“We sat by him and saw that ‘no secret is hidden from him’ literally, in Shas and poskim, and in Nistar his understanding is very, very deep, mamash the ‘Master of the Zohar.’”
“Despite the late hour the Rebbe was alert to a degree that is difficult to imagine. We saw how he is constantly immersed in the world of the spirit. The entire Torah – Shas and poskim, Agada and Midrash and kabbala – everything is spread out before him in the clearest way. There is no need to speak in terms of (my) great admiration and veneration, but it is clear that each visit forms a greater closeness…
No less than the amazement over his incredible Torah wisdom is the feeling of k’dusha. When we sat near him we felt this time, too, as though we were sitting in the chamber of holiness, by someone where k’dusha hovers and rests in its fullest intensity in his four cubits. When you sit near him you strongly sense the words of the Gemara, “this is not a son of man (i.e. not an ordinary human being).” In addition, we saw his great concern for the Jewish people. There are no individual worries for one group or another. He is a ‘universal man’ in the deepest sense of the term. Whatever he does is done in a big way and with general concern for Klal Yisroel throughout the world. Fortunate is the generation that the Rebbe leads.”
-Mordechai Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Israel