RECAP: Kinus Hashluchim Gala Banquet 5786 - 2025

(By Menachem Posner and Dovid Margolin) EDISON, N.J.—The cavernous exhibit space-turned-banquet hall pulsed with energy. It was not the self-satisfied joy of accomplishment that filled the room but excitement for the future—the knowledge that however much has already been done, there is so much more to achieve. The gala banquet closing out the 42nd International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries (Kinus Hashluchim) came after five days of programs and workshops, prayer and study, bringing together 6,500 Chabad emissaries and their guests from around the world. The thousands of rabbis come to New York every year for decades, their ranks growing each time they meet again, city after city, country after country becoming the latest frontier in the Chabad juggernaut. This year’s conference came as Jews around the globe face difficulties they thought to be things of the past. The emissaries, however, remain unfazed, recalling always the message of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to never cower in the face of adversity, but to respond by building and growing in all matters of Jewishness, and goodness and kindness. The program itself opened with a dra