FEATURE: Bochurim Join OWS, the Satmar Rebbe; and a Special Story About the Rebbe on Tahalucha
A story about the Rebbe from a Litvish ‘Hoch Ah Chainik’ who used to live in Crown Heights, Bochurim who got lost in Manhattan get invited to join the Occupied Wall Street Hakafos and a closed Chabad House in Williamsburg leads a group to join the Satmar Rebbe for Hakofos in the main Shul on Kent Avenue. Read these readers experiences on Tahalucha!
The following are three stories of the best stories that were submitted by readers about their Tahalucha experience this Simchas Torah.
What Did You Learn?
We had a group of about ten Bochurim and together we went to a Shul called Beis Aharon on the corner of Avenue l and Ocean Avenue in Flatbush. The walk was about one hour and at the Shul had many interesting encounters, I will share with you the one I found most interesting.
This Litvishe guy comes over to us and was hacking us ah’ chainik just to get a conversation going. Turns out that he is a cousin of a Lubavitcher family from Montreal and this individual lived in Crown Heights as a child on the corner of Eastern Parkway and Brooklyn Avenue.
He would take the school bus to yeshiva from corner of Kingston and Eastern Pkwy. And made a habit of waiting for the Rebbe to walk by and then would walk with the Rebbe from his house to 770 where he would take his bus.
On the days that he was late the Rebbe would wait till he came out of his home to walk him to bus!
While they were walking the Rebbe would ask him about what he learned the previous day in Yeshiva and would give him encouraging comments to go further and excel in his study of Torah.
On a side point he said that he would walk with Rebbe because he thought it is not respectful for a Rebbe to walk alone. He doesn’t understand why Chassidim used to hide from Rebbe when he walked by he thinks they should have escorted Rebbe like he him.
Occupied Tahalucha
I was in Manhattan at Occupy Wall Street. We were going to begin our Hakofos around 8:00pm and circle around the protest camp. A group of Bochurim from Crown Heights was lost on the way to their Tahalucha and we invited them to join us. At first they didn’t want to join us because we didn’t have a curtain separating the men and women.
Our joyous Simchas Torah Hakofos were so beautiful, that the group of Bochurim eventually did join us, but made their own dancing circle only for men about 20 feet away.
I completely respect these Bochurim for joining us, and I also respect them for sticking to their personal beliefs against mixed dancing and dancing in their own circle for men only.
Many men from our group went over and joined the men only circle and danced joyously with these Bochurim.
This was one of the most memorable Simchas Torahs I have ever been a part of.
After the Hakofos were over, I had a nice discussion with the Bochurim who were 20 years younger than me and one Bochur who was only 4 years old on Gimmel Tammuz and unfortunately did not have as much time seeing the Rebbe as I did because I was 24 years old on Gimmel Tammuz , and I told them some stories when I was in 770 for Simchas Torah as a child and as a teenager.
One of the lessons I learned about Simchos Torah is that we dance with all the Torahs, even the ones that are not kosher to read from. This represents all Jews regardless of their level of religiosity. We certainly did accomplish this at our Hakofos at Occupy Wall Street.
Lubavitchers Warm Welcome in Williamsburg
I went on Tahalucha with a group of friends. Our intention was to go to the Chabad House of Pratt College in Williamsburg, but we arrived to find the Chabad House closed. We figured we’d just go to a local Satmar Shul.
I admit that given the history of Chabad-Satmar relations, I was a little hesitant about the idea, but we went ahead anyway.
We arrived at a very large Shul and people looked at us quite wearily, but before long, many Chassidim approached and invited us for the Yom Tov meal. They told us many personal stories they had with Shluchim around the world and spoke very admiringly about Lubavitch.
I was very moved and accepted an invitation for a Yom Tov meal and even joined my host for Hakofos with the Satmar Rebbe (Reb Aron) at the Kent Ave. Yetev Lev D’Satmar Shul. It may not be the minhag for Lubavitchers to go to other Rebbeim, but I was very curious to see how things had changed. I arrived to find many thousands of Chassidim packed to see their Rebbe do Hakofos, and the story repeated itself. Many Satmar Chassidim approached me to tell me about their positive experiences with the Rebbe’s Shluchim.
I walked away from the experience feeling very inspired. Sinas Chinam destroyed the Beis Hamikdosh, but we have entered a new era of Ahavas Chinam! It’s time for all Yidden, and especially Chassidim, to put aside our differences and work together toward our common goal of rebuilding the mikdash hashlishi, now!
