Presidents and the Rebbe: A continuing relationship from beyond the grave - opinion

Tuesday, July 9, will mark the 30th anniversary of the passing on the Hebrew calendar of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, aka the Lubavitcher Rebbe. After the Rebbe passed, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement did not name a successor, leading some to wonder about the movement’s future viability. 

Today, with three decades behind us, we can see that while the Rebbe is physically gone, the movement is thriving. The Rebbe was perhaps best known for establishing emissaries, or shluchim, who aimed to bring Judaism and observance of the commandments to places in which both were lacking. Countless Jews have found their way back to their roots through the work of Chabad, and almost every Jew can tell a story of being an obscure corner of the world where they didn’t expect to find any Jews and then discovering that there was a Chabad shliach in the vicinity. 

This shluchim movement got a jumpstart from an unusual place. The Rebbe had been sending representatives to Jews in remote locations as far back as 1950, when he sent his first shluchim to Morocco. Yet most Chabad members, often survivors of Hitler and Stalin, understandably wished to calmly settle in the vicinity of Jewish resources like schools, synagogues, and kosher food. The Rebbe, however, had other plans for them, and President John F. Kennedy gave the Rebbe another chance to challenge his followers. 

On March 1, 1961, Kennedy issued an executive order creating the Peace Corps, a volunteer service in which Americans would go around the world to help people in developing countries. The next day, March 2, the Rebbe told his followers to leave their Brooklyn environs and go help Jews wherever they may be in need. In his speech, the Rebbe specifically said that although he had issued a similar call before, now “G-d is reminding you through the President.” 

The Rebbe’s speech gave his followers the push they needed, and helped make the thousands of shluchim, and not any one rabbi, the face of the Chabad movement today. The Rebbe’s 1961 call out to Kennedy started a long tradition of interactions between the Rebbe and presidents that in its own way continues to this very day.

In 1964, the Rebbe sent Lyndon Johnson a note thanking him for “taking a personal interest in the situation of the Jewish personnel at Thule Air Base, who had been left without a Jewish Chaplain for Yom Kippur.” Richard Nixon wrote to the Rebbe that “Your dedication to the teaching of your faith has made the Lubavitcher movement an asset not only to the Jewish religion but to all citizens.” Gerald Ford wrote in 1975 that the Rebbe’s “efforts on behalf of education…have perpetuated a legacy that is a source of comfort and courage to many of our citizens."

Jimmy Carter created some permanence to the relationship, establishing an annual Education and Sharing Day in honor of the Rebbe. Every president since has signed a statement for that day in honor of the Rebbe’s birthday, statements that give insight into how each administration saw how its goals corresponded to the Rebbe’s teachings.

Ronald Reagan used his statement to note that “the Rebbe's work stands as a reminder that knowledge is an unworthy goal unless it is accompanied by moral and spiritual wisdom and understanding.” George H.W. Bush echoed the Rebbe’s teachings when he focused on the bible’s Noahide laws that apply not just to Jews, but to all mankind. 

Upon the Rebbe’s death, Bill Clinton issued a statement calling the Rebbe “a monumental man who as much as any other individual, was responsible over the last half a century for advancing the instruction of ethics and morality to our young people.” He also granted the Rebbe a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal.

Since the Rebbe’s passing

Since the Rebbe’s passage, these presidential interactions have continued via the annual proclamations: George W. Bush spoke of Chabad centers as “beacons of hope” that “communicate the Rebbe's ideal of living a meaningful life through personal responsibility and dedication to those in need”; Barack Obama praised the rebbe’s focus on “the importance of education and good character”; Donald Trump emphasized that “each person has a unique purpose that can be unleashed through an individual, whole-of-person approach to education”; and Joe Biden said that the Rebbe “celebrated the rich diversity of our Nation, advocating throughout for compassion and learning.”

In these annual statements, we can see a dialogue in which each president enumerates his goals, but does so in a way that recognizes what the Rebbe was trying to accomplish. In this way, even though the Rebbe has now been gone for three decades. his dialogue with American presidents. not to mention Jews and the entire world, continues. 

Tevi Troy is a former White House aide and senior scholar at Yeshiva University’s Straus Center. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including the forthcoming “The Power and the Money: Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.”