The Power of Yechidut

In this third of a series of excerpts from the groundbreaking new biography-memoir of the Rebbe, “My Rebbe", the author explores significanc of "yechidut," the personal meeting between a Rebbe and Chassid.

The Bible defines Joshua as a “man in whom there is spirit.”1

That quality, the Midrash tells us, is the ability to “meet the spirit of every man.”2 The Rebbe seemed to have this same gift. During his long tenure, the Rebbe met and corresponded with many thousands of people – most of them outside the Chabad movement. They came for guidance, both spiritual and practical. For each the Rebbe had a personal answer – meeting the spirit of the person standing before him.

Yechidut has been in the Chabad movement since its inception. Its depth and power has almost no parallel in secular world. More than inspiration, even more than a declaration of love, yechidut is the act of giving oneself over to the rebbe. Through yechidut, the rebbe is strengthened by his Chasid’s devotion, while the Chasid feels recharged, renewed and filled with new energy. The rebbe enables the Chasid to live his life more meaningfully and to confront its physical and spiritual hardships.

Yechidut is the moment when the Chasid confronts his rebbe alone and shares his doubts and fears with him. He may ask for a blessing or simply for comfort. A Chasid stands before the rebbe without defense and shares his most private thoughts. Having listened to the Chasid, the rebbe answers his questions, addresses his doubts, encourages him to face his own difficulties and gives him a blessing.

During yechidut, there is complete, virtually absolute, attention. When we talk to friends and acquaintances, our minds will wander from time to time; there will always remain gaps in our recollections of the conversation. In a yechidut, however, the concentration on the part of both the Chasid and the rebbe is uniformly described as absolute.

Both men and women had yechiduyot. This was a moment to be remembered one’s whole life. The Chasid would listen carefully to each word, and retain everything – the nuances as well as the main points. Each detail was understood to be important: the advice, the concepts the rebbe might discuss – anything and everything. This intensity sprang from the need of the Chasid, of course; everything in the meeting was personal, vital to one’s present and one’s future.

Not every private meeting with a rebbe is a yechidut. The rebbe may also meet with individuals – those who are his disciples and followers, but others as well – in order to hear new information or deliver an order, to discuss and exchange views on matters of policy. A yechidut, narrowly defined, is a personal meeting of a Chasid as Chasid with the rebbe as rebbe. In practice, however, many individuals who had a yechidut with the rebbe were not among his Chasidim.

The rebbe’s attention would be completely focused on the Chasid, absorbing everything that the Chasid was saying, as well as all that remained unsaid: the body language, the hidden nuances of his requests – even things the Chasid may not have intended to reveal. The Chasid, too, would typically be in a state of total concentration, hearing and absorbing every word uttered by the rebbe, even if not fully understanding it all. The rebbe’s every motion and expression would be retained. Years after the event, Chasidim can recall with great clarity every second of the person-to-person aspect of their yechidut with the rebbe – while not being able to recall the physical surroundings. I myself – who experienced yechidut many times with the seventh Lubavitcher rebbe – never really “saw” the physical aspects of the Rebbe’s room until I was shown into it after his passing.

Chassidim waiting outside the Rebbe's study for yechidut, circa 1970

This heightened awareness and focus was just a byproduct of yechidut with the Rebbe (as it was with all his predecessors), not its heart. The essence of the yechidut with the Rebbe was that, in these moments, he was not in a normal state of consciousness, but in a state of heightened consciousness. In the yechiduyot with him, it seemed that he was taken over by some sort of divine inspiration. Latent powers within his soul seemed to me – and to many, many others – to manifest themselves in these moments, and the words that issued from his mouth during the yechiduyot were at the very least, I and others believe, “hidden prophecy”– words emanating from a place beyond the Rebbe’s conscious rational intellection, even if no explicitly prophetic vision was expressed.

I reported in the early pages of this book my personal impression that the Rebbe was clearly a holy man, a tzaddik. I firmly believe that he possessed some sort of supernatural capability, and that he was in contact with another level of being – which I do not hesitate to call the Divine. In his presence, in yechidut and on other occasions, I always had the feeling that there was something about him stretching beyond even his evident intellectual depth. This feeling is of course beyond the realm of empirically verifiable proof, and yet the perception – my own perception and that of many others – is empirical, in the sense that our testimony cannot be simply denied.

These qualities of holiness and connection with another level are true of many other great rebbes, I must emphasize, not just the rebbes of Chabad. In general, words spoken by a great rebbe in the course of yechidut – whether they are words of advice or blessing, instruction or encouragement – are widely believed by his Chasidim and even many others to have a prophetic quality to them. The Chasid will base the most important of his or her life’s decisions upon the rebbe’s responses.

