02 Jul THE LUBAVITCHER REBBES 30TH YAHRTZEIT THIS IS FOR YOUR LOVE

Thirty years after the
Lubavitcher Rebbe’s
passing on 3 Tammuz,
1994, I can still hear his
wise, holy words —
how he ignited the
Divine spark in every
Jew, viewing each of us
as an ambassador of infinite love, light, hope,
and truth. When you walked away from an
encounter with the Rebbe, you forever cast
away your sense of inner mediocrity.
I was four years old when I entered the
Lubavitcher Rebbe’s room, before the bar
mitzvah of my older brother Boruch. The
Rebbe asked me if I could share a story with
him — “A story about Adam, Avraham, or
Noach.” I was a shy boy, and I remained silent.
He asked me a few times; when I didn’t
respond, the Rebbe smiled and continued to
converse with my parents.
My brother still jokes with me: “You left that
room, and haven’t stopped telling stories
since…” Then he adds: “Maybe it’s because
you were silent in that room, that you know
how to tell a story…”
Thirty years later, I still miss the Lubavitcher
Rebbe. In my mind’s eye, I can see him
walking home late Friday night, one hand in
his coat pocket, to eat the Shabbos meal with
his wife. The Rebbe walked alone — there
were no gabbaim, and no entourage. He would
greet every person, Jew and African American,
cordially.
During the 60 years of their marriage, from
1928 to 1988, he ate most Shabbos meals
exclusively with his wife, in the privacy of
their own home. In a home devoid of children,
perhaps this was the personal space he carved
out for his life’s partner who gave up her
husband for the Jewish people.
I miss davening a Minchah with the Rebbe.
To see his ernstkeit — the sincerity and yiras
Shamayim when he davened — was enough to
know forever that G-d is real. He barely
swayed, nor did he maneuver his hands. He
stood in one place, almost not moving a limb.
But he was all deveikus. There was something
about his face that still makes me cry: You can
see in it all the pain and all the joy of the
Jewish People.
The Rebbe would sit by chazaras hashatz on
a bench (used moments earlier by the yeshivah
boys learning), facing the crowd, with his
hand on his forehead, pointing in the siddur,
following the chazzan word by word.
And then for a few days, the Rebbe did not
place his hand on his forehead. It was strange.
Why would he change his custom of 40 years?
A sensitive eye in the shul noticed that during
the Minchah services of those days, there was
a guest from Eretz Yisrael, someone whose
body and face were badly deformed. He was
also blind. It was hard to look at the person. It
became clear that the Rebbe didn’t want
anyone to think he was trying to avoid gazing
at the disfigured individual.
I miss the Rebbe’s Shabbos and Yom Tov
farbrengens.

How to describe a five-hour farbrengen with
the Lubavitcher Rebbe? For some moments,
you felt you were in the company of the Baal
Shem Tov — as the Rebbe sang, danced, and
spoke of the purity of every Jewish soul. But
then, as he dedicated an hour to delve into a
“chatzi shiur” or a Rambam in Pesulei
Hamukdashin, you felt you were in the
chamber of a world-class rosh yeshivah. And
then he became the classic Chabad Rebbe, as
he closed his eyes and presented a ma’amar of
the Baal HaTanya on the secrets of Atzilus and
the Sefiros. You thought you were done, when
he would begin a siyum on Horayos, Bechoros,
or Eiruvin, and you felt you were in the
mechitzah of one of the great minds of the
generation. As you could barely hold your
breath, he shifted to his brilliant derech in
analyzing a Rashi on the parshah.
In between the talks, the singing was
electrifying. He made sure to greet every one
of the thousand people present with a personal
l’chayim, often signaling a special gesture
toward an individual sitting in the audience,
and you knew that this Jew needed some
chizuk.
The song finished, and the Rebbe would
present a deep explanation on a particular
concept in hashkafah, halachah, or aggadah,
and you observed the Rebbe’s unique approach
to synthesize all streams of Torah into an
integrated whole, where halachah, lomdus,
machshavah, chassidus, science, psychology,
and emotional healing all meshed into one
whole. Then he would begin to discuss the
contemporary situation of the Jewish world,
and I knew he had his finger on the pulse of
G-d’s People. Then, as the crown began to sing
the Alter Rebbe’s niggun, his face changed.
