A year ago, on the 11th of Cheshvan, I attended the opening dedication of a new campus Chabad building. It was well-built, and built with love. I emphasize that this occurred on the 11th of Cheshvan, because that’s the yartzeit (anniversary of the passing) of Rachel the biblical matriarch. And this was the theme of one of the meaningful speeches shared at the dedication ceremony.
One of the beautiful things underlying the whole event was the intertwined history of some of the participants. There were several generations of couples present, who each in turn had been there in the right place and at the right time in the life of another, and helped effect a transformative change. If you knew the backstory, it was quite a wondrous thing, generations of impact, generations of one soul affecting another, all present together, celebrating at this juncture, this intersection in time and place.
Rabbi Raskin highlighted the Hebrew date. This event was taking place on the 11th of Cheshvan, the day of Rachel’s passing. The verse tells us that Rachel was not buried in the Machpela in Hebron with the rest of the patriarchs and matriarchs. Instead she was buried on the roadside. The verse in Jeremiah and the Midrash tell us that this wasn’t mere happenstance, but a personal sacrifice of Rachel, of a mother, to be present (even in her burial) accessible to her children, in their time of need, to pray for them, to be a comfort and reassurance to them.
So, too, said Rabbi Raskin, in the spirit of Mama Rachel, the Rebbe strategically placed Shluchim to be present and available, along the journey of people’s lives, on the roadside, where Jews would need them and find them.
Rabbi Raskin started with his own parents, the Rebbe’s Shluchim to Morocco. He grew up in a home that was “on the roadside” on the intersection of life, where Jews would find them. After he married, he continued that mission to Vermont, where he and his wife were on the roadside, they were out there at UVM, where they met a young man seeking meaning and spirituality. At about the same time there was a young Israeli woman backpacking her way through Thailand where she encountered Shluchim on that “roadside” and was inspired to go study. This young man and woman met and was inspired to go out to another “roadside” on a college campus in upstate NY… and indeed, they were there for others in the room who benefitted from meeting them at crucial intersections in their lives…
The Rebbe’s Mama-Rochel Shlichus roadside vision continues, now at many more intersections, more roadsides. More Jews meeting and connecting and growing in their Jewish heritage. And many of those dedicating themselves at new roadsides, are those who have been helped and assisted on earlier roadside intersections themselves…