Traveler's notebook – For many, an "ohel," literally a tent, is something you erect while camping outdoors, to sleep in. However, as a sign of the deceased prominence, an Ohel, typically a small masonry building structure built around a Jewish grave that may include room for visitors to pray, meditate, and light candles in honor of the deceased, refers to a resting place of a righteous person in Judaism.
When you think about the Chabad Lubavitch Ohel, the literal sense of the word transforms. "The Ohel" of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, has a greater connotation.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is known to be the Jewish Orthodox Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty's most recent Rebbe. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its worldwide outreach activities, and is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world.
The Ohel, located at the Cambria Heights, New York, the cemetery is where Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, a Russian-Empire-born American Orthodox rabbi, was laid to rest in 1994, next to his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The Rebbe is considered to be one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century. He was a gifted scholar of Biblical, Talmudic and Kabbalistic studies. An authority on Kabbalah and Jewish law and a religious, spiritual leader. He graduated from a Paris engineering school and was known for his wisdom and vast knowledge on many aspects of life and subjects; he had political foresight that brought many world politicians and leaders to meet with him and he showed prophetic sagacity.
A trip to the Ohel was afforded to me by the Chabad shul I regularly attend.
Upon arriving from Los Angeles to the Ohel, in New York, I joined my Chabad-Lubavitch of South La Cienega (SOLA) rabbi and several peers. Going through the custom of writing a "Kvitlach," a personal prayer wish note ahead, arriving at the gravesite and praying, reading my Kvitlach and then tearing it up, with a deep sense of hope it will be answered, was spiritually elating. I was left with a triggering sense of repeating this custom again and again, may this wish come true.
As during his lifetime, being in the Rebbe's presence has not only a helpful, liberating effect, but it also inspires one to continue strengthening one's thoughts, speech and actions of goodness and compassion. Before embarking on a trip to the Ohel a person may even commit to do a new good deed, hoping the Rebbe to be the 'conduit' through which God's blessings can flow.
I traveled to the Rebbe's Ohel not only to pray for myself and my family's well being but also for the nation of Israel and every Jew, while experiencing the spiritual elevating moment the Rebbe's presence offered in his lifetime and now even from the Heaven above.
I can only hope that now my hopeful Kvitlach prayer comes true, to which I say, Amen!
Nurit Greenger is a writer and journalist who focuses on humanitarian issues.