Suddenly I felt I was in the presence of a
tzaddik, one of those rare souls planted from
another world into ours, to remind us that
heaven and earth are really one.
He finished the fabrengen, the clock showed
two a.m., and I stood there, silently, numb
from ecstasy. My heartstrings were on fire, as
I thanked Hashem for sending such a soul into
the world.
Rabbi YY Jacobson as a young boy, escorted
to the Rebbe by his father Reb Gershon
Jacobson. Twice, that shy little boy didn’t
answer the Rebbe’s question
~~~~~~~
Who was the Lubavitcher Rebbe? What was
he all about? Why did he inspire such loyalty?
Why, a quarter of a century after his passing,
has his influence not ceased?
I am not sure.
Was it his mastery of Torah? The Rebbe
knew every Rashi and Rashba in Shas, but also
every line of the Arizal and the Vilna Gaon’s
commentary on Zohar.
Was it his global vision — how he taught
people to take responsibility for the entire
Jewish world?
New Haven’s Rabbi Moshe Hecht, who had a
gift of gab, was planning to travel on vacation
to Israel. When he asked the Rebbe for a
brachah before his trip, the Rebbe said to him:

“I understand that there is an old age home in
Hungary with some elderly Jews, and kosher
meals there are not an option. Can you travel
to Israel via Hungary and use your oratory
skills to persuade the boss to give the Jewish
residents an option for kosher?”
Reb Moshe would quip, “It’s a bad idea to
tell the Lubavitcher Rebbe you’re going on
vacation…”
Was it, perhaps, his kedushah? Here was a
man who fasted regularly for 90 years, slept
three hours a night, spent much of his day and
night learning, and never uttered a word of
rechilus or lashon hara.
I still recall the Shabbos in the 1980s when
Bob Dylan, one of the greatest icons of the
hippie movement, attended a farbrengen. The
Rebbe was notified earlier that he would be
there, yet surprisingly, each time Dylan lifted
his cup of wine to say l’chayim, he passed
over him, as though Dylan wasn’t present.
After Shabbos, the Rebbe was surprised to
learn from one secretary that Dylan was
present, as the Rebbe maintained that he didn’t
notice him. One chassid picked up on the
secret: Bob Dylan, whose original name is
Shabsi Zisel Zimmerman, had at one point
converted to Christianity, and never went to
the mikveh after his return to his People.
Could it be the Rebbe simply did not “see”
him? That living in a halo of kedushah, the
Rebbe’s eyes didn’t observe this person who
willingly left the faith? And so they sent Dylan
to the mikveh, and next Shabbos as Bob Dylan
lifted his cup, the Rebbe immediately greeted
him warmly.
Was it his encyclopedic knowledge of the
secular sciences, which allowed him to present
the truth of Torah to countless academics and
confused Jewish students? Was it, perhaps, the
fact that he answered every single letter
written to him, giving counsel to millions of
Jews and even non-Jews, from every stripe?
Or was it his all-night meetings for decades
with every conceivable type of Jew, from
Menachem Begin to the Rebbe of Toldos
Aharon; from a Columbia University professor
of Greek philosophy to the first-ever black
congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm (whom he
inspired at that meeting to create the food
stamp program for hungry American families);
from a Russian refugee to a broken Holocaust
survivor?
