הרבי מליובאוויטש

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is the leader who sent emissaries to every corner of the earth so that no Jew would be left alone. The seventh Rebbe of Chabad Chassidut, possessed of immense erudition in the revealed and the hidden and also in the sciences of his time, he turned his Chassidut into a worldwide movement of love of Israel and outreach.

The idea of 'shlichut' was his great innovation: young couples sent to remote cities across the world, from Alaska to Thailand, to establish a Chabad House where every Jew, without condition and without judgment, finds a Shabbat table and a smile. He taught that every Jew is a candle, and the emissary's task is to light it.

The Rebbe did not move from the four cubits of study and holiness, yet his gaze encompassed the whole people. He received thousands of people in private audience and in the distribution of dollars, and gave each one the sense that he was seen. His greatness lay in uniting immense Torah depth with practical care for every lone Jew at the end of the earth.

What do we learn from him? That true love of Israel is measured in deed, in extending a hand to the ends of the earth so that no one is left alone. The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that every Jew is a candle waiting to be lit, and that a great leader is not content with his own community but sees his entire people, one by one, as his responsibility.