Korach 5764 June 18, 2004

Daily Thought Comment: The Road to Heaven By Yanki Tauber "I, too, desire it!" Is Moses playing devil's advocate? Or is he baring a soul driven by a striving so exalted and G-dly that it is beyond the reach even of a Moses, a soul that finds its deepest yearnings frustrated by a divine command barring its path, commanding, "Stop. No. Not Yet." Understanding & Understandable The Rebbe: The Rebbe: Ten Perspectives An engineer, a journalist, an accountant, a businessman, a freelance writer, a G-d is not understandable, prime minister, a scholar, a rabbi, an activist and a poet tell us what it was like to but G-d ponders Himself, know the Rebbe and that is Torah. Story: Two Tefillin Stories By Benzion Rader "When a Jew in Miami," the Rebbe said to me, "sees pictures of Jews at the Western Wall wearing tefillin, he gets an urge to put on tefillin himself."

Story: "You Know the Lubavitcher Rebbe?" By Sara Esther Crispe I had never seen such a strong bond and commitment in my life. The mere mention of his name would make their eyes sparkle. I never thought that I would be able to admire and respect someone so much...

Voices: Why Do We Smile To Ourselves? By Chana Weisberg From earliest infancy, we cry and smile as a form of communication. But with whom are we communicating when we weep solitary tears? With whom are we sharing our joy when we smile to ourselves, alone and unseen?

Parshah: Korach Korach the rebel, Korach the comedian, Korach the charlatan, Korach the materialist, Korach the spiritualist, Korach the democrat, and Korach the Torah section -- what they all mean, and what they mean to us

A chassid is never lonely --Chassidic saying

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The Road to Heaven "I, too, desire it!" Is Moses being By Yanki Tauber facetious? Playing devil's advocate? "The road to hell," says the saying, Or are we being accorded a glimpse "is paved with good intentions." into Moses' soul, a soul driven by an Korach, the only man reported to The Talmud doesn't believe all-consuming desire for something have reached that unsavory place in "equal time." According to so exalted and G-dly that it is alive, was also propelled there by this ancient repository of beyond the reach even of a Moses, positive desires and motives. As the Jewish wisdom, if a good a soul that finds its deepest

Comment Torah tells it, Korach was motivated guy and a bad guy are yearnings frustrated by a divine by a lofty spiritual yearning -- the running for office, you should give command barring its path, desire to become a Kohen Gadol the good guy all the publicity and commanding: "Stop. No. Not Yet." ignore the bad guy. Don't even ("High Priest"), which is the highest mention his name. level in the service of G-d a person Both Korach and Moses desired the can attain. forbidden. In Korach, the desire The Talmud has a source for its bias brought destruction How do we know that -- the even more ancient Book of upon himself and his this was a positive Proverbs by King Solomon, which followers. In Moses, desire? Firstly, states, "The mention of the the same desire fueled because our Sages tell righteous should be for blessing, a life of greatness. and the name of the wicked shall us that in the future rot" (Proverbs 10:7). Quoting this perfect world of The road to hell is verse, the Talmud rules that "it is Moshiach each and paved with holy forbidden to name one's child after a every one of us will desires. So is the the wicked person." attain the level of road to heaven. The intimacy with G-d difference is subtle, yet Which begs the question: Why, which Korach desired. crucial: the difference then, is this week's Torah reading Secondly, because we between acting on a (Numbers 16-18) named "Korach", know of another person who, like holy desire contrary to G-d's after the man who let a mutiny Korach, was forbidden by Divine command, and feeding the desire, against Moses and Aaron? If the decree to act as a Kohen Gadol and wrestling with it, living a life Torah doesn't want us naming our who nevertheless was driven by an passionately devoted to attaining it kids Adolf, Joseph Vissarionovich or insatiable desire to do so. That other yet refraining from any action that Captain Hook, why does it name person? Moses himself. the object of the desire has one of its own sections after an forbidden. unrepentant sinner, a person whose Here is Moses speaking to Korach: actions so endangered the very "We have but one G-d, one Torah, This is why, the Lubavitcher Rebbe existence of the people of Israel that one law, one Kohen Gadol and one explains, there is a section in Torah G-d made the earth swallow him up Sanctuary. Yet you... desire the named Korach. The Torah is telling so that he "descended alive into the High Priesthood. I, too, desire it!" us that there are two Korachs: abyss"? (Midrash Tanchuma; cited by Rashi Korach the human being, and on Numbers 16:10). Korach the Torah portion. Or, if you

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 2 B"H Chabad.org will, the body of Korach and the throws up to thwart our soul's rush By Yanki Tauber; based on the spirit of Korach. Korach the human to heaven, that strives and strains teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. being, who crossed the line that yet dares not cross in violation of Painting by chassidic artist Zalman separates good from evil, the line the divine will -- is to be embraced. Kleinman. demarcated by G-d's commands, is to be spurned. Korach the Torah portion -- the holy yearning that storms the barricades which G-d

The Rebbe: Ten Perspectives

Milton Fecter, engineer

Benzion Rader, accountant

Ariel Sharon, prime minister

Eli Groisman, businessman

Sara Esther Crispe, freelance writer

Geulah Cohen, journalist

Adin Even-Israel (Steinsaltz), scholar

Jonathan Sacks, rabbi

Jay Litvin, activist

Zvi Yair, poet

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Wiring the Missouri New York City police were Irish, and people were so busy working on the Milton Fechter many belonged to the Christian war effort, that had dampened a bit Front. And they created a lot of the anti-Semitism that had raged in I worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard trouble for the Jews in the Bronx. In New York City for a number of years from January 1943 till June 1945. A Brooklyn, Ridgewood, you had the prior to the war, but it was still there. retired admiral came to City College Germans, and before the FBI broke and said that they were desperately up what they called the "Bund," they Our section was separated from the in need of engineers for the Navy used to march at night in Hitler electrical section by a wooden fence Yard. They were building the uniforms on Bushwick Ave. about three feet high. And that battleship Missouri there -- that's the section had about three hundred battleship on which afterwards There was this guy I went to school men sitting at drafting tables. So I General MacArthur accepted the with for five years -- I was three turn to the man next to me, and I surrender of the Japanese in Tokyo years with him in high school and said, what are they doing there? Bay after the war -- and they were then two years with him in City And he said they are all doing wiring also working on a smaller battleship, College. A fellow from a good diagrams for the ships, mostly the the Idaho, and one of the aircraft family, with money. I'm sitting next Missouri. So much electrical wiring carriers, but I forget the name for to him in class. It's Friday, June goes into a ship, you have no idea. that one. 1940, the professor comes into the class, and he had long face. I take a look, and you have three So they gave me my diploma early Gentlemen, he says, I have some hundred people in white shirts, and I came to work there, in Building very sad news to report, it just came because in those days most people Three, on Flushing Avenue -- over the radio, that France had wore white shirts. And in the middle Flushing and Vanderbilt. The surrendered to Hitler. My heart fell is sitting a guy with a black beard, building, it's a giant building, is still all the way down. earlocks, a black hat and a black there. It was a huge operation -- suit. there were 77,000 people working This guy sitting next to me, turns there -- and our section had about around to me and his eyes are So I turn to the guy next to me, I fifty engineers and craftsmen, blazing hate. And here is what he said who is that? He says, "He's a evenly divided between Jews and says to me: "You'll get yours next." I rabbi, and he is also an electrical Gentiles. I mention this because at tell you, I couldn't say a word. I was engineer, a graduate of the that time, that was one of the things so stunned. Five years I go to Sorbonne." I looked over there, and that was on the Gentiles' mind, school with him, and didn't know I said to myself, boy I've got to give always to look who is a Jew. what was in him... this guy credit. If I were sitting among all three hundred, I couldn't New York City in 1943 wasn't like I'm trying to give you a picture of the wear earlocks and a beard, and feel today. Up in the Bronx, for example, times. It's different today. It's comfortable. He sat there serene as was an Irish man named Joe completely different today. Then, if he was sitting amongst his chevra, McWilliams, he was a big anti- you're in a room with 50 people, and that really struck me. Semite and he had an organization everyone knows who the Gentiles called the Christian Front. Half the are and who's a Jew... The fact that So, I went over and introduced myself. He told me his name is

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Schneerson. But he didn't tell me he more than a block long, that hundred goyim, completely oblivious was the son in law of the building. You take a look at it. It was to everything around him, that was Lubavitcher Rebbe, and I didn't ask quite a building. something that struck me. him. Nobody knew, as far as I knew. He came in Sunday, I guess Later, when I read in the paper that He spoke quietly, he was a because he didn't come in Saturday. he became Rebbe, I wasn't gentleman and he had two very And he worked all by himself surprised because I saw that he was smart eyes. He was a very self- Sunday. And, I'll tell you one thing, a very bright man and he obviously contained individual. He wasn't the rabbi had a lot of courage, to be he had a lot of inner strength. He interested what someone on the left there all alone on Sunday. The rats could have continued working as an thought of him, or someone on the that ran around there were about engineer. He had the capabilities, right thought of him. He was content that big. And he sat by himself, the math he knew more than most with himself and he obviously had a drawing the wires for the various of us there. Sure he was an lot of inner strength. It was very electrical wiring that goes into a engineer but that wasn't his life, he illuminating to me, to see a person ship. You couldn't give me a million didn't make it top priority with him. in a hostile milieu to be so serene. dollars to sit there by myself on His life was rabbinical and not Sunday. engineering. He had hobbies, and Friday he left early because of the engineering was one of them, but he Shabbos. And Saturday he didn't I didn't see him very often, because was a rabbi at heart. Sometimes he come in, Jewish holidays he didn't he never came to the cafeteria. He was an engineer, but the Rebbe come in. He was the only guy that wouldn't go to the cafeteria; it wasn't was always a Rebbe. got that accommodation. Nobody kosher. So I didn't speak to him that else left for Saturdays or Fridays or much, only about three times holidays. Only one man, him. altogether. But as I say, I was very From an interview of Milton (Moshe impressed with his serenity. You Leib) Fechter by Eliezer Zaklikovsky I came up there a couple of see, if he'd sat among three