Or maybe it was his good-natured simplicity
and self-effacing humor? Once on Simchas
Torah, a Russian chassid, who was a bit tipsy,
told the Rebbe: “Besides all your other
qualities, we are so lucky to have such a
beautiful and handsome rebbe!” The next day
this fellow sobered up and went over to
apologize. The Rebbe responded: “Why are
you apologizing? Such a compliment I haven’t
received in decades…”
On Erev Yom Kippur, the Rebbe would stand
at the door of his room and distribute honey
cake with blessings for a sweet year to the
chassidim. Once, among the thousands waiting
in the fast-moving line, stood an elderly Jew
named Zalman Teibel, escorted by a nurse

who held him up. Reb Zalman was an old
Russian chassid, almost 90, who had no
children, suffered from Alzheimer’s, and was
living in the Aishel Avraham nursing home in
Williamsburg. The Rebbe knew him well —
decades earlier he had brought to Chabad the
famous song “Ana Avda” (from the tefillah
preceding the Torah reading). But now, Reb
Zalman didn’t recognize the Rebbe or anyone
else. The Rebbe tried to connect with him, but
to no avail. Alzheimer’s had overtaken his
conscious brain.
Suddenly, the Rebbe, standing at the door of
his office, started to sing the song that Reb
Zalman composed decades earlier — “Ana
ana avda, avda d’Kudsha Berich Hu…” The
Rebbe had a beautiful voice, a combination of
sweetness and depth, and when he sang, your
heart would melt. The entire line stopped, and
thousands of people were left waiting, as the
Rebbe sang the entire song to this old man. As
the Rebbe was in the middle of the song,
Zalman Teibel suddenly awoke from his
slumber. He recognized he was in the presence
of his Rebbe — and broke out in the sweetest
smile. They both gazed at each other with so
much love, as the Rebbe showered him with
blessings, and Reb Zalman, for a few moments,
was uplifted from the abyss of Alzheimer’s to
the Rebbe’s loving embrace.
I still recall that moment on Simchas Torah,
when East Flatbush’s renowned Rabbi J.J.
Hecht arrived at “770” in the middle of the
hakafos, after he finished dancing in his own
shul. As the Rebbe saw him, the Rebbe threw
him a kiss coupled with a colossal smile. I
never saw the Rebbe perform such a gesture,
certainly not in the presence of nine thousand
people on Simchas Torah. I knew there was
more to the story.
That year, Rabbi Hecht passed away. I
thought that perhaps the Rebbe felt this was
their last Simchas Torah together and he was
bidding him farewell. But then Rabbi Hecht’s
daughter told me that her father, while walking
from East Flatbush to the hakafos, shared with
her a dream he had hours earlier during his

Yom Tov nap that very afternoon. In his
dream he asked the Rebbe for permission to
give him a kiss (something chassidim usually
do not do), and indeed he went over to the
Rebbe and gave him a gigantic kiss. Rabbi
Hecht awoke from his dream and then went to
shul for Minchah-Maariv. But that very night,
as he entered “770” for hakafos, the Rebbe
returned the kiss…
Little YY Jacobson with his father, Reb
Gershon Jacobson, at a Lag B’Omer parade in
1976. “I knew the Rebbe had his finger on the
pulse of G-d’s people.”
~~~~~~~~
It was the “doctrine of oneness” the Rebbe
constantly taught that touched me most.
I’ll never forget the moment. It was in the
middle of a Shabbos afternoon farbrengen in
the early ’80s. In the middle of a long,
complex explanation on a Rashi on the
parshah, the Rebbe paused and searched the
crowd. His eyes rested on a child. The Rebbe
pointed his finger at the boy and asked him in
Yiddish: “Fun vannet veist du az es iz doh a
velt — how do you know that there is a
world?”
Time stood still as the Rebbe’s eyes bore
into the child. The shy boy did not answer the
Rebbe’s question, but the Rebbe continued,
answering his own question: “So the child
answers, because the Torah says ‘Bereishis
bara Elokim es haShamayim ve’es ha’aretz
— In the beginning G-d created heaven and
earth.’ ” That’s how I know the universe
exists.
That boy was me. For the second time in my
life, I didn’t answer the Rebbe’s question. But
I did listen to his answer.
This was the crux of his teachings: that the
Divine is everywhere. There is no person, no

moment, no experience, devoid of the all-
pervasive oneness of the Ribbono shel Olam.

There is no alien Jew, no alien community, no
alien region on planet Earth, and no discovery
in physics, where you can’t find the infinite
Truth of Hashem.
Nor is there a situation that is irredeemable,
an experience that is hopeless.