Times have changed
I was in Williamsburg for tahalucha & was very warmly received B”H. In this satmar we fell into, they asked me to say a sicha before maariv, something we couldn’t dream of 20 years ago.
ahavas yisroel
the satmar story touched me the most!! many people that had “bad experiances” with satmars were very imature. ahavas yisroel will bring moshiach
Milhouse
We dance even with a possul sefer torah, but not with one that was written by a min. The person who wrote the middle story is a min, and his “sefer torah” is possul to dance with, because it’s a ziyuf hatorah. The Rebbe always warned that we must be “ohev es habriyos umekorvon latorah”, not chas vesholom to bring the torah close to them. To join their circle would have been wrong; to make a kosher hakofos and invite them to leave their circle and join ours is another story.
Boruch W.
The 3rd story was very touching.
Crown Heights
Nice. I want to hear only good news.
dave
to # 3 – what is a “min”?
Esther
“ thank you for sharing your beautiful stories. I was puzzled by one statment though…
”I completely respect these Bochurim for joining us, and I also respect them for sticking to their personal beliefs against mixed dancing and dancing in their own circle for men only.”
Mixed dancing is against halacha, according to all Rabbinic authorities and Jews who are commited to following Halacha.
It is not done at weddings, bar mitzvahs etc It is not just a personal belief such as, wearing a kapote, a black hat, or going on tahalucha, or being particular to only use certain hechsherim.
I apologize if I misunderstood the comment. can you clarify for the sake of the public?
Thank you, and may you continue to share inspiring stories!
Milhouse
Esther, the person who wrote the middle story is not an Orthodox Jew; he is one of the communist fellow-travelers who are “occupying” private property and making nuisances of themselves. They made their own so-called “simchas torah”, with mixed dancing. The Lubavitcher bochurim naturally refused to join them, but did start their own celebration nearby, and invited the “occupiers” to leave their own celebration and join them. Now do you understand?
nnnn
Hi zalmy dub.
Yerachmiel
to esther-
premarital relations and extra marital affairs are forbidden by the torah. There is no d’oraisa prohibiting mixed dancing. It is just a fence that the rabonnim added to insure that people dont commit the torah violation of forbidden relations
if I can guess – I think the guy writing the 2nd story is saying that he respected the bochurim for joining his hakofes , but also respects them for making a men only dancing circle as is traditional amongst orthodox men.
The bochurim could have easily walked away and not joined the occupied simchas torah gathering, but chose to participate in a way that respected their fellow jews and also respected their personal beliefs that mixed dancing is not appropriate.So they made a men only dancing circle on the side and according to the story many men left the main circle that had mixed dancing and joined the men only circle that the bochurim started on the side.
I agree with the writer of the 2nd story. The bochurim seem to have done the right thing.
Yerachmiel
to millhouse-
your attitude is very troubling for many reasons.
1- every jew, no matter what their lever of observance is, no matter if they are orthodox, or completely irreligious, has the right to daven any time they want to, and has the right to dance on simchas torah.
every mitzvah is important. The whole idea of mivtzoim was challeneged by the shach and his ilk 40 years ago. They said ‘how could you pout tefillin on someone who eats pork?’
The Rebbe answered that even though it is not acceptable to eat pork , if they put on tefillin they still get the mitzvah for putting on tefillin , and as it says ‘mitzvah goreres mitzvah’ perhaps they will be ispired to do more mitzvos !
Millhouse your attitude is wrong. It seems that you are saying that people who have a political belief that you dont agree with dont deserve the opportunity to do a mitzvah.
and zucotti/liberty park is not private property , it is a public park.Part of the zoning laws that allowed brookfield to build those buildings required that they provide a public park open 24 hours a day. It is not a crime to use a public park.
And concerning simchas torah. I can tell you a story I saw with my own eyes. One simchas torah many years ago, a group of bochurim were walking on their tahaluch through canarsie in east brooklyn. They encountered a non religious jew.They had a short conversation and invited him to join their hakofes.He agreed and had a very good time dancing.He was very inspired and after yom tov wanted to learn more about the religious lifestyle.He eventually went to the baal teshuva yeshiva in Morristown, and is now married with 4 children and living the frum lifestyle in crown heights.
I think members of the occupy wall st movement deserve the same opportunity to be inspired on simchas torah!