Dear Friends,

It was a sweltering hot August afternoon, but that didn’t deter dozens of people from coming together in Mizner Park. The occasion? Ariel Bibas’s fifth birthday. We prayed, we sang, we declared that no hostage is forgotten and no hostage can be left behind.

“And your brothers, all of Israel shall bewail the conflagration that the L-rd has burned.” Today the entire Jewish people mourn, grieve and bewail the loss of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas and Oded Lifshitz, of blessed memory, may Hashem avenge their blood.

The heart rages with emotions ranging from pain to anger and shock. For some, perhaps it’s too much to confront emotionally: the abduction of innocents, their murder, and the perverse parading of their coffins, so they go numb.

And the brain wants to know why? Why did this happen to this beautiful innocent young mother and her children? To an elderly man living a peaceful life. And the mind wants to know how? How could G-d let this happen?

One of the many people who came to receive a blessing from the Rebbe at the famous Sunday “dollars”, in the late eighties or early nineties, was a couple who had lost a child. The wife asked the Rebbe, how she could live with the horrible tragedy that had befallen her and her husband. The gist of the Rebbe’s reply was that the loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust, in a world that was either silent or complicit, reminds us that there are tragedies that are beyond the pale of human reason and rationality. When there is no rational answer to be had, there is no rational question to be asked. While there is no answer, there is however one solution to end all human pain and suffering : Moshiach. And toward that goal we must live and dedicate our lives.

The pain we feel when tragedy strikes comes from a place within us that cherishes life in the deepest way, and that’s why tragic loss is so painful. So we have to channel the pain into action and into living more meaningfully, more soulfully. That’s the greatest gift we can give to souls that leave this world, to give them life in this world through being inspired by their lives in our lives.

As Providence would have it, this national day of mourning for the Jewish people coincided with the 22nd of Shvat, the Yartzeit of the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka OBM. On a commemorative global zoom, broadcast Wednesday night, Rabbi Eliezer Laine from Crown Heights, shared some of his unique interactions with the Rebbetzin.

He first the Rebbetzin on the night before Pesach in 1969, after he was asked by the administrator of the 770 Yeshiva – Rabbi Dovid Raskin A’H,  to clean the Previous Rebbe’s apartment on the third floor of 770, and perform the search of the Chametz. As he was getting ready to leave, he unintentionally met the Rebbetzin, not knowing that she was there at the time.

The Rebbetzin engaged him in conversation and commented on the color of his blue suit. Black she said is worn on very joyous or very solemn occasions. Blue is a classic color, and her preferred color is brown. Brown, she went on to say, is the color of the earth and blue is the color of the sky, so there you have it the whole world: heaven and earth!

Many years later in the mid-nineties, Rabbi Laine was involved in building a new campus school building for girls in Crown Heights -Campus Chomesh- named after the Rebbetzin. It was up to him to decide on the color of the building. The architect suggested that it be either yellow or white in line with surrounding buildings. He didn’t take the choice of color lightly and went to the Rebbe’s Ohel to pray for guidance and success.

He left the Ohel, and stopped to pray at the gravesite of the Rebbetzin, especially as the project bore her name. As he walked away from the Rebbetzin’s gravesite the conversation of almost thirty years prior suddenly rang in his ears:  “Brown and blue – there you have it- heaven and earth.” He called the architect and informed of his choice. Brown brick and blue windows…..

Brown is the color of earth, it is the color of the reality you see before your eyes. Blue is the color of sky, it is the color of the big blue beyond, it is the color of hope.

I can’t be sure what the Rebbetzin meant, but I think she was saying that if you have the right balance between brown and blue, you have the whole world. If you are present to what you see but mindful that there is a higher reality and a greater plan, then you have heaven and earth before you.

Until the Rebbetzin pointed it out, I never gave much thought to the fact that the same color: black is typically worn at life’s most solemn and joyous occasions, from funerals to weddings. Isn’t that odd?

Perhaps another stroke of Providence helps shield light on the matter. In the section of Rambam- Maimonides studied around the world today (Thursday), the Rambam states that Moshe/Moses instituted the seven-day observance of Shiva (mourning) and the seven days of rejoicing after a marriage. A strange juxtaposition of laws indeed – from mourning to wedding in the same breath…

With innovation and nuance, the Rebbe offers a beautiful insight. The ultimate healing from mourning is in marriage. On a cosmic scale, the Jewish people mourn. We’ve been mourning ever since the destruction of the Second Temple. The end to all mourning is the cosmic marriage between G-d and the Jewish people, which will be consummated with the coming of Moshiach. Hence the Rambam’s juxtaposition of the two. (Very much in line with what the Rebbe told the grieving woman in the story shared above).

The very same color black, observed the Rebbetzin, is the color of mourning and of joy, because true joy and true healing don’t erase the pain of the past; it redeems it, transforms it and brings you to a redemptive place, where the black story of pain is ultimately understood and appreciated and transformed to the elegant black of joy and celebration..

Today we wore the black of pain and sadness. May G-d see to it that tomorrow we wear the black of joy and redemption, and until tomorrow comes, we shall wear the brown of reality and the blue of hope.

Good Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Ruvi New