AS in many chassidic courts, the kvittel is written by the gabbai. At the side of the long table sits the Rebbe’s personal attendant, Rabbi Bentzion Stanger, one of the most respected figures in Vizhnitz. Before entering the Rebbe, people sit at his side and speak discreetly. During the conversation, Reb Bentzion helps consolidate their needs into concise words.

And now, it’s our turn. There is a moment of silence as the Rebbe lifts his pure eyes and seems to examine us far beyond our external appearance.

His voice whispers quietly. He speaks, perhaps to us, perhaps to himself, with a few cryptic words: “Eis la’asos l’Hashem, heifeiru Torasecha (Tehillim 119) — A time to act for Hashem, they have violated Your Torah,” he says, quoting an explanation that fleshes out this pasuk.

The Gemara in Berachos explains that the verse has two meanings. It can be read from beginning to end, or from end to beginning. It can be understood as an instruction that in certain times and generations, there is no choice but to make new decrees in order to “act for Hashem.” But there’s another explanation as well: In desperate times, when Torah is scarce in the world, even the simple people can “disperse” and speak words of inspiration to the public.

The Rebbe doesn’t elaborate further. For a moment, we think perhaps his meaning refers to our profession, our responsibility with the written word that is read by so many. In any case, it’s pretty clear to us that we’ve been given a directive to use our platform to “act for Hashem.”

The Rebbe shakes our hands and proceeds to bless us and pray for our personal needs. When we request a blessing that no mistakes come from our hands, the Rebbe pauses again. “Of course,” he whispers. And for a moment, it seems that in this context, more than the Rebbe wishes to bless, he is urging us to be careful, so that no error, nothing that could hurt another Jew, will emerge, G-d forbid.

The Rebbe leaves us with another message as well: “We need to act — not to achieve.” The Rebbe doesn’t demand results, only effort.

This is true, the Rebbe believes, for every sacred activity. For the Rebbe, concerns about what people will say or how they’ll react never cross his mind. He enters the fray himself, speaks, asks, and, when necessary, even lobbies. Often, someone will enter the Rebbe’s room and leave in amazement. “I thought I was entering the chamber of the Rebbe of Vizhnitz,” the person who was in before us said. “But inside, I realized I was in the presence of a rebbe who’s there for every Jew.”

For the Rebbe, if a Jew is in need, that’s all that matters, regardless of sectorial or religious affiliation. Last year, at the beginning of the war when there were over a thousand burials and myriad shattered families sitting shivah, the Rebbe sent a pair of chassidim to every levayah and every shivah house.

This year hasn’t been easy for the Jewish people as a whole, and the Rebbe is clear that there is only one remedy for this entire era: Emunah. Only emunah.

Since the outbreak of Covid, Jews in Eretz Yisrael have been forced into a whirlwind of faith and trust. It began with the pandemic, continued with the tragic disaster of Lag B’omer in Meron, was followed by a difficult period of budget cuts and harassment of the chareidi sector, topped by the tragedies of the recent war: the dead, the captives, the wounded, and those displaced from their homes.

As a leader of the large Vizhnitz chassidic community, the Rebbe operates on two fronts. Following the tradition of his holy ancestors, he doesn’t shy away from activism. He’s been seen at the Prime Minister’s residence; and there was the famous meeting with the Minister of Communications over the issue of maintaining kosher phones.

At that time, some close chassidim tried to dissuade the Rebbe. “He won’t listen anyway,” they explained, “and you’re just degrading yourself by schlepping to his office and not the other way around.”

“I don’t expect him to listen,” the Rebbe responded. “My job is to act.” The Rebbe tells the story of a Gerrer chassid who responded to his rebbe’s call and worked on behalf of Agudah’s election campaign. On election day he worked around the clock, and at ten o’clock, when the polls closed, he went to the shtibel and didn’t even bother to check the results.

“What do I care about the outcome?” he said. “My job was to act, and now it’s in Hashem’s hands.”

The Rebbe’s central message, one that runs through all his guidance, derashos, and personal instruction, is that a Jew must never lose control in any situation. In his words: “A Jew must never lose himself.” Even in the most difficult circumstances, he says, a Jew must assert his faith and use it to overcome challenges.

The Rebbe recently gave his chassidim a homework exercise, to “train yourselves in faith.”

