DELAYS AND MIRACLES ON THE WAY TO HAKHEL

We came to say thank you to the Rebbe. It is healthy for body and soul to go to the Rebbe. It’s a wonderful experience for the children and parents and the family unit. Why should someone spend thousands of dollars and go to a beis midrash in New York? Are battei midrash lacking in Eretz Yisroel? There is only one “Beis Rabbeinu Sh’B’Bavel,” and it will be transported by clouds to Yerushalayim, as promised. Until then, we all go to the Rebbe! * Uri and Inbal Ceitlin relate.

My preparations for the entire family to go to the Rebbe for Hakhel began from the first moment I landed in Eretz Yisroel after the previous Simchas Torah.

The date we chose to go was Chanuka. Tickets aren’t as expensive that time of year and they are days of simcha of which I have fond memories from my time on K’vutza.

We had plenty of experience dealing with the intricacies of flying with small children. Since we married and during the years we were on shlichus in Moscow, we flew often with small children and so that wasn’t new for us. Though it turned out that no prior experience prepared us for that flight, but let me not get ahead of myself.

After we renewed or got new passports issued for everyone, we also got visas to the US for the entire family, thus thinking we had finished our preparations.

We told the children every night about how fortunate we were to be with the Rebbe in a Hakhel year, and they shared this with everyone and were excited.

The problems began to crop up a week before the flight when our year-old son became sick with hand-foot-and-mouth disease. His fever rose and conventional medicine did not work. He lost weight and wouldn’t eat anything. We were at a loss as to what to do and didn’t know whether we would be able to fly with him.

Two days before the flight, a relative suggested we give him goat’s milk and that worked. The day of the flight we saw that he was recovering. He no longer cried but he was still very weak. So in that condition we took him on the bus that was arranged by N’shei Chabad of Tzfas that was taking a big group to 770. Many husbands, bachurim and relatives went to see the group of women off before they boarded the bus. As someone who grew up in Tzfas, it reminded me of R’ Ceitlin’s organized flights in the past and the warm atmosphere before the group set out.

The flight was supposed to leave at one in the morning and we left immediately after lighting the menorah, before six. We arrived at the airport around nine and were first in line.

Nothing prepared us for the drama we were about to experience. We suddenly realized that the visa was in my wife’s old passport, not her new one. The clerk advised us to cancel our tickets and buy tickets on another flight because the gates would be closing in two hours.

After two hours of tension along with emuna that is hard to describe, the passport was brought by my sister and her husband. It was a miracle.

As we waited, we were accompanied by a pair of not-yet religious uncles who were amazed by our stubbornness as well as our emuna. Before the flight took off, one of the uncles wrote me: It was a pleasure to be with you and see a Chanuka miracle taking place. May you arrive and return in peace and bring light.

When we arrived in Crown Heights, before we went to sleep, we took the children to 770 and together with them thanked the Rebbe for the miracles we had merited to be with him in a Shnas Hakhel. The children were very excited. Until then they had heard about 770 and now for the first time, they were there.

I would divide the experience at 770 into two parts. First, the experience we parents had. I had been in 770 many times since I was a young bachur. I didn’t miss a Tishrei with the Rebbe and now I had the z’chus of seeing my children standing where I had stood and was pushed, or napping on a bench where I had sometimes nodded off after an exhausting farbrengen. These are feelings that cannot be described in words.

At the entrance to 770, after all the trials and difficulties we went through, I felt I had to say to the Rebbe: Rebbe, we did all we could to come here. Now we are in your hands. Take care of us!

And that is how it was. Our material circumstances throughout the visit were excellent.

Now for the children. Their experience was very special and we saw the impact it had and still has. First, during the trip itself they sang and danced because they were going to the Rebbe. In 770 they were so excited. Whenever we left 770, they wanted to go back, as though they felt that it was the source of their life and they could not be disconnected from it for even a moment. When someone asks them about Hakhel, to them the question is about going to 770. The concept of “Rebbe” is something that they now relate to in a whole different way.

I don’t know what they saw and took from 770. They were so young, but I know that when you mention 770 to them, their eyes light up. When I announced that I would be going for Sukkos this year, they cried saying they also wanted to go. They cried over something they themselves experienced. They know where they want to go.

Fortunate are we to be Chassidim. Our yearning now is that we merit to see the Rebbe in Eretz Yisroel with the third Beis HaMikdash.