SURELY THE REBBE VISITS EVERY DAY

Imagining how Rabbeinu HaNasi would visit his home every Shabbos, I thought at the time that surely the Rebbe Maharash visits his study every Shabbos or even every day. * From Chapter 8 of Rabbi Shloma Majeski’s Likkutei Mekoros. (Underlined text is the compiler’s emphasis.)

 The walls of the large room [the study] of my revered grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, were adorned with tall bookshelves. Two of the cabinets were full with handwritten manuscripts. There were also two broad, plush chairs in the room, upholstered with silk. In the center of the room there stood a round table over which there hung from a beam a crystal chandelier with thirteen branches. On each branch there was a kerosene lamp. In the northeast corner of the room there was a bureau, upon which the Rebbe Maharash would write.

In my youth, when the school day was over, I loved to lounge on those comfortable chairs and think about the stories I had heard long ago from my teacher Reb Yekusiel, as well as the more recent stories I had heard on other occasions from the Chassid Reb Chanoch Hendel, nishmaso Eden.

One day in those years - it was in the month of Sivan 5647 — while sitting on one of the tall, wide chairs in the Rebbe Maharash’s study, I contemplated the story I had heard from the Chassid Reb Chanoch Hendel, the story told in the Gemara about how after his passing from this world, Rebbi Yehuda HaNasi, compiler of the Mishna, would come every Shabbos to visit his house.

Hearing stories on a regular basis, coupled with my love to review them at every opportunity, developed in me the ability to visualize these stories in a very tangible way. Imagining how Rabbeinu HaNasi would visit his home every Shabbos, I thought at the time that surely the Rebbe Maharash visits his study every Shabbos or even every day.

One time, sitting in the large, broad chairs in the study of the Rebbe Maharash, absorbed in thought about the souls of tzaddikim living in Gan Eden and what they must experience there, I recalled what the Chassid Reb Chanoch Hendel had said in the beis midrash to Reb Moshe Zarchin and Reb Pinchas the Shopkeeper. Reb Chanoch told them that the Gemara says that tzaddikim are elevated after their passing to the extent of the greatness they had achieved when they were alive in the physical world. Reflecting on this teaching, I imagined how great my grandfather is and reveled in my childhood fantasy.

In this state, I heard a voice speaking very softly and weeping. Opening my eyes I saw my father, the holy Rebbe, dressed in his sirtuk and Shabbos’dige shtraimel, wearing his gartel as he would for davening. He was standing beside the [bureau, the writing] table of my grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, in the corner of the room, holding a paper in his hand, reading [from it] and weeping. I was extremely frightened and quietly left the room.

In those days, my teacher was Reb Shimshon, but since he was such a severe person, I would ask my previous teacher, Reb Yekusiel, all [my questions], and he helped me further develop my thoughts. At the time, awakening within me was the feeling that I should devote myself to the holy Rebbe not only as a child to a father, but also as a Chassid to a Rebbe.

 (Seifer HaSichos 5704, pg. 6-7)