Before Asaf Abramovitch reached the age of thirteen, he received bar mitzvah instruction from a young R. Rachamim Jerufi. As his studies and immersion in the culture of Chabad deepened, he became curious why the Rebbe remained in Brooklyn, New York, rather than relocating to Israel. He posed the somewhat impertinent question to his rabbi, who encouraged him to write to the Rebbe and ask him directly, which he did.
Sometime later, Asaf received a visit from R. Jerufi, who arrived with a response from the Rebbe, which included blessings on the occasion of his bar mitzvah and a footnote that read:
“Regarding what you have asked about where one lives, the deciding factor is not where it will be personally best for the individual, or most pleasant to live, but where one can accomplish more good and where one is most needed.1 Take, for example, a doctor. A doctor should live in a place where they are needed, where people require their help, not simply in a place where their life will be pleasant. And in truth, every person needs to heal their surroundings, to bring more light and holiness.”2
There seems to be no end to causes and initiatives beckoning each of us to address the needs of those both near and far. In an age when a world of opportunity awaits, how do you decide which opportunities are most beneficially yours to pursue?
The Rebbe offers an essential principle that can help us clarify which opportunities are meant for our particular souls. Namely, a task that only you can fulfill trumps all others when deciding which needs to prioritize.
Especially in cases where specific individuals were uniquely suited to serve a particular need in the Jewish community, the Rebbe directed them to prioritize those needs, even if it meant sacrificing other competing commitments.
For example, R. Sholom Ber Lifshitz once wrote to the Rebbe during the vigorous growth of Yad L’achim, an organization he helped found in 1950 to serve the needs of an influx of Jews who flooded Israel soon after its statehood was established. Noting in his letter that his efforts had initially borne impressive fruits, he added that public response and support had fizzled, leaving him to bear the weight of responsibility. His Torah study, meanwhile, had suffered as he did his best to continue building the organization.
Writing for guidance, he asked the Rebbe, “Am I required to abandon my soul’s needs in order to attend to the souls of others?”
The Rebbe replied:
“...I was astonished at this question, coming after the Holy One, Blessed Be He, has made you successful and has given you the chance to save the souls of sons and daughters of Israel and help them remain faithful to G‑d and His Torah. And here comes your evil inclination, inciting you, saying, ‘Who knows if this is the right thing, and maybe it’s better for you to get involved in other activities, and then it would be possible for you to thrive in Torah [study], etc., etc…’
“There is a well-known legal ruling in the Gemara that a mitzvah that cannot be done by others takes precedence over Torah study (Moed Katan 9b).”3
It would be easy to listen to the whispers of the negative inclination as it seeks to instill subtle doubts about where we are needed most. But even the most sacred practices must be set aside if there is an urgent task assigned to us uniquely by Divine Providence. No matter what is tugging us in another direction, we must remain steadfastly focused on the work that is uniquely ours.
The Rebbe and the Nazi Hunter
As a young man, Tuviah Friedman was helpless as the Nazis invaded his home in Poland and sent him and his family to live in the Radom ghetto. His family was murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka, while he was sent to a labor camp from which he escaped with one ambition beyond survival—to bring the architects of the Holocaust to justice.
What began as a singular effort to capture the SS officers who oversaw the Radom ghetto would become his life’s work. During the course of his storied career, Friedman worked with various agencies and efforts to capture hundreds of war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect of the Final Solution.
Thanks to the support of his wife, who served as the family’s primary breadwinner and funded the bulk of Friedman’s hunt, he was able to continue doing the work that he believed to be so important for a long time.
After more than twenty years, his wife began insisting that he had done enough and that she could no longer fund his efforts; she asked him to call off the hunt. Still reluctant, Tuviah decided to visit the Rebbe in New York, hoping that he might help Tuviah find another way to fund his work.
“I will describe the situation to the Rebbe and hear what he has to say. If he can’t suggest another way for me to fund my work, I’ll stop and go into business,” he promised his wife.
When he met with the Rebbe for yechidut, Friedman learned that the Rebbe knew of his work but was curious to learn more. He offered stories about the many Nazis that he had brought to justice before segueing into the issue that brought him to the Rebbe, saying, “Here is my problem: I have no income. My wife has been supporting me for the past twenty years, and we can no longer afford it. Although I want to continue, I have no way to fund my work.”
