The Rebbe spoke often of the greatness of the Jewish woman; he held special gatherings to address them; he advocated depth and breadth in their Torah study; he sent them on missions around the world; he initiated several campaigns to encourage Jewish women to perform the special mitzvot pertaining to them. He created a stir in the Jewish world when he urged all women, even those who were not married, and all girls over the age of three, to light Sabbath candles.
As a woman engaged in intellectual and academic work, I received the greatest encouragement from the Rebbe — blessings to continue my Ph.D. in English, advice about possible dissertation topics, advice about how to negotiate the politics within the University. (The Rebbe himself had attended the Sorbonne and University of Berlin.) I sensed that he wanted me to employ to the full all my intellectual capacities, and all the secular knowledge I attained from my Ivy League education — to "elevate" all this and use it in the service of Torah and Yiddishkeit.
From the Rebbe's own personal example, I learned that there was nothing in the world a Jew need fear; that every place and every action and every moment called for a Jew to bring G-dliness into the world; and that no obstacle could ultimately stand in the face of a Jew's will to do so. That to be a Jew was the highest calling, a privilege and immense responsibility. Growing up in suburban Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, we Jews had kept a low profile. From the Rebbe, I learned not to be ashamed, not to be afraid — that the world, in fact, was yearning for the light of Torah.
In an article for Di Yiddishe Heim which I based on one of the Rebbe's talks, I compared the truths found in secular philosophy and science to those of Torah. The Rebbe had discussed the ways in which secular forms of knowledge are all limited; yet these very limitations also give a person a sense of satisfaction because one can grasp a body of secular knowledge; "master a field." Torah, however, is unlimited and infinite, and I wrote the sentence: "Thus one can never contain Torah, master it." In editing this manuscript, the Rebbe amended the sentence to read: "Thus one can never contain all the content of even one dvar (sentence of) Torah, master it."
Yet if there was a master of Torah in our generation, it was also surely the Rebbe. I remember standing at farbrengens, the public gatherings the Rebbe would hold. The large synagogue in Brooklyn would be packed with a thousand or more people. If it were a weekday, the Rebbe would start to speak at around 9 p.m. and often give several sichot or "talks," each lasting about forty minutes. Without any notes, he would speak into the early hours of the morning, for five or more hours, citing liberally from memory the whole corpus of Jewish literature — Bible, midrash, Talmud, the classic commentaries, Kabbalah, Jewish law, Chasidic philosophy. He would discuss the needs of the Jewish people, the political situation in Israel, and in between talks, the Chasidim would sing and drink "l'chaim."
When he spoke Torah, it was not just another lecture, a flow of words; there was something magnetic about the Rebbe's presence. Each talk was complex but beautifully structured and full of startling insights. There are now about forty volumes of these edited talks. And scores more volumes of his letters. Yet indeed, in that emendation he made to my sentence, one also sees his great humility: "One can never contain the content of even a sentence of Torah."
There was a regality and elegance about the Rebbe, and yet there was also his great humility. In the few years before he became ill, when he was into his nineties, he would stand in the alcove by his office every Sunday to speak for a few moments personally and face-to-face with anyone who wanted to see him, and give out dollars to each person to be given for charity. How could a ninety-year-old man stand on his feet for hours and hours without taking a moment's rest, or a drink? And how could he focus so intently and exclusively on each and every person who came through the line of thousands of people which stretched for blocks outside his office? I heard that when he had been urged to sit during these long sessions, he responded by asking how he could sit when people were coming to him with their problems and needs and pains?
And despite the crush of the crowds, and the pressure of all his responsibilities, the Rebbe never seemed to be in a hurry. But he also never wasted a moment; every movement of his body was exact and yet fluid — like a maestro conducting a symphony. There was a combination of intense energy and intense calm about him. Watching and listening to the Rebbe at his public gatherings, time and space dissolved. I would catch myself and think, "I am standing in the midst of some of the worst slums of New York City; how can it be that in this 'heart of darkness' there is so much light?" I said to a friend once, "It is so paradoxical to find this great tzaddik in the midst of all the violence and squalor and despair of this broken down part of Brooklyn." And my friend responded, "And where else do you think you would find him; where else does he belong — the Plaza Hotel?"
The Rebbe refused to abandon Crown Heights as the neighborhood changed. It was consistent with his refusal to abandon any Jew, to leave anybody behind. And it was consistent with his refusal to give in to fear. It was also consistent with the principle of mesirat nefesh, self sacrifice for love of the Jewish people that he embodied and that he taught his followers.
And it was an affirmation of one of the great principles of Chasidic philosophy that "every descent is for the purpose of an ascent"... that from overcoming the darkness ultimately comes the greatest light. As the Rebbe often said, we live in an era of "doubled and redoubled" darkness — that is, a darkness so deep we do not even know it is darkness anymore. He was the light in that darkness ... and he remains so even after his passing.
The Talmud at the end of tractate Brakhot says that "There is no rest for tzaddikim, neither in this world nor in the next world" for "they go from strength to strength." Even in the next world, they strive and reach ever higher levels. In 1950, in the days and months just after his father-in-law, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, passed away, the Rebbe gave many moving talks about the meaning of what had occurred. He cited the statement of the Zohar, the pre-eminent work of Jewish mysticism, that "when the tzaddik departs he is to be found in all worlds more than in his lifetime" (III:7Ib). In Chassidic philosophy, the life of a tzaddik is not viewed as a physical life, but a spiritual life consisting of faith, awe and love. And after his passing, his soul is no longer bound by the limitations of a physical body, but is connected to the world in new and different ways. The Rebbe also explained why he did not use the conventional expression zekher tzaddik l'vracha ("of blessed memory") about his father-in-law after the latter's passing: the activation of memory is relevant to distant matters about which there is a danger of forgetting; but in relation to his father-in-law, the previous Rebbe, who was still close and still connected, there could be no forgetting at all, and therefore there was no need to invoke memory.
There is no forgetting the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Zohar affirms that the tzaddikim shield the world, and after their death even more so than during their life. I am sure that even now, after his departure, the Rebbe continues to shield the world, and to yearn and work for its redemption.
