My First Visit To A Rebbe

A while back I had gone to a shiur on Emuna and Bitachon where the Rabbi said:

“You have to have self esteem, and believe that you know what your doing. That you shouldn’t have to ask a Rav a question all the time. That Hashem gave you knowledge to know to make the right decision.”

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Well Sunday I went with my parents and grandfather to see a Rebbe to ask for advice on making a decision. I can’t reveal what the question was, since it’s a personal matter that doesn’t involve me. (Auror – It’s what we talked about).

So we go into his house and there’s a waiting room for women and one for men. While I was waiting with my mother this chassidish lady comes in, and she makes a phone call and talks while we are in the room. Now I couldn’t help hearing the parts that were in English that I could understand. Since most of it was in Yiddish, I’m not sure if I got the story right. But seems like she was on the phone with her husband, and she wanted to go to the Rebbe to ask him a question. Her husband didn’t want her to go, but she kept telling him that she had to ask the question because she doesn’t want to make a decision on her own “seichel”.

She kept saying she’ll put everything on the table, trying to reassure her husband that the Rebbe will understand and tell them the right thing to do. This made me curious what this question was all about. She continued to talk on in Yiddish, with phrases of English here and there. She mentioned that she’s going to ask if she should go. She then said she will live with him.

Now this made me think that it seemed like she was going to be asking the Rebbe if she should leave her husband or stay with him. If this is the case it really surprised me. I hadn’t imagined such a decision should be made by a Rebbe. I would think it’s a decision between husband and wife to make. Although it reminded me of stories where people were married for 10 years without children, and that technically they could divorce for that, so I imagine people would ask a Rebbe what to do about that. But this woman mentioned that her brother was watching her kids, so that wasn’t the case.

So this reminded me of what I once heard about trusting yourself and not asking a Rabbi a question all the time.

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Anyways, the lady tells my mother that she has to put a scarf on her sheitel if she’s going to go in to see the Rebbe. So I put it on my mother, having no idea what I was doing. It made me laugh thinking of what my father’s reaction would be when he saw my mother that way. But then I thought I was being rude, so I stopped thinking that.

Then we go into the room, and the Rebbe was sitting at the head of the table in a fancy room with three dining room chairs on each side of the table. Now my grandfather, father and mother sat on one side. I wasn’t going to sit along on the other side, so I brought the chair over next to my mother.

My grandfather knows Yiddish, so he did most of the talking, then the Rebbe gave everyone a Bracha after my father said each child’s name. Then we left, the whole visit took minutes, but it was an interesting experience. The Rebbe didn’t look at me so I couldn’t really see his facial expressions, but my father said he was very emotional. When he heard certain things he said “oy vey” and his face got that sad look, as though he felt the pain.