Sundays to see some people there hundred guys with beards and he and I'd see him sitting there all by was perfectly in ease that would be himself in that vast hall. Oh, it was one thing. But to sit among three

Two Tefillin Stories asked me why the Rebbe had me that there were two reasons for By Benzion Rader chosen particularly tefillin. "Why not his choice. The first reason is that a more universal mitzvah, such as there is a passage in the Talmudic In 1967, soon after the Six Day War, kosher?" he asked. tractate of Rosh Hashanah which the Rebbe introduced what was to says that once a Jew wears tefillin be the first of the ten "mitzvah Later that year, when in yechidut (as on his head -- even one time in his campaigns" ("mivtzaim") -- the a private audience with the Rebbe is life -- he falls into a different campaign to don tefillin with all called), I asked the Rebbe why he category as a Jew. The second Jews. At the time, an acquaintance had chosen tefillin. The Rebbe told reason the Rebbe gave was that,

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"When a Jew in Miami sees pictures "You put on tefillin?" the American questions: "I suppose that you have of Jews at the Western Wall wearing accountant asked. a special interest in tefillin; is that tefillin, he gets an urge to put on was why you were asking those tefillin himself." "Yes!" I answered. "Don't you?" questions about them?" He replied: "I haven't put on tefillin for ever 20 In 1974, I received a call from an "I haven't put on tefillin since I was years!" So I told him: "But you American who many years Bar Mitzvah in New York fifty years should!" He then said: "Everyone previously had been doing business ago," he said. "But recently I saw a here is now going home to sleep but in England and had been a client of photograph of Jews at the Western I am going to work. I own a bakery my accountancy firm. This person Wall wearing tefillin and had an urge and we work all through the night. If was now in business in Miami, and to put on tefillin myself." you want me to put on tefillin, you his firm's accountant wanted to can come to my bakery at about discuss certain aspects of their Almost the exact words that the 6.30 am. At that time we are business with me. Would it be Rebbe had said to me more than between bakes and I'll put on possible for me to come to Miami seven years earlier. tefillin." and have a meeting with him? After the meeting he put on tefillin in I must admit that this was not my I agreed and some weeks later went my apartment. style but I could not refuse, so at to Miami. I arrived very late at night; 6.30 Wednesday morning I arrived we had scheduled an early at his bakery with tefillin, prayer breakfast meeting for the next day. I In August of 1975 I went to Detroit book and skull cap, and amongst stayed in an apartment adjoining for some business meetings. the sacks of flour he put on tefillin. that of my client. The next morning What surprised me was that he my client's partner, thinking that, I arrived on a Tuesday morning, had needed no help -- he knew exactly being jet-lagged I might oversleep, meetings all day, and in the evening what to do and what to say. knocked at my door and receiving went to stay with one of the people no answer came in to wake me. He who was involved in the business After he finished, I said to him: "You saw me praying in prayer shawl and meetings, and whose family were obviously know how to put on tefillin, tefillin and went out. associated with the local Lubavitch you know the blessings and the community. prayers, why don't you do it The American accountant, who was regularly?" He told me that he didn't Jewish, arrived for the meeting and My hosts had invited a few couples own a pair of tefillin and it was not everyone sat down to breakfast. I to their home. Although not at my one of his priorities to buy a pair, but only had some orange juice. The instigation, the conversation turned if someone gave him a pair of tefillin accountant enquired why I wasn't to religion and one of the men there he would put them on regularly. I eating and my client said that I only kept asking seemingly facetious answered that I was returning to ate kosher. The American questions about tefillin: Why couldn't England via New York but I accountant expressed surprise, so they be round? Who said that they expected to be back in Detroit in the other person related how he had to be black? etc. etc. The about six weeks and that I would went to call me for the meeting and "evening" ended at about 2:00 am. bring him a pair of tefillin. found me praying in a prayer shawl As we were saying goodbye, I said and with 'things' on my head. to the man who had been asking the

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Late that evening I flew to New York discussions but then wrote: "Do you buy a pair at a store on Kingston and stayed overnight in Crown think it is right that a Jew who put on Avenue -- the last pair they had -- Heights. Thursday morning I tefillin yesterday for the first time in against my check. Then I phoned davenned with the Rebbe and sent over twenty years should wait American Airlines, who would in a note to the him. I wrote to the another six weeks for transport them, and the Rebbe about the business you to buy him a pair person with whom I discussions and about the episode of tefillin so that he had stayed Tuesday with the man in Detroit and the could perform the night in Detroit, who tefillin. I concluded the note by Mitzvah again? You said he would collect telling the Rebbe that I was should buy the tefillin them at the airport and returning to London that evening today, and if you can deliver them in time to (Thursday night) and that I was arrange to get them to the person for whom especially looking forward to him in Detroit in time they were intended. Shabbat, since our entire family will for him to put them on One of the yeshivah be staying with us in our London today, fine; if not, you students gave me a lift home: my daughter, her husband should personally to La Guardia Airport and three children from London; my return to Detroit today and the tefillin were put daughter, her husband and baby with the tefillin so that he can put on the plane to Detroit. from New York; and my son, who them on in good time. You should was studying in Israel, and would be do this even if it means not being I left for London only after advising home prior to returning to New York. with your family for Shabbat." The the Rebbe what had been arranged, This was the first time that the whole Rebbe then wrote: "And when this and after waiting to hear that they family, including the grandchildren, Jew sees how important it is for you had been collected and delivered in were to be together for a Shabbat. that he does not miss even one day Detroit. putting on tefillin, this mitzvah will After davenning I went to have a special importance to him." A few months later, I met the person Manhattan. My intention was to again in Detroit and asked him how return to Brooklyn in time to pray the There were a number of problems. It he was doing with the tefillin. He told afternoon prayers with the Rebbe was the time of exchange control in me that he had not missed a day -- and then go to the airport for my England, and one could only take a even walking home in the snow one journey home. small amount of currency out of the day when his car broke down so country; I had used up all my that he put on the tefillin before A little while before the afternoon allowance, so I had only a small sundown. He said: "Because of the prayers I returned to the Rebbe's amount of money with me. I trouble you went to in order that I headquarters at 770 Eastern certainly didn't have enough money should receive the tefillin the very Parkway, where the Rebbe's to also buy a new airline ticket. The next day, they are especially secretary told me he had been second problem was obtaining a important to me." trying to reach me, as he had a pair of tefillin in Crown Heights. First reply to my note to the Rebbe. I tried Lubavitch Youth's office, Almost the exact words that the however, they had none; then the Rebbe had written to me. In his reply the Rebbe gave a Judaica store "Drimmers," who were blessing for the business out of stock. Finally I was able to

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Sage and Strategist I was particularly impressed by his I remember well the Rebbe's By Ariel Sharon tremendous knowledge and deep emphatic and uncompromising understanding in strategic and stance -- primarily from a security My first connection with the Rebbe military matters. I remember his perspective -- against giving up was shortly after the death of my conversations and his letters to me territories from the Land of Israel, son, when I received from him a on the subject of Israel's defense and even expressing willingness to warm and moving condolence letter, strategy in the Sinai -- a subject that give over these territories. He delivered to our home by the deeply troubled me at the time, even pointed out the security risks in Chabad people. before the Yom Kippur War. giving up the territories. He was especially opposed, following the I first met the Rebbe face to face in The Rebbe compared the line of Camp David summits, to giving up the beginning of '68. Those were the fortifications along the Suez Canal -- the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. His days of the War of Attrition fought the Bar-Lev Line -- to the Maginot arguments were anchored in a against the Egyptians at the Suez Line the French built before World realistic strategic analysis, which Canal. There were heated debates War Two as a defense against a doubted the readiness of the Arabs in the General Command over the German invasion. The Rebbe in general, and the Egyptians in way the war was being conducted predicted -- not by prophesy, but by particular, to truly accept the and the troop deployment. I insisted rational analysis of the cold facts -- existence of an independent Jewish on a mobile defense, which would that the Bar-Lev Line would be state. The "cold peace" we have prevent the needless bloodletting of ineffectual and would, in the end, now with the Egyptians, the threat our soldiers deployed along the spell great disaster for Israel. posed by an Egyptian military canal. Among the generals in the greatly strengthened by advanced General Command only General By the same token, he reacted Western weaponry, the hostility and Yisrael Tal and I opposed the severely, and with grave concern, to incitement in the Egyptian press and stationary defense approach. The the fact that Israel did not react to school curriculum -- these trends the result: I was sent on a lengthy tour Egypt's most serious violation of the Rebbe accurately foresaw more of duty outside the country, until my cease-fire -- on the very first night than 20 years ago, at the height of future in the army could be after it went into effect -- that ended the peace euphoria in Israel, when decided... the War of Attrition. In August of public figures and commentators in 1970, the Egyptians advanced their Israel unanimously spoke about the My travels around the world brought Ground-to-Air missile batteries up to "historical revolution" in Israeli-Arab me to the United States and to my the banks of the Suez Canal, in relations. first meeting with the Rebbe, which blatant violation of the cease- fire was followed by many subsequent agreement. Indeed, these missile The common thread running meetings through the years. I batteries prevented the Israeli Air through the Rebbe's strategic remember our first meeting. His Force from disrupting and stopping thinking was always his concern for penetrating steel-gray eyes and the the canal crossing by the Egyptian the continuity of the Jewish people. I incredible knowledge he exhibited in armies in the first stages of the Yom remember a conversation I had with global affairs left an especially Kippur War. him, at the time, regarding the strong impression on me. opening of gates of the Soviet Union

