Reflections from a Long Island New York Yud Shevat Farbrengen

Standing a Little Higher: Thoughts from a Yud Shevat Farbrengen

Rabbi Anchelle Perl – January 28, 2026

L’chaim, l’chaim…May this farbrengen be one that opens hearts, not just minds.

Tonight is not just another date on the calendar. Tonight is Yud Shevat—and this year, it falls on January 28, 2026.

The day the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, formally accepted the leadership of Chabad in 1951.

But more than that—it’s the day an entire generation was quietly lifted.

I want to share something personal.

When I entered a farbrengen with the Rebbe, I walked in wearing ordinary shoes.

My feet were on the ground, like everyone else. I came in as the same person who had walked in from the street, with worries, habits, limitations, assumptions…assumptions about the world, about people, even about other Jews.

And yet, when I walked out, it felt like my feet weren’t touching the ground anymore. It’s hard to explain, but it was as if the Rebbe had placed me on tall stilts.

Nothing outside had changed. The same streets. The same problems. The same people waiting for me.

But everything looked different. I was seeing the world from higher up. I was seeing another Jew differently. I was seeing myself differently.

That, to me, is Yud Shevat. The Rebbe did not accept leadership to sit above people.

He accepted leadership to lift people. To change the height from which a person sees reality.

The Rebbe never told us to escape the world. He taught us how to stand higher within it.

And when you stand higher, something remarkable happens. The same details are there—but they rearrange themselves.

What once felt overwhelming suddenly has proportion. What once looked like failure reveals hidden potential. What once looked like another Jew’s weakness suddenly looks like a soul struggling to shine.

There’s a Chassidic idea that when a person feels stuck, it’s not always because the situation is impossible.

Sometimes it’s because they’re standing too close to it. The Rebbe elevated people just enough above themselves so they could see life truthfully.

I once heard of a chassid who came to the Rebbe deeply troubled by another Jew. He listed fault after fault.

The Rebbe listened quietly and then said gently: “When you stand on the ground, every pebble feels like a boulder. When you rise higher, you see that the pebble was never blocking the road.”

That is what the Rebbe gave us on Yud Shevat: height.

Another chassid once said to the Rebbe, “Rebbe, I feel so low.”

And the Rebbe answered, “Low is only dangerous when you think that is where you belong. If you know you were placed there only to lift something up, then even low becomes high.”

That is walking on stilts. And here’s the key:

When you walk on stilts, you are not detached from the ground. You are more responsible for it. From higher up, you see more.

You see where help is needed. You see which arguments aren’t worth having. You see how much pain hides behind another person’s sharp edges.

You see that every Jew—no matter how distant or difficult—looks different when viewed from above.

On Yud Shevat, the Rebbe accepted the responsibility of lifting an entire generation onto those stilts.

Not to make us feel lofty. But to make us bigger. Broader. More patient. More compassionate.

More faithful in what another Jew can become. And more faithful in what we can become.

And that’s why, when I left those farbrengens, the world actually felt transformed.

Not because the world had changed. But because the height from which I saw it had.

From that height, despair looks smaller. From that height, another Jew’s flaws don’t define them.

From that height, even suffering doesn’t erase purpose—it becomes part of a longer journey.

Once you’ve walked on those stilts, you never forget what the world looks like from there. Even when your feet return to the ground, something inside you remains elevated.

That, for me, is the gift of Yud Shevat. The Rebbe did not take people out of the world. He made them tall enough to carry it.

So tonight—l’chaim. May we help each other stand a little higher. And may we see ourselves, and every Jew, from that place.