18 Ніссана: Потрійне свято (1748, 1878, 1902)

The eighteenth of Nissan is a date of remarkable concentration of events in the history of Chabad.

Upshernish of the Alter Rebbe (5508/1748)

On this day, the upshernish (first haircut) took place for a three-year-old boy destined to become the Alter Rebbe — founder of the Chabad movement. The Baal Shem Tov personally performed the ceremony, leaving the boy his peyot, and blessed him. He strictly forbade the parents from revealing to the child who had cut his hair, predicting that the boy was destined to forge his own path in the service of G-d.

Birth of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak (5638/1878)

130 years later, on this same day, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson was born — father of the future Seventh Rebbe, an outstanding rabbi and kabbalist. His selfless fight for Judaism in the Soviet Union cost him his health and life. The Rebbe often emphasized that it was his father's intellectual power that allowed him to unite the deepest mysteries of the Zohar with Talmudic logic.

Bris of the Seventh Rebbe (5662/1902)

Exactly 24 years after his father's birth, on 18 Nissan 1902, the bris mila of the future Seventh Rebbe took place. Rebbetzin Chana, the infant's mother, was so G-d-fearing that she performed netilat yadayim (ritual hand washing) before every feeding, understanding that nourishing a child is not merely physiology but an act of service to G-d. The Fifth Rebbe (Rashab) sent a telegram with the blessing: "May he bring light to the world."