The Rebbe led by example. In forty four years of leadership he never took a day off. In 1959, several days after he returned from the Catskill mountains, where he went to address the children of a Chabad summer camp, a chassid asked him how he had enjoyed his trip? The Rebbe told him that he was still working to recover the hours he had lost in traveling back and forth.

Throughout the years, the Rebbe would periodically hold "Farbrengens" (gatherings) in the main Synagogue for his many followers. Thousands of "chassidim", young and old, from all over the world would gather to spend some time with the Rebbe.

Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel once described a "Farbrengen" in the following fashion: "The Synagogue at once seems both huge and intimate, at the center is the Rebbe. The chassid in me looks at him with wonder. There is something melancholy and profoundly moving about his personality, disturbing and reassuring at the same time. In his presence one feels more authentically Jewish. Seen by him one comes closer with one’s own Jewish center."

Every week, on Sunday afternoon, the Rebbe would stand for hours on end as people came from all over the world to visit with him. People with questions, people with problems or people who simply needed a blessing. All came to the Rebbe for comfort, solace and help.

With a kind smile and a warm heart, the Rebbe gave each person a dollar bill, to be given to charity. Some received his blessing, others a word of encouragement and yet others some reassurance and advice.

The Rebbe’s courage, strength and leadership stand as the inspiration behind the work of Chabad world-wide. Rather then a testimony to his memory, it is a vibrant manifestation of the Rebbe’s living and enduring legacy.

It is this legacy that motivates us to forge onward. To work towards a time of everlasting peace, a time of great knowledge and prosperity. The time of Messianic revelation. 

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