By a Lubavitcher

I hesitated before writing this.

We have good reason to be cautious about taking individual incidents and turning them into public community issues. There is a difference between addressing a concern and putting a person, a family, or an incident under a public spotlight. Not every problem belongs on the front page, and not every disappointment needs to become a public discussion.

What follows is therefore not about a person, a family, or a particular incident. It is about something broader: the responsibility we all share for the standards and image of Lubavitch.

This week I stopped into a Jewish bookstore. Among the new books on display was a biography of a devoted Chassid of the Rebbe, a Jew from whom there is much to learn.

As I looked through the book, however, I was taken aback to see on the cover a very private family photograph, depicting a type of intimacy that, in my opinion, has no place in a public Chabad publication.

I stood there in the store and found myself thinking: How did we get here?

I do not know who made the decision to use that photograph. Perhaps it was the decision of one individual. Perhaps the family members themselves were not even aware that it would be used in this way. I am not interested in assigning blame, and certainly not in judging the people involved.

But the experience raised a question that goes far beyond that particular book.

What do people understand Lubavitch to be when they look at what we put into the public sphere?

A young person growing up in a Chabad home is watching. A young man or woman who will soon, בע”ה, become a parent and educator is watching. Someone who is newly discovering the Rebbe and considering making Lubavitch their home is watching.

They do not see the thousands of private conversations, acts of mesirus nefesh, hours of learning, acts of tzedakah, hiddur mitzvah and genuine yiras Shamayim that take place every day. They see what is placed before them.

And every public presentation communicates something.

The Rebbe often cited the adage about the person who drills a hole in the bottom of the ship and says, “It is my own private space.” In reality, everyone on the ship is affected.

This does not mean that every individual mistake should become a public matter. Quite the opposite. It means that we must recognize the responsibility that comes with living in a community.

We should not define Lubavitch by pointing fingers at individuals. We should define Lubavitch by the standards we ourselves choose to live by and transmit to the next generation.

Lubavitch does not change because of the conduct of one person—or even many people. Lubavitch has always been a beacon of Chassidus, hiskashrus and genuine yiras Shamayim. That is the Lubavitch we received from the Rebbeim, that our predecessors lived, and that we are responsible to pass on.

The question, therefore, is not merely: What is wrong with this particular thing?

The deeper question is: What do we want our children to understand when they hear the word “Lubavitch”?

What does genuine Chabad yiras Shamayim look like?

What does hiddur mitzvah look like?

What does Ahavas Yisroel look like?

What does hiskashrus to the Rebbe look like in the way we conduct ourselves every day?

These are questions for all of us—for כרמי שלי, the vineyard of Chabad.

There is no need to make Lubavitch smaller by focusing on individual failures. We need to make Lubavitch stronger by increasing the light.

Our Rabbonim and Mashpi’im have a vital role to play, but ultimately this belongs to all of us. We need to speak with our children, our teenagers, our young adults and with ourselves about the preciousness of genuine Chassidic living.

We need to teach that Chabad standards are not simply a list of restrictions. They are the expression of who we are.

The more light there is, the less room there is for darkness.

The more people who live genuinely according to the ways of Chassidus, the less need there will be to protest conduct that is contrary to the spirit of Lubavitch.

The Rebbe prepared us extensively for the period following Gimmel Tammuz. He expects from us a life of genuine Chassidic conduct, and he has given us the kochos necessary to fulfill that responsibility.

The question is not whether Lubavitch has a derech.

It does.

The question is whether we will live up to it—and whether the next generation will see that derech clearly in us.

It is in our hands.

It is our responsibility.

And בע”ה, with the kochos the Rebbe has given us, we will succeed.