# Why Did the Rebbe Give Out Dollars? | Learn about Moshiach | Moshiach Life > The Rebbe gave each visitor a dollar to pass on to tzedakah, making them a messenger for the mitzvah that “brings the Redemption near” (Bava Basra 10a). URL: https://moshiach.life/learn-about-moshiach/the-rebbes-dollars/ Language: en Site guide for agents: https://moshiach.life/llms.txt --- [Learn about Moshiach](https://moshiach.life/learn-about-moshiach/) # Why Did the Rebbe Give Out Dollars? ![The Lubavitcher Rebbe waving](https://moshiach.life/assets/img/rebbe-wave-1500.webp) Every Sunday the Lubavitcher Rebbe, King Moshiach, stood for hours at 770 Eastern Parkway and gave each visitor a blessing and a dollar to pass on to tzedakah. The Rebbe taught that “tzedakah is great since it brings the Redemption near” (Bava Basra 10a), and each dollar made the person who took it a messenger for that mitzvah. ## Why did the Rebbe give out dollars? The Rebbe gave dollars for tzedakah to hasten the Redemption, as he said on 28 Nissan 5751. On that night the Rebbe gave the task of bringing Moshiach over to every Jew. Then he added, as Sichos In English adapted his words: > “As a further effort on my part to encourage and hasten the coming of the redemption, I will distribute money to each one of you with the intent that you give it to tzedakah, for ‘Tzedakah is great since it brings the redemption near.’” The Rebbe often ended his talks this way. In one talk printed in Likkutei Sichos (vol. 38, p. 227, from 25 Tammuz 5750), he explains that he gives every man, woman and child a *shlichus* for tzedakah, and gives “something of substance.” Tzedakah, he says there, does not only bring the Redemption near. It brings it right away, through David, King Moshiach. This is the same [way to bring Moshiach](https://moshiach.life/learn-about-moshiach/how-to-bring-moshiach/) that the Rebbe asked of everyone. ## What happened at the Sunday dollars? On Sundays the Rebbe met thousands of people one by one, giving each a dollar and a blessing. The line stretched a full city block outside the Rebbe’s synagogue on Eastern Parkway, as Geulah Weekly describes it. Jews of every background waited for hours. When their turn came, many could not get a word out. The Rebbe handed them a dollar and often said “*brachah v’hatzlachah*,” “blessings and success.” People asked for advice and blessings for health, children and livelihood, and the Rebbe answered in a few words. One Sunday an elderly woman reached the Rebbe after an hour in line. She told him she was falling off her feet, while he had been standing for hours on end. The Rebbe smiled and said: “When you’re counting diamonds, you don’t get tired” (Sichos In English, 5751). To the Rebbe, every person in that line was a diamond. On one such Sunday in 1991 a CNN crew in the line asked for [the Rebbe’s message to the world](https://moshiach.life/learn-about-moshiach/the-rebbes-message-to-the-world/). ## Why give tzedakah through another person? The Rebbe made each recipient his agent, a *shliach*, to give the tzedakah himself. On the night after Chai Elul 5751 the Rebbe said he would conclude “by making everyone an agent to distribute tzedakah.” The person who takes the dollar does the mitzvah with his own hands. He joins the Rebbe in it, and the poor person gains as well. The Rebbe also stressed how great this mitzvah is. In a talk printed in Likkutei Sichos (vol. 39, p. 365) he describes giving out a *shlichus* for tzedakah, which “is equal to all the mitzvos” (Bava Basra 9a) and brings the Redemption near. [Tzedakah](https://moshiach.life/10-mivtzoim/tzedakah/) is also one of [the Rebbe’s ten mitzvah campaigns](https://moshiach.life/10-mivtzoim/). ## What did the Rebbe teach about the dollar itself? The Rebbe noted that every dollar says “In G-d We Trust,” a trust that invests everything. On 18 Tammuz 5751 the Rebbe gave out three dollars each for tzedakah. He explained: “Trust implies more than faith. It is faith so strong that one invests all that one has.” Our faith in G-d, he said, must take in our whole being. The number of dollars often matched the day: - On the third night of Chanukah 5752, two dollars: one as Chanukah gelt and one for tzedakah. - On 15 Sivan 5751, three dollars, to draw down the threefold Priestly Blessing. - On the night after Chai Elul 5751, a second dollar in honor of Chai Elul. ## What do the classic sources say about tzedakah and the Redemption? The Gemara teaches that tzedakah is great because it brings the Redemption near (Bava Basra 10a). - “Great is tzedakah, for it brings the Redemption near” (Bava Basra 10a). - Tzedakah “is equal to all the mitzvos” (Bava Basra 9a). - “Zion will be redeemed through judgment, and those who return to her through tzedakah” (Isaiah 1:27). The Rebbe quoted this verse on Shabbos Mishpatim 5752. - The Rambam rules on the basis of that verse that Israel will be redeemed only through tzedakah (Hilchos Matnos Aniyim 10:1). The Rebbe put these sources into practice thousands of times every week. Each dollar was a small act of tzedakah, and each one added to the merit that brings the Redemption. ## What miracles are told about the Rebbe’s dollars? Geulah Weekly’s Miracles Today column records many blessings given with the Rebbe’s dollars that came true. - Thirty-five UJA leaders came for dollars one Sunday. The Rebbe called one father back and gave him a second dollar “for your older son.” The son had cut off all contact for a year and a half. At that very hour he felt a sudden urge to come home (Geulah Weekly 5775, Bamidbar). - A father told the Rebbe in Russian that his son, a doctor, had been sent to the Chernobyl area. The Rebbe gave him a dollar and said, “Your son will return home.” Two days after he left for Chernobyl, the son was back home (Geulah Weekly 5778, Emor). Families still keep the Rebbe’s dollars as a lasting blessing. One couple framed a dollar given on Sukkos 5746 and hung it on their wall. More accounts appear among the [Miracles Today stories of the Rebbe’s blessings](https://moshiach.life/miracles-today/), including that of a woman who kept [the two dollars she received from Moshiach](https://moshiach.life/miracles-today/someone-who-needs-it/) for twenty years.