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 8 B"H Chabad.org to Jewish emigration to Israel. I said of Chabad Chassidim in the Old City understanding of the security issues to the Rebbe that, in my opinion, we of Jerusalem, in Hebron, and in confronting the Jewish people should perhaps increase the Judea and Samaria, though many of merged in a single unique pressure on Soviets, that Jews his followers did settle in those personality. "I have grown wise from across the world, and in Israel, areas. He wrote to me that it seems my many teachers," our Sages say, should be more active in applying to him that the Israeli government is but I learned most of all from the pressure to advance the opening of not interested in seeing Jewish Rebbe, who in addition to teaching the borders. I remember what he settlement in these areas. But just me many lessons in the wisdom of said to me in this regard. The Rebbe as he was careful in regards to Israel also taught me an illuminating said that he believes that the day is controversial issues, so was he lesson in the subject of the security not far when the gates will open; but determined and tireless in his work of the Jewish people and how we in the same breath he added that if to deepen and broaden the Jewish should act to ensure the "the we won't act to further Jewish education amongst the young eternity of Israel shall not falter." education and to foster the across the world: sending teachers connection with Judaism amongst to virtually every place on earth In these days of confusion and faint- the Jews inside the Soviet Union, where Jews live, opening Jewish heartedness amongst the general then even when the gates do open, schools in Russia, North Africa, public, and particularly many of our it won't accomplish anything! The South and Central America, and people, the Rebbe's statesmanship Rebbe was adamant: Jewish across the United States. His and strategic vision, together with all education, a deepening of uniqueness was that he "practiced his other teachings, are a wellspring connection to Jewish roots, what he preached." of living waters: original and eye- awareness of Jewish traditions -- opening in the intellectual desert this should be the singular, universal I was distinctly privileged to meet that characterizes the present era. goal that takes precedence over with, and get to know up close, an every other national endeavor. In all acclaimed personality such as the our illuminating discussions and Rebbe: a one-of-a-kind sage in the Ariel Sharon is prime minister of the wisdom if Israel, but also a far- meetings, the primary subject was State of Israel always his concern for the future, seeing strategist, whose focus was destiny, honor and integrity of the on guaranteeing the continued Jewish people. existence and security of the Jewish

people, wherever they may find The Rebbe was very careful about themselves. taking a stance on issues that were controversial within the Jewish In the Rebbe, the age-old wisdom of community, such as the settlement Israel and a penetrating

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A Jew in Curacao I started skipping school. I spent my My father was terribly upset about By Eli Groisman days playing golf at the nearby golf my situation, but he didn't know any club, returning to the school grounds way out. One night he had a dream. I grew up in Curacao, a Caribbean in time to meet my father, who drove He saw himself near the age of island that is part of the Netherlands me home every day. One day, the three, before his upshernish, sitting Antilles, where there were no principal called my father into his on his grandmother's lap. She was Jewish schools. Government office to find out why I had not been saying to him, "Liuvu (Russian for regulations required everyone to in school the past few weeks. 'my love'), anytime you are in attend one of the only two schools in Meeting me as usual that day after trouble, the one who can help you is town, either the Catholic or the school hours, my father asked, the Lubavitcher Rebbe." This was Protestant. One was forced to "How was school today?" I replied, the first time he had ever heard of participate in all school activities, "The same as always." My father the Rebbe. including religious services and then asked me, "Did you go to classes. school today? Last week? Two The next morning my father went to weeks ago?" Not wanting to lie, I his shul, a small, unobtrusive There were a few other Jewish admitted that I had not. building near his home. He asked students in the school, and they the janitor to unlock the door for him basically went along with the crowd. My father gave me a choice: either and went over to the Aron I refused. With atypical give in and do as all HaKodesh (ark), stubbornness for a boy brought up the other boys do, or poured his heart to G- in a non-observant household, I leave school and go to d, and turned to leave. resisted all attempts to make me work with him -- and participate, and it cost me. Non- work hard -- every day. Jewish students picked daily fights I didn't need to think On a January day in with me, with the principal's long. I walked into the 1984, Rabbi Moshe blessing, and it was not out the principal's office, put Kotlarsky, assistant to question that the principal himself my textbooks on the Rabbi Hodakov, the would threaten me. principal's desk, and Rebbe's senior ran back out to my secretary, received a When I reached 7th grade, things father. were coming to a head. Life was not telephone call at home from Rabbi Hodakov. "Wash your getting easier. On the contrary, The government sent warning hands," instructed Rabbi Hodakov, fights were more prevalent than letters to our home stating the law using a code term clueing in Rabbi ever and more vicious. The principal that all minority students, including Kotlarsky that the Rebbe was on the did not hide his view that I deserved Jews, must attend school, either line, listening. "The Rebbe wants what I was getting for refusing to Catholic or Protestant, and requiring you to go to Curacao immediately." bend to school rules. I knew the all students to participate in all future would bring only more threats school activities. My family was When the Rebbe tells a chassid to and more serious physical being excommunicated from the act, he does not ask questions; he altercations. community, but they did not fold. acts. Rabbi Kotlarsky chose a traveling companion, Levi Krinsky, a

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17-year old yeshivah student, and this man would be a convenient Rabbi Kotlarsky invited me to go to both took the next flight to Curacao. source of information about the local come to New York and attend Camp Arriving at the airport and not Jewish community, he approached Gan Israel in the Catskills that knowing where to go or what to do him and said: "We were sent by the summer, and later to Yeshivah that there, they hailed a taxi, requesting Lubavitcher Rebbe. We want to get started in September. This was the to be taken to the synagogue. to know the Jewish people here. We answer to my prayers, and I are staying at the Plaza Hotel. Can accepted the offer immediately. Taxi drivers in Curacao are used to you come with us and tell us about such requests, and they usually the local community?" The man, I would like to thank the Rebbe for comply by driving to the largest who was none other than my father, caring for me and my family. We synagogue on the island, renowned just walking out of the shul, nearly should all take his example on how as the oldest synagogue in the fainted. one should care for a fellow Jew. It Western Hemisphere, Mikvah Israel doesn't have to be a Jew in far-off Emanuel. This synagogue, in which My father told Rabbi Kotlarsky about Curacao; it could be someone right services are conducted only on our family's plight, and introduced around the corner. Surely, by Shabbat, functions also as a me to him. My first question to following the Rebbe's example we museum throughout the week. It Rabbi Kotlarsky was: "Are you will all merit the revelation of boasts a unique feature: the floor is allowed to defend yourself if Moshiach. covered with white sand, possibly someone comes up and punches because its founders, who escaped you?" I had formed an impression For a letter my father received from the Inquisition, covered the steps from the movies and TV shows I the Rebbe shortly after this story leading to their houses of prayer in had seen about the Holocaust that see: Portugal with sand in order to hide Jews were weak and did not fight http://www.chabad.org/magazine/art the sound of their footsteps. back when attacked. Rabbi icle.asp?AID=133535 Kotlarsky responded, "You make This taxi driver, however, took Rabbi sure that you defend yourself, and Kotlarsky to a small, neighborhood do such damage that they won't shul. As the taxi pulled up to the come back to you!" I thought this door, Rabbi Kotlarsky saw a man Rabbi was cool. leaving the building. Thinking that

"You Know the Lubavitcher Rebbe?" encountered Chabad for the first I was in utter awe of these By Sara Esther Crispe time. During that time I slowly began "Chabadniks" and their relationship integrating Torah classes into my with their Rebbe. I had never seen I remember sitting up that whole already full schedule. I had no idea such a strong bond and commitment Friday night, staring at the picture of what Chabad or Chassidism was. I in my life. The mere mention of his the Rebbe, and wondering if I could just kept finding that the classes that name would make their eyes ever have a connection. most interested me and the people sparkle. I never thought that I would with whom I felt the greatest be able to admire and respect I had been living in Israel for a year connection all fell under such a someone so much. and studying in university when I description.

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But that particular Friday night had began to walk up, I saw the Rebbe to unpack our suitcases from the been exceptionally powerful. I was coming down. I moved to the side to car, a strong siren wailed in the air. in the home of a Chabad family, let him pass, and he stopped, All around me people were running. surrounded by an incredible group nodded and smiled and said, "Good I had no idea what was going on. of people who were so warm, Shabbos." I responded the same, Someone grabbed my arm and kept inviting and true. The endless food smiled, and continued on my way. telling me to go faster. I ran like warmed my body while the words of The student who was with me was crazy not knowing where I was Torah challenged my mind. But in absolute shock. Stunned, she headed or why. what I couldn't put my finger on was said, "You know the Lubavitcher what it was that opened and Rebbe??" To which I calmly Suddenly we entered "770." A mass reached into my soul with a grasp responded, "Actually, this is the first of women and girls filled every inch that was there to stay. Perhaps it time I met him in person, but he of space. The girl who had taken me was the singing, perhaps the knows me. He knows each and screamed, "She's never seen the beautiful children running around as every Jew. He is connected to each Rebbe, she's never seen the they giggled in the background. But and every Jew." Rebbe!" Before I knew it, the crowd whatever it was, I knew my life was had parted, allowing me to move fundamentally and forever changed. The next thing I knew, I was sitting closer and look at the Rebbe, who wide awake on the sofa, with the was sitting on a balcony overlooking When everyone had left and the picture of the Rebbe once again the synagogue. As soon as my eyes table had been cleared, I sat once staring at me. At first I wasn't sure if focused on him, he turned and again staring at those piercing blue I had actually been dreaming or not. looked toward my direction. I felt as eyes that I felt followed me And then it simply didn't matter, if he was staring right at me, which wherever I was in the room. It was since to me it happened, whether in seemed impossible with hundreds of the very picture that I had seen my sleep or in reality. From that people and a thick glass window practically every day for the past few moment on, I had the connection I between us. Yet, remarkably months, yet every time it somehow had so badly desired. enough, it seemed everyone around looked different. I always loved this me shared the same impression. picture, even though it was as if I From Jerusalem to Crown was admiring someone else's father Heights I spent the next few months or grandfather. I felt like an outsider studying in Crown Heights, looking in, and I didn't know if Needless to say I was thrilled when, absorbing the stimulating and anything could change that. a few months later, I actually had intellectually challenging learning. I the opportunity to see the Rebbe in could have stayed endlessly, yet the I stared for so long that I fell asleep "770" (as the Rebbe's headquarters, problem was that I still had a year of on the sofa right under the picture. located at 770 Eastern Parkway in college to complete. My year in And then I had a dream. Short, but Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is known). Israel was accredited, but my time in powerful. To others it may not seem Crown Heights was not, and the like much, but it was exactly what I I had never been to New York longer I stayed, the more I delayed needed. In this dream I was walking before, let alone Crown Heights. I my graduation date. I had no doubt up the stairs to the very apartment came with a family of shluchim that I wanted to finish, the question that I was staying in that Shabbat. I (Chabad emissaries) who'd come was merely when. And yet I knew was with another student, and as we for a family wedding. As we began that if I stayed in Crown Heights my

