Perhaps one of the most common associations people have with the name Lubavitch is the Rebbe’s mitzvah campaigns. Be it the chassidim who put on tefillin with the visitors to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the self-sacrificing Rabbinical students who man the mitzvah tanks that operate in the streets of New York and many other cities, the girls who visit women in hospitals and nursing homes and give them the opportunity to light Shabbos candles, or the thousands of shluchim, both those employed in that capacity and those who give up their spare time to accept this mantle upon themselves, who tirelessly work to spread Jewish observance,- at one point or another, almost every Jew in the world has met a Lubavitcher who has invited him to perform a mitzvah.

Why such an emphasis on observance? Why not spread Jewish ideas, and let the actual observance of the mitzvos come totally on the person’s own initiative?

First of all, there is a pragmatic dimension. Our Sages teach:1 One mitzvah draws another after it.” As the many thousands whose Torah observance has increased because of casual exposure to one of the Lubavitch mitzvah campaigns can attest, this maxim is as true today as it was in Talmudic times.

But there is a deeper reason that surpasses even motives of this nature. The word mitzvah relates to the Aramaic term tzavsa, meaning “connection.” Every mitzvah is a bond connecting us to G‑d’s essence. When a Jew performs a mitzvah whoever he is and wherever he is he is uniting himself with G‑d. The bond achieved at that moment reflects the fundamental purpose of creation; there is nothing higher, nothing more perfect.

For the Rebbe, these were not abstract points, but realities that he lived, and encouraged others to live.