Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum is known to have said visiting Kivrei Tzaddikim is only for people on a high level(…), in “Al Hage’ulah” p. 166 (#108). Only those who can “connect” with the deceased should go… It’s like outspoken atheists who deliberately try to remove all living hope, especially from the terminally ill, the depressed, and the downtrodden, and replace it with “courage” these people simply cannot find within themselves.
In response, one of our wonderful readers sent us screenshots of the Arizal who apparently says the same thing (I’m telling you, I knew I should have mentioned it!):
It’s an explicit Arizal, so why am I blaming the Satmar Rebbe?!
But, no.
First of all, the Arizal, as usual, is referring to people on a high spiritual level who don’t wish to lose their “aura”. Rabbi Steinman, for example, was very careful about not entering cemeteries, or at least not the Dalet Amos, even for his wife, if I remember correctly, and there are others who did\do the same. This doesn’t apply to everyone, though, as the Satmar Rebbe was doing.
Besides, one can also pray from afar. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky shlita once said, if one can see the Kever from a distance, one has all the benefits of praying at the Kever, but without the Tum’ah.
Anyone can quote the Arizal as though it is meant for everyone (my apologies to our Arizal guy!), but it isn’t right. Imagine someone going to his sole Torah lesson of the day, after finishing work at the factory: An evening Tanach Shiur, the only one לבו חפץ. Would you tell them the relevant Arizal and have them learn nothing?!