In the Summer of 1995, the U.S. Congress authorized the President to present the Rebbe with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award. Only about 100 such awards have been made throughout American history. Democrats and Republicans, liberals, conservatives, Northeners and Southerners, blacks, whites and Hispanic, all joined ranks to convey this award on the Rebbe. The Speaker of the House, Rep. Newt Gingrich declared:

The Rebbe stood... for the kind of decency, the kind of way of life, the kind of spiritual meaning which allows humans to live with each other in peace and seek a better and more just future.

And from the other end of the political spectrum, Rep. John Lewis, the Chief Deputy Democratic whip, stated:

The Rebbe worked every day of his life for what my mentor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to call “the beloved community”— a community at peace with itself, a country and a world in which people are not judged by the color of their skin but by the quality of their character.

The values and principles which won the Rebbe this recognition are presented in this book.