Gallery: Largest Ever Kinus Hashluchim Opens With Evening Focused on Joy
Opening night of the world’s largest Jewish conference brings shluchim together for Evening of Inspiration, Unity and Action.
Many of the shluchim entering the Oholei Torah ballroom on Wednesday night had landed only hours earlier. By the end of the evening, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching a farbrengen of the Rebbe together.
The dinner opened the annual Kinus Hashluchim, bringing together shluchim who had traveled from over 4,000 communities around the world.
“The Rebbe emphasized the importance of the Kinus is that shluchim draw strength from one another,” shared Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, executive director of the Kinus. “A shliach can hear how someone across the world faced a challenge, built something in his community or reached another Jew, and take that idea home with him. Joining together to be inspired by the Rebbe, reconnects us to the mission that brought us here in the first place.”
For Rabbi Levi Srugo, the gathering came just three months after he and his family moved to Tucumán, Argentina, to revive a Jewish community with roots stretching back more than a century.
“When a shliach is inspired and happy and has a clear goal, he can bring that energy back to his community, inspire those around him and accomplish so much more,” said Srugo, reflecting on what he hoped to take from the Kinus.
The evening was opened by Rabbi Lipa Brennan, of the Kinus Board, and Rabbi Yudi Eisenbach, a shliach in Fairlawn, N.J.
For many in the room, the dinner offered a first chance to reconnect with fellow shluchim whose communities may be separated by thousands of miles but who share many of the same responsibilities and challenges.
The Kinus had begun earlier in the day, as arriving shluchim collected their welcoming packets, greeted colleagues from around the world and had the opportunity to visit the Rebbe’s room. After the evening program ended, the room remained full. The shluchim stayed in their seats as the lights dimmed and a farbrengen of the Rebbe appeared on the screen, thousands of shluchim watching together, ready for the days of the Kinus ahead.
Photo Credit: Itzik Belenitzki – kinus.com
