To many he was a saintly scholar and to others, a spiritual giant. Some knew him as an inspiring leader and still others, as a dear friend. But above all, anyone who ever came in contact with him would agree that a persona of the Rebbe’s vision, spirit and selfless dedication comes along perhaps once in a generation.

Beyond the sheer magnitude of his leadership, the wide scope of his knowledge and warm sensitivity of his understanding the Rebbe was loved and regarded by all simply for being "the Rebbe"

Born in the Russian town of Nikolaev in 1902, Menachem Mendel Schneerson moved with his family to Yekatrineslav at the age of seven. Even at that young age he already showed promising signs of great maturity and leadership.

His mother, the Rebetzin Chanah, of blessed memory, recalls in her memoirs a certain pogrom, in which a group of Jewish families huddled together in an underground shelter to hide from the murderous mobs. When the children began to cry some of the adults were afraid that the sound of the sobbing would alert the mobs to their hiding place. The Rebbe, then a young child himself, approached these children in a calm and mature manner, gave them some candy and coaxed them into a quiet children’s game, thereby saving the lives of the entire group.

In his parents home, the Rebbe learned the true nature of Jewish responsibility and leadership. His father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the chief Rabbi for the city of Yekatrineslav, constantly encouraged his congregation to continue their Jewish practice and observance despite the dangers of the strict communist regime.

In 1929 the Rebbe married Chaya Mushka, the daughter of the then Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak Schneerson, and went on to University studies in Berlin and Paris. It may have been there that his formidable knowledge of mathematics and science began to blossom.

More influential, though, to his particular approach to the understanding of Judaism, were his combined studies under both his father and father-in-law. The Rebbe developed a unique and rare ability to unite the exoteric and the esoteric, the simple and the complex, utilizing both his deep mystical knowledge and broad scientific understanding of the world.

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