First Person

The idea of writing a letter requesting the Rebbe's blessing – and then praying to G-d at his gravesite - seemed almost absurd. I felt I had a much bigger chance of success if I just worked on my resume and interviewing skills some more.

I got straight to the point. “Rebbe, I have heard that many miracles come from this room. Please give my daughter a blessing that she should be cured!”

Solar energy pioneer Yaacov (Jack) Hanoka, who held patents for 56 of his inventions and was known for his passion and optimism in finding alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, passed away at the age of 75.

The Rebbe said was, “It is enough that you were working with the dead, now you need to work with the living!”

One day, after another round of my incessant questioning, the teacher suggested, “Why don’t you write a letter to the Rebbe requesting a private audience?”

The Rebbe thought deeply for a few minutes and said, “Keep looking. To sit here, and not look, and say there is nothing out there, is placing a limit on G‑d’s creation. That you can’t do!” . . .

Flying across Grenada, I receive instructions from the Pentagon to call Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn.

Sitting on the stairs outside the Rebbe’s office, I found myself daydreaming, asking myself, “If I had unlimited time with the Rebbe, what would I ask him?”

The Rebbe told me, “You are very different from each other. Remove him from your agenda.”

The Rebbe explains to a London diamond dealer why his investment in education is so important.

I started looking around the Rebbe’s room to find the box of toys. I figured thousands of kids came through this room—there must be toys somewhere.

The Rebbe asked about my uncle. I responded by saying that he was well, thank G‑d, and had just retired. The Rebbe shook his head. In Yiddish, he said, “Retired—what does that mean?”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes his first visit to Lubavitch World Headquarters and his meeting with the Rebbe.

After the White House talks, I returned to New York to call upon the Rebbe. My presentation, his interrogation, and his further clarification took close to three hours. By the time we finished it was nearly two in the morning.

The Rebbe's relationship with an international chess champion; the Rebbe's spiritual take on the "Game of Kings"; and the chassidic "kings" who enjoyed the game.

I cannot have kids. I wrote to him about the emphasis Orthodox Judaism seems to place on women having many kids.

He said an artist needs inspiration, that you have to wait for a certain thing to come down--he called it the 'holy spirit'--and for him putting on tefillin gave him his inspiration for the day...

No one knew how to tell me the news, and so, although I knew the truth in my heart, for those agonizing minutes I kept on hoping. Hoping that it was just an accident . . .

Rabbi Zev Segal, communal leader and Jewish activist, describes how the Rebbe approached Jewish life after the holocaust.