Reflecting with The Rebbe

Continuing our series of works of The Rebbe, our latest continues our theme of The Rebbe Looking Right At You.

We keep on going back to this because this is how we feel about The Rebbe: he looks into us and he sees us, he sees through the surface, and he Gets Us.

Our Minian's amazing rabbi, Moishe Brand, often tells a story about how his father (a Shliach of the Rebbe in Brazil) went to a Farbrengen with the Rebbe and many other rabbis. And how the Rebbe looked every single person in the room - hundreds of them, all across and around a huge and crowded room - in the eye one by one to do an individual lechaim with each one. And (Moishi, forgive me, I might be mixing up a minor detail here!) the Rebbe skipped over him! How could the Rebbe skip over him! But then he realized, oh, he hadn't said the Brachah yet! He mumbled it to himself and then, as if the Rebbe from the other side of the room and engaging with hundreds of other rabbis at the moment just knew that he did, he looked over to him again to do the lechaim with him.

The Rebbe, in other words, is looking always, and he's looking at you.

We found this powerful and moving. That's why we call The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, just The Rebbe.

In this portrait, we put his hands one on the other, as he often did, as is his classic pose. In front of his beloved library in 770. (Upcoming we're going to do some art of the Rebbe in front of 770!).

What comes through the most, here, is his humanity. When we think of rabbis, we often think of distant and great figures spouting the wisdom of the universe. But The Rebbe feels up close and personal.

Even if I never met him in person, he feels like My Rebbe.

On a recent trip to New York, I went to The Ohel for the first time. (Oh, maybe that should be our next piece of art!). It was quite a sight; I had never imagined so many people to visit the tomb of a rabbi. But there it was, there I was. Even from the grave, he is watching over us.