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 12 B"H Chabad.org desire to return to college would what they had started, but in this place that was within walking diminish. case, he was unusually adamant distance of the local Chabad House. that I return at once. As I was now keeping a strictly The Rebbe's Answer kosher diet, I was going to need I booked my ticket for the next new dishes and pots and pans for So I did what anyone in Crown week. I was ready to leave, when college. I figured I would have to Heights would have done: I wrote to suddenly all my circumstances make two trips, since there was no the Rebbe. Yet being that this was changed. I had originally written to way everything could fit in the car. my first time writing, I didn't really the Rebbe that I would live with So, first I moved myself and my understand the process. I figured Chabad family, so that it would be things one week, and the following that since the Rebbe already knew easier for me to be Torah observant. week I returned home to buy my who I was (I think I even reminded But that arrangement didn't kitchenware. him that we had met on the work out in the end, and I staircase in my dream) there was feared that my only other Fortunately that really no need to put my name on option -- living on campus - next weekend was the letter. - was one that was would a three-day be both spiritually and weekend, so I About a week later, I returned to emotionally damaging for figured I would Rabbi Klein -- one of the Rebbe's me. I returned to Rabbi have some time to secretaries -- to see if I had a Klein and begged him to relax and then response. When I told him my letter present my new situation could drive back had no name, he seemed relieved and see if the answer on Monday and told me that even though the would be different. To my evening. I would Rebbe knew who I was, he -- Rabbi surprise, he once again reiterated spend Sunday buying dishes and Klein -- did not, and he had been that the Rebbe was adamant that I cookware and would still have trying to locate me all week. go to California. He didn't feel that plenty of time to immerse everything any change of details would alter in the local mikvah -- as mandated He then proceeded to tell me that the intensity in which the Rebbe by Jewish law -- on Monday rarely had he seen the Rebbe responded that I must return. morning. respond so strongly in an answer. Even though at this point queries Dunking Dishes But my carefully laid plan was had to be posed to the Rebbe as thwarted. On Shabbat I found out "yes" or "no" questions to which he I took the flight the following week that the local mikvah was no longer responded with movements of his and returned to California. Needless available for the immersion of head (this was after the Rebbe had to say, after a year in Israel and a dishes. Now what? There was no suffered a debilitating stroke in few months in Crown Heights, the other mikvah I could use. Finally I March of 1992), every answer the adjustment to a very different decided that since my university Rebbe gave to my questions lifestyle and environment was quite was literally on the beach, I would emphatically declared that I was to difficult. use the good ole' fashioned mikvah return to my hometown of California, -- the ocean itself. and immediately! He said the Rebbe Soon enough it was time to return to often encouraged people to finish college, and I fortunately found a

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Now, this is where things began to finish before the college crowd said we could enter, at our own risk, get a little tricky. I now needed to would arrive for their day off. But but only long enough to remove explain to my family that I had to when my clock-radio alarm went off whatever essentials had survived. leave a day early instead of at 8:00 am, I kept hearing the spending time with them. And of reporter mention "Northridge." Now, We carefully went upstairs to see course they wanted to know why. the only Northridge I knew was the what was salvageable. The roof had When I explained the concept of small area I was from, and it caved in, but the floor had not immersing my newly bought dishes certainly wasn't newsworthy, or at collapsed… yet. We went from in a pool of water, they officially least not until that Monday morning. bedroom to bedroom. What we saw decided at that point that I had lost Then I heard "earthquake," was astonishing. There were large my mind. Not that they had been "epicenter," and once again, pieces of roof covering every single thrilled with my donning of a long "Northridge." bed in every bedroom. The books skirt, keeping Shabbat, not eating were on the floor, pieces of from their dishes, and just about Now, at around 5:00 am I did feel an shattered glass covered everything; every other way I had changed from earthquake. It lasted a good minute, it was utter destruction. the time they last saw me eighteen but wasn't so strong, and afterwards months ago. But this was just too I fell back asleep. Could it be that My mother was hysterical. She had much. "You are telling me that you my hometown of Northridge, a four- lost her house, most everything that need to dunk your brand new dishes hour drive north of where I was was in it, and to make matters in the ocean? Your dishes need to laying, was the epicenter of the worse, she had cancelled the be purified?" Well, let's just say that quake? I turned on the TV and earthquake insurance a month of all the aspects of Judaism that couldn't believe my eyes. Not only earlier. She turned to me amidst the have deep and great explanations, was it Northridge, but it was my very destruction and whispered, "If you immersing dishes is just not one that street, and in the background I could believe in G-d so much, tell me why makes sense at first. see my house. One of the largest this happened to us!" I chose not to quakes to ever hit Southern immediately answer the question. After a few hours of mourning the California, and my intersection was fact that they had wasted so much the epicenter! I entered my room. I looked around money on my private education and realizing that had we been there, we college, they finally decided that A Tragedy and a Miracle would not have lived to tell the story. they would make the best of it. No one could have survived such Since I had to leave on Sunday My family couldn't even return for a damage. Then I glanced at my wall. afternoon, they would simply come number of days since the freeways One thing remained in its place, with me, spend the night, and make had collapsed. Fortunately, though, seemingly not even slightly moved. it a mini vacation. So off we were my parents already had a place to It was my picture of the Rebbe. The with my new dishes and a suitcase stay and their wallets and car with very same picture I had connected with essentials and clothing for a them. When we could finally go to in Jerusalem a year earlier. day or two. back, the damage was worse than we had imagined. Our entire house My mother came to the doorway just I figured I would immerse everything had been moved a few feet from its as I was about to leave. I looked at Monday morning, hoping that if I got foundation. Structurally it was the Rebbe's picture and then back to the beach early enough, I could absolutely destroyed. The police at her. "Mom, I can't tell you why

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 14 B"H Chabad.org this happened. But I can tell you one Asher Crispe, and their three children thing. I can tell you why we weren't in Jerusalem, Israel. here." Sara Esther Crispe is a writer, editor, inspirational speaker and teacher. She lives with her husband, Rabbi

The Believer The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi and the Rebbe himself. Here, even By Geulah Cohen Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of if you may sometimes have to wait Brooklyn, the spiritual leader of the for days on end, anybody and The following are excerpts from an World Chabad Movement, is both everybody is eventually admitted. account by Israeli activist, writer and wise and learned, but above all he is And the reception hours are not in former Knesset member, Geulah a man of faith. And if faith be the art daytime, but at night -- all the night Cohen, of her meeting with the of truth, he is also an artist whose through. The day is for learning, the Rebbe. The original Hebrew version creation is the army of believers that night for talking. was published in the Israeli daily, he commands, the army of the Maariv, December 18, 1964. Jewish faith, of the G-d of Israel and "At 11 o'clock at night?" I repeated, the people of Israel. when told by Rabbi Hodakov, the I have been in the company of wise Lubavitcher Rebbe's secretary, that men, men of great learning and What about the belief in the Land of this was the time of my intelligence, men who were superior Israel? appointment, for I was sure I had artists. But sitting opposite a true not heard right. believer is quite a different matter. To ask the Rebbe this question I After having met a wise man you first had to get to him. Jewish "Tomorrow, at 11 p.m.," came the remain the same as before -- you legend says nothing about how laconic reply over the line have become neither less of a fool exactly the angels were received in connecting me with the Rebbe's nor more of a sage. The education audience by the L-rd, but had it court in Brooklyn. of the man of learning hardly rubs wanted to it might well have taken off on you, nor does the artist endow its inspiration from the manner in "And why not in the daytime?" When you with any of his talents or which I managed to be received by I posed this question to one of the inspiration. Not so with a believer. the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Rebbe's followers, he looked at me After having met him you are no as if I had come from the moon. longer the same. Though you may First of all, as with every ordinary not have accepted his faith, you mortal, there is, of course, the "During the day the Rebbe studies," have nevertheless been embraced secretary with fixed reception hours came the answer, in a tone that left by it. For the true believer believes and a long waiting list, except that no room for further questions. in you as well. here the secretary does not ask you what you intend to discuss with his And indeed I found myself boss. That is a matter between you wondering whether this was not as it

