This weekend, the Jewish world and tens of thousands of Chabad followers will celebrate the day of celebration of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Many pencils and leaves will not contain some of the Rebbe's praise and virtues, but an exemption with nothing is impossible, especially in a generation as challenged as ours, we have much to take from his noble figure and ways, to make our world a better place.
During his lifetime, the Rebbe met with world leaders, such and such leaders, Jews and non-Jews, prime ministers, mayors, ministers and senators, military men and chiefs of staff, businessmen and commoners. Many good people from the top political and security leaders met with the Rebbe, including President Zalman Shazar who defined himself as a follower of the Rebbe (as it is known that President Shazar was the son of Chabad followers in Russia) and Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Moshe Sharett, Benjamin Netanyahu and the heads of the intelligence and Mossad departments. On the one hand, but also loving and containing on the other.
And indeed, many have noted the special attention to each person as a person, as well as the real reference and interest in what is happening to them and their world.
However, if it is possible to shrink and summarize the wider and more dominant feature of the Rebbe, then the Rebbe would have discovered the greatest talents that the Jewish people have known in recent generations.
In every meeting or letter, the Rebbe demanded of everyone who came in contact with him to make a greater effort to utilize and maximize his abilities, each in his own field.
Whether you were a businessman or an educator, an army and security man or alternatively a philanthropic charity - the Rebbe urged everyone to get the most out of themselves.
In fact, the Rebbe would not only spur others on but also as expressed more than once - demanded all this and more from himself.
For the same reason, the Rebbe did not hold from the global concept of retirement.
The Rebbe truly believed that every person who comes into the world, comes with all his talents in order to channel them for the benefit of all creation, and therefore, there is no place and time at all to sink into inaction or rest and idleness.
On the contrary, our time here is limited, so every second is critical and important, especially since one small act can change and determine the fates of many here or there.
To this end, the Rebbe devoted most of his life.
Whether it is as stated in face-to-face face-to-face meetings, or in the special moments of glory at the distribution of dollars to his famous charity every Sunday, as long lines lined the avenue outside his home, or through tens of thousands of personal letters he wrote to anyone who approached him, the Rebbe actually sacrificed his life and His precious time, to encourage and help others.
He of course did so without receiving pay and without a single day of freedom or rest he took for himself.
The work was great and Sisyphean, but on the shoulders of the Rebbe was a great responsibility from the fate of the Jewish people for generations.
I have been privileged more than once or twice to meet with him in his room and take from him personal advice and blessings that accompany me to this day.
And when I look back on the incredible development of the Rebbe's institutions, and in particular of his mighty missionary institution that to this day, day in and day out, hour by hour through his thousands of apostles spread across the globe, that the eternity of Israel will not lie and that the challenges of the industrialized On the Jewish soul and embers burning in every brother and one of us, an up-to-date picture of a true leader who cares not for his own good but for the good of the whole people is emerging before our eyes.
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