A Leader Who Transcends Himself

The Lubavitcher Rebbe might have the most well-known face in the history of the Jewish people. His countenance smiles upon you from overpasses, gently reminds you from the walls of homes to grow, and wishes you well in the terminals of airports. It is nearly impossible to travel on the highways of Israel without encountering the face of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

While the immediate precipitants to this ubiquity are easily identifiable, the Rebbe himself taught to always try to disclose deeper and relevant messages that underlie worldly phenomena. In that spirit, we can ask—what is the providential lesson behind the fame of the Rebbe’s face? And, more importantly, what does it mean for our practical service of G-d?

While I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, perhaps an explanation may be found in a curious feature of the Rebbe’s teachings. The Rebbe’s Torah spans the gamut of topics in Jewish tradition, history, and life. Included in his vast corpus are numerous passages about individual figures and their roles in G-d’s historical plans. The Rebbe wove together intellectual and spiritual biographies of many great Jewish leaders, from Abraham and Moses to his own teachers, such as his father and the Rogatchover Gaon. He analyzed their personalities, achievements, and legacy for us today.

Interestingly, this focus on individuals ends with the generation before him. For example, the Rebbe described in great detail the historical role of each of the leaders of Chabad in advancing G-d’s redemptive plan. But in his over forty years of public teaching as the leader of Chabad, he never discussed his own place in the chain. 

In fact, as students of the Rebbe’s Torah know, the seventh Rebbe of Chabad nearly excised himself completely from the conceptual framework of his own talks. In over seventy thousand pages of transcribed and written material, he assiduously avoided speaking in first person. In the very first discourse he delivered after assuming leadership of the movement, in which he highlighted the role of tzaddikim, i.e., religious leadership in the world, he described his six predecessors before moving on to speak of the seventh generation, including everyone within it, and never mentioned himself. 

When I initially realized the Rebbe’s aversion to speaking in first person, I thought it might be attributable to a combination of privacy and piety. But, upon further learning and reflection, it seems reasonable to argue that the Rebbe was, in fact, intentionally implementing a deeply held philosophy.

The Rebbe often spoke of the concept of bittul (effacement) before a greater entity. The ideal person, according to his teachings, does not primarily self-identify as an autonomous and distinct individual with clear boundaries, but as part of a greater whole. A person’s identity should be subsumed by the greatness of his teachers, integrated into the totality of the Jewish people, and, ultimately, utterly effaced before the all-encompassing Presence of the Divine. 

Importantly, bittul is not primarily about self-negation. It does not reduce all people to a state of homogenized blandness. Rather, bittul is about realizing that the entirety of one’s unique personhood was created by G-d to express something greater than oneself.  

This point is demonstrated by the analogies employed by Chabad Chasidut and further developed by the Rebbe to describe bittul. Tanya describes the consciousness of bittul in terms of the rays of the sun*. In Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s depiction, we are all unique rays of sun that on the surface appear independent but are ultimately subsumed into the source of light itself. The true nature and purpose of each unique ray can be understood only when the ray is seen as a vehicle to express its source. 

Similarly, the Rebbe noted** that earlier Chabad writings pointed to the moment of the appearance of the new moon as signifying the consciousness of bittul. On the one hand, this is when the moon becomes visible and, from our perspective, comes into existence. But it is also the moment when we realize that the moon’s radiance is only a reflection of the sun’s. Once again, the moon exists as a unique entity, but as one that can be best understood as a vehicle to express a light that is greater than its own.

The Rebbe seems to have embodied this balance. On the one hand, he was the practical leader of his Chasidim, a group that grew both in numbers and in impact during his tenure. In addition, his teachings, messages, and personal kindness inspired and still inspire millions of people. He clearly articulated a bold vision of a better world and worked tirelessly to create it. By all accounts, he was a leader with a strong presence who accomplished amazing feats.

Yet he never took credit for it. His talks and letters do not intimate any aggrandizement of self. It was always about the “other”—his father-in-law (the previous leader of Chabad), the Chasidim, the Jewish people, the world, and ultimately G-d. The vision of a redeemed world enchanted and challenged him precisely because it would end the suffering and bring the flourishing of all these “others.” Even as the Rebbe was a presence, his self-erasure from his own books demonstrates that he lived and toiled to express and better the broader existence of which he was part. 

Perhaps this is why the Rebbe merited the publicity that he deservedly holds today. There is a rabbinic adage that one who flees from honor merits to have honor chase him. During his lifetime, the Rebbe effaced himself from his own teachings. Perhaps this contributed to the Jewish people’s adulation and admiration of him.

In our visual age, then, the Rebbe’s image has come to symbolize an idea much larger than himself. It reminds us that it is precisely by focusing on the “other” and seeing oneself as part of the greater whole through which one can achieve the consciousness of bittul. It is through this perspective that divinity can shine through us and elevate the world.

Rabbi Dr. Yosef Bronstein received rabbinic ordination and a Ph.D. in Talmudic Studies from Yeshiva University. He is the Rosh Bet Midrash of Machon Zimrat Haaretz, a community learning center in Efrat, Israel, and the author of  Engaging the Essence: The Philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (New Milford: Maggid Books, 2024).

* See, for example, Likkutei Amarim, chapter 33.

**  See, for example, Maamar BaChodesh HaShlishi 5729, se’if 5, Torat Menachem, Hitvaaduyot 5729 (Brooklyn: Kehot, 2014), 1:185.