Although he is a Belzer chossid, Rabbi Shem Rokeach grew up with a close family connection to the Rebbe and Rebbetzin, and often visited them both in their home and in 770. After Gimmel Tammuz, however, he felt that his personal connection to Crown Heights had ended.

While deliberating whether to make his son’s upsherin early to accommodate his parents’ vacation schedule, he was visiting his mother-in-law, and he noticed an Igros Kodesh on the table. He decided, half-jokingly, to write to the Rebbe, but to his shock, the answer he opened to addressed the exact same question: a child turning three, family members leaving on vacation, and whether to move the upsherin earlier.

Even more surprising, on the facing page, the Rebbe wrote to someone who had once been close but had stopped coming, urging him to resume coming. Hearing that, Rabbi Rokeach began visiting the Ohel.

When his daughter was in shidduchim, he experienced the same amazing. At the Ohel before one serious shidduch, he opened the Igros Kodesh and found a surprising answer indicating that it was not meant to be. Indeed, the other side called off the shidduch the next day. But months later, before another shidduch, the answer was filled with brachos and “mazel tov,” noting a special simcha when both sides are descendants of the Alter Rebbe, which was true in their case as well.

“This message here is that the relationship between a Rebbe and chossid is not bound by time or place; it’s an everlasting connection,” he concluded.

A recent story of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, from RebbeStory.org

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