#yechidus

Feivel Shapiro, a member of the Antwerp Jewish community, lost his mother early on when she sadly passed away after an illness. He was still a young child, only a tender 12 years old shortly before his Bar Mitzvah. She orphaned a home full of children. Under these harshest of circumstances he grew up and as time passed on matured into adulthood becoming a businessman and breadwinner in his own right.

Some twenty five years after his mother's tragic illness and passing, Feivel's business pursuits found him in New York City. During one of those hot NYC summer nights he came to 770 Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitch World Headquarters, to pray the evening service with the Rebbe's minyan.

After Maariv he noticed a commotion of people going in and out of the hallway adjacent to the Rebbe's study and it was obvious there was something going on. Asking around he found out that this was a night of "Yechidus," personal audiences with the Rebbe receiving people who had made appointments to come and hear the sage counsel of the great Jewish leader.

Feivel, a person who perhaps by virtue of his orphaned childhood, was not afraid of anything and a lively kind of fellow, was standing in the foyer outside of the Rebbe's room. He decided he was going to go in and see the Rebbe even though he did not have an appointment. Unassumingly he went over to the person in the front of the line and said, "I need to go in before you, as I urgently need to leave soon." And the person agreed.

The door opened, the person from the previous Yechidus came out, and Feivel walked into the Rebbe's room. The Rebbe's secretary was shocked by his chutzpah and followed him in, intending to shlep out the brazen intruder. The Rebbe looked up and told Feivel to sit down. The door closed. Silence.

Not having intended to be there, he did not bring along the traditional note outlining the requests, questions or concerns one would normally hand the Rebbe. He did even tell the Rebbe his name.

As if on cue, the Rebbe turned to a pile of letters, pulled the top one and began to read from it. It was a letter from Feivel's mother to the Rebbe from just over 25 years earlier! In the letter she wrote that she realized she was going to pass away but stated, "I am not concerned about myself. Rebbe, I am only asking you to arouse Rachamim Rabim, extraordinary mercy, from Hashem, on behalf of my children." She continued with a passionate plea that G-d should protect and bless her kinderlach, her children, soon to be left without a mother in this world.

Feivel was in shock and overwhelmed. He was just a child when his mother passed away. His childhood memories of her were all he really had to keep her with him. And he had never been aware that this letter of hers on behalf of him and his siblings even existed. Twenty five years later, her love and concern were still alive in the Rebbe's room.

But the greatest revelation was yet to come.

He asked the Rebbe if he could perhaps take the letter. The Rebbe gently requested otherwise.

"Before I go out to Kol Nidrei," (at which point he would first stop in the Little Shul and give the Yeshiva students the "children's blessings") he explained, "I read your mother's letter."