Cordoba! My grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Y. Polichenco, had taken a short vacation to the mountains with his wife and six-year-old son. Of course the Rebbe's chossid never goes on vacation, and so my grandfather organized a Shabbaton and got to meet many Jews from the surrounding area. (One yid, a university student, stayed the entire shabbos. To make an incredible story short, he is now the Rebbe's chossid living in Crown Heights.) After a pleasant stay, they began a six-hour journey home to Buenos Aires. A half hour into the driving my grandfather suddenly turned the car around and began to head back. "I forgot to tell the Rebbe we're traveling! We never travel without letting the Rebbe know." And so they headed back to the post office to send a telex to the Rebbe's office. With that done they were fine to travel, and so once again they hit the road home. Traveling along a narrow Argentinean highway Rabbi Polichenco lost control of the car. The small car collided heavily with a truck leaving it in ruins. Somehow the entire family came out with merely a few scratches. Miracles are no big deal for our Rebbe. The beauty of the story is the Chossid's bitul to his Rebbe. "We never travel without letting the Rebbe know."
I'm not sure when it happened but Tishrei is over and a new year is staring me straight in the face. School, programs, friends, family, shopping, (sleeping?), learning. It's all there on that giant road ahead waving at me with an anxious smile. I take a deep breath, smile in return, and look around; what am I taking with me as I begin this journey? So I look back. I picture myself again in the Rebbe's shul, 770. I step back to the moments I spent on the Rebbe's shlichus, talking to his kinder. I can even taste the sweet chassidus I learnt from my Rebbe just a few days ago. It's as if I can hear the Rebbe say: "And the solution is, to take a koach with you as you travel on your journey, a koach received through your hiskashrus to The Rebbe."
Hiskashrus. A word Rogers Dictionary won't ever translate. A word with a thousand meanings. A moment spent watching Living Torah. The Moshiach thought I try to learn each day. The niggunim I've downloaded to my ipod. A glance at the Rebbe picture in my wallet. The Hebrew school kids I've just met this year. A farbrengen, a sicha, the time I went beyond what I normally do. Hiskashrus, a thousand channels that reach one Rebbe. Stretching my arms wide. Tapping my feet to a happy beat. I bend my knees to lift a new suitcase off the ground. 'My mind knows where I'm going,' I laugh, 'at least someone's in control!' Every part of me moves because my mind tells it to. Somehow they are all connected to an internal powerhouse. I know that there is only one way I will have the strength to totally succeed this year. I choose the channels I know work for me, hold them tight in my hand, and connect to the world's powerhouse. I look ahead to that giant, freshly paved road and wave back returning the smile. "Rebbe, today I begin a new journey and I just wanted to let you know."
By: Shifra Freeman