A stranger who heard them this week would think they had a message page, or at least one message they received from on high that they were passing on.
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Laconic, dry, but with confidence and simplicity, they say: We simply do what needs to be done.
'"We salute you," I wrote to Avraham Wolf, the rabbi of Odessa, just after he said goodbye to the orphan buses and stayed in the city, and he answered me laconically: Nothing, we're just doing what needs to be done.
My wife was talking to her good friend Hani Gopin. She and her husband, Rabbi Shalom Gopin, left Kiev, arrived in the city of Iasi, which they had just read about on Wikipedia, and instead of going to rest after dozens of hours of travel, they set up a huge pot of hard-boiled eggs, and their young children prepared cucumbers and other vegetables, so that the next refugees - whom they don't yet know - would have something to satisfy their hunger.
'"You are champions, my wife told her" - and she replied with the same message: We are simply doing what needs to be done, nothing special.
Rabbi Mendy Glitzenstein, his wife Pnina and their family from the city of Czernowitz cared for thousands of refugees, sleepless nights and days in a row. 'Mendy, you are our heroes,' I told him. And he just replied from the Chabad message board: We simply did what was needed at that moment.
Shall I continue? This is what they answered me, Rabbi Yossi Wolf who remained in besieged Kherson, Rabbi Motti Lebenharetz who left an active kitchen in Kiev, my brother Rabbi Pinchas for all his work, and so on, everyone, one by one, even Rabbi Dovber Orgad of Cloisz (Clauisenburg) who devoted himself day and night to feeding everyone who came, and hundreds came, answered me with the same laconic, dry but sure and simple message: We are simply doing what is needed at the moment.
A little thought and deepening will reveal that this is indeed the central message of Lubavitch since its inception: first and foremost, you simply do what needs to be done at that moment.
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In the early 1970s, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l asked to meet Chabad followers who had just left Soviet Russia.
In a meeting between Rabbi Moshe and Rabbi Yankel Notik, the late Rabbi, who was one of those unsung heroes who gave their lives for the observance of the Torah and the commandments in Russia day by day and hour by hour, Rabbi Moshe asked him: How did you do it? To stand so firmly on a light as on a heavy subject in the face of the forces of evil?
And Rabbi Yankel Notik said the same message, from the same ancient Lubavitch message page: "Did we have any other choice?" (-Did we have any other choice?). This is what was required, this is what we did.
I don't know, I'm moved to the core by this laconic, dry but safe and simple thing.
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Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, was the main architect in the construction of the Tabernacle of the Lord. He supervised everything, he was consulted about everything, he knew everything, he was the one who actually built the Tabernacle.
My friend Rabbi Uriel Silbiger, rabbi of the 'Agudat Achim' in Basel, mentioned to me last night that Bezalel is very special in his eyes, he did everything, managed everything, and a moment after the construction of the Tabernacle he disappeared from the radar (almost completely), no one hears about him, no one reads about him, he simply did what was assigned to him and returned to his obscurity.
In fact, if you examine it, you will see that already in the second verse, the Torah summarizes everything that Bezalel did with the following words: And Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 'did everything that the Lord commanded Moses' - thus laconic, dry, yet certain and simple.
Such a message page.
He who makes peace in His heights, He will make peace with us.
