On the weekend prior to Gimmel Tammuz (3rd of Tammuz, Rebbe’s Yartzeit) this 5785/2025 we hosted a Galperin Family Reunion Get-Together. Long beautiful story of its own, but that’s why I was sitting on the couch reading books to my niece (who has disabilities but is filled with abundant love).
One of the books I read to her was “Tuvia’s Mitzvah Train” – an old beloved Chabad’s children’s classic, one of a small set of Jewish young children’s books written and illustrated by Michoel Muchnik, in his unique trademark style. First published in 1978, it was originally written about the Rebbe’s illness and vigorous recovery in 1977.
But reading to her on Shabbat, the eve of Gimmel Tammuz, the Rebbe’s Yartzeit, made me realize the relevant undertones to this book – even, and especially, after the Rebbe’s passing.
The basic story-line (not going to worry about spoilers here): The village rabbi falls ill, and the town’s children think of what might invigorate their beloved rabbi’s spirits. So they each increase their own mitzvot and let the rabbi’s household know. They hear it gave the rabbi strength. So one of the children has an idea to create a mitzvah train with cars dedicated to each mitzvah their rabbi taught them about, and enlisted two older yeshiva students to help them. The train is a wild success, not only in healing the village rabbi but in its appeal and reach. New cars continue to be added, each with new mitzvot and more creative interaction, until the train has no end.
Two lines in the book especially jumped out at me:
1) “As the train drove by, the Village Rabbi noticed that many of the mitzvos that he had taught were being practiced on the train.”
The Rebbe’s teaching and inspiration lives on, and is very much alive in Chabad Houses and communities, in families and in people all around the world. The ideas are being practiced, the teachings fulfilled, it is very much happening!
2) And then at the close of the book, how they kept adding cars to the Mitzvah Train: “longer, and longer… until there was NO END… ALL ABOARD!”
Indeed, indeed. It did not end on the 3rd of Tammuz of 5754/1994, when the Rebbe passed away.
New cars continue to be added, there are new generations of Chassidim with the same dedication, new projects, new communities, new organizations and programs, the train keeps getting longer, and more and more people are coming aboard!
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Aside for the Gimmel Tammuz relevance and meaningfulness above, rereading this book as an adult made me question the title of “Tuvia’s Train”. Why is the train named for Tuvia? It was Dovid’s idea, all the kids were aboard, Shlomo and Tuvia worked on it, yet called Tuvia’s Train? Is it because he was the driver?