“Emunah,” the Rebbe explained, “is one of the foundations of Judaism and religion. When Jews encounters difficult situations — whether a war or a plague — they are obligated to believe that nothing happens by chance, and everything that occurs under the sun is declared by Him.

“Faith comes from the same root as ‘training,’ ” the Rebbe continued. “For a person to achieve true faith, a person must train diligently. It’s easy for a person to make verbal proclamations of faith and trust, especially when things are going well and luck is smiling upon them. But then, suddenly, the moment of testing arrives. This happens to everyone, both in personal and public life. Something occurs that confuses them. They are required to believe in the power of HaKadosh Baruch Hu and trust in His all-powerful ability. And here lies the test: When facing difficulty, does the person turn to faith and trust in G-d, or do they turn to their intellect and seek out futile schemes?”

“And for this test,” the Rebbe cried out, “it’s not enough for us to be called ‘maaminim’ — we have an obligation to actually live up to that title. We must reach the point where, in moments of disaster and danger, when everyone around us is gripped by fear, our faith will be strong enough to revive the entire environment. We need to strengthen ourselves by repeating, ‘There is no such thing as coincidence in the world, and there is nothing that can prevent Hashem from saving us.’ In such moments, we must embed within ourselves the well-known truth that everything comes from Him, both good and bad, and then the root of a person’s faith dispels their fears and gives them the courage to believe in the possibility of salvation.”

But all of this is just an incidental gain — the fact that a person can deal with fear. The real gift is the faith itself. “This is the deeply ingrained true faith that has been passed down to us from generation to generation,” the Rebbe said. “This is how people lived in previous generations. And this is what we need to pass on to future generations.”

There are many eloquent speakers who talk about faith. But listening to the Vizhnitzer Rebbe takes it to a new level. From the personal challenges he has faced and continues to face, he has created a complete Torah of faith based on one principle: “Tzaddik b’emunaso yichyeh — The righteous shall live by his faith.”

And he himself lived it. For 18 years, from 1984 until 2002, Rav Yisrael Hager privately mourned an event that no one understood, something that no one could even question. Inexplicably, he’d been banished from his father’s court. Rav Yisrael accepted the decree in silence, serving Hashem in his own corner, in solitude.

The chassidim understood that the entire matter was beyond their comprehension. Rav Yisrael himself warned them not to become involved in the affair, for it would be playing with a dangerous fire. He calls those years “the sweet years,” for it was then that his soul was purified in the crucible of suffering.

At the time, the Rebbe maintained a relationship with Rav Yankele of Pshevorsk in Antwerp, who remarked about him, “You will yet see thousands of people crowding in the shade of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe’s son and flocking to receive brachos from his mouth.” Reb Yankele uttered these words during the days of Rav Yisrael’s banishment; at the time, it seemed like a far-off fantasy.

Many years later, at the first Seudah Shlishis after the Rebbe’s coronation — with the lights off according to Vizhnitz tradition — the crowd held their breath as the Rebbe began to speak. “What is there for me to say?” he began tearfully. “How can I speak? My great, holy father has left us for his eternal rest, and we are left behind in sorrow.” The Rebbe began to sob unchecked tears, and then continued, “My holy ancestors, beginning with the Ahavas Shalom, led this congregation and they were worthy of it. The years of their youth were years of greatness. For me, unfortunately, it is not the same.

“It’s very hard for me to be called the Rebbe. But that is the way things are done; it is the way of the world, and I have no choice. But I ask that the accompanying title of ‘kevod kedushas’ not be added at all, neither in private nor in public, for there is no truth to it.”

Then Shabbos was over and the fluorescents went on, leaving over 5,000 men squinting in the light, watching as their new rebbe hid his own face in his hands.

An elderly chassid passed by and whispered to him, “You’re my fourth rebbe. I had a relationship with the Ahavas Yisrael, with the Imrei Chaim, with your father, the Yeshuos Moshe, and now with you. I refuse to accept your statement that you are not worthy.”

Feeling worthy or not, once thing about the Rebbe is that he’s always refused the trappings of pomp. For years he traveled in an old-model Citroën — instructing his gabbai that anyone needing a ride should be picked up. One of the chassidim finally told him it was time for a new car, more appropriate for his status. Rav Yisrael couldn’t understand why.

