Shabbos Schmooze, the 3rd of Tammuz: How The Lubavitcher Rebbe Changed My Life All The Way In The Middle of Nowhere, USA

This Shabbos marks the 18th yarhtzeit of Rabbi M. M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory. If someone had asked me five years ago whether the Rebbe had impacted my life in any way, I'd probably say 'no.' In all likelihood, I'd say that the name rang a bell, but I didn't have a personal connection to the Rebbe or to the Lubavitcher community as a whole. I could have told you where the Chabad centers were located in various east coast towns; I could have identified their families. Even my own family is a beautifully diverse smorgasbord of Jewish identity ranging from self-proclaimed secular, to Reform, to Conservative, to Modern Orthodox and Orthodox, frum, even ultra-orthodox. I was raised mostly in a Reform setting myself, but longed for Orthodoxy from the time I was twelve or thirteen. Because of the diversity in my family, I'd experienced tastes of Orthodoxy whenever we would visit my maternal grandparents.  As a girl watching her friends be called up to the Torah to become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, I also wanted to be able to read and understand the prayers, to follow along in the siddur, to more deeply connect with my family, my heritage, and my G-d. I picked up any books I could find in my home that I thought might help, including some that belonged to my parents when they were children in Hebrew school. When it came to attending services at the Reform synagogues I attended as a teen, I comforted myself with an early memory of the rabbi at the synagogue my family had attended early on in upstate New York.
I recalled one Sunday when this tall, bearded, important and holy looking man got up on the bimah and, strumming his acoustic guitar, began to sing the Hebrew alphabet. "Did you know," he said, still strumming, "that I didn't even know my aleph beis until I was in rabbinical school?" I held on to that for twenty years until I finally learned my aleph beis while co-teaching in a Jewish preschool! To the best of my ability and understanding, I kept Shabbat, kept kosher and kept learning, but a 3,000 mile move to the pacific inland northwest almost nine years ago did not bode well for my continuing progress. It was over a year before I even found a synagogue and Jewish community at all near where I was living. I'd already pretty much put my Judaism on hold at that point. About five years ago a family moved here from Brooklyn, New York and opened up a Chabad house. A very unique thing happened the first time I walked through their front door: I immediately felt at home and like I had somehow known them all my life. I've not necessarily plunged into the level of practice associated with the Lubavitcher community; my own continued and continuing growth is personal, individual and driven by a feeling of connectedness to G-d that I never consistently had before.
When I speak with individuals living in areas with a large Jewish population and community and tell them where I live, they are shocked. The first thing they inevitably ask is whether I experience a great deal of antisemitism.  Thank G-d, I don't and haven't. Even more unique, however, are the conversations I have with individuals out here who, when I share that I have moved toward Orthodoxy only since living in this area, are absolutely shocked that this transformation happened only after moving to eastern Washington state! So when asked today, do I feel a connection to the work, memory and legacy of the Rebbe, I can wholeheartedly and unequivocally say yes.
Those whom are closest to me know that I am preparing now after living out here for nearly 9 years to move closer to home and my family. As I get ready for this Shabbos and think about the significance of Gimmel Tammuz, the 3rd day of Tammuz marking the Rebbe's 18th yarhtzeit, I think of a conversation I recently had with my Rebbetzin. It was motzei Shabbos a couple of weeks ago after I'd been privileged to have a special Kiddush lunch to celebrate my college graduation and thank the community here. Some of the intense emotions of leaving a place I've come to call home and people I've come to call family had surfaced. I was remarking how ironic it seemed that the very feelings of closeness I have to this community and to her family were what now made it "ok" to leave. I shared that although I'd longed from the depths of my being to connect with Judaism on a deeper level, the direction I was headed in almost 9 years ago made that an unlikely if not impossible objective. "Maybe that's why the Rebbe sent us here," she said, simply "Maybe it was so we could meet you." And then I got it; I finally understood this connection to the Rebbe. That even though my only "conversation" with the Rebbe was through a piece of paper torn up at his grave sight in 2010 praying on my behalf for a complete and full recovery (and thank G-d, my prayers were answered), I was and am nonetheless forever connected to his legacy and to this tireless army of Jewish 'soldiers' marching to every corner of the earth to help a fellow Jew.

Shabbat Shalom!