When you lift up the heads of the Children of Israel when you count them, each person gives the atonement of his soul to Hashem when you count them, and there will be no plague among them" (Exodus 30:12)I once heard from the Klausenberger Rebbe zt"l a story he told about his uncles, the sons of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz zt"l, from which we can learn the importance of our responsibility to do Kiruv.
Once on the evening after Shavuos immediately after Havdalah, before any private audiences with the guests who came for Yom Tov and wanted to return home, the holy Gorlitzer Rebbe zt"l travelled to visit his brother the holy Divrei Yechezkel of Shineva zt"l, who was understandably shocked by his visit at such a time and season.
The Gorlitzer told his brother, "My dear brother, I was thinking, and I realized that millions of Jews are emigrating to America, and there is no way to stop them. When they get there, they lose their religion and become assimilated. I came up with an idea that the two of us should travel there together, and bring hundreds of Rabbis, Dayanim, teachers, and ritual slaughterers, and we can build Judaism there in America. I cannot go on my own, because they will think I am just going for money." The holy Shinever Rov answered, "I am too old and I am not able to travel so far, you should go on your own". The Gorlitzer told him once again, "I am not able to do this on my own". In the end, the Satan's work was accomplished, and they were unable to actualize this pure intention.
When the Klausenberger Rebbe zt"l finished telling this story, he groaned and said, "if they had done this back then, then their children and grandchildren would have done so as well, and other rabbis, and then America would look totally different".
When the Klausenberger Rebbe said this in his time, around 1953, it was not possible for us to understand the depth of what he meant when he said that America would look different, but today we understand this more, because we know how few Jews who came before the war remained pious, and most of them sadly became assimilated, and if only the Gedolim had come in the earlier times, it is possible that there would be tens of millions more religious Jews in America today.
On the other hand, throughout Europe, wherever the Hasidic masters, the disciples of Rabbenu Yisroel Baal Shem Tov zy"a, settled and encouraged kiruv, the Tzaddikim were able to convert entire countries of hedonists to pious Bnei Torah, because they worked very hard to bring merit to the Jews in all lands, and to rescue every Jew from sin. For this reason they made sure to appoint rabbis, dayanim, and shochetim in every community, and to support them, in order to be mekarev and mechazek Jews to keep Torah and mitzvos.
After the Holocaust, when when I arrived from Romania in 1948 among the survivors who came to New York, I remember that there was only one small mikvah in the entire Boro Park neighborhood. Over the years, when the Gedolim and Tzaddikim settled in America with their disciples, everything improved and they built Torah institutions and revived the Jewish souls.
These Tzaddikim worked hard to teach Torah to the Jews, and they were worthy to rescue them and their future generations from the snares of the Yetzer Hara, and they saw that in this tremendous merit they were worthy to accomplish great salvations for the Jews, as Chazal taught (Bava Metzia 85a), "anyone who teaches Torah to the son of an ignoramus, even if Hashem decrees a decree upon him, it is cancelled for him.
Along these lines, there is a lengthy discourse in the Holy Zohar in Parshas Terumah (p. 128-129) that speaks very highly about the importance of the concept of Kiruv. It is written there: "the righteous must pursue the wicked, and purchase him at full-price, in order to remove his impurity from him. Anyone who takes the hand of a wicked person and works to help him abandon his wicked path, he lifts up three levels which no other person can accomplish: he conquers the side of evil, he lifts up the glory of Hashem, and he causes the world to exist from top to bottom".
Even if someone is unable to teach Torah to others on his own, he must support such efforts financially, so others can be supported in these efforts. The Chofetz Chaim zt"l wrote in his Sefer Chomas HaDas (Maamar Chizzuk HaDas 3) that just like if someone sees another person drowning in a river, if he cannot swim himself he must hire a lifeguard to swim out and save the drowning victim. So too, if you see people drowning in the sea of lust and addictions which destroy a person's life in this world and the next world, he needs to hire people who know how to draw the Jewish hearts back to their Father in Heaven, in order to attempt to rescue them.
Someone who teaches Torah to Jews lifts their heads out of the mire of hedonism and materialism, because the Torah teaches us to stand up-right, unlike animals whose heads face the ground as they seek food and material desires. We must stand upright like human people, with the head on top, in order to demonstrate how the brain is superior to and controls the desires of the heart, and helps us to fulfill our purpose in this world, and to come to true satisfaction, and true eternal joy in life.
According to this, we can explain the Scripture "when you life up the heads of the Children of Israel by their counting", when the Jewish heads are lifted up to learn how to conduct themselves according to the counting of the mitzvos Hashem gave them, even if someone cannot be a teacher himself "each person should give the atonement of his soul to Hashem when they are counted" he fulfills this obligation by donating to others who do kiruv work, and in this merit "there will be no plague", pandemics will not conquer them, as the Arizal brings (Shaar Kavanos – Tefilas HaShachar 3) that during a pandemic the tikkun is to help people to do teshuvah as this weakens the klipah that brings the pandemic, and thus we are rescued from all bad things.
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