The Rebbe replied, “Can you really stop? How many people are still at it? You and Simon Wiesenthal? Look at what you have accomplished so far. If you abandon this work, the Nazis will rejoice that they’ve won. Can you name someone else who is willing to take over for you? In the past twenty years, has anyone else volunteered? No. No one is interested—there is no one else! So what choice do you have?
“You must go from city to city in Germany, bringing them all to justice. This is very important for the history of the Jewish people—all the Nazi criminals must be punished for what they did. And if you don’t do it, who will?
“As far as supporting your family, here’s what I suggest: Take your book, We Shall Never Forget: The Final Solution [about the trial of Adolf Eichmann], and translate it into English. Wherever you go to speak in Jewish communities across America, take twenty copies with you. The book will sell, and you will make a living… Look at the millions of creatures in this world; they all eat and survive. G‑d looks after all His creations; He will look after you, too.”
Friedman followed the Rebbe’s advice, returned home, and took a course to improve his English. He then went on a speaking tour of Jewish communities in America, giving many paid speeches and presentations. He also issued and sold an English edition of his book, The Hunter, which together with earnings from his tours generated enough income to continue his work and even to buy a new house. Thanks to the Rebbe’s timely advice, he was able to continue his work for another forty years, and he later founded the Institute for the Documentation of Nazi War Crimes.
In an interview, he would observe, “If it weren’t for the Rebbe, I would have stopped after twenty years, and some one thousand Nazis would have gone unpunished for their crimes. The fact that they didn’t was thanks to the Rebbe’s guidance.”4
Where You Are Needed Most
This point of radical responsibility was a cardinal consideration for the Rebbe himself when deciding among the endless causes that came his way.
“People wonder why the Rebbe takes on causes that appear to have nothing to do with the Chabad movement—matters of world Jewry, Russian Jewry, events in Israel—especially when they seem like impossible causes,” a journalist once asked the Rebbe boldly.
The Rebbe replied by citing the verse: In those days, Moses grew up and went out to his brothers and observed their suffering. He saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brothers. He turned this way and that way, and he saw that there was no man; so he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.5
The Rebbe wondered aloud, “Why did Moses look all around, and only when he saw no man did he strike the Egyptian? In this time of crisis, was Moses so concerned about his own well-being?”
“He saw that there was no man can be interpreted to mean that he saw no man who cared—no one was concerned about the travesty being perpetrated against their fellow man. This is why Moses stepped in—to do what was necessary to protect innocent people from cruelty and oppression.
“When we witness an injustice and look around and no one seems to care,” the Rebbe concluded, “we must act.”6 7
The Rebbe often rooted this principle in a halachic teaching that says: “If you come across a mitzvah that only you can do, the performance of that mitzvah takes precedence over any other.”8
This was the guidance the Rebbe provided R. Dr. Abraham J. Twersky, a prominent rabbinic psychologist known for his pioneering work to address addiction and other areas of mental health in the Jewish community.
Years before achieving great renown, he was a young rabbi on the verge of becoming a practicing psychiatrist, and he went to speak to the Rebbe regarding his career. The Rebbe suggested that he move to New York so that he could serve members of the local Jewish community in need of his help, which drew immediate protest from Twersky.
“But if I am the only religious psychiatrist in New York, the load will be so immense that I may never have time to study Torah again!” he replied.
Acknowledging his rabbinic background, the Rebbe gently pushed back, citing the above-mentioned halachic principle, “A good deed that can only be performed by you takes priority over Torah study.”
“Are you the only one who can do what needs to be done? If so, then that is G‑d’s way of saying, ‘This is yours to pursue!’”9
Not So Easy Does It
From the beginning of his leadership in 1950, the Rebbe began a spiritual revolution in the Chasidic and wider Jewish world by sending young Chabad couples to the far-flung corners of the world to seek out their fellow Jews. But even in the late 1960s, almost twenty years into his initiative, it was still challenging to generate momentum for the effort.
And for those who were already in the field, there was still the occasional doubt about the value of their personal toil and the hardships they endured, being so distant from their family, community, and spiritual center.
In the following moving talk, the Rebbe addresses a seeming curiosity at the heart of the Chabad mission to create outposts everywhere in the world, including remote locales with very sparse Jewish populations.
