Rebbe by Joseph Telushkin

Hardcover: 640 pages

Publisher: HarperWave (June 10, 2014)

I just got a copy of a new book last week, and I can’t put it down. While I found Yehuda Aviner’s The Prime Ministers quite impressive, the book I am now reading is worlds ahead. Actually, not specifically the book itself, though it is a very impressive work, which the author took three years and countless interviews to prepare. It is the subject of the book that is overwhelming. The book is simply entitled Rebbe, by Joseph Telushkin (Harper Wave, 2014.)

It is an overview of the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. In it, Telushkin relates how, when a Reform rabbi asked if he should leave his congregation, the Rebbe answered “You are a soldier on the front” and that he should not only not leave his congregation, he should challenge his congregants to do more! In fact the Rebbe had Conservative and Reform rabbis attend his farbrengen. What other Orthodox rabbi, Rosh Yeshivah, or Gadol Hador would act like that? They [who?] would insult, degrade, and malign them or, at best, not mention them.

The former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks, wrote “Among the greatest Jewish leaders of the past, there were some who transformed communities. There were others who raised up many disciples. There were yet others who left us codes and commentaries which will be studied for all time. But there have been few in the history of one of the oldest peoples in the world who in one lifetime made their influence felt throughout the entire Jewish world . . . The Rebbe was one of the immortals.”

By Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Glick