Posted on 11/04/21
The annual International Conference of Chabad emissaries, following a hiatus last year due to the pandemic, has returned. Last weekend, more than 4,000 emissaries gathered in New York from all the corners of the globe together with 1,000 of their children. Shimshon Tzvi Reznick, an 11-year-old from California, delivered the central speech before the emissary children, as follows:
"A newspaper editor from Los Angeles once entered the Rebbe's study and remained there for many hours. The Rebbe spoke with him about many things. At one point, the Rebbe spoke with him about the importance of spreading Judaism through his newspaper. The editor said to the Rebbe: How can I teach when I don't know enough myself? The Rebbe answered: There are some things that you know. Who gave you the right to keep what you know to yourself?
If the Rebbe said this to a newspaper editor, what does this story teach each one of us? We are perhaps not big enough or old enough, and we do not know nearly as much as our parents, but who gave us the right to keep what we know to ourselves? If you know the letter alef - teach alef.
On Shabbat evening in California, I share a Torah though in front of people older than I am and on Sunday I teach alef and beit to kids who come to 'Sunday school,' to say nothing of greeting people I pass on the street with 'Shabbat shalom.'
I look out at this gathering and see so many opportunities to do more. Let's all choose something small, one mitzvah that we will suggest that someone do, a neighbor to whom we will turn out of a sense of obligation. Fellow emissaries, let's all share with those around us what we have inside us. We have no right to keep everything to ourselves."