True Believers...This Shabbos is the 27th day of the month of Adar which is the same day that the Rebbe had his strokes - the first on 27 Adar I 5752 (1992) and the second two years later on 27 Adar 5754 (1994). The Rebbe passed away a few months later on 3 Tammuz.
Appropriately, or more accurately inappropriately, The Jewish Daily Forward has an article this week about the controversy between the "global leaders of Chabad" and the "group of leaders elected from the local Chabad community of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights", as they put it, with regard to who owns 770. This paper is certainly no lover of Orthodoxy and enjoys putting frum Jews in a bad light. The problem is when there are those of us who excite the press by providing "newsworthy" quotes. One good example is the person mentioned in this section:
A recent visit to the synagogue downstairs indicated the strong influence that the messianic gabbais have over the sanctuary. During the services, most worshippers joined in a spirited prayer that celebrated the rebbe as the messiah. On the northern wall of the sanctuary is a long banner that says “Live Our Master, Teacher, Rebbe King Moshiach Forever and Ever.”
“What does it mean, he is alive?” said Yitzhak Fuchs, a 47-year-old congregant who was standing outside in a worn suit.
“We learned the king messiah is not going to die. He is going to disappear, but he’s not dead,” said Fuchs, who, like many of the other worshippers, wore a small, yellow lapel pin with a crown and the word messiah in Hebrew.
I believe strongly that all Lubavitchers would love the Rebbe to return as our long awaited Moshiach but, almost 13 years after his passing, surely reality must finally set in. The Rebbe awakened the frum world to the reality of Moshiach, whoever he may be. Instead of the common jokes about something happening "when Moshiach comes" orthodox yidden understand that the constant requests in davening for Moshiach really mean something. The desire for the arrival of Moshiach has become a basic precept in the frum world all because of the Rebbe's strong belief in this basic concept and his unbelievably strong longing for this to be a reality. May we be zoche to witness it very soon.
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