When the Mitteler Rebbe, Rav Dov Ber (son of the Alter Rebbe of Lubavitch), was a young married man, he lived on the ground floor of his parent’s home. His father and the rest of the family occupied the second floor of the house. One night, while the Mitteler Rebbe was in the midst of an intense learning session, his youngest child fell out of his crib. Totally engrossed in his studies, Rav Dov Ber did not hear the cries of his infant child. The Alter Rebbe was also in the middle of learning up on the second floor but he did hear the infant crying. The Alter Rebbe went downstairs, picked the child up, and lovingly rocked the child back to sleep. Rav Dov Ber was totally unaware of the entire episode. Later, the Alter Rebbe admonished his son: “No matter how lofty your involvements, you must never fail to hear the cry of a child.” In the 1950’s the Lubavitcher Rebbe heard the cries of a child that the generation was not attuned to. We are all familiar with the four sons of the Haggada. One is wise, one is wicked, one is simple and one is so ignorant he does not even know how to ask a question. The Haggada gives us a brilliant prescription of how we are to deal with each child. Each of the four sons has their own cry and we are sensitized as to how they need to be educated and raised. But the Rebbe taught that there is a fifth son whose pain is so deep that he did not even come to the Seder. Perhaps he did not come to the Seder because he did not get an invitation; maybe there w
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