There was a young man suffering from
compulsions toward a deviant lifestyle. In
utter despair, he penned a heart-wrenching
letter to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe
responded with a three-page correspondence.
One point startled me.
The Rebbe told this boy that he does not
know why he must endure this profound
challenge — it’s surely one of the mysteries
of Divine providence. But then he added this:
“Sometimes, a person possesses an incredible
inner light that can change the world. There is
no way for this person to discover that secret
power within himself and call it his own,
without being compelled to overcome a major
life challenge.”
Some might have looked at this young man
and felt disdain; others might have felt
empathy. But it was the Rebbe, the teacher of
oneness, who saw his crisis as an opportunity.
There was no tragedy here, there was a
catalyst for this person to touch infinity. He

was not a victim of an unfortunate condition;
he was a Divine ambassador sent to places
most people are not sent to, because his
potential was of a different magnitude.
Once, on the afternoon of Hoshana Rabbah,
the Rebbe was handing out the traditional
“lekach,” honey cake, in his succah, and
people were lined up to receive a piece of
cake and a blessing. Standing in line was a
young fellow, dressed hippie-style, in sloppy
jeans and sporting an unkempt bush of hair.
Standing behind him was a distinguished rosh
yeshivah, a sincere Satmar chassid.
As the unkempt fellow approached, the
Rebbe asked him, “Where are you going to be
for the Simchas Torah hakafos?”
The man answered, “I have no plans to be
anywhere for hakafos.”
“It would be my great honor and privilege,”
the Rebbe replied to this secular Jew, “if you
would attend hakafos with me in the
synagogue and we can dance together with so
many other Jews.”
The fellow thanked the Rebbe for his
invitation but remained noncommittal. “I’ll
think about it,” he said, and walked away.
As the Satmar chassid approached the
Rebbe, the Rebbe gave him a piece of lekach
and then, out of the blue, said to him:
“Do you learn Yismach Moshe?”
Now, asking a Satmar chassid if he learns
Yismach Moshe (authored by the founder of
the Satmar dynasty, Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum
of Ujhel, Hungary) is like asking a Brisker if
he learns the Griz, or asking a Chabadnik if he
learns Tanya.
“Of course,” the rosh yeshivah answered.
“Do you remember the story the Yismach
Moshe writes in his book Tefillah L’Moshe?”
The man did not remember. So the Rebbe
shared with him the story, which the Yismach
Moshe heard from his teacher, the holy Seer
of Lublin.
Reb Itzikel of Drobitch, the father of Reb
Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov, the renowned
disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, was asked by
Rashi: Why is there such a commotion On
High about the greatness of your son? How
did Reb Michel merit such praise?
Reb Itzikel replied that his son studies Torah
day and night for the sake of Heaven. “But
aren’t there others who do the same?” Rashi
questioned. “There is something singular
about the pleasure your son gives to Hashem.
What is it?”
“My son fasts and deprives his body of
worldly pleasures,” replied Reb Itzikel. But
again, Rashi maintained there were others
who did the same.
“My son gives away huge sums of money to
the poor.” Rashi was still unsatisfied. There
are others who also distribute excessive
tzedakah.
Finally, Reb Itzikel replied with three words
from the prophet Malachi: “V’rabim heishiv
mi’avon — My son, Reb Michel Zlotchover,
has returned many from the path of sin to their
Father in Heaven.”
When Rashi heard this response, he was
finally satisfied.

The Satmar chassid was flabbergasted. The
Rebbe understood that, coming from his
insulated background, it was difficult for this
chassid to appreciate why the Rebbe would
display such closeness to a secular hippie. So
the Rebbe shared with him this story from the
founder of Satmar.
The rosh yeshivah responded to the Rebbe:
“Ich hob git farshtanen.” (In other words, “I
got it.”)
A postscript to the story. A friend shared
with me that during the Rebbe’s electrifying
hakafos, he encountered the young hippie
dancing away with an old chassid. Apparently,
he couldn’t resist the Rebbe’s invitation after
all…
Together with the Rebbe at a funeral —
Rabbi Jacobson is the bochur on the Rebbe’s
left. “His words still guide me in moments of
confusion.”
