About Chabad-Lubavitch
Chabad-Lubavitch is a movement, a philosophy, and an organization. It is considered to be the most dynamic force in Jewish life today.
Movement
Over the last 250 plus years, the Chabad-Lubavitch Chassidic philosophy and movement has steadily spread throughout the world, providing Jews of all backgrounds answers to modernity’s questions, a loving and embracing Judaism that has often eluded so many of them, and a community that has been awaiting their arrival and to call their own.
Today, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement has some 4,500 institutions around the world, with permanent centers in every state of the union and in 136 countries around the world. Chabad Lubavitch reaches every corner of the world and impacts literally every facet of Jewish life.
Leadership
From inception, and over its 250 years, the movement was conducted by a Rebbe, a Jewish leader who personified the age-old Biblical qualities of piety and spiritual greatness, and communal organizational excellence.
In our generation, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of righteous memory (1902–1994), known as “the Rebbe,” breathed new found life and vitality into post-holocaust Jewry. His profound vision of reaching out to every Jew in every corner of the world with love and concern became the foundation for the mission of Chabad-Lubavitch worldwide. His teachings ignite awareness of the hidden treasure inside every individual – regardless of how they, or others, feel about them/selves – and motivate the will to fulfill one's full potential and purpose.
Philosophy
Chabad
The word “Chabad” is a Hebrew acronym for the three intellectual faculties of chochmah—wisdom, binah—comprehension and da’at—knowledge. The movement’s system of Jewish religious philosophy, teaches understanding and recognition of the Creator, the role and purpose of creation, and the importance and unique mission of each creature.
Lubavitch
The word “Lubavitch” is the name of the town in White Russia where the movement was based for more than a century. Appropriately, the word Lubavitch in Russian means the “city of brotherly love.” The name Lubavitch conveys the essence of the responsibility and love engendered by the Chabad philosophy towards every Jew.
Organization
Motivated by his profound love for every Jew and spurred by his boundless optimism and self-sacrifice, the Rebbe set into motion a dazzling array of programs, services and institutions to serve the Jewish population on a global scale.
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Today over 5,000 full-time emissary families direct more than 4,500 institutions (and a workforce that numbers in the tens of thousands) dedicated to the welfare of the Jewish people worldwide.
By teaching, motivating, and encouraging his students and adherents to take on the dual challenges of ignorance and apathy to Judaism’s message, the Rebbe raised an ‘army’ of leaders charged with the vision of an engaged and revitalized Jewish world.
Now personally equipped and ‘fired up’, the Shluchim create institutions and programs to cater to the local needs and interests of their respective communities, making each Chabad center unique, yet philosophically — virtually the same.