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 15 B"H Chabad.org should be; whether at night the you wanted to live or to die. Nothing look like people learning something heavens and the hearts of men is certain, except fear. In this they did not know before. They might not be more open, more Brooklyn nighttime terror I now had seemed more like people in a disposed to listen; at night when the to meet the Rebbe, but lest I meet laboratory who are experimenting barriers are down and man is closer up with someone else before, I with the spirit and its manifestations to the truth.... preferred to be properly escorted. just as others experiment with matter: combining and Perhaps the very fact that my The Rebbe's Court decomposing, designing and thoughts were turning this way was synthesizing. And all this is already due to the incipient effect of I don't remember a single preface in accompanied by their melodious the secret drug that begins to work any book I have read that I did not humming. Much has been written on you, whether you want it or not, skip. But from the long preliminaries about the Chassidic melodies, and long before you actually meet the I had to go through until I actually much more will still be written about Rebbe; possibly from the moment met the Rebbe, I learned that there them. For they are tunes which have that you decide you want to see are some preambles one cannot do no end and no beginning. They him. However rationalistic you may without for the simple reason that seem to perpetuate the song which be, all your skeptical questions they already constitute the you sing so that someone else may begin to blush with shame... beginning of the story. What the continue it after you. Hearing that Rebbe has to say may be important, tune, it occurred to me that the Ten Consequently, I duly turned up at 11 but still more important, perhaps Commandments, the foundation of p.m.; not alone, of course, because also for the Rebbe himself and the mankind, could never have been no woman can walk unaccompanied Chassidic lore of the Chabad written and spoken according to a through the streets of Brooklyn at school, is to whom, when and where Chassidic melody. But it also night. Here the terrors of the night he said what he did. The occurred to me that mankind may assume special proportions, not atmosphere around him is no less not have been able to comply with only because of the stories you may relevant than what he actually says. this severe code had it not been for have heard or read about a man or The "how" may matter no less and this softening melody.... woman being killed at this or the perhaps even more than the "what." other corner. People are being killed The Rebbe starts off where his court Those who were not leaning over in other parts of the world as well, begins. His parlor begins at the their books were standing about and and not only at night but in daytime, porch. His followers are no less part talking among themselves. Perhaps too. Perhaps the peculiar terror of of his personality than, as the they were talking about everyday the Brooklyn nights is due to the fact Chassidim believe, all human things, but the expression on their that here nobody knows why a beings form part of G-d. My faces was enough to indicate that person was killed; not only the killer interview therefore began the they were like frontline soldiers but often also the victim is shrouded moment I entered the Rebbe's court exchanging a few whispered words in obscure anonymity. You do not and met his disciples. before going into action. The know whether you are being killed commander might have been because you are a Jew, or in spite The young men who crowded the invisible, but his presence made of your being a Jew; whether you premises, studying the Talmud, can itself felt through and through. No have killed because you are a hardly be referred to as students or orders were being issued, but they Negro or in spite of being a Negro; disciples. Although they were sitting might be at any moment; and and whether you did so because in front of an open book they did not

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 16 B"H Chabad.org everybody was ready to listen and they didn't help her at all. How could great honor for me to have been obey. they help her if all they have is sent on a mission by the Rebbe but knowledge and no faith? They don't I am only one of many hundreds The Rebbe's Peace Corps love her; they love only their books. and thousands. We have a whole How can one help without love?" I army here, our Peace Corps. This is I, too, was waiting, for my orders to became curious about this young our headquarters. From here the go in to the Rebbe. The time was a man. Rebbe dispatches his soldiers to the quarter past eleven, half past eleven various fronts. Wherever there is a ... when will it be my turn to be He was about twenty-five, and it single Jew there is a front for us to called in? I was just about to ask transpired that he had only recently fight on, with the Holy Scriptures in one of the young men in the court returned from a trip to Australia our hands and the love of Israel in office when a well-dressed young undertaken on the Rebbe's behalf. our hearts. These are our weapons. woman came in, with a patter of What am I doing here? What do you If there is some Jewish corner in the high heels, her blonde hair mean? I have a wife and a family world that is inaccessible by car, we streaming out beneath her kerchief. but one day the Rebbe told me to go go there on donkeys. There is Before I could see her face I could on a trip and I asked no questions nothing that can stop us. All we hear her half-choking voice: "Have about where and why. Nobody have in mind is that the Rebbe's you got an answer yet?" Instead of questions the Rebbe. His every orders should be carried out to the answering her the young man she word is an order. He doesn't say full, that we should be able to come had addressed went over to a pile of things that might have remained back and report to him: 'Mission letters, pulled out the one she had unsaid or could have been said accomplished.'" written, and told her that the otherwise. So I took my family and Rebbe's answer was right in there. went. What did I do in Australia? But the Peace Corps, as I am The woman snatched it away, Whatever I was told. There are informed by the office manager, is opened it and read it on the spot. people being sent round the world to only one of the many ramifications For a moment her eyes froze over. distribute food and money among of the Lubavitcher Court. There might have been tears as well the Jews, but what the Jews really of joy or of sorrow, who can tell? need is spiritual food, a bit of love, The Sun Never Sets Over the Leaving without a goodbye, she was of Yidishkeit. The Rebbe's orders Lubavitch Empire back again as soon as she had were for me to go and give them gone. love, to encourage them, to bring a "People used to say that the sun little Jewishness into their souls. never sets over the British Empire, "I have another question. May I ask There is social assistance and there but it is already going down. Not so the Rebbe another question?" is First Aid for physical ailments, but with the Lubavitch Empire. We are we are concerned with First Aid for growing stronger from day to day," "Of course," she is told. "At any time spiritual ills. Of course we are he said. "Have you heard about our and about anything you may wish." concerned with people's physical publishing house? It is the biggest well-being, too. Have you heard publisher of Jewish writings in the Her face lights up with happiness. about the 'Maccabees' who world, issuing books in over ten organized the defense of the languages. We also have hundreds "Poor woman," says the man to me Brooklyn Jews during the riots? The of yeshivos with some 30,000 after she has left. "All her life she's man who organized them, Rabbi students. Do you know our village in been going to psychiatrists, and Shraga, is one of ours.... It was a Israel? There'll be many more such

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 17 B"H Chabad.org communities. Once a week we marvelous gift: "That's it now; come one has come in the first place. And publish an information bulletin, along with me." so I start by introducing myself. circulated by the ITA News Agency. He may have said some more, but I Except that it isn't necessary. He "Who are the people who come to no longer heard him because I was knows more about me than I might see the Rebbe? Well, who doesn't? too busy covering up for my sudden be able to tell him. He knows not Chassidim and Misnagdim, men and palpitations, telling myself not to be only what I have done but what I women, tradesmen and scholars, a fool, that there was no need to get ought to have done, not only what I young and old, Jews and Gentiles, excited, that this wasn't my first am doing now but what I am not leaders and statesmen; including midnight appointment... doing and should do. His disciples the present President of Israel -- did had told me that he reads the you know he was one of ours? As Midnight Appointment papers every day and took a lively for his correspondence -- again, with interest in Israel, but it was a little whom doesn't he correspond? Even When the door closed behind me frightening nevertheless. with Ben Gurion. What about? That and I remained alone with the is the Rebbe's own affair. Nobody Rebbe the time was twelve "I understand that you are writing for opens the letters that are addressed midnight, but the Rebbe rose from the press now. Well, that's all right, to him. He himself opens them all, behind his desk to receive me with a but it isn't the main thing. The young and answers them, too. smile that spelled noon rather than generation, that is the main thing. midnight. One has to talk to youngsters, not "What do Jews ask about as a rule? write for them. Why aren't you About matters of religion and how to If that is what you are interested in, talking to them? Why is nobody make a living; about their personal you may see a handsome face with talking to them? They are waiting for affairs and about politics. In short -- a kind and gracious expression, a someone to talk with but nobody about everything. There is no black hat above and a gray beard does. They are being addressed in question he cannot answer. Where below. Alternatively you may see lofty speeches, but nobody talks to there is faith, one is able to answer nothing but a pair of eyes fixed upon them, and then people are surprised every question. For him there are no you not in order to see but in order that they remain indifferent." important and unimportant to discover and reveal. Then it won't questions. Every question calls for a be so pleasant for you if you have The Rebbe does not speak with me true answer.... Excuse me a something to hide, if your intention in Yiddish but in Hebrew. His accent minute." was to deceive. You try to button may not be the purest Sephardi, but yourself up anew, because you feel his language is the language of the I hadn't heard the bell ringing, but some of your buttons may have Bible. And however exciting his the secretary jumped over to the suddenly burst. Is it because the words, his voice remains level and phone and immediately left the Rebbe really has magic eyes or is it calm. room. Unwittingly I found myself because you have brought the adjusting the kerchief I had tied over magic along with you as a result of "What the youth is waiting for is an my head in anticipation of my your nighttime experience and the order which must be given in the interview with the Rebbe. I was just purge administered by the Rebbe's same voice and tone in which all the in time, for the next moment the disciples? But the question of cause great commands were issued to the secretary was back to tell me, with and effect no longer matters. What people of Israel. They may obey or the air of one presenting a most matters is to try and remember why they may not, but that is what they

