Matos-Massei – Annulment of Vows

A story is told about a bachur (an unmarried young man) who came in the 60s to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for the yechidus (private audience) telling the Rebbe that he wanted to go college. Those days, American colleges, by and large, were not exactly institutions of higher learning but, more often, venues for drugs, sex, and rock and roll. The Rebbe strongly advised the visitor against going to college, but the young man was hell-bound on going through with his plan. The Rebbe said to him, “Even if you don’t care about the spiritual dangers and impurity of such a place, I do! And you and I are connected. Why are you dragging me along with you?!” The moral of that story is simple—chasidim and their Rebbe are entangled together. Wherever a chasid [...]