Today is the observance of the 20th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson--universally known as the Rebbe--who for decades was the charismatic leader of millions of Jews. Commemorations are planned; several biographies have just been released.
But to many assimilated Jews, someone like Schneerson, with his traditional black coat and white beard, can only be a symbol of an abandoned world. He appears as an archaic and mysterious figure that reminds them of their great-grandparents in the shtetls of Europe. His followers, the Lubavitchers, the largest Jewish outreach organization in the world, might make them angry or uncomfortable.
You can have your differences with the organization, but a close reading of Schneerson is important. He stood for the acceptance of all individuals, a belief in the importance of the individual act, and in the value of bringing together people of different faiths. Conflicts among religions are one of the most dangerous aspects of the world today. Religion shouldn't be divisive; it should be inclusive. We need his lessons.
I never truly understood the full meaning of his lessons until one spring day in 1996, when I was standing at the security gate of the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Japan, along with two classmates from rabbinical school. We were each holding an unmarked cardboard box. With our two-piece suits, black fedoras and scruffy beards, we looked like three characters from an Isaac Bashevis Singer novel.
The commander we were visiting walked down the long road toward the gate. I could sense his excitement. He broke out with the warmest smile as the three of us dropped the boxes to group-hug him. "I can't believe you are here. I can't believe you're actually here," he said delightedly.
After carefully emptying the contents of the boxes, he thanked us profusely for flying halfway across the world to make the drop. He and other Jewish military personnel at the Yokosuka Navy base now had the necessary traditional prayer books, skullcaps and matzo for Passover.
We were emissaries of Chabad, among thousands of volunteers helping people prepare for Passover. I had spent my teenage years immersed in Schneerson's readings and attended hundreds of his weekly public talks in Brooklyn. I had even conversed with him briefly on a few occasions. It was, however, in Yokosuka that I truly grasped the profound depth of his message to help strangers selflessly. It was not only a duty, it was a privilege.
Schneerson reminded us that every person and every good deed is important. He embodied the concept that Judaism was summed up in a single act of unconditional kindness and pioneered a global movement based on this ideal. This spiritual undertaking would transform Chabad, and he became the most influential rabbi of his time.
World leaders like Ronald Reagan, Robert F. Kennedy and Yitzhak Rabin would visit and correspond with him. During his decades of leadership, the rebbe worked over 18 hours a day and never took a day of vacation. I was always amazed by the large, overflowing paper bag he carried. It didn't contain groceries but hundreds of letters and petitions from followers and admirers seeking his advice and blessings. The rebbe craved personal engagement and instituted a weekly practice of handing out dollar bills to be given to charity. This allowed thousands to interact with him. I remember once watching New York's mayor standing in line with a homeless man to meet the rebbe.
Today Chabad operates schools, synagogues, orphanages, summer camps, soup kitchens and drug rehabilitation centers in more than 80 countries. Those institutions serve the needs of people from every racial, religious and social background.
On the night before the 2013 election to the Senate of Cory A. Booker, then the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, I received a text from him. "Shmully, let's do a midnight run to the rebbe's grave site tonight and pray," he wrote. Hours later I found myself praying under the stars in the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, New York, with a Baptist senator-to-be, at the grave of the most influential rabbi in recent history. I thought of how God's world was so wonderfully diverse, yet sadly too often divided. It simply requires courageous leaders to unite it. One act at a time, one person at a time.
Editorial on 07/01/2014