This week, during a speech by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Dr. Yechiel Leiter, at the banquet of the International Conference of Chabad Emissaries, I reflected on the inspiration the world draws from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Two English words, repeated in the ambassador’s speech, suddenly took on an additional meaning.
The ambassador spoke about his son, Maj. Moshe Yedidya Leiter, who fell in the war in Gaza, and about the message that guided him throughout his life.
Moshe Yedidya would often remind his father of a story about the late Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, one of the leading Jewish thinkers of our generation. Rabbi Steinsaltz devoted decades to the monumental task of explaining and translating the Talmud, alongside writing books, giving lectures, and establishing educational institutions and numerous Jewish initiatives.
At one point, while working on several major projects simultaneously, he felt overwhelmed by the workload. He wrote to the Lubavitcher Rebbe seeking his advice: Which projects should he give up so that he could focus on the most important things?
The Rebbe’s answer was surprising: Continue with all of them, and take on even more.
Add More. Add more.
The ambassador said his son had adopted this message as a guiding principle in his life. When his father asked him to rest a little, get more sleep, or reduce his workload, Moshe Yedidya would remind him of the Rebbe’s answer to Rabbi Steinsaltz: Add more.
As I listened, I recalled a story about a professor who came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe and told him he wanted to become his Hasid. But one thing troubled him: He did not look like a Chabad Hasid, did not dress like one, and did not follow the customary Hasidic way of life.
The Rebbe replied that anyone who gets up in the morning and resolves to make further progress in observing mitzvot and performing acts of goodness and kindness is, in his eyes, his Hasid.
We are all familiar with the Hebrew acronym Admor: our master, teacher, and rabbi. But as I heard the ambassador addressing the Rebbe’s emissaries around the world and repeating the words Add More, I thought that perhaps their sound also offered a fitting allusion to the Rebbe’s essence.
Admor. Add More. Add more.
The writer is the director of the Israeli Chabad House in London.