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 18 B"H Chabad.org are waiting for. But there is no everybody, the entire Jewish nation, which offered as many opportunities commander to issue that order. is conforming to the set pattern, and as the present, and never has there Where are they all? No salvation there is no one to lead the way been a period when so few were can come from those who walk in out..." utilized." the beaten path, but only from those who break new ground. What has The Rebbe's voice is filled with deep The Torah Also Needs a happened to all those who were despair, but without pathos. "Have Commander once burning with the holy fire of a you ever calculated how many holy war that they are now dealing precious youth-hours are going to Until I suddenly heard the sharp with such bagatelles as whether waste every day? The use of every ringing of a bell I had not realized people should pay a little more or a such hour could wreak wonders. the vast silence that dwelt in this little less income tax instead of Instead of giving orders the leaders room. The ringing came from thinking about the urgent concerns make speeches and the young outside; from the office, presumably. of the Jewish people as a whole? people go to cafés and waste their I gathered that my time had run out. Where are those who at one time precious irretrievable time. Do you But it did not occur to me to get up, knew how to issue commands? I remember them during the Sinai and I went on sitting there as if there believe physics: that energy can campaign, how they rose like one had been no ringing. Despite the never disappear. Forces that have man because there was a repeated exhortation of the bell, the once existed will exist forever. commander whose orders were sound of the Rebbe's voice assured Therefore I believe in the everlasting such as they had been waiting for, me that this was not yet the end. force of the Jewish people. even if they did not know it Whatever forces there may once beforehand? Just give them an "Every day that goes by is a have been in its youth still exist and order as was done during the Sinai tremendous loss. What it takes ten need only be evoked. Once there campaign -- never mind the years to do in the Diaspora can be were those who knew how to evoke particulars, all that matters is that it done in ten days in the Land of them -- where have they gone? should ignite some spark as it did Israel, provided one gets down to then -- and you will see how all the the latent spark. A fire can go out, "Everybody is in a rut, following a latent forces will rise up again... but a spark never. Our youth are course of dull mediocrity. And, as asleep without knowing it, and those you know, there is nothing worse "It would hardly matter if everything who address it with speeches are than conformity. To be carried away were as it should be in the Land of surprised at their not hearing. by the current is very much like Israel and in the Diaspora. But it Unless they hear their own words, dying. Creativity begins by isn't. All the 'ideals' and all the they are not aroused. swimming against the current. What 'panaceas' have failed and only is needed is someone to start very, very little has so far been "What exactly are the words of our swimming against the current. I am accomplished. Never in the 3,500- youth? I cannot tell. The words will not preaching, G-d forbid, revolt, year history of the Jewish nation follow with the inner force of the only protest against the set pattern was there a period without any imperative. They must come from of conformity. If the present set-up prospects; sometimes the chances deep inside. The main thing is the has turned into a prison, one must were used and at other times they awakening, the pioneering spirit. find ways to break away from it. were allowed to escape. But never Once the vanguard is there, the That does not mean breaking the in the whole history of the Jewish banner may follow. Now there are law, but fighting against the law. Yet people has there been a period many banners, but what are they all

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 19 B"H Chabad.org worth without anybody to walk Brooklyn -- that is mere hankering It is getting close to two o'clock. The ahead of them and carry them? after comfort, not pioneering. bell has stopped ringing. It has Take those boys in Israel who throw probably given up. But ringing in my stones on people who desecrate the "Take our yeshivah students -- they own ears was the redoubled sound Sabbath -- I believe they have the study, too. But in order to teach they of my question: spirit, there is something they really go everywhere in the world where care about. I am not suggesting that there are Jews, not to sit there in a "Why won't you come and give the they should throw stones, G-d yeshivah but to open new order?" forbid, but I feel that they care, that academies. They knock on every there is something burning inside door. They find their way to non- "My place is where my words are them, and that is the main thing. religious kibbutzim in Israel and to likely to be obeyed. Here I am being Then I can try to convince them that assimilated homes in the Diaspora. listened to, but in the Land of Israel I they are using the wrong means, to The spirit of Judaism is the one won't be heard. There, our youth will divert their fire into the right ideal that has not failed like all the follow only somebody who has channels... rest. Only the values of religion sprung up from its own ranks and persist unscathed and unaltered. So speaks its own language. The "On the other hand the young far nothing has been found to Messiah will be a man of flesh and people who are coming from the replace them. And that is precisely blood, visible and tangible, a man Land of Israel to study at foreign why no compromise is possible in whom others may follow. And he will universities -- they are not pioneers. this respect. Everything may be come." What can they learn abroad that done to facilitate its teaching, but they cannot learn in the Holy Land? nothing to facilitate its observance. "He has been on his way for quite a If a man leaves his home to go to Attempts to compromise will only while," I found myself saying. the North Pole or climb a mountain alienate our youth rather than bring at the risk of his life to satisfy his them closer to our religion. Israel's "But he is very near and we must be thirst for knowledge one may call youth want no compromises. But prepared for him at any moment, him a pioneer. A young man who here, too, no leader has been found, because he may have come just goes from Brooklyn to the Negev no commander who will issue the one moment before." and risks his life on the border may order, as in the Sinai campaign." be called a pioneer. But leaving

Israel to study at a university in I Shall Come when the Massiah Arrives

Marching Orders time. It is an interval that marks recognition it deserves. I want to By Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael change in many ways. It is a very speak a little about that century, the (Steinsaltz) significant number in Jewish lore, century of the Rebbe. because 100 years marks a full We are celebrating 100 years since cycle of life. One hundred years also The Rebbe's century was a time in the birthday of the Lubavitcher defines a unit of historical time -- a which truly astounding things Rebbe. One hundred years is a long century -- and I want to give it the happened. The world has changed

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 20 B"H Chabad.org more in this century than in the Taking a closer look at Jewish life, ways, in many of them. He survived thousand years before, perhaps we also see great changes. Within the pogroms in Russia as a child, even the two thousand years before. this century, Jewish life underwent was a young man at the time of the In the sphere of geopolitics, this three major transformations. The Russian Revolution, and escaped century witnessed numerous earth- first unfolded over an extended time, from Europe during the Nazi regime. shaking revolutions. Totalitarian while its significance was not His knowledge and understanding of dictatorships in Russia, Germany, immediately evident right away, but what was happening in the world Italy, and Spain emerged and grew it was quite dramatic. Following an were unique. One must remember and achieved hegemony -- and all of extended period in which the Jewish that the Rebbe could draw on vast them collapsed. The maps of the people had been more or less stores of both spiritual and scientific world changed tremendously over religious, observant people, there wisdom, on his mastery of physics, this century -- Europe, Africa, and began a clear trend away from biology, literature, and human Asia changed their faces. Almost orthodoxy. By the end of World War nature. The Rebbe was a part of all everywhere, so much happened I, most Jews were non-observant. those changes, and he was also a during this span of time, including This is a huge change. person who created and worked two world wars that shattered the within them. He lived through the planet. The second change was brought most fascinating, frightening and about by the Shoah, the Holocaust. changeable time. There were changes in the spheres The Shoah murdered the core of of thought and knowledge. The new Jewish life: men, women and The Rebbe lived in the most difficult disciplines of psychology and children who were the most vibrant, of times, yet he was always able to psychoanalysis made a lasting animated elements of the Jewish forge ahead. The Rebbe was not impact on our general culture. people. Six million of them -- or just aware of many of these Abstract art, new forms of literature more -- were killed. changes; he predicted and warned and computerization brought entirely against some of them. new images and ideas into the And then there was the human experience. Our new grasp establishment of the state of Israel: But we must go one step further. Of of biology has brought about a another unprecedented event, course, the Rebbe was very aware tremendous post-modernist shift in another tremendous change. All of of the past -- his own past, the past our understanding of how we these things represent dramatic of his people, and the past of change and of the changes we alterations in the history and life of humanity. But with all that, he was generate. The theory of relativity the Jewish people; nothing like them never a man of the past; the Rebbe was a remarkable insight, changing had happened in the previous was always a man of the future. If the world's perception and thousand years. you read through his many writings, understanding of itself, a position you will find hints here and there from which it cannot return. It begat So the political world changed, the about the past, but the focus and the atom bomb, while our intellectual world changed, and the direction are on the future. He understanding of biology created Jewish world changed. sometimes spoke about what had genetic engineering. These happened, but more about what achievements, and so many others, The Rebbe did not just live in the should happen, what will happen. hover over us as threats and as century in which these events Some people looked at him as a opportunities. occurred. The Rebbe participated, symbol and a picture of the glory of at various levels and in different the Jewish past, but this is an error.

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In so many ways, he was a man of Clearly, the coming of Moshiach is to the end of human life or to the the next century, a man who not a mere happening within the end of earthly existence, but to a belonged far more to the future than world; it is far more important, far tremendous change in all of that. So to the past. And that will explain more profound. In the words of the that is something that we must not what was so very important to the prophets, Moshiach signifies the only speak about, but something for Rebbe in his last years. end of days -- that is, the end of which we must prepare. history. It marks the end of ordinary The Rebbe watched the world and days, and the beginning of a In this context, let me address the saw and felt so much happening, so completely new era, an era so new notion of the Rebbe's "legacy." One much quivering and shaking all over that nothing in the past is parallel to should not use that word in talking the world, but he did not see these it. Moshiach will change history about the Rebbe. The Rebbe did not developments as final effects; he permanently, change human life leave a legacy. The Rebbe left saw them as preliminary tremors permanently, and usher in a future marching orders. This is an entirely preceding a big upheaval. The that will be very different from the different concept. The Rebbe did not Rebbe saw all the change and past. just leave a collection of books, distress throughout the century as videos, and speeches. He left a task labor pains that herald an impending The Rebbe was not just making to be completed, and the books and birth. And that was what The Rebbe conversation about Moshiach, and other resources provide the had in mind when he talked about he was not just talking about a understanding that will enable Moshiach. prophecy that he wanted to people to carry it out. preserve. The Rebbe spoke about The Rebbe spoke about Moshiach Moshiach because he understood I will try to outline some of the ideas because he saw all the past, the that the coming of Moshiach is a that are in those orders, properly century he lived through, as the process in which we must be both and correctly, and render his lofty preparatory rumblings before the active participants and passive words in simple, down-to-earth occurrence of a huge upheaval. This beneficiaries. It is a dual process, language. I believe that his is not is what he tried to tell people. This is like birth, where you cannot specify just a personal interpretation, but is the message he tried to what part comes from Above and the outlook of the official leadership communicate. As the years passed, what part comes from the inner of Chabad. I hope, also, that this he became more and more intense, working of the human body. explication will be valuable for the more and more emphatic, about the Chabad movement, which, I believe, idea that Moshiach was about to This synthesis is what the Rebbe is larger than its organization. And I come. He saw it not only through referred to when he spoke about hope that these words will go some heavenly vision; he perceived Moshiach. Therefore, the Rebbe did beyond that, to reach the much it in observing how the world was not see "Moshiach" as a mantra to wider community of all of those moving, in the changes he had say six times or ten times a day to whom the Rebbe touched in one witnessed. He saw the movement, overcome difficult times. For the way or another, and they will cause the suffering, and the pain as Rebbe, Moshiach was something to something of a shift. presaging a major event, a major work on, to deal with, to fight for. change, and that change is the That is because we are built and our When we speak about the coming of arrival of Moshiach. history is built, from the very Moshiach, we speak about a mega- beginning, as the prelude toward the event, a major phenomenon that end of days. We are not building up changes everything. We may not be