From one perspective, this was not the best use of resources. It would appear far more efficient and strategic, one could argue, to send shluchim to the most heavily populated Jewish cities, where their impact would likely be much more pronounced. Why send shluchim to all corners of the globe, including in many instances to places with meager, forlorn Jewish populations?
At a farbrengen in 1968, the Rebbe offered the following response:
“Jewish leaders have endeavored—and most significantly of late, the Rebbes of Chabad, especially my father-in-law, the Rebbe—to disseminate Torah study and Jewish observance to all corners of the earth, even to the most remote places. Now, if one could benefit more Jews closer to home, why is it that so much effort [is expended] to reach one solitary Jew, one single family, or a few families? First of all, we are advised, especially in this era, ‘Grab whatever food and drink comes your way!’—meaning, every opportunity, for Torah and mitzvot is the sustenance, the ‘food and drink,’ of a Jew. ‘If a mitzvah comes your way, do not delay!’ If news reaches you that there is an isolated Jew far away, ‘G‑d does nothing in vain’—the very fact that you learned of it indicates that you’re expected to act upon it.
“Now, one may make calculations: ‘With the same effort required to succeed in a distant country, I can achieve many times more in closer proximity.’ First of all, you may be wrong…and it confuses and distracts you from your responsibility to rescue a fellow Jew. Additionally, Jewish law states that a mitzvah that cannot be accomplished by anyone else must be your top priority. For someone living in a populated Jewish area, there are plenty of observant Jews to reach out to him. But if you, who knows of a remote solitary Jew, do not take action, who will come to his rescue?”
Here the Rebbe refutes the utilitarian perspective that claims it is better to save many than few, declaring that if one learns of the plight of a single individual anywhere in the world, and that individual’s fate can be bettered through your efforts alone, this is G‑d’s way of saying, “This is part of your mission and responsibility, especially when no one else can help.” This becomes “a mitzvah that only you can perform.”
“Let this be the double consolation for the shluchim who are paving this unbeaten path. At times they are frustrated—whether it is kept to themselves, expressed privately to their Creator, or spoken to someone else: ‘Is it fair that I be fated to be alone, or as a couple, to save some obscure town or country, to make them aware of G‑d and his Torah? In this place I can share only the most basic concepts, because anything subtler is above them.’ …You must realize that this is G‑d’s own mission. G‑d selected you to fulfill this mission specifically in this distant place, and only through this can you achieve personal wholeness; the spiritual heights you can attain there, you could never reach if you were to remain in a place where Torah study and Jewish observance come easily.”
Your personal mission, whatever and wherever it may be, is not affected or determined by how much your soul will seemingly gain or be nourished, or even by how much, according to your calculations, you might contribute to the greater good.
In fact, the Rebbe adds:
“Here [in a more vibrant Jewish city], perhaps, one could study an extra page of Talmud or observe an additional stringency…But fortunate indeed is the lot of all those who enthusiastically journey for and fulfill this mission with joy and happiness…Their success will certainly be above and beyond nature, for G‑d Himself is there with them, and my father-in-law, the Rebbe, is with them there. And if only other Jews could merit what the shluchim attain in the farthest of lands…”10
This final, passionate point was offered as part of the Rebbe’s effort to change the mindset of his Chasidim and, by extension, the Orthodox Jewish community in general, who all-too-humanly measured their spirituality in terms of personal spiritual growth, and the heightened spiritual consciousness and engagement that comes with living in a thriving Jewish community.
In a world where one’s religious aspirations were inextricably linked to studying and mastering as much of the Torah as possible and performing mitzvot with ever growing piety and punctiliousness, leaving behind the spiritual incubator of one’s beloved community seemed likely to compromise rather than complement their holiest pursuits.
This was especially true of the Chabad nexus in Brooklyn, where the Rebbe resided and presided. To be sent on a mission far away seemed, for many, daunting at best, and at worst as a fracturing of their idyllic spiritual life. The Rebbe, however, taught otherwise without wavering. If we are here for a purpose, he declared over and over again, we must ask not what I need or want from this life, but why was I sent here, what is G‑d’s plan for me, where am I most needed, and how can I best serve in the place and the way that was designed for me specifically?
Quiz Yourself
Do the Thought Exercise
Think about where you are most needed. Does it align with where you would prefer to be?
Take the Challenge
Think of somewhere in your life you, and you alone, are qualified to help. Take one concrete step towards putting that into action.
Join the Discussion