Op-Ed: What can we do? One woman’s response

In 5727 (1967), a young chassid from Australia traveled to New York to spend Shavuot with the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Brooklyn. He arrived a few days before the festival, just a short time after the Rebbe, at the outbreak of the Six-Day War, had inaugurated the campaign to arouse all Jewish males to perform the mitzvah of wrapping tefillin. He had cited the verse, “The fear of the nations will be upon you,” and the traditional interpretation that this results when our enemies see our head-tefillin. In the aftermath of the miraculous victory and the Jewish arousal that accompanied it, the Rebbe recommended to continue and even increase the tefillin campaign.

The lines above are the opening paragraph of an article by Yrachiel Tilles that appeared on the ascentofsafed.com website. The punch-line of the story, that the bochur and his friends got a cranky old man to agree to put on tefillin because the Australian had mistakenly brought along some stale hamantaschen, caught my attention and I decided to publish this heart-warming story as a “Slice of Life” in L’Chaim.

On to the next column. Scanning the various Lubavitch affiliated news websites for notification of new shluchim that could be included in the “Etc.” column in L’Chaim, I, of course, updated myself on the latest crimes that were taking place on our streets in Crown Heights.

And then I recalled the sentence I had read in the Tilles article. The Rebbe “had cited the verse, ‘The fear of the nations will be upon you,’ and the traditional interpretation that this results when our enemies see our head tefillin.” It made me wonder: If a bochur of 14 or 19 or a man of 40 or 90 puts on tefillin right here in Crown Heights, will that not place the fear of the nations – the goyim – upon him? Couldn’t strengthening amongst ourselves the mitzvah of tefillin, be a strong, powerful weapon in our war against the enemies that prowl our streets day and night?

I allowed my mind to wander a little more and I thought back to 17 years ago. From the time the Rebbe had declared (on November 10, 1990), “The time of your Redemption has arrived,” the whole of Crown Heights, the whole of Lubavitch, indeed, the entire Jewish world, had been caught up in the Rebbe’s vision and prophecy that Moshiach is coming.

“Moshiach is on his way” signs, bumper stickers and even t-shirts adorned houses, cars and people. Shiurim, mivtzoyim, peulos, everything centered around the Rebbe’s encouragement to make sure that everything was inculcated with Moshiach and Geula. We tried to “live with Moshiach.” And we were learning about Moshiach and the Redemption, the “straight path” (in the Rebbe’s words), to greet Moshiach. We were following the Rebbe’s lead, taking the cue from the Rebbe who had admitted, “The world says I am crazy about Moshiach – and they’re right.”

And then, the Crown Heights riots erupted. And all of the talk on the street, in the kollel, in the grocery stores and in shul, was no longer about Moshiach and geula; it was centered on the riots.

I remember a woman on my block who, seeing the international media attention that the Crown Heights riots had brought to the neighborhood, used to collect a group of children each morning and walk with them up to “770.” Along the way they would say the p’sukim and hold aloft signs that said, “Moshiach is on the way.” She believed that the eyes of the world were on Crown Heights and that billions of t.v. viewers across the globe were watching the news of the riots, so that the Rebbe’s message could be conveyed clearly, quickly, efficiently and effectively (and for free!). And in fact, The New York Times did notice her and the children one day and they quoted her in one of their articles.

We find ourselves in a similar situation today. There was absolutely no reason then and there is unquestionably no excuse now for the heinous crimes that are being perpetrated against men, women and children in our community. However, let’s not get caught up with those who wish to prophecize that there will be a new spate of riots this summer. We’ve already heard the only prophecy we need to hear: “The time of our Redemption has arrived!” Whether you’re a community leader or a community follower, a rabbi or a rabble-rouser, a “man on the street” or “woman in the house,” let’s use the media attention to give over (and internalize ourselves) the message that the Rebbe conveyed to the world via CNN, “Moshiach is ready to come now, it is only on our part to increase in acts of goodness and kindness.”

This Op-Ed reflects the views of its author. It does not necessarily reflect the views of CrownHeights.info nor of its Editors.

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