After I graduated from rabbinical school I served as a chaplain in the United States Air Force in Japan. Upon returning to the United States in 1967, I took a position as junior rabbi at a synagogue in Great Neck, New York.
The overseer of the kosher kitchen, mashgiach, was Rabbi Elya Gross, a Chabad-Lubavitch disciple. When my fiancée and I announced our engagement, he suggested, "Perhaps send a wedding invitation to the Rebbe?" I understood that traditionally the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of saintly memory, did not attend weddings, but the Rebbe would often invite the young couple to see him and receive a blessing.
I mailed the invitation and soon received a call from the Rebbe's secretariat, who said that the Rebbe would like to invite me and my fiancée to a private audience. The meeting was set for 1:00am several weeks later.
Work With the Living
| The Rebbe said was, "It is enough that you were working with the dead, now you need to work with the living!" |
We entered the Rebbe's study with no agenda and no requests. We simply wanted his good wishes and blessing for our marriage. The Rebbe spoke in the Yiddish language and I translated the conversation for my wife, who only spoke Hebrew. The first thing the Rebbe said was, "Moshe [my Hebrew name], I haven't seen you for a long time! You've disappeared. It is enough that you were working with the dead, now you need to work with the living!"
I was not in the funeral business, I was not an undertaker. I didn't work with the living and I didn't work with the dead, so I replied, "Rebbe, I don't understand."
But the Rebbe repeated, "Enough working with the dead, now you need to work with the living."
I answered, "Excuse me but I do not understand the entire reference. I do not work with the dead or with the living."
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