Thank you
This week marks 82 years since the arrival of the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin to the shores of the United States and the beginning of “tenufah chadasha” – a surge in spreading the Torah and Chassidus.
28 Sivan 5701. At 10:00 in the morning the “Serpa Pinto” ship dropped anchor at the harbor in New York. The Rebbe and Rebbetzin disembarked with just one wooden crate that contained a few belongings. At that moment, very few realized that this day opens a new page in the history of the spreading of the Torah.
Before their arrival, the Rebbe Rayatz sent a delegation to meet the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin, his daughter. He explained:
“I will reveal to you who he is. He performs Tikkun Chatzos every night, he is proficient by heart in Bavli with the Ran, Rosh and Rif, in the Yerushalmi and its commentaries, in the Rambam and Likutei Torah with all the ayin’s [the notes of the Tzemach Tzedek within Likutei Torah which generally begin with the word “ayen” – “review”]. “And yet he goes about with a bent-down hat” [due to his personal modesty].
The Rebbe’s arrival in New York with his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, was preceded by a chain of true miracles. Find more on this here: “28 Sivan: En Route To Safety”.
50 years later, the Rebbe will call this day “a day of special merit” (see the Rebbe’s talk on 28 Sivan, 5751). In this talk, he will explain why it was HaShem’s will to bring him to the “New World” with a special mission – to disseminate the wellsprings of the Torah far and wide.
America, especially 80 years ago, was not only distant from Yiddishkeit due to its location. The state of Yiddishkeit was far worse than in many other countries. Ever since his arrival, the work of the Rebbe (and our whole generation as well) has been focused on bringing the G-d’s Presence “down to earth”, into the “lower hemisphere”, both in concept and in location.
Although the Torah was not given in this part of the world, it is from here that the spreading forth of Chassidus reached peaks never appreciated before.
Although this service had begun in “the upper half of the world,” in Lubavitch and in the other centers in which the Rebbeim lived, it was here, from the building of “770” in New York, that the spreading of Chassidus reached its most complete expression.
From the Rebbe’s explanation:
– In Hebrew, the number “28” is numerically equivalent to the word “koach” (כח), meaning “strength”. Sivan, the third month of the year, is the month of the Giving of the Torah. Thus, 28 Sivan is the day which accumulated the power of the whole month, the power to reveal the Torah in the world…
Find more in the Rebbe’s talk on the 28 of Sivan 5751. Featured this week in the “Dvar Malchut” podcast on the screen of the app.