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 22 B"H Chabad.org fully prepared and we don't know So, the coming of Moshiach means, That route is still open, and we the how, what, or when of this among other things, the casting should try to move in that direction. event, but we are talking about away of internal fights. We must talk major changes. One of the to people about what Moshiach We should do it not just as a consequences of this statement is means. We must abandon, for statement, as a slogan, but as a that, if we are expecting things to example, the Jewish serious practical move toward a change in a major way, we will have interdenominational quarrels, many different way of life. This does not to make major changes, too. And of which are associated with small, mean "Let's cast away all kinds of one of these changes is that we short-term calculations and things we are dealing with and go have to cast away a huge number of evaluations: What will be better for and deal directly with the Above." It petty quarrels and petty issues; my organization, for my little group, does not mean being unearthly and insignificant clashes that are not just for my little thing in the next two, forgetting to eat your breakfast. vicious and unprofitable, but three, or five years? How will I gain (People won't forget that even in the ludicrous. a little bit more support from this rich World to Come). But we can put our man or the other rich man? How can lives and our rational crises in Next to the truly momentous I maneuver in another little way to perspective, and when we put them changes we are anticipating, all of be written up in one newspaper or in perspective, they will become our trivial arguments shrink into another? Again, compared to the big very different, because our real trifles; our disputes are comic, not things, all these are nonsensical. notions should be with the Above. just painful. I am not speaking about personal quarrels only, but about It is even more important to talk In a more concrete way, it means the whole notion of political about the future, what people are being genuinely concerned about, trappings that you deal with in this going to do, when the time will and working for, every segment of country and that we deal with in come… and the time is coming, society, not just in details, but in Israel, my country. Many of the whether we want it or not. The major areas of society: addressing things that people fight about are status quo will change, and all these the rifts among ethnic groups and the sheerest, shallowest nonsense, petty issues will be wiped away. the growing gap between the rich especially if we compare these That means, also, there are lots of and the poor; making education (not quarrels to the establishment of an things we must do. So what do we just knowledge) a primary and entirely different order. In that do? universal ambition, and bringing the sense, whether Party A or Party B whole country - not just a segment will have a particular right or a Let me start by saying something of it - to an awareness of the Divine. particular authority seems about Israel. We are stuck in a very It also means being careful not to ridiculous. Who will remember all unfortunate position. We try to move use the Almighty to achieve narrow these foolish people who were to the right, and the way is blocked. benefits (even praiseworthy ones), fighting about such things? When We try to move to the left, and the but to remember that all of us, right the tsunami is about to envelop the way is blocked. We try to go and left, are the people of G-d. world, no one will remember if my forward, but we cannot. We try to shop was on the west side of the retreat, but we are cut off. So, we In a more emphatic way, this is the street or the east side; everything are surrounded and blocked on direction and an order for the will be moved. every side. There is one direction, Lubavitcher movement, a movement however, that is not closed: upward. that has to continue to progress. So much has been done; so much has

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been achieved. In some places, the We have to start talking now about own Jewish brothers and sisters, but achievements are marvelous, changing, not just about turning, but to all of humanity: We have to talk unimaginable. In some places, it is about returning on a big scale. "On about what are called the Seven like seeing the flowering of the a big scale", means that it is not Noahide Commandments, the desert, where Jewish life seemed to sufficient to make token gestures, seven laws that the Almighty gave be dead, and it has been revived. for example, to say to an older man, Noah after the Flood. These "Do me a favor and send your commandments are for all humanity, But all that is not enough, by far not grandchild to study in cheder for two for every human being. We should enough, because we are now hours." Rather, this is about speak about these commandments talking about a much bigger reaching people in a deeper and not just to one individual, as if we process. We cannot now stand still more meaningful way, getting them were selling merchandise, but to all and gloat. It is true that when one to change their lives, to set their the peoples and the nations of the Jew puts on a pair of tefillin once in priorities where they should be set, world, so that we can change the his lifetime, there is a new light in and to put their efforts where they world. Our goal is not to give a the world. It is true that when a Jew should be put, because a time is compliment to the Rebbe. A new eliminates one non-kosher food coming when these are the things and different world will come in a from his diet, even though he is not that will count, and most of the rest short time, and we have to address abstaining from other non-kosher will not matter at all. It will be a it. We have to tell people that a things, this is a gain, an advance. different reality; things won't be the different time is coming, a time But we now have to talk to people same. We have to tell people about when different things will count. We not only about small changes, but it. We have to say it again and again must get everyone to keep the basic about major changes, about in a most emphatic way. This does Noahide laws, the laws of nature transforming completely. We have not mean that we must invalidate and the laws of the Divine, and we to face them; they have to see what we are doing; we must just must bring the people together. This themselves as Jews. It is not easy work on a much grander scale. We is what we have to tell individuals to make such changes; it is have to act in a much more urgent and nations. sometimes quite difficult to suggest way. These ideas have to be them, but now is the time to do it. expressed not only to individuals, How can we do it? Because the We don't know when, in two years but also to organizations, to groups, Rebbe is behind us, in a sense or ten years, but something great is to the Jewish community at large. doing and saying these things. It happening. And if we are to be We have to repeat the call of the means recognizing that now is the prepared, then we have to tell sixth Rebbe: "Teshuvah now -- time to go to others and to people to throw away all the redemption now." Whatever has ourselves, and pay attention to the nonsense, to stop indulging in things been done is not enough. It is never big things and the important things, that are not important, to start to go enough. It has to be done ten times and to let the small details go. a different way. That means both as much, if we want to be ready for those who dedicate their lives to this the time. Our sages tell us, in reading work and those who are volunteers. Genesis 49:33, that "Our father That means speaking to those who There is something else we must Jacob did not die." The idea is that, are here and to many more who are say, something that has to do with as long as there are Jews in the not. our attitude about the world. The world, the seed of Jacob is alive, Rebbe began, but we have to living within us. In everything we do continue to say it, not only to our in our lives, a small minuscule part

Chabad.org Magazine Korach 5764 24 B"H Chabad.org of him lives within us. We say in our tremendous desire continue. If we From a speech delivered to a prayers "David, the King of Israel, is sustain his utmost desire to bring gathering of American Friends of alive and enduring", which means about that big change, then we can Lubavitch marking the Rebbe's the kingship of David never died. say that the Rebbe lives on. The 100th birthday, held at the Library of Someone could kill the last Jewish Rebbe is here, when we are here Congress, Washington D.C., March king, but no one can destroy the and we are doing all the things that 11, 2002 kingship of the Jewish people. The he left in his marching orders. He kingship is still alive, still here. We said we should advance. He said we may be downtrodden, we may be should not walk, but we should run. kicked, but the kingship of Israel We should attack. He said we continues. In that sense, I would say should go further. that the Rebbe implanted his spirit in so many people, that his dreams, We should do it, and we will do it. his visions, his insight, and his

On Humility mortal blow in his portrayal of the in-your-face dressing, to designer By Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks unctuous Uriah Heep, the man who labels worn on the outside, not kept saying, "I am the 'umblest within. You can trace an entire How virtues change! Moses, the person going." Its demise, though, cultural transformation in the shift greatest hero of Jewish tradition, is came a century later with from renown to fame described by the Bible as "a very the threatening to celebrity to being humble man, more humble than anonymity of mass famous for being anyone else on the face of the culture alongside the famous. The creed earth." By today's standards he was loss of neighbourhoods of our age is, "If clearly wrongly advised. He should and congregations. A you've got it, flaunt have hired an agent, sharpened up community is a place of it." Humility, being his image, let slip some calculated friends. Urban society is humble, did not indiscretions about his a landscape of strangers. stand a chance. conversations with the Almighty and Yet there is an sold his story to the press for a six- irrepressible human urge This is a shame. figure sum. With any luck, he might for recognition. So a Humility -- true have landed up with his own culture emerged out of humility -- is one of television chat show, dispensing the various ways of "making a the most expansive and life- wisdom to those willing to bare their statement" to people we do not enhancing of all virtues. It does not soul to the watching millions. He know, but who, we hope, will mean undervaluing yourself. It would have had his fifteen minutes somehow notice. Beliefs ceased to means valuing other people. It of fame. Instead he had to settle for be things confessed in prayer and signals a certain openness to life's the lesser consolation of three became slogans emblazoned on t- grandeur and the willingness to be thousand years of moral influence. shirts. A comprehensive repertoire surprised, uplifted, by goodness developed of signalling individuality, wherever one finds it. I learned the Humility is the orphaned virtue of from personalized number-plates, to meaning of humility from my late our age. Charles Dickens dealt it a

