HIS FINAL DAYS

Once, Miller came up to me during the lesson. “Are you seeing this?” he whispered while pointing at RABASH. RABASH was sitting at the table, shaking all over.

“This isn’t the first time, you know,” he said. “I hadn’t noticed! What do we do?!” I exclaimed, growing seriously afraid. These were clearly heart issues—it might have already been a stroke! He was having a stroke and not telling anyone about it. He was being deliberately silent.

I called a doctor associate of mine. He brought a cardiograph and we did a cardiogram, after which the doctor said, “You need to take him to the hospital right away, he’s in a really bad condition. You know what, I’ll go with you.”

We took him to Rabin Medical Center. I knew that RABASH had a strong heart, but I didn’t expect him to recover in the span of a single hour. I didn’t even consider it possible! But when RABASH did another cardiogram at the hospital, it showed that everything was just fine. The heartrate, all the vitals were top notch, healthy as a child.

They wanted to send us home, but I insisted that they first transfer us to the cardiac ward. Then, eventually they moved us back to the internal medicine, dismissing his heart incident as ordinary and non-urgent.

After all, the doctors had a very different attitude toward the matter. To them, he wasn’t a great Kabbalist, the last in his generation, but an 85-year-old man, born in 1907, having already lived a long life...

I DWELL AMONG MY OWN PEOPLE¹

For two straight days I didn’t leave his side. I washed him, changed his pajamas, wrapped him in blankets, and sat at his bedside.

There were 6-8 other patients in his ward, all of whom old, like him. One of them kept moaning nonstop, and I wanted to insist on having RABASH moved to a private ward, but he stopped me. “No, Michael, “I dwell among my own people.” Sit, relax. I’m going to fall asleep soon, I can feel it. When I do, go home. Come back in the morning, early, to help me put on the Tefillin.”² Then he took my hand and added, “Here is Shamati,” he handed me the blue notebook he had always kept with him. “Take it and study it... now go.”

And I left.

I turned around before leaving the ward. He raised his hand in a farewell. As I left the room, I thought to myself, Why did he give me his notebook?! Why now? What did he mean by that?! At the time, I didn’t understand that he was saying goodbye. He was handing me his most precious possession, the notes of his father’s words, that he’d been carrying with him his whole life.

Looking back, it seems so strange to me that I didn’t stay, having been “hypnotized” to the point that I didn’t refuse him. And again I realize that I could not have done anything, that everything is in the hands of the Creator, that nothing happens outside His will, that we are nothing before Him, nothing!

HIS PASSING

The following day, I delayed at the lesson for some reason. Then I went home, picked up the oatmeal that Olga had prepared for him just as he liked it: milk, no sugar. It was six-thirty in the morning by the time I got to the hospital. I still remember the sight of the clock as I glanced at it, the hands as if frozen in time.

He was lying on his bed, facing the window and curled up like a child. My worst fears had come true, I darted toward him and heard his breathing... He was suffocating, and nobody could be bothered! No one had raised an alarm or called the doctors! The only ones in the ward were other patients, who didn’t even hear that RABASH was suffocating as he lay there quietly, without moaning. “Rebbe! Rebbe!” I called to him, but he didn’t answer. I ran for the doctors.

The doctor took one look at him and understood everything. Someone brought over a defibrillator and they tried to jumpstart his heart. The doctors worked on him for probably two hours. I wanted to remain there in the ward, but they told me to step out to the hallway.

I waited in the hallway, looking into the room through the window, watching them work. They really did try their best they didn’t leave his side, gaving him intravenous injections... All the while I stood there, realizing that I was witnessing the passing of the closest person in my life. There was no one closer—and there never will be.

But there was no panic in me. He had, after all, prepared me for his departure...

He died without regaining consciousness.

The doctor—a robust man—came out to the hallway, drenched in sweat. “It’s over,” he said to me. I nodded. I have only a vague recollection of what happened afterward.

I called Olga, who called Feyga and Miller. They came to the hospital, followed by RABASH’s sons. A whole crowd gathered, filling up the hallway with relatives and students. Meanwhile, I was smoking one cigarette after another.

RABASH was taken to the morgue. The doctor handed me his watch. It was all over.

HE LEFT, YET HE REMAINS

What happened then...

The funeral took place that same day, on Friday. A religious newspaper, Hamodia, covered it:

September 15, 1991 “At the conclusion of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, [RABASH] felt ill and was immediately taken to Rabin Medical Center. His adherents and admirers prayed for his recovery, but at 7 a.m. on Friday, he returned his soul to its Maker. Standing at his bedside were his sons, Rav Shmuel and Rav Yehezkel, and his House Trustee,³ Michael Laitman.”

RABASH was buried next to Baal HaSulam.⁴

Attending the funeral were those who had been notified. I stayed to the side, away from the grave that had been taken over by relatives. After the funeral, Shiva followed. People came and went. There were lots of words, lots of tears. My blood pressure spiked, I felt lightheaded and woozy for the first time in my life. Once measured, my blood pressure was 180/100. The immense inner pressure was showing.

And yet, in spite of everything, I remember very clearly that I felt neither fear nor panic. Two parts of my brain were working simultaneously. In one, I obviously felt and understood that his physical form had left. But in the other, there was absolute certainty that a new age was dawning.

And this is despite the fact that for the past 12 years my whole life had revolved around RABASH. I had been with him from morning till night. Even when absent physically, my thoughts were with him. “He ran out of cheese; I need to pick up more.” “He’s been having trouble sleeping lately; I should take him to the doctor.” “Olga made dinner; I mustn’t forget to bring it over.” RABASH had become my second identity. I couldn’t even imagine my life without him.

SUDDENLY, HE WAS GONE!

For a while longer, I would wake up in cold sweat, glancing at the clock with the panicked thought, “I overslept! It’s half past nine, and I needed to be at his house at nine!” And then I’d remember that, no, I wasn’t late at all. There was nowhere I had to be.

I’d lay down and close my eyes—and see him standing there before me, as if fully alive...

It was hard for me in the beginning. Driving was especially difficult—I had grown so accustomed to driving everywhere with him in the car. I could still hear his voice, “Slow down, Michael, not so fast!” He hadn’t liked it when I drove faster than 90 kilometers per hour. “The windshield needs cleaning, Michael.” He had liked the windshield to be perfectly clean. “Michael, let’s drive to Mount Meron,” and we would drive to RASHBI’s grave [on Mt. Meron]. Where was I supposed to drive now without him?!

Yet, in time, I learned to cope. And precisely thanks to the second part of the brain, the primary part in which I sensed him with absolute clarity. On the one hand, I lost my teacher, my father, my friend. On the other hand, I didn’t lose him at all; he didn’t go anywhere! As time passed, I began to feel him better and better. After all, RABASH had given himself fully. There was not a single minute when he did anything for himself. His whole life was structured in only one direction: from himself to others.

And he had infected me with that same course.

I felt that he was pushing me onward, that I had no choice but to follow in his footsteps, without deviating or succumbing to anything else, but to move forward and do everything in my power to transmit to the world everything that he had wanted to transmit. I felt this responsibility then, and I continue to feel it today.

Everything that has happened to me since then, I owe it all to him.