With the passing of Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, thousands of shluchim have been left bereft of their general and their best friend

Photos: Meir Haltovsky, Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch

You may have been there yourself and directly felt the electric energy; you may have only seen the video clips and watched as that energy jumped off the screen.

The Torah poured forth in flowing Yiddish, expounding on a potpourri of chassidus, halachah, dikduk and aggadah; even those who didn’t fully understand were able to follow the rise and fall of his voice, the sharp emphases followed by the slowly released intonation. They sensed a truth that transcended verbalization.

Then they would break into song, and the square gray-white beard topped by the sharply bent hat brim would blur as his forearm went up and down, up and down. The crowd’s voices swelled and quickened to the rhythm of the forearm’s pace.

Then he’d speak again. More Torah, more chassidus. More energy.

And more hope for a day when the keilim, the vessels, will be able to accept the ohr.

The concept of ohr and keilim is a fundamental one in the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and one that characterized all that he did. There is a great ohr, a Heavenly light, waiting to descend upon this world, as we transform it into a dirah batachtonim, “a dwelling place for the Shechinah in the lower world” by our own deeds.

But this light is too great for us to withstand. Our keilim, our “receptacles,” are too feeble, too fragile, to contain it. Should the Great Light descend, unfiltered and unconcealed, the vessels would shatter.

But there will come a day, the Rebbe taught, when that will change. Our keilim will become strong enough to withstand the greatest of all lights.

When the Lubavitcher Rebbe took on the role of leadership in 1950, he set an impossibly high bar for himself. His position as the Rebbe of Chabad chassidim would comprise only a fraction of his life’s mission; the end goal, as he outlined in his very first maamar, famously titled “Basi L’gani” (lit. "I came to My garden") was to fortify a “dirah batachtonim,” a dwelling place for the Shechinah in this lower world.

The Rebbe sought to bring down the ohr. And for that, he needed keilim —  vessels so strong and durable that they could contain even the greatest light.

The Rebbe was a master at delegating, and he handpicked sergeants, officers, colonels, and lieutenants, to serve in the army that he built.

And then there was the general.

Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky was the man whom the Rebbe entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing the entire network of shluchim across the globe.

There was so much ohr ready to descend. Rabbi Kotlarsky was there to provide the keilim.