My brother, Rabbi Simon Jacobson, recently shared with me a striking email he received.
It was from a man identifying himself as a musician living in upstate New York. He primarily performs secular rock music, and on Thursday, June 12, 2025, he was scheduled to play a concert at a bar in Poughkeepsie.
That same night, in the early hours of Friday morning Israel time—around 3:00 AM—news broke that Israel had launched a surprise military operation targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities. While this unfolded halfway across the world, it was still early evening in New York.
The musician recalls: “As I stood performing on stage, the news began circulating. Israel had struck Iran. I looked around the room—no one appeared to be Jewish—but something stirred in me. I couldn’t remain silent. I paused the music and spoke from the heart. I told the audience what had just happened and asked everyone, regardless of background, to pray in their own way for peace. I then asked them to commit to one act of kindness to help heal a fractured world.”
The next night—Friday night—he had a vivid and unusual dream. In it appeared Rabbi Leibel Groner, the longtime personal secretary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of blessed memory. In the dream, Rabbi Groner spoke directly to him:
"The Rebbe asked me to come to you and thank you—for what you did on the night the war began. Your announcement in that bar stirred the soul of a Jewish woman. She decided, that very Friday evening, to light Shabbat candles for the first time since her Bat Mitzvah, over 50 years ago. Her mitzvah helped fortify the success of the Israeli Air Force. It brought protection to the people of Israel, and drew more divine blessing into the world. The Rebbe sends his gratitude.”
The musician woke up stunned. “It was a pleasant dream,” he wrote to my brother, “but I dismissed it as just that—a dream.”
Until Sunday.
On Sunday, he received an email from a woman he did not know. She had found his contact information through social media. Her message was simple, but profound:
"I was at the bar in Poughkeepsie when you performed. I was deeply moved by your words. I hadn’t lit Shabbat candles in 50 years, not since my Bat Mitzvah. But that Friday evening, I did. Because of you.”
We often view the world through a purely external lens, unaware of the invisible threads binding us all together. But as Jews, we know otherwise.
The Midrash describes the world as a guf gadol—a single, unified body. Every soul, every action, is a limb in this vast spiritual organism. What one person does—however small it may seem—ripples across the entire system. A woman lighting Shabbat candles in Poughkeepsie can uplift and protect soldiers thousands of miles away. A man wrapping tefillin, a person holding back from a destructive impulse, each of these can tilt the scales of existence.
We do not always see the results. But they are real. When we recognize that each mitzvah reverberates across the guf gadol of humanity, we begin to understand the extraordinary power we hold: to influence not just our lives, but the destiny of humanity.
