises a question about this, pointing out that it seems that Eliezer made a vital change in the words of his master. When Avrohom gave him the mission to go to Aram Naharayim to find a wife for Yitzchok, he concluded with the words, “Hashem, the G-d of the heavens … will send His angel before you to take a wife for my son from there.” Afterward, when Eliezer is sitting with Besuel, Rivka’s father, he quotes Avrohom with a significant change, “Hashem … will send His angel with you and make you successful.”

The difference between sending His angel before you and sending His angel with you is this: Eliezer is an entity onto himself and the angel is merely going with him and helping him. Sending His angel before him connotes that Eliezer is nothing at all, but the angel will go before him and arrange things so that upon his arrival, Eliezer will be successful.

How could Eliezer, the faithful servant, make such a significant change in the wording? Moreover, he adds that Avrohom promised him that he would be successful, words that Avrohom never said!

The Rebbe explains that Eliezer knew that Avrohom had sent the angel before him to arrange things for him. Eliezer did not have to involve himself at all. All he had to do was show up and conclude what the angel had prepared for him. But when Eliezer was sitting with the father of the intended bride, there was no reason to tell Besuel that an angel had already arranged things, for then Besuel could say that all their discussion was unnecessary. What was there to discuss if Eliezer would say that the angel had arranged it all?

Besuel was not on a level to accept something like this, so Eliezer had no choice but to modify the wording to indicate that the matter wasn’t closed yet; it was still possible for Besuel to say his opinion.

But after all, since Eliezer was a loyal Chassid of Avrohom and was battul to him, he could not conceal the entire truth, so he hinted at it when he said that Avrohom said that the angel would make him successful.

Indeed, Besuel understood and said, “This matter came forth from G-d; we cannot speak to you either bad or good.” In other words, on the one hand, Eliezer made sure to say things in a way that Besuel could hear them. He did not say “before you” but “with you.” On the other hand, he did not dilute Avrohom’s message, but said it in other words so that even Besuel got it.

At the end of that sicha, the Rebbe teaches an incredible horaa: A shliach can think that he is being asked to be moser nefesh for shlichus, without menuchas ha’nefesh or menuchas ha’guf, but he is not asked to be successful in changing other people because this is not up to him. Or as people like to say nowadays, “We are required to do the work, not to rack up successes. We have to do our part, and what will be, will be.”

Says the Rebbe, from Eliezer’s shlichus we learn that the role of a shliach is to actually carry out his shlichus until the shlichus is successful. When he does the shlichus as he is supposed to, the world cannot remain as it is; the world must change.

From where do we learn this? From the fact that Eliezer says to Besuel that Avrohom promised him success, that the matter was already taken care of and it could only turn out successfully.

THE REBBE WENT PUBLIC WITH YECHI

If, with every shlichus, the Rebbe sends his angel before us, to the point that we are successful, then with the main shlichus, preparing the world for Kabbalas P’nei Moshiach Tzidkeinu, the Rebbe himself goes before us, preparing the world in such a way that it is impossible for us not to be successful!

When the Rebbe saw that it was hard for us to instill the idea of Yechi in the world, he himself went out to the world, on the porch here in 770, and encouraged the singing of Yechi.

At the Kinus HaShluchim 5753, in front of thousands of shluchim, the Rebbe sent a clear message: I am going out before you with the proclamation of Yechi in order to accomplish this in the world. Now you have to go to the world and show it what I already did. If you act with bittul towards the meshaleiach, there is no doubt regarding what the outcome will be because the angel was already sent before you and you will be successful!

Since the idea of Yechi was already accomplished in the world, we – the shluchim – have to continue and bring it out in a revealed way. We must live with the lifeblood essence of our hearts and lives, which is “Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed.”