Dear friends,
It is 3 a.m. New York time. The whole world is asleep, but 770 Eastern Parkway is awake.
In one half of the globe people have already risen for work, hurrying about in preparation for the holy Shabbat; in the other half the world is asleep, turning from side to side. But the Rebbe's beit midrash at 770 Eastern Parkway is loud and alive.
Groups and groups of younger and not-so-young sit together “saying a little l'chaim” and forgetting the world. And whoever does not manage it “says a little more l'chaim” until there is no world at all. Then a little more niggun, and a little more “Chabad” talk, until the physical world evaporates and a spiritual world takes its place — the world of Lubavitch.
In this place and at this moment there is no physical world, pressing and stressful, demanding and insisting; rather another world rises and ascends, beautiful and full of radiance. A world of people who for a moment forget their own importance, put the material aside, and let the spirit fill the space.
Groups and groups of temimim, young lads whose whole desire is one day to be “the Rebbe's shluchim”, sit with “the Rebbe's shluchim” whose whole desire is to be again, even for one day, temimim; and in the eyes of both there is a yearning for the infinite of Lubavitch.
Again they say l'chaim, again they sing niggunim of cleaving, of joy and also of longing, until they know and understand that they want one thing: to merit fulfilling the Rebbe's living words — reach every Jew wherever he may be, every single one; take with you words of love and Jewish warmth, Chassidic joy and simple faith; go and light up the world with the light of Torah and mitzvot.
They do not for a moment forget that “every single one” includes themselves. They too are Jews; upon them too rests the duty and the privilege to be illuminated.
Oh, then they will climb onto the benches, one man's hand on his friend's shoulder, and the niggun of “Rosh Chodesh Kislev” will burst from them with strength of joy and confidence — they can do it — into the Holy One's world; the world of Lubavitch will flood it with the Rebbe's love for every single one, wherever they are.
From the International Kinus HaShluchim,
Good Shabbat,
Rabbi Zalman Wishedski