When Today’s Kids Sing, “Rebbe, Oy, Rebbe, We Need You!”
Op-Ed by Shraga Crombie • The song says, “Three times a day we would have the great zechus, the Nasi Ha’Dor would come daven with us. How can I live when a Shabbos goes by, without a farbrengen he cries. Rebbe, oy, Rebbe we need you …” and I ask myself, what is going on here? Both the madrichim and the children never saw the Rebbe, so what exactly are they thinking when they sing so movingly about seeing the Rebbe every day? • Full Article
By Shraga Crombie
Gimmel Tammuz 5784. T-h-i-r-t-y y-e-a-r-s. Horror of horrors. I’m sitting in the big zal of 770, trying to learn a sicha but my thoughts kept wandering. I remembered that morning, Sunday, Gimmel Tammuz 5754…
At first, we counted the hours; then we counted the days. We counted the weeks and the months. Then we started counting the years. Now we are counting decades … What sort of world is it where parents, who were born after Gimmel Tammuz, are teaching hiskashrus to the Rebbe to their children from what they heard from their parents? What sort of world is it when these children, who were born in the summer of 5754, are already parents to children close to age ten and he still hasn’t come!?
My thoughts were interrupted when a large group of young bachurim from a yeshivas kayitz in Florida entered the zal. They had flown in, in order to be with the Rebbe on Gimmel Tammuz and their madrichim davened mincha with them, with a chayus. Then they sang “Tzama Lecha Nafshi.” One of the madrichim took a loudspeaker and began singing with the children the famous song, “Oh Rebbe.” I listened to the words and tried to understand what was going on.
The song says, “Three times a day we would have the great zechus, the Nasi Ha’Dor would come daven with us. How can I live when a Shabbos goes by, without a farbrengen he cries. Rebbe, oy, Rebbe we need you …” and I ask myself, what is going on here? Both the madrichim and the children never saw the Rebbe, so what exactly are they thinking when they sing so movingly about seeing the Rebbe every day?
Actually, the same question is asked about me and those my age. We did get to see the Rebbe, and we davened with him, received dollars from him, had yechidus, attended farbrengens, and heard his pure voice, but that was thirty years ago. Thirty years have gone by!
I look at the faces of the madrichim and then I get it. Yes, these bachurim who never got to see the Rebbe, are singing “Rebbe, oy Rebbe, we need you,” and they feel exactly the same way the bachurim in Camp Gan Yisrael felt in the summer of 5753 who sang precisely the same words, although an ocean of time separates between them. Yes, they long for the Rebbe with the same intensity and feel that they need the Rebbe just as the bachurim who saw the Rebbe and who are today grandfathers, felt then.
I don’t understand things. I don’t understand how an entire generation can be raised to yearn for the Rebbe they never saw, but I know that this is the way it is, even if I don’t understand it. It makes no sense to me, I just don’t get it, but reality shows that this is the way it is. They are connected to the Rebbe and love the Rebbe and yearn for the Rebbe and believe in the Rebbe and in this, there is no difference between those who saw the Rebbe and those who didn’t.
And I understand that this is not something logical; it’s a heavenly phenomenon. It’s the Rebbe’s doing, and this is the only explanation. And when speaking about the Rebbe, why is it surprising that I don’t understand anything?
I have no idea what happened or didn’t happen on Gimmel Tammuz. Maybe there are some who know everything, but I’m not one of them. To me, Gimmel Tammuz is just one big question mark, and it’s okay that I don’t know, and it’s okay that I don’t understand. Who said that I need to know everything? Who said that I need to understand?
But I know that on Gimmel Tammuz 5784, the Rebbe is with us exactly as he was then, and if someone needs proof, it’s in the youth of today who fervently sing this, “Rebbe, oy Rebbe, we need you; Hashem, Hashem, Keil Rachum. We’re sick of this galus, can’t bear anymore, why don’t you open the door? Your children are yearning to be with you, how long can this galus continue?”
And with that same knowledge, with that same bitachon, I know – despite not understanding – that just as they sing the first part about yearning with the same yearning, they sing the last part with the same bitachon, “Bring the Geula, fulfilling your vow, to bring Moshiach right now!”
Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu v’Rabeinu, Melech Ha’Moshiach L’Olam Va’ed!
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