In advance of the 21st anniversary of the passing of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—the tremendous contributions of the Rebbe and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement were recognized throughout the day in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) with speeches, displays and videos.

Deputy Minister of Education Meir Porush addressed a group of administrators of Chabad institutions from across the Holy Land, led by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov, chairman of Agudat Chasidei Chabad B’Eretz HaKodesh.

Porush—whose father, Rabbi Menachem Porush, was one of the longest-serving members of the Knesset and was known to have a deep relationship with the Rebbe—opened the meeting by saying: “To Chabad Chassidim, there is no need to explain the meaning of public service. From the moment they are born, from the moment they begin their education, they know what it means to serve others.”

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Quoting the Midrashic statement that “there is no one as dear to G‑d as an agent dispatched to do a mitzvah,” the rabbi also said that “there is no more impressive enterprise, with astonishing reach—not just here in Israel, and not just in a specific country, but in every single country—than the network of shluchim that the Rebbe established.”

The assembled also used the opportunity to focus on practical ways that the government would be able to best cooperate with the network of Chabad organizations that they represent.