Dressed in a white straw hat, tan chinos and a blue shirt, Samuel Heilman, the co-author of a new book about Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, stood at the rebbe’s grave site among scores of pilgrims — a vanguard of the thousands expected to visit on Tuesday, in the Jewish calendar the 16th anniversary of his death — who arrived at a Queens cemetery a few days early to commune with their beloved leader.
“It is very holy,” Mr. Heilman said outside the open-air mausoleum, or ohel, that contains the graves of the rebbe and his father-in-law and predecessor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. Hasidim believe that the spirit of a great sage remains after death, and many Lubavitchers think the rebbe is not only a sage, but also the messiah.
“It is very holy,” Mr. Heilman said outside the open-air mausoleum, or ohel, that contains the graves of the rebbe and his father-in-law and predecessor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. Hasidim believe that the spirit of a great sage remains after death, and many Lubavitchers think the rebbe is not only a sage, but also the messiah.
Michael Falco for The New York Times
Lubavitchers at the Queens grave site of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
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