Drifting Prayers: Rosh Hashanah with the Rebbes

I wrote this for Rosh Hashanah in 2008 and never published it until now. With the yahrzeit of Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson just passed, this is a good time to post it. 

I had a challenging spiritual path while growing up in Texas. Although Jewish, family disruptions led to an upbringing as a Southern Baptist. As a teen I moved away from Christianity and returned to Judaism. I embarked on a search reminiscent of the physical wanderings of my great-great-grandfather, Chayyim Schwarz, who became the first ordained rabbi in Texas when he moved there from Posen, Germany, in the early 1870s. He had his smicha from Rabbi Meir Lob Ben Yehiel Michal, the eminent scholar-rabbi known as the Malbim. I like to think his spirit, his neshama, found and guided me as I struggled to find my way as a Jew.

A spark of Reb Schwarz lighted the way as I visited Israel, became familiar with Jewish liturgy, married under a chuppah in a synagogue and studied Hebrew. I imagined that he stood beside me as a proud guest at my son’s bar mitzvah in 2007 – a passage neither I nor my father had experienced. I had persevered and restored the spiritual link across generations, from 1870s Texas to 21^st century Connecticut. As the Hebrew phrase goes, l’dor v’dor – from generation to generation.

I have long wanted to visit Reb Schwarz’s grave in Hempstead, Texas. In Jewish tradition, visiting the grave sites of holy men is a good deed. Supplicants pray for the souls of the departed and loves ones, asking rabbis to intervene. The closest I had ever come, however, was trekking to the Jewish cemetery in Gonzales, Texas, where my mother (Reb Schwarz’s great-granddaughter), grandparents and other relatives are buried.

Thus, I had Reb Schwarz on my mind when I visited the grave site of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Queens, New York to coincide with Rosh Hashanah. I had always been curious about the Rebbe’s grave – friends had urged me to journey there – so I decided to go and treat this as a dual visit, to commune with the spirits of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the whom I affectionately call the Hempsteader Rebbe.

Some part of me feared the unknown – but that’s the very moment I know I need to push my boundaries into the new and soul-changing.

I had no idea what to expect, but others on the journey steered me to services, where I donned tefillin for the first time in years. Then I moved to an area where visitors wrote letters to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This act of writing, of remembrance at a holy place, held great power. To think: who, truly, do I care about and want to mention in a written prayer, in this mystical time and place?

I wrote my letter wishing for health and happiness, writing names in Hebrew and using mothers’ names when I knew them. My son led the list, along with my former wife, my brother Cooper, my late mother (Shira bat Chava, the Hebrew name I gave her based on Shirley daughter of Eva), my grandparents and far back to Reb Schwarz, the Plucky Prussian on the Prairie, and those whom I wished good things for. I thought about the Hempsteader Rebbe and hoped he would be pleased by the results of his support for my meandering but irrepressible path back to Judaism and my determination to pass Jewish values to my son.

After writing our prayers, the group from Stamford changed into plastic shoes and walked on a fenced-in path under grey skies to the building that had the tomb of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and his father-in-law. I read Psalms 50, corresponding to my age, and then very quietly read my letter. People stood around a square pit, or tank, about 15 feet on each side, into which they tossed their letters. I saw thousands of pieces of paper, mostly in Hebrew, nestled together in front of the headstones.

I read my letter and concentrated on each name – who they were, what they meant to me, the relationships we had and how they evolved, my hopes for the future for all our lives. As is the custom, I tore my letter in pieces and let them drift to join all the other thoughts and hopes from my fellow Jews.

I felt the hand of Reb Schwarz guide the paper and affirm the difficult path I had chosen. The pieces fell so I could just see the words “my son” facing upward.

The act of writing prayers – in that place, amidst holy men – had enormous emotional power. I felt no distinction, no distance, between myself and the people around me, whatever their affiliation. That’s extraordinarily rare for me. Together we stood and faced primal matters of life, death, love, hope, separations and reconciliations, what was and what will never be again, and what was and what may be again, in this world or the World to Come. There, I like to imagine the Hempsteader Rebbe enjoying himself with my mother and other relatives.

And he’s always keeping his eye on me and my son in this world.

Update: Since writing this piece, I visited the Hempstead Jewish Cemetery in Texas in 2016, where Reb Schwarz, his wife Julie Nathan Schwarz and many other relatives are buried. I said kaddish and placed a stone on his grave.