The Chabad-Lubavitch organization is the glue holding the Jewish people together.

Years ago, I read the story of a Jew who lived in occupied Holland. He noted that the only Jews who made any effort to show that they were Jewish were Chabad chasids. Everyone else tried to hide their Jewishness, but not Chabad. After the war, when he made his way to New York, he decided to join Chabad and became close to its late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, OBM.

When Rabbi Schneerson passed away in 1994, one might have thought the movement would have withered and died. It was he and his father-in-law who sent "shluchim" or representatives to the far corners of the world to bring the light of Judaism wherever they set up shop. A while back, I read that a new Chabad center or facility opens on average every three days. And Chabad is everywhere. One can go to Vietnam or Nepal and find a Chabad house. The same is true in countries big and small, cities and towns throughout the world. When we took a couple of days at Lake Tahoe, I called a rabbi who had just arrived. In Vegas, the Summerlin Chabad House was our second home.

I am quite partial to Chabad, as I became religiously observant through the Chabad House in Madison, Wisconsin. For me, it was an opportunity to find meaning in Judaism. I was brought up, like most young American Jews, with a little bit of Judaism—enough for a bar mitzvah but not enough to interfere with a promising career. In one generation, my family went from Ellis Island to Harvard University. For me, Chabad gave my Judaism a new purpose. For friends and family, my transformation was either strange or unfortunate. Our oldest grandson just lit his first Chanukah candles. Without Chabad, I doubt that I would have grandchildren, and if I did, they would more likely turn on their iPhones rather than light the lights that Jews have been lighting for over........

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