The Lubavitcher Rebbe, a blessed male Tzaddik, whose 120th birthday is celebrated today - 11th of Nisan - all over the world, is a tremendous heavenly gift received by the Jewish people in recent centuries.
Here is a story I found this weekend in the "Shichat Hashavua" newsletter: One of the most prominent Chabad emissaries is Rabbi Shlomo Kunin of California. As a young boy, in the late 1950s, he studied at the Rebbe's yeshiva in New York. Kunin went to the Rebbe's secretary and it was ordered on his behalf to take a package of matzah and hand it over to a Jewish family living on the edge of town - a mission that ordered him to be absent from Seder night at his parents' house and set foot in the middle of the night. In preparation for the birth of another child, the parents wanted to terminate the pregnancy for fear that he too would be born blind. , And of course the child was born healthy and intact.
This week I stood in front of a group of Chabad emissaries in Tel Aviv at a reception ceremony in the city hall and told them this story, which to me is a huge story, which teaches about the spirit of Chabad more than many great and heroic stories.
Anyone looking for a "masterpiece" in this story can find it, of course, and anyone looking for a sign of the Rebbe's attitude toward any Jew can certainly find it as well.
But there is another thing in this story, really great: this story shows that the Rebbe knew very well that "he has someone to work with."
When he turned to the young man Kunin, a young and spoiled boy, and assigned him a manifestly uncomfortable task, he clearly knew that the same boy would fill it despite the inconvenience.
He gave him full confidence, a confidence that charged him with personal power and made him respond with confidence.
The same trust that caused that young boy to deliver the matzah at the expense of the family holiday meal, caused him years later to act powerfully and on a large scale in the city of his mission.
And that, I told the messengers, that's your part of this birthday.
One of the greatest innovations of the Rebbe was the way he charged his followers with inner strength and personal spiritual confidence, in that each and every one of them alone was able to transform the world.
Many are talking about the total connection between the Rebbe and the Chassidim and what is called "attachment" - personal, mental - which is one of the foundations of Chassidut.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe's novelty was that this connection was two-way.
The Rebbe, who believed in his followers a burning faith, won that they would believe in him, in his life and after his death, and together they make the world to this day.
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