Sometimes people left out important points during yechidut, or presented them indirectly, or even lied – but the Rebbe often drew out the truth during the course of the session. (In some cases, too, the Rebbe possessed prior information from sources other than the Chasid himself, which added to the value – and sometimes the surprise – of the Rebbe’s response.)

The Rebbe’s answers were usually short and precise, but at times he would add an explanation or describe his reasoning. Although he never assumed a tone of instruction and command, typically phrasing his responses as “requests” or “suggestions,” he was decisive and resolute in his replies. There were times when even his most devout followers would try to change his mind or lend an interpretation to his words more to their liking, of course. Yet the Rebbe rarely complied.

The fourth Chabad rebbe, Rebbe Shmuel, once explained how he felt during yechidut. One of his assistants wondered why he sweated so profusely during yechiduyot. The assistant complained that he would have to help Rebbe Shmuel change his clothes repeatedly during yechiduyot. And every change would very soon become drenched in sweat in turn. Rebbe Shmuel explained: “When a Chasid comes to me for yechidut, I have to take off my ‘garments’ [that is, the rebbe’s own personality and consciousness] and put on his [the Chasid’s] ‘garments,’ in order to fully grasp his state of mind and his issues. Then, in order to advise him and direct him, I need to take off his ‘garments’ and put my own back on. Imagine if you had to dress and undress yourself dozens of times in an hour! Wouldn’t you be drenched in sweat?”3

The setting for the yechidut. The waiting area for a yechidut with the Rebbe was simply the hallway that led to the Rebbe’s room. Other Chasidim – particularly students in the yeshiva – would linger there, eager to hear reports from those emerging from their yechidut with the Rebbe.

A yechidut with the Rebbe might last just a minute or two – or it could extend for hours, depending on the person and the circumstances. Because of the large numbers of people seeking yechidut, the audiences had to be kept short; he would often see dozens of people in a single night. One of the Rebbe’s secretaries had the unpleasant task of ushering out the visitor who stayed beyond the allotted time, in order to leave time for others.

Custom dictated that the male Chasid entering into yechidut would tie a gartel (a special belt worn during prayer or while performing a mitzva) around his waist. The Chasid would then enter the Rebbe’s room and silently place before the Rebbe – who would be seated behind his desk – the note in which he or she had set down questions, and would remain standing, watching the Rebbe read the note and awaiting his reply. This silent standing before the Rebbe’s desk was a hallmark of yechidut.

Ariel Sharon and his wife Lily exiting the Rebbe's office in 1968.

My wife comes from an old Chabad family. The first time she met the Rebbe, she was in tears from the awe and thrill of standing before him. A Chasid’s relationship with the rebbe is very much like a relationship toward a father-king: extremely respectful. The Chasid does not speak unless addressed. Sometimes he does not even move because of this extreme feeling of awe. This element of awe is more pronounced in Chabad than in other chasidic movements and follows a very old tradition.

The Rebbe initially had yechidut up to three times a week – Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays – but after the death of his mother in 1964 he began holding yechiduyot only twice a week, and later on, at his doctors’ request, once a week. His yechiduyot usually began after 8:00 p.m. and lasted until he saw the last person in the line which might be at dawn or even later. Only rarely did the Rebbe grant a yechidut during the daytime (in contrast to the meetings with special personalities, and working meetings with his secretaries or emissaries, all of which were typically held during the workday).

In 1981, the yechiduyot for individuals were stopped completely because so many people wanted to see the Rebbe. It became impossible to accommodate them all. The Rebbe did not wish to discriminate among his Chasidim and grant yechidut only to a select few. It was then that the Rebbe began conducting the “general” yechiduyot for groups of people.

At a public yechidut the rebbe would address groups as large as fifty or sixty, and in later years even several hundred. Groups were gathered by the language spoken; the Rebbe might have Yiddish, Hebrew, English and French yechiduyot one after the other.

The Rebbe would tell the group that each individual would still have the benefit of a private yechidut. Each person was to think of his or her questions for the Rebbe and concentrate on the Rebbe’s words in order to find guidance in them. This approach to yechidut had its precedent in earlier generations of chasidic history. When the second leader of the chasidic movement, Rebbe Dov Ber of Mezeritch, addressed his disciples as a group, each one would find the answer to his own question.4

Following the Rebbe’s talk, each participant would pass before the Rebbe’s desk, give him a letter, and receive a few words of blessing and a dollar to “give to charity.” Some of the participants might later receive a written reply to their note. Although the term “public yechidut” is something of an oxymoron, both the Rebbe and the Chasidim regarded these meetings as true yechiduyot, with all the spiritual and psychological qualities of the traditional one-on-one encounters.

After the practice of the individual yechidut was discontinued, its role was preserved in the institution of the distribution of dollars, as was described in detail in the previous chapter. While surely not as satisfying as a yechidut, the Chasidim had the chance to speak briefly to the Rebbe and ask for his blessing.