~~~~~~
There are two types of great people. Those
who, when you come away from meeting
them, have you under the spell of their
magnitude; and those who, when you come
away from them, have you under the spell of
your own magnitude. They see in you not
who you are, but who you can be. They don’t
create followers, they create leaders.
The influence of such people changes you
forever.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe looked at every
person he came in contact with and saw the
“echad” in them, their alignment with the
Oneness of all reality, as he once said about
the Pesach Seder: “Echad chacham, echad
rasha, echad tam…” — in each type there is
the “echad” you need to discover. In the
Rebbe’s mind, you were far bigger than you
could ever imagine: You were an ambassador
of infinite love, light, hope, and truth. When
you walked away from an encounter with
him, you forever cast away your sense of
inner mediocrity.
Today, so many years later, as I sit in my
office facing young people who were betrayed
and abused by adults in their lives they
thought they could trust; these youths often
feel their souls have been snuffed out of them
and they are doomed. The words I heard from
my Rebbe empower me to not even doubt for
a moment that they can rebuild and rediscover
their inner, unshattered core.
As I stand in front of massive crowds the
world over, sometimes numbering in the
thousands, I sometimes doubt myself and my
own abilities, as many of us do. It is so easy to
surrender to the gravity of our own inner
demons and struggles. But then in my mind’s

eye, I can hear the Rebbe singing to a 90-year-
old senile man “Ana avda d’Kudsha Berich

Hu.” It empowers man, to redefine himself as
an ambassador of truth, love, healing, and
redemption. I am not a struggling genetic
random mutation on the dust of one of the
trillions of galaxies; I am not a victim to my
shabby circumstances. I am, at every moment,
a conduit for the Divine, and I, like you, can
change the world.
I’m often asked to reach out to teenagers

struggling emotionally. Conventional wisdom
tells me to say, “I’m too busy.” I can back up
the claim with solid evidence. But then I
remember when I was a struggling teenager
myself, walking on Eastern Parkway at three
a.m. (the hour when many a teenager comes
to life). At that quiet hour, not a single car
passed by on that usually busy street. The
world was asleep. But I could see the light in
the Rebbe’s room flickering. I saw this night
after night after night. I knew there was a Jew
sitting in this room who could not sleep
because Mashiach had not yet come, because
there was still much brokenness in the world.
There was a sense of urgency he implanted in
all of us.
And when I remember, I immediately know
the right thing to do.
~~~~~
It was Sunday, February 1, 1992. The
Lubavitcher Rebbe stood for approximately
six hours at his center in Brooklyn, distributing
dollars, counsel, and blessings to thousands. I
was one of many who went to receive a dollar
from the Rebbe that Sunday, the last time he
would distribute dollars for charity.
It was 5:55 p.m. Right in front of me, a
father held his daughter, she seemed to be five
or six years old, and the family was obviously
secular. As the Rebbe gave her a blessing and
a dollar to give to charity, the cute little girl
looked him in the eyes and said, “Lubavitcher
Rebbe, I love you!”
The Rebbe’s secretaries standing nearby
were naturally taken aback, but the Rebbe’s
face lit up, his heartwarming smile filled the
room. I will never forget the moment: The
Rebbe, 89 years old, exhausted from standing,
listening and speaking for so many hours, was
glowing.
The Rebbe said to her: “Thank you very
much.” As the little girl was about to move
on, the Rebbe gave her a second dollar and
said, “This is for your love.”
Those were the last words I ever heard from
my Rebbe.
Twenty-four hours later, while standing in
prayer at the resting place of his father-in-law,
the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe known as the
Rayatz, he suffered a stroke, which left him
partially paralyzed and unable to speak. Two
years later, he returned his soul to its Maker.
But two-and-a-half decades later I can, in
my imagination, still hear the words
resonating from his saintly mouth. They guide
me at moments of confusion, and they help
me find inner resources I didn’t know existed.
The love lives on.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue
767)