The Post-Gimmel Tammuz Baby Boomers

By Fitz Rabin

It was Sunday night. The Levaya of the Rebbe had occurred earlier that day and my father was not yet back from New york. That afternoon, my mother had secured a small TV set so that we might catch a quick glimpse of the Levaya on the news. Otherwise, we spent the day sitting on couch pillows tossed onto the floor, and a very palpable sense of forlornness prevailed in the home.

Despite being only 8 years old, I could not fall asleep that night. My mother tucked me into bed. But shortly thereafter my innocent mind wandered off to thinking about the Rebbe. The thought “The Rebbe is gone!” hit me harder than a ton of bricks and I began to sob uncontrollably. I forcefully smashed my face into my pillow to mute my sound and absorb the tears. But I was beside myself. Nothing could comfort me.

After some time, I calmed down. I began to breathe more regularly and the eyes dried up.

But then a little bit later as I lay there it hit me all over again “The Rebbe is gone!” and the desperate hysteria began anew.

This repeated itself throughout the night.

I sat in the hallway with the light on for some time, came out to my mother occasionally, but there was no respite.

I will never forget it. It was visceral and pervasive.

As I became older I would wonder why, as an 8 year old, did I take Gimmel Tammuz so personally? After all, I was merely a boy and did not have much of a relationship with the Rebbe at all, let alone a mature one?

As I’d think about it I realized that somewhere in me I was looking forward to getting older and then getting to connect with the Rebbe. The Rebbe represented to me the ultimate loving essence and that no matter what hardships, conflicts, or difficulties I would endure and, perhaps, was already enduring in my own child way, I’d be able to go to the Rebbe for love, nourishment, and healing. The Rebbe would be a safe haven. A catch tray for all ailments, grievances, and hurts.

When Gimmel Tammuz struck, it felt like that glimmer of childhood hope was snuffed out.

Decades would come and go with a thousand voices clamoring for my attention in an attempt to impress on my impressionable mind and heart who and what the Rebbe was and is. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t have strong feelings and opinions on the matter. From the reshimos debacle, to the farbrengens, to the camp songs. And, from the Nun’s to the 10th hilulah, to the 2oth, and now to the threshold of the thirtieth the Ohel has become a placeholder for all of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences associated with the last 30 years of loss, mourning, healing, and the exponential growth of Chabad.

In the maelstrom of the last thirty years, however, something very sad has been occuring on the sidelines for many of us baby boomers.

Going to the Ohel, and for some of us our very relationship with the Rebbe, has become an intersection of shame, guilt, and punishing burdensomeness.

From some of my colleagues and acquaintances I hear about how the Ohel repels them as it reminds them more about what is inadequate about their Yiddishkeit and Chassidishkeit more than what is good enough and beautiful about it.

“How can I go to the Ohel if I am so behind on Chitas and Rambam?”, for example. “It’s a lot of pressure. I prefer to just avoid it.”

For others, there is a gnawing sense that every Ohel trip must bring along with it the heroic undertaking of a new Hachlatah that will at best be a crushing burden and at worst be yet another broken promise.

For some people that I speak to, it’s about the draining experience of the flight, followed by the labor of writing a Pa”n, Du”ch, or letter with a level of obsessive detail that would challenge even a computer, only to be followed by an hour long recitation of Maaneh Lashon – all while fasting and barely having gotten to sleep the night before.

What I am getting at here is this: for too many people the experience of going to the Ohel has turned into something that pushes them away rather than bringing them closer.

And, rather than relating to the Rebbe as I did when I was 8 years old: a loving essence, a catch tray for all my burdens and wounds, the one place in the world that is the touchpoint of my self with my Self, it has turned into the opposite.

To be clear, I am not questioning the tradition of ritual that is associated with going to Kivrie Tzaddikim and the Rebbe’s Ohel in particular. All of them are intended to bring a level of intentionality, presence, and deep awareness of the magnificence of the moment of an individual Neshama making conscious contact with the collective Neshama.

However, for many people – especially those of us who had never had the physical experience of the Rebbe – there is a need to re-install the foundational context of the relationship with the Rebbe to serve as the substrate for the rituals, and we certainly need to be cautious about how to approach those rituals if they create more distance than closeness, more distrust than connection.

Because that is the furthest thing from what the Rebbe is desiring.

I recently said to someone: “it’s time for you to bring more trust into your relationship with the Rebbe”. He said: “what do you mean?” So I asked him: “Do you think the Rebbe is happy to see you when you come?”

He told me he had never thought of things from the Rebbe’s perspective.

Perhaps it’s time.

Perhaps, standing on the cusp of 30 years, we search our souls and ask ourselves: has my distance been the true expression of what the Rebbe is wanting? Does the Rebbe prefer that I stay away from the Ohel because I’m derelict on my Chitas and Rambam duties? Does the Rebbe want for his Ohel to be a source of inner conflict, fear, shame, and guilt?

Sure, this might be the approach of a child towards a father. Not one of a subject to a King.

However, perhaps that foundation stone must come first.

My sincere invitation and request to each and every Jew, let alone someone who identifies as a Lubavitcher or even associates loosely with Lubavitch is: consider that the Rebbe wants to see you. Period. When you deprive the Rebbe of that joy because of self-obsessional preoccupation with your imperfections and judgment of your own humanity you do not do justice to the Rebbe or yourself.

Come the Ohel. Come to the Rebbe. And through this, in time, you will come to your Fullest Self as well.

The Rebbe is waiting for you and happy to see you no matter how ugly you deem yourself to be.

Wouldn’t you want your own son to show up no matter what?

It’s time to trust the Rebbe and come home.

– Fitz Rabin, MSW, is a professional life and leadership Coach who helps men access their full potential and be empowered leaders of their own lives and beyond. He was recently featured on the podcasts In Search Of More and Homesick For Lubavitch. He can be reached at fitzrabin@gmail.com