What is The Job Description of a Rebbe?
What is a Rebbe?
Why must every Jew be connected to a Rebbe?
The following is a unique yechidus (audience) of the Rebbe that took place in the winter of 1969 with a Chabad supporter, reprinted with permission from the "Zionist Archives" of Jerusalem. Included is a unique photo of the Rebbe, with special thanks to the "Rebbe Archive."
Good Shabbos.
Menachem.
"Strength of a Leader"
Question: The Rebbe's energy is so instrumental in helping us serve G-d properly, how is it possible that we still have free will?
The Rebbe: The Torah says, regarding Moshe Rabbeinu: "I stand between G-d and the Jewish people," because connecting directly with G-d is a challenge. The Yidden (Jews) pleaded with G-d to place an intermediary between the Yidden and G-d. Each generation has its own Moshe Rabbeinu.
To understand this from a worldly perspective: when a regular person has an appointment to speak with the king, it is such a momentous occasion that in preparation for even a brief audience, the person dons brand new clothes and buys new shoes. He will need to know in advance what to speak about and, more importantly, how to speak to a king.
How does such a person prepare himself? He contacts an official or a lawmaker who is intricately familiar with the laws and customs of speaking to a king, and who will advise him on how to get a message across to a king.
The same applies spiritually: G-d intended for you to get involved in a specific type of business through which you became, Baruch HaShem, very wealthy. Now your avodah (task) is also to give tzedakah (charity). There are times during the year, like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when it is relatively easy for a Yid to communicate directly with G-d. However, reaching G-d on your own on a regular basis is a very difficult task. You go to a tzadik (holy man), who knows how to speak to G-d, and this tzadik communicates on your behalf.
Regarding your question of free will: A wealthy and respectable person who wants to build a house still needs to find a contractor who will actually do the work, an architect to make the blueprints etc.; he will have to find someone specific for each detail of the house. In building a house it is impossible for one person to do everything.
It is true that there may be some people who are wealthy and they are also contractors themselves and this person can build a house on his own, but only a select few individuals can do all things involved in building a house.
When this wealthy person builds a house, the fact that he relies on various different people, with different professions, doesn't mean that his image as a wealthy and respectful person is diminished. Rather, he needs money to pay other professionals to do the various tasks, and without money, he indeed would not get anywhere.
The same in spirituality: a Yid who is occupied with business and with giving charity still needs a tzadik for help. On his own, a Yid does not have sufficient merits; he therefore needs the tzadik to elevate him closer to G-d.
For example: how do you connect a Yid here in Brooklyn who gives money in order to help free a Yid in Russia? How a can a Yid in Russia give someone a part in a mitzvah? The same thing regarding a Yid from here who gives money, enabling a Yid in Tel Aviv to don tefillin -- how are those two people connected?
The fact that the Yid from here is connected to me and the Yid who is in Russia is also connected to me, and I know how to speak to the Above, I connect both of these Yidden together. I am a physical human being like you. It is just that G-d gave me the strength to help out Yidden.