“It’s not a nice car,” the chassid explained.

“Nu, so put flowers on it,” Rav Yisrael replied.

The situation remained that way until the car died. At that point, he allowed a new car to be purchased, but with two stipulations: it had to be secondhand, and it could not be a German make.

While the Rebbe was weak in the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, he somehow rallied during Yom Tov, leading the davening as usual. The Rebbe approached each prayer, igniting hearts as his eyes lifted upward, hands outstretched toward heaven, and through his very movements, the Rebbe conveyed one message: to cast our burdens upon the Creator and trust in Him at every moment.

He still has a flock to lead, and that means that when a chassid has a problem, that problem becomes his own personal issue, and he’ll take personal action to help, to gather resources, to organize, and to make sure everything is taken care of. He won’t rest until the matter is resolved.

“A Jew must never lose himself,” the Rebbe often says, meaning that no matter what curveballs come his way, he needs to keep his internal equilibrium, realizing that, painful or devastating as a situation is, it is all from Hashem who is intrinsically good.

Chassidim will never forget the morning when the Rebbe attended a bris milah for a great-grandson. And then, just hours later, he attended the funeral of another great-grandson — joy turning to mourning in a matter of hours. The Rebbe removed his festive attire and went to participate in the funeral.

Even in the current situation in Eretz Yisrael, with rockets flying in every direction, the Rebbe insists on seeing the points of light. His perspective on all the world’s “news” is heavenly and different. After the night of the Iranian attack in Nissan, the Rebbe called his trusted friend and confidant, MK Yaakov Tessler. Everyone was talking about the miraculous interception technology of the US and Israel, but the Rebbe was in another world: “There were great miracles for the Jews,” he said. “We have just received a gift of kindness. We may not need to retaliate.” Tessler thought this was a political or security directive, but the Rebbe explained further: “That we do not need to respond means that the G-d-fearing public should understand that we just experienced a great miracle. We need to change our perspective.”

The Rebbe, who suffered so much in his own life, wants his chassidim to empathize with the suffering of others as well. Recently, a man struggling with a child who had strayed from the path entered the Rebbe’s room, spending a long time alone with the Rebbe.

“What do you think the Rebbe did for me?” the man shared afterward. “He cried with me. Only after crying with me did he give me advice on how to cope. I felt that he truly shared in my pain.”

In fact, it’s not uncommon for troubled young people to receive a personal phone call from the Rebbe. “This is Yisrael Hager speaking,” the Rebbe says simply. “I just wanted to bless you with a kesivah v’chasimah tovah for the new year.”

Petitioners who come to the Rebbe already know by now that they can expect strong words from this ultimate empathizer. To parents of a struggling child, the Rebbe told them, “Yes, I know. Sometimes you have mixed and difficult emotions. On one hand, you feel compassion for the child who is struggling and lost in life. But at the same time, you’re overwhelmed by feelings of anger toward them and their behavior. They cause you so much pain and shame.

“Sometimes, it doesn’t stop there, and they even demand strange and expensive things from you. Not only do they cause you grief, but they also ask for your help. It’s truly difficult. Parents don’t always know how to respond to this. The truth is, there are no rules. It’s a delicate art to balance the immense love for the child with the pain from their behavior, all while maintaining the fundamental principles that a Jewish and chassidic home must be governed by. These are not simple matters.”

Finding the delicate balance between love and pain, between devastation and support, is not just for such parents, but for everyone.

The Rebbe invokes the words we’re all saying these days, from Elul through Succos: “These nine words should be on our lips at all times and in every situation,” the Rebbe says: “Kavei el Hashem, chazak v’ameitz libecha v’kavei el Hashem — Be strong, let your heart take courage, and put your hope in Hashem (Tehillim 27). I always tell parents of struggling children, or anyone in dire straits, to sing a niggun with these words. Because when you reflect on these words, you understand that the only thing to do is to hope in Hashem, strengthen and fortify your hearts, and then hope in Hashem again. This is the way a Jew faces challenges.

“And I can testify from many, many cases that this emunah brings with it tremendous salvations,” the Rebbe continues. “Faith draws down blessing, and it draws down salvation. Even if everything around you seems dark and bleak and hopeless, it can all change in an instant.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1033)