Weekly Dvar Torah: Two Rebbes Two Successes
On Wednesday and Thursday, 10th of Shvat, we observed the passing of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1950, the following day we celebrated the acceptance of the seventh Rebbe one year later, to lead Lubavitch ever since.
The times of these giants acted out under the most extreme of circumstances, and in worlds apart.
The sixth Rebbe lead Lubavitch from 1920 untill 1950 under the most difficult circumstances in Soviet Russia, and during WWII under the knife of Hitler, who managed to wipe out a third of our people.
Those were bitter times, under the Soviets Judaism had to go underground, any violation of the Soviets “freedom of religion”, was a passport to Siberia at best, or a direct flight to heaven in the worst-case scenario.
In 1971 the Soviets graciously allowed a small group of Chabad Chasidim to leave Russia, they were a group of strictly observant Jews, giant Torah scholars, who in the underground did everything a Jew does in the free world, some of them could compete with the greatest scholars of the most prestigious Yeshivos.
How did you do this? Asked them the sage Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, I was in Russia at the start of the Soviet regime, I fled as all the Yeshivos closed, and I saw firsthand that there was no future in that country for Jews and Judaism.
Forget about Yeshivos, Shuls were shut and destroyed, Jewish books were confiscated, so how do you come from that country fifty years later, and you are scholars on a level second to none, Reb Moshe asked with tears in eyes!
R’ Yankel Notik, one of these immigrants, who displayed a fluency and deep understanding of Torah like a veteran Rosh Yeshiva, responded modestly; ‘what could we have done otherwise, did we have another choice?’
Instead of apologizing for barely being able to read from a Siddur, or for not being able to keep Shabbos properly because he had no choice, Reb Yankel simply said, I had no choice but to be a Torah scholar, because otherwise I would not be a Jew, I had no other choice!
Such were the Jews who were raised by the Sixth Rebbe, with absolute and complete self-sacrifice, they stood up to the communists and called their bluff, to live a full Jewish life which is eternal.
Unbelievable and unprecedented, but with full honest humility Reb Yankel didn’t see what was so special about his accomplishments, I had no other choice, he said.
Then came the seventh Rebbe.
In the free world, in America, where Judaism was sentenced to a free comfortable painless death, where Judaism was relegated to the past, to the old country, to pre-war Europe which Hitler wiped out, the Rebbe undertook to bring Judaism back to life, and from Brooklyn he sent out Shluchim (emissaries) to all corners of the world, to teach Jews about G-d and Jewish Life.
71 years later, hundreds of young adults, who never even saw the Rebbe, are clamoring to find outposts in the most remote villages and G-d forsaken lands, just to be able to join the forces of over six thousand Shluchim who preceded them.
Why would a young couple, who grew up in communities like Crown Heights, the center of Lubavitch life, which is home to 72 Shuls, 11 schools, and several dozen Kosher eateries, with Kosher Pizza, Shushi, Shawarma and Kosher Ice cream, and Kosher supermarkets galore at every corner, why give it all up?
Why leave the warm community, your loving parents, in-laws, sibling and all the comforts that a good Jewish observant person needs, to go to a G-d forsaken place where none of the above exists even in the wildest dream, just to live out of a trailer parked in your backyard, which is delivered to you once in six months with some basic necessities just to survive?
One reason and one reason only drives these youngsters, the desire to follow the Rebbe’s wish of teaching a Jew who never put on Tefillin, or a Jewess who never lit a Shabbos candle, maybe while backpacking and wandering in for a warm drink, will do this maybe just once.
This is the Rebbe’s education in the free world, don’t settle to be a good Jew just for yourself, remember there is a purpose and mission that we have to fill, and this will bring Jews closer to G-d and keep all Jews together as one, and spread goodness and kindness to help usher in Moshiach speedily.
Two extremes, and two successes, one rises to the top for self-preservation, and the other gives it all up just to help another.
One day we commemorated, the other one we celebrated, what meaningful 48 hours to experience with 3000 such young students, the future of Judaism.
Have a Shabbos of inspiration and hope,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
