By Rabbi Shmuly Begun in San Diego
In the spring of 1984, Chaim Groisman, a Jew living on the small Caribbean island of Curaçao, sat down to write a letter to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Chaim’s son Eli was having a hard time in school, being one of the only Jewish children in a Protestant environment. A few weeks earlier, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky had arrived on the island, sent by the Rebbe to strengthen the Jewish community there. He was guided straight to Chaim and was able to help with exactly what his son needed.
Overwhelmed with gratitude, Chaim picked up his pen, but struggled to find the right words. “Please tell the Rebbe,” he wrote to Rabbi Kotlarsky, “that a small Jew from Curaçao felt that the Rebbe touched his soul.”
A few days later, he received a response from the Rebbe: “There is no such thing as ‘a small Jew,’ and a Jew must never underestimate his or her tremendous potential.”
In that simple response, the Rebbe revealed the lens through which he saw every Jew, not as they appeared on the outside, but as the infinite soul they carried within.
If you look past the surface, the Rebbe lived and taught, you will find a pure and infinite soul that G-d placed within every Jew, one that has always been there and can never be taken away. The soul does not come in sizes. It knows no distance and recognizes no limits. Every individual’s soul carries the power to transform reality through a single thought, a single word, or a single action.
The first Jewish leader, Moses, was chosen because he understood the infinite worth of a single individual. G-d chose him to eventually lead the Jewish people out of Egypt because of how he treated one wandering sheep, searching tirelessly until he found it.
G-d knew that a man who would not abandon a single sheep would never abandon a single Jew. The Rebbe carried that same conviction, and built a movement upon it.
Because the Rebbe believed no Jew was ever too small, he devoted hours at children’s rallies to speaking directly with young boys and girls, handing each child a coin for charity and treating every one of them as the future of the Jewish people. From that vision grew the Chabad Hebrew School network and Camp Gan Israel, giving thousands of Jewish children their first real taste of their heritage.
Because the Rebbe believed no Jew was ever lost, he taught us to embrace every kind of Jew, much like the Four Sons at the Passover Seder. Each one is essential and belongs at the table, even the wicked son. But the Rebbe didn’t stop there. He urged us to go out and find the Fifth Son: the Jew who doesn’t show up to the Seder, who doesn’t know to light the menorah on Chanukah, who has never heard the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, or who perhaps doesn’t even know he is Jewish. Love him unconditionally. Help him wholeheartedly. Because to the Rebbe, no Jew is ever truly lost.
Because the Rebbe believed no Jew was ever too far, Chabad has reached the most remote corners of the world, so that no Jew should ever feel their Judaism is out of reach. Today, there is a Chabad presence in over 100 countries, including 14 throughout the Caribbean, inspired by the Rebbe’s vision. Among them is Chabad of Curaçao, which opened its doors in 2017.
As we mark the 32nd anniversary of the Rebbe’s passing, we carry his mandate forward: look past the surface, see what is sometimes hidden, the infinite Divine spark in your fellow Jew, and in yourself, the soul that has no limits.
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Rabbi Shmuly Begun is the director of Chabad of Tierrasanta. He also serves as a Judaic Studies faculty member at Torah High School and a member of the Kaiser Permanente Spiritual Care Team.