Moshiach and Geulah

Mrs. Chava Cohen gives Yechi tambourine to the Rebbe

Mrs. Chava Cohen

Many are familiar with the famous photo from 5752 (1992), in which we see the Rebbe MH”M receiving in his holy hands a tambourine on which is written “Yechi Adoneinu…”. Fewer know that the one who was behind this initiative and who gave the tambourine to the Rebbe was Mrs. Chava Cohen, a resident of Crown Heights. mrs. Cohen merited to see the Rebbe MH”M with her own eyes twice over the course of the last decade.

“The first time was in the year 5756 (1996), in the house of my son Shlomo Zalman, who serves as the Rebbe’s shliach in Sheepshead Bay in New York. He made a farbrengen for the shalom zachor for the birth of his son, my grandson, and me and my daughter-in-law’s mother were in the house. The men sat and farbrenged (talking, singing, making lechayim) in the living room to celebrate the joyous occassion, and we sat in the kitchen while she was busy preparing things for the farbrengen.

“Suddenly I lifted my eyes and at a distance of about 3-3.5 meters (9-10 feet) I saw the Rebbe MH”M! I was completely shocked, and I wasn’t able to move. I saw the Rebbe for about half a minute. When I calmed down from the excitement, I gotup and went to the place where I saw the Rebbe, MH”M, but now I already didn’t see anything.

“I decided to tell myself: stop imagining things, you were hallucinating. I sat down again in my place and didn’t say anything to anyone.

“After about five minutes, my daughter-in-law’s mother came to me with her hands trembling all over and she said to me ‘Chavi! You won’t believe it!’ I asked her ‘what happened?’ She replied: ‘I just saw the Rebbe!’ I asked: ‘Where did you see him?’ She answered: ‘I came from the sink to the refrigerator and from the refrigerator I walked back to the sink, and both times I saw the Rebbe!’ ‘Where exactly did you see the Rebbe’, I asked. She pointed to exactly the spot where I had seen Rebbe!

“I told her: ‘Leah, yes, I believe you, I saw the Rebbe in the same place five minutes ago!’

“If only I saw the Rebbe, even 1000 times, I would be convinced I was hallucinating. And if my daughter-in-law’s mother also would see the Rebbe, without confirmation from me afterwards that I also saw, she would think she’s imaginging things. But we saw, both of us, in the same place, at the shalom zachor in the Chabad House!”

Mrs. Sultana Biton

Mrs. Heidi Amit is the wife of R’ Yaron Amit of Bris Yosef Yitzchok from Jerusalem. She tells the following:

This was in one of the years of the 5750s (after 5754=1994). I was at Yeshivat Hakotel for a Yom Iyun in the Rebbe’s teachings about Moshiach and Geulah organized by Ohr Chaya. Rav Mendel Wechter explained very well the reason for the special greatness of Bais Rabbeinu SheBeBavel (”the house of our Rebbe in Babylon”), based on the known sicha on this subject. And we, who were then near the kotel - the remnant of the Holy Temple - identified with the explanations that he offered; so despite the unique quality of “the Divine Presence doesn’t depart from its place” and the holiness of the place of the Temple, the Temple Mount and the Kotel, it doesn’t reach the revelation of the main revelation of the Divine Presence that is found very far from here in New York - in “Bais Moshiach” 770.

I felt a twinge in my heart when I remembered the fact that until now I hadn’t had an opportunity to go travel to the Rebbe, to 770. So, I only knew the Rebbe from photos and video, but I never visited or saw him physically - in his house in 770.

In the meantime, the next speaker began - Rabbi and Chasid and Kabbalist Yitzchak Ginsburgh, who began to explain the subject of the geulah according to kabbalah. Suddenly, I felt a special feeling. I lifted my eyes and I saw the Rebbe standing across from me for real (”mamash”)!

The sight continued for a few seconds and then suddenly I saw a great light that I couldn’t tolerate to look at. I lowered my eyes and when I raised them back I couldn’t see the Rebbe anymore.

Around this same time I had heard here and there about talk and opinions about the Rebbe having [as Mashiach] eternal life, but it was before I considered myself a dedicated “meshichist”; but this sight influenced me tremendously.

Despite it all, one thing bothered me: the aged appearence of the Rebbe. In all the photos or videos that I had seen until then, I remembered the Rebbe looking younger, but now I saw him quite aged.

After a few days I had the chance to visit a friend in Jerusalem. By Divine Providence she showed me a video of the Rebbe giving out dollars at the beginning of the 5750s, and when I watched the video I noticed suddenly that the Rebbe looked older, exactly like I had seen him!