By Rabbi Avrohom Litvin
Rabbi Avrohom Litvin
There are numerous great leaders that I have been privileged to meet. What makes the Rebbe stand out is this: Many rabbis care for the entire Jewish Nation – but the Rebbe cared for each individual within that nation – each Izzy and Esther, each Lew and Geri.
One such couple, Lew and Geri, lived in Boston, Massachusetts. Lew played trumpet in the big bands and Geri had a shoe store. The Rebbe encouraged them to give their daughters a Jewish education and encouraged those young girls to keep in contact with him by mail. And they did. They wrote dozens of letters to the Rebbe on all sorts of topics and the Rebbe answered each and every one of them.
By 1958, this couple were blessed with three beautiful daughters and desperately wanted a son. They asked the Rebbe for a blessing to have a son and the Rebbe shared a Jewish tradition that inviting guests for Sabbath is a merit to have male children. A few months later, Geri again visited New York and when the Rebbe saw her, obviously pregnant, the Rebbe said: “He should grow up to be pious, G-d fearing and studious”. From that point on, Geri would say, “I knew it would be a boy”. And indeed, four months later, I was born!
So, I sort of “met” the Rebbe even before I was born and I continue to “meet” him on a regular basis even now, thirty years after his passing.
It was the Rebbe who guided me to go to Montreal, Canada for high school and to receive my degree in religious education from the Rabbinical College of America. It was the Rebbe who encouraged me to marry my wife Goldie (best decision of my life) and it was the Rebbe who personally blessed my two older sons that they too should grow up to be “pious, G-d fearing and studious”.
I got to see first-hand how the Rebbe would show concern to young children and give them personal attention. Many of those children are now Jewish leaders all across the world.
I got to see how the Rebbe would speak positively about the “hippie generation” who were questioning the entire status-quo. The Rebbe advised that if we focus on that immense value of each single Jew and teach them the timeless truth of Torah, then they will accept it with open arms. And that is exactly what happened!
The Rebbe would meet each week with hundreds of individuals in private audiences called “yechidus” – often lasting until 3 or 4 in the morning. In later years, when there were too many people to have audiences with each one, the Rebbe would give out dollars on Sundays and meet thousands of Jews from all walks of life and inspire and encourage them to be proud Jews.
The Rebbe was a trailblazer and, well before it was common, encouraged Jewish girls and women to study Torah and become Jewish leaders alongside their husbands. Indeed, the Rebbe viewed EVERY person as someone with inherent goodness and possessing a unique role in G-d’s Divine Plan for the world. That meant that a Jew imprisoned in jail, or a Jewish soldier in the army or a Jewish senior in a nursing home were worthy of time and care. There was no Jew who was too far away and there was no Jew who did not matter. This was revolutionary thinking and it made me love the Rebbe even more.
The Rebbe had seen firsthand the horror of hate in the Holocaust. Now he taught, it was time to reach out to fellow Jews in love and with joy. The Rebbe encouraged the fulfillment of even a single mitzvah – but do it NOW. Every mitzvah, the Rebbe would teach, is a connection to G-d which is eternal and therefore most worthy and meaningful.
The Rebbe spoke passionately about the situation in Israel. He felt Israel should maintain a strong and proud Jewish Defense Forces, prepared to protect its citizens from all enemies and never endanger lives by waiting for world approval. The Rebbe felt this type of readiness would in fact be most compassionate, saving both Jewish and non-Jewish lives from further bloodshed.
I miss the Rebbe every day, but I still seem to “meet him” on a regular basis. This week I attended a funeral of a Russian woman who told me – “When the world forgot about Jews in Russia, the Rebbe cared for us.” In her eyes I felt I again met the Rebbe. This week I walked into the Trager Family JCC and I heard two young women chatting in Hebrew. I told them I was one of the Chabad emissaries in Louisville and asked what were their plans for Shabbat? They broke out in smiles and said: “We would love to enjoy a Shabbat with Chabad. We so miss that.” In their smiles, I again met the Rebbe. And I felt I met the Rebbe yet again, when on his yahrzeit, a man who drives a 20-year-old car and lives on food stamps in a low cost one bedroom apartment called me and said: “I read online that today was the yahrzeit of the Rebbe so I put on tefillin in his honor.”
The Rebbe longed for the coming of the Moshiach when there will be peace and brotherhood for all mankind. My hope is that each person reading this article will do one more act of goodness and bring that day just a little bit closer.
Rabbi Avrohom Litvin is the longtime leader of Chabad of Kentucky.