Conquering the World Through Torah and Mitvos // An exclusive interview with Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, director of the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries and vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement

Who is unfamiliar with the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings about never losing hope regardless of the obstacles? “Think good and it will be good,” he would famously quote the third Chabad Rebbe, known as the Tzemach Tzedek. And yet, I see Rabbi Kotlarsky’s consent to host me at his home a week before the Kinus Hashluchim after numerous refusals to do an interview not as the result of my persistence, but as something close to miraculous.

Rabbi Kotlarsky, who is an eloquent and inspiring speaker whose speeches at the annual Kinus banquets are always one of the highlights of these amazing events, rather incongruously shies away from the limelight and is actually media shy. That he opened his heart and candidly shared his thoughts about the Rebbe’s vision to spread Yiddishkeit by sending emissaries to every corner of the world will undoubtedly move you as much as it did me.

I suggest you listen in.

 

People from every sector of the Jewish community have encountered shluchim in various ways. When the Satmar Rebbe Rav Aharon Teitelbaum travels to California, where does he end up? In a Chabad House. I went to Bogota, Colombia. Where did I go? To the Chabad shliach. People are curious about how it all started. 

In 1946, even before he became Rebbe, the Rebbe established something called Merkos Shlichus. Bachurim would give up their summer vacations and go out to visit Jews in places all over the world. You might say that that was the Rebbe’s first foray into outreach. The idea was to be mekareiv Yidden through Torah and mitzvos. To conquer the world through Torah and mitzvos.

So spreading Torah and mitzvos is the primary goal of every shliach. 

Absolutely. The fact that we are there to be able to help a frum Yid when he needs something is undoubtedly a big zechus. One of the pillars of Chabad-Lubavitch is the mitzvah of ahavas Yisrael, which means that when a Yid walks in and needs anything from a cup of coffee to a mikvah, we try to take care of it to the best of our ability. But that’s only the icing on the cake. 

Every location has its own population that has to be served through Torah and mitzvos. In some places, it’s the local community. In other places, it might be backpackers. Israelis who backpack after finishing their army service is very common. How many of these people became closer to Yiddishkeit because they ended up in a place like Bangkok? The Rebbe once said that if there are 10,000 Jews in your city and you reach 9,999 of them you’ll get a lot of schar, but you didn’t fulfill your shlichus. The truth is that you can’t worry about klal Yisrael if you don’t worry about Reb Yisrael [each individual]. The Rebbe worried about Reb Yisrael the same way he worried about klal Yisrael. 

Today, there are many chasidishe, lomdishe Yidden who came from a secular background and were niskareiv through the shluchim around the world. There is no shliach who doesn’t have such people. But the Rebbe would never use the term “kiruv rechokim,” because there’s no such thing as a “rachok.” I once went to the Rebbe with someone named Mr. Kashani, who was from Bangkok. I told the Rebbe, “This is Kashani from Bangkok.” The Rebbe said, “You are from a place in the East that is not called near.” The Rebbe didn’t want to use the word “far” for a Jew. He was meticulous to use a lashon that isn’t negative. 

Rabbi Yosef Wineberg used to travel around the world to raise money for the central Lubavitcher yeshivah. He once had something very urgent to write to the Rebbe, so he tried to catch Rabbi [Chaim Mordechai Aizik] Hodakov, the Rebbe’s chief secretary, but he had already gone into the Rebbe’s room for the last time that night, so he slipped the note under the door, figuring that Rabbi Hodakov would notice it. But he didn’t see it, and the Rebbe ended up picking it up from the floor. When Rabbi Wineberg found out what happened, it bothered him very much and he wrote an apology to the Rebbe for being matriach him. The Rebbe replied in a letter, “Halo zeh kol inyanai, uftzuhoiben, bifrat vos andere farkuken—But lifting up is what I do, especially that which others overlook.” 

From day one, the Rebbe’s vision was to bring the Shechinah l’matah and put an end to the galus. The objective was a world that is kulo zakai, and that every Yid should be brought close to Torah rather than the other way around, bringing the Torah to them. There was no compromise. Above all, the Rebbe was a very strict Shulchan Aruch Yid. In fact, the Rebbe told a number of shluchim who went out in the early years that one of the first things they had to take along with them was a Shulchan Aruch. 

I once asked Reb Yoel Kahn what he considered to be one of the Rebbe’s chiddushim. He replied that the Rebbe treated every minhag Yisrael as Torah. For example, the Rebbe could say an entire sichah discussing whether during the weeks when the minhag is to say two perakim of Pirkei Avos, one should say Kol Yisrael before each one. Minhagei Yisrael played a very important role. 

We heard from the Rebbe hundreds of times at farbrengens, “Minhag Yisrael Torah hi.” It was an expression he used constantly. It’s very hard to talk about the Rebbe because there was geonus in every part of Torah: Nigleh, chasidus, Kabbalah, pshat, remez, drush and sod. Hundreds of volumes of the Rebbe’s Torahs have been printed. And when the gedolim would visit, you could see how [their conversation] encompassed everything. 

 

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