First, “Oy!” – how my heart goes out to you my Rav and my Friend; how you have suffered (although you would always respond, “What suffering?”) My heart goes out to you Rebbe, now as always, and the words and melody of this beautiful pop song come to mind. As you listen to it, think of HaShem Yisborach singing it to you and the famous poem “Footprints.”

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Second, how you have grown. The Science Fiction author Julian May in her magnus opus series, The Pliocene Cycle formally develops and expounds on the theory of how pain is a catalyst for psychic growth. Having known Rebbe (a little) both “before” and “after”, I find the adeptness of his abilities to have grown and blossomed and his mastery of different techniques to have reached, blee ayeen hara, phenomenal proportions as I have commented to Rebbe – v’Y'hee Rtzonon Yisborach sheh’keyn yirbu! This is a lesson to us all: we grow phenomenally under duress and when we come through fire.

Then there is a lesson Rav Shmuel Brazil shlita taught as we sang at a Friday night Tish one time. “Songs”, Rav Shmuel taught, “would not be songs if they were all just one note. Even if they were a ‘high’ note! If it was all one note, the song would be flat, dull and hardly interesting to listen to at all. A song is comprised,” Rav Shmuel continued to explain, “of high notes and low notes as well as the notes and transitions in-between.” He was clearly teaching an analogy to our own lives.

Next my mind turns to how much we mean to others and yet when we are suffering we completely forget our significance. This blindness to my mind is one of the most horrific achievements of the yetzer hara. When these dark moments fall upon us a key to escape them would be to think about the people in our lives and what we mean to them. On the other hand, when we confront potentially mortal situations, thinking of these people and how much they mean to us and us to them and is no doubt part of the terrible pain Rebbe described above. No wonder it is at these moments that we *truly* realize how much a gift all of life is and we tremble wondering if we will be able to recover it now that the gift has been fumbled. It seems to me that that is part of the Song of life. Until we lose the sense of adolescent “immortality” we’ll never fully know just how precious life is. (My advice is to daven once’s butt off in advance to ask G-d for that realization without the trial, or to ask G-d to help you, in advance, to survive it and to emerge from the fire with its lessons intact and more of a servant of HaShem than ever before if chas v’Shalom you’ll ever need to go through something life threatening.) Ribonon Shel Olam!! Av HaRachaman!! Have Mercy on *YOUR* creations!!!!

Anyway, the interpretation in Rebbe’s posting is one tangible gift among so many from Rebbe’s trials and tribulations. It adds another dimension to my understanding of the phrase, “Ani HaShem Rofecha – I am HaShem your Healer.”

Thank you HaShem for pulling us through hard times. And now, let’s hit those damn HIGH notes and hit ‘em HARD!!