Truth Hurts

As long as we’re not asking the questions, we can disillusion ourselves to think we have satisfactory answers.
We don’t ask what exactly happened on Gimmel Tammuz. We don’t question if the Rebbe is still with us. We don’t wonder how we will continue now.
We’re encouraged not to ask. It’s a funny thing, because Chabad has always been about asking. But now, they don’t have any answers for us. So we’re pressured to just accept what we’re told: The Rebbe “left us, but only physically” on Gimmel Tammuz. And: of course the Rebbe is still with us! Guiding us, leading us, connecting with us, even answering us in his mysterious ways. And the way we continue is by realizing that the Rebbe is “still” with us, and he “still” gives us the strength we need to continue doing what he wants us to do. We must bond with the Rebbe, and “we still can”, even in these dark, dark times.

And we leave it at that. We’re too scared of what we might find when we delve a little deeper, so we just accept what we’re told is right.
But there’s something we must realize: this is good enough for the previous generation, the one that lived it. They can pretend they’re still living it. That it’s still whatever their imagination wants it to be. That nothing changed. But we, the new generation, who were conditioned to feel guilty about not knowing the Rebbe, to feel bad about not being involved in a lifestyle in which everything revolved around the Rebbe, we can’t pretend. These beliefs won’t work anymore.
So we can continue to make believe we’re satisfied with what they tell us, or we can finally ask the questions that must be asked.

Before we even start, let’s put things into perspective. According to Chassidus, everything a Rebbe gives the world can be categorized into three general qualities:
1. A Rebbe is an example of G-dliness on earth, inspiring us to fulfill G-d’s will
2. A Rebbe leads and guides his people, giving them answers to question they ask, don’t ask, and don’t even think to ask
3. The sustenance of the entire world with everything and everyone in it flows through a Rebbe’s blessing

The third quality is inherently a spiritual one. We can’t see the sustenance of the world, let alone its source and how it’s distributed. But the first two: inspiration and guidance, those are directly for us to perceive and benefit from. And if we cannot perceive or benefit from them, they are non-existent. If it’s not inspiring, it’s not inspiration. If it’s not guiding, there’s no guide. This is the definition of these qualities.
Since Gimmel Tammuz, the day of the Rebbe’s passing, we are missing these two qualities; the two reasons we, physical people who perceive physical things, have a Rebbe!
It’s true, after a Tzaddik’s passing he is even more involved with his people’s needs, even more influential in the world. Unfortunately though, that’s only from his perspective.
From the perspective of Chassidim, now that the Rebbe has passed away, the holy person who gave us inspiration is gone. The great man who guided us can no longer speak. The first two reasons we have a Rebbe are no longer existent. We are left with one third of a Rebbe.
But that’s impossible! A world without inspiration and without guidance will fall apart! How are we to fulfill our mission without motivation? How can we do what’s right if we don’t know what is right? It’s impossible.
This is the million dollar question of our generation. But instead of dealing with this problem, some people choose to ignore it. They don’t think about the fact that we’re missing at least two thirds of our Rebbe, because it’s too scary a thought for them to think.
Even worse, others say they have the inspiration, and they have the guidance. They fail to see a difference between the inspiration their parents received from the Rebbe and the inspiration they receive. They can’t differentiate between the way the Rebbe answered the previous generation and the way the Rebbe answers them. They don’t need a Rebbe.

Thirteen years have come and gone since the Rebbe’s passing. It’s time to grow up and stop fooling ourselves. It’s time to recognize where we are, and what we are doing. It’s time to accept reality, not as we would like it to be, but as it is. It’s time to get answers.
I finally read an article that,-in my opinion- asked the questions, faced the reality, and gave the answers. Here is an excerpt from Windows by Tzvi Freeman:
“The answer is that each one of us must find our window now. The tzaddik within. The place where the tzaddik and the student are no longer two beings.
That is the whole purpose. For all of time and all of creation was directed to this point: a point when the people no longer look above for G-dliness to pour down from the heavens but search for that G-dliness within themselves, within the people of the earth who belong to the earth. When heaven has reached earth and speaks from within it. From within each one of us.
The tzaddik has shown us where to look.”

The Rebbe did leave us, but not before he charged us with a responsibility. The Rebbe made us leaders, and gave us the power to accomplish what he said he could not. The Rebbe entrusted us with the most sacred mission in the history of mankind: his own mission. Most people think the Rebbe didn’t leave a successor. But he did: You and I. We Chassidim, collectively, have succeeded the Rebbe’s position.
In our generation, it is not so important to know whether the Rebbe is with us. It is mostly irrelevant to attempt to live as if the Rebbe was with us. And it is a waste of time to cry about the fact that the Rebbe is not with us.
In a time like this, the only thing which remains relevant is to become a Rebbe ourselves. We must complete the job that the Rebbe started, but did not finish. The Rebbe entrusted us with a mission; not to see us sit down and cry, but to see us get up and do it.

What happened on Gimmel Tammuz? The Rebbe passed away, but not before he put us in charge of his vision.
Is the Rebbe still with us? In our reality, no. However, he empowered all of us to replace his role in this world, and do everything necessary to complete what he set out to accomplish.
How do we continue now? We have to divorce ourselves from the idea that the Rebbe must still be with us, and instead focus on what the Rebbe entrusted us with.

When I first thought about these ideas, I too, was scared of what I would find. But now that I see the implications, it’s obvious to me that this is the only way we can continue. If we persist to consciously “need” the Rebbe, we will lose motivation slowly, as the span between the Rebbe and the present, grows. Young Lubavitchers, just like tens of generations before them, grow up being taught that having a Rebbe is the only true way to practice Judaism. But nowadays, unlike those generations, they eventually come to the realization that we don’t have a Rebbe. The results are inevitable.
If we will understand, and teach our children, that we -they- are now filling the role of Rebbe, that we have a responsibility to the world that no average person has ever had before, and that therefore we are not average people at all, we will be motivated and empowered not only to continue what the Rebbe set us out to do, but ultimately fulfill the purpose for which the entire world was created, when Hashem’s Glory will be infinitely revealed, and we will be re-united with the Rebbe, very soon.