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father. He had come over to this Wherever I travelled, I heard tales of aggressive packaging of personality country at the age of five, fleeing his extraordinary leadership, many so sad. It speaks of loneliness, the persecution in Poland. His family verging on the miraculous. He was, I profound, endemic loneliness of a was poor and he had to leave was told, one of the outstanding world without relationships of fidelity school at the age of fourteen to charismatic leaders of our time. I and trust. It testifies ultimately to a support them. What education he resolved to meet him if I could. loss of faith -- a loss of that had was largely self-taught. Yet he knowledge, so precious to previous loved excellence, in whatever field I did, and was utterly surprised. He generations, that beyond the visible or form it came. He had a passion was certainly not charismatic in any surfaces of this world is a Presence for classical music and painting, and conventional sense. Quiet, self- who knows us, loves us, and takes his taste in literature was effacing, understated, one might notice of our deeds. What else, impeccable, far better than mine. He hardly have noticed him had it not secure in that knowledge, could we was an enthusiast. He had -- and been for the reverence in which he need? Time and again, when this was what I so cherished in him - was held by his disciples. That conducting a funeral or visiting - the capacity to admire. That, I meeting, though, changed my life. mourners, I discover that the think, is what the greater part of He was a world-famous figure. I was deceased had led a life of humility is, the capacity to be open an anonymous student from three generosity and kindness unknown to to something greater than oneself. thousand miles away. Yet in his even close relatives. I came to the False humility is the pretence that presence I seemed to be the most conclusion -- one I never dreamed one is small. True humility is the important person in the world. He of before I was given this window consciousness of standing in the asked me about myself; he listened into private worlds - that the vast presence of greatness, which is why carefully; he challenged me to majority of saintly or generous acts it is the virtue of prophets, those become a leader, something I had are done quietly with no desire for who feel most vividly the nearness never contemplated before. Quickly public recognition. That is humility, of G-d. it became clear to me that he and what a glorious revelation it is of believed in me more than I believed the human spirit. As a young man, full of questions in myself. As I left the room, it about faith, I travelled to the United occurred to me that it had been full Humility, then, is more than just a States where, I had heard, there of my presence and his absence. virtue: it is a form of perception, a were outstanding rabbis. I met Perhaps that is what listening is, language in which the "I" is silent so many, but I also had the privilege of considered as a religious act. I then that I can hear the "Thou", the meeting the greatest Jewish leader knew that greatness is measured by unspoken call beneath human of my generation, the late what we efface ourselves towards. speech, the Divine whisper within all Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi There was no grandeur in his that moves, the voice of otherness Menachem Mendel Schneerson. manner; neither was there any false that calls me to redeem its Heir to the dynastic leadership of a modesty. He was serene, dignified, loneliness with the touch of love. relatively small group of Jewish majestic; a man of transcending Humility is what opens us to the mystics, he had escaped from humility who gathered you into his world. Europe to New York during the embrace and taught you to look up. Second World War and had turned And does it matter that it no longer the tattered remnants of his flock True virtue never needs to advertise fits the confines of our age? The into a worldwide movement. itself. That is why I find the truth is that moral beauty, like

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music, always moves those who can Divine presence breathes. We feel About the artist: Sarah Kranz has hear beneath the noise. Virtues may affirmed, enlarged, and with good been illustrating magazines, be out of fashion, but they are never reason. For we have met someone webzines and books (including five children's books) since graduating out of date. The things that call who, not taking himself or herself from the Istituto Europeo di Design, attention to themselves are never seriously at all, has shown us what it Milan, in 1996. Her clients have interesting for long, which is why our is to take with utmost seriousness included The New York Times and attention span grows shorter by the that which is not I. Money Marketing Magazine of London year. Humility -- the polar opposite of "advertisements for myself" -- never fails to leave its afterglow. We

know when we have been in the Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks is Chief presence of someone in whom the Rabbi of Great Britain

The Ache in my Heart in honesty, in spite of my spiritual felt known by him. Seen by him. And By Jay Litvin connection to him, I miss the Rebbe. I mean these words -- "known" and My heart aches to once again have "seen" -- in their most profound I am basically one of those "flesh him as part of his and my flesh and sense. I felt naked before him. And and blood" sort of people. While the blood relationship. through him I saw myself fully Rebbe's writings and teachings are exposed. Stripped of illusion and of great importance to me, while I What was this relationship? Well, if I self-deceit. continue to experience the Rebbe were to tell you how few times I as a very active, involved part of my even saw the Rebbe, you might Whether I was privileged to a life, still, I miss the flesh and blood wonder at my grief. And knowing momentary glance when he caught connection. that I never spoke directly to him, my eye and nodded as I lifted my your wonder would be greater. cup at a farbrengen to say l'chaim; Perhaps I must apologize for not whether, in a whoosh of excitement, having risen to greater spiritual No, I was simply one of those I passed before him to receive a heights. For if I had attained these people who went to a few dollar; or whether, in one of those heights, then perhaps my spiritual farbrengens (I never lived in Crown extraordinary times when he caught connection with the Rebbe would Heights), stood in line for "dollars" and held my eyes for what seemed suffice; or perhaps I would have once or twice, and sent letters when like an eternity but was in truth only more internalized the truth that a needed and received answers when five or ten or fifteen seconds, I was great tzaddik, once freed from his they were necessary. I was thirty-six stripped bare: known from my most body, is freed as well from the years old when I first saw the Rebbe superficial, petty self to the depths limitations of his body. some seventeen years ago. of my being, deeper than even I knew existed. But, if I am to use this opportunity to But, you see, whenever I went to the write, I must use it to be honest. And Rebbe, or even when I wrote him, I

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My conscious self cannot know, love me for what I did do to live up have much advice, words of wisdom much less describe, what the Rebbe to his expectations. to share with me. Certainly there are placed within me during these countless, perhaps even more encounters. The incomprehensible Is this a childlike relationship? profound ways, to maintain ways he affected me; the life, Perhaps. Would it be better, more communication with and receive inspiration, courage and mature for me to strive for my inspiration from a tzaddik even commitment with which I left these highest potential without requiring when we cannot see him, hear his brief meetings changed my life more "outside approval"? Perhaps. But as voice, and experience his physical than any human could ever expect a I said, I am a simple, limited person presence. life to change. of flesh and blood who has not reached such great spiritual heights. But this does not ease the ache in But there was something else, So be it. my heart. Nor replace my personal something much simpler, more encounters and my very fervent easily comprehensible, more The expectation of meeting soul to expectation of them. Nor have I connected to the simple flesh-and- soul with a person who has reached found a way to replace that moment blood existence of the Rebbe that heights so far greater than I can when I stand revealed before one had great power over my life. imagine, and the knowledge that who can both see me for who I am this meeting would reveal the gap and love me at the same time. It was merely the expectation that I between who I was and who I could would see the Rebbe again. Or, to be, kept me straight. It helped me As a man of flesh and blood, I find be more precise, that he would see be more honest with myself. It consolation neither in my memories me. invigorated my potential nor in the Rebbe's and forced it before my writings. I knew that I would, at some point in awareness, constantly. the future, stand fully exposed When I saw the I find it instead in the before him, his eyes piercing Rebbe's capacity for ache in my heart, the through my best "look good" to see love, it enlivened and place I keep the who I really am. expanded my own Rebbe. For each capacity for love. When time I feel the ache I And I wanted both he and I to feel I encountered, directly, am reminded of him proud at that moment. And I didn't personally, the Rebbe's for whom it aches. I want to feel ashamed. And I knew capacities, it enlivened am reminded of what that while the Rebbe had the the whole of my own. he taught me: that greatest compassion and for every sickness understanding of my very limited And always, daily, I carried with me there is a remedy, for every pain a self, that still, he had great the anticipation of our next meeting. consolation, for every act of G-d expectations of me. That he saw my there is a purpose, for every lack highest potential, and believed that I So, what do I do now? there is a fulfillment, for whatever could attain it. And though I knew potential the Rebbe sees in me, that he would love me in spite of I have much advice to give myself in there is the possibility of its what I did or didn't do to live up to answer to my own question, as I'm realization. his expectations, I wanted him to sure many of you who read this

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Will I find the strength, wisdom, Jay Litvin was born in Chicago in passed away in April of 2004 after a courage, devotion and faith during 1944. He moved to Israel in 1993 to valiant four-year battle with Non- this most difficult time? serve as medical liason for Chabad's Hodgkin's Lymphoma, and is Children of Chernobyl program, and survived by his wife, Sharon, and took a leading role in airlifting their seven children. The Rebbe thinks so. children from the areas contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; he

also founded and directed Chabad's

Terror Victims program in Israel. Jay

The Foundation Dissolution is his daily Of guile's rewards; By Zvi Yair bread; Therefore Therefore A flow of Heavenly ...and the Tzaddik is the He knows blessing foundation of the world Eternal life Fills his larder -- Proverbs 10:25 Solitary and without He cleaves to the One He uprooted his feet friend The root, the all- From the base of earth; Is he; inclusive; Therefore Therefore Therefore Steadfast his foundation Every man He holds, he bears, Never wavers Is his brother Its countless branches of particulars The voids are before him Guilt knows not Always; His soul; As a stranger Therefore Therefore He treads upon the earth The terrors of the world Upon the sinner Along the waysides Do not faze him His compassion is winds his path; aroused Therefore All rivers of sorrow flow He sets Along the channels of his His seeds he scattered to The pillars of creation. heart the winds On to the valley of All day he tilled understanding; Stranger’s fields; By Zvi Yair; from the Hebrew by Therefore Therefore Yanki Tauber His fountain of joy His own orchard Does not falter Yielded hundredfold

In the fleeting shadows Empty are his garners He sets his table Of cunning's harvest

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Why Do We Smile To Ourselves? their need to be changed or just Tears and laughter -- each conveys By Chana Weisberg held and coddled. feelings on opposite ranges of the emotional spectrum. Yet both are Our response to a baby's crying is our means to reach out to another, I'm sure she did it today. automatic. Sara Leah will begin to often more powerfully than any cry and immediately a slew of little spoken word. After we've shared I've been watching in Voices hands -- ranging from my five-year- our joys and our sorrows, we feel anticipation, awaiting it for old son all the way up to my better. It is how we communicate the last few weeks. And today it teenaged children -- will surround our need for a response -- be it happened. her, all eager to pick her empathy, support or up and stop her just kinship. Today, my newborn baby looked me screams. Invariably, my straight in the face with her huge, children's next question innocent eyes -- and smiled. It was will be, “Does she want But then there are a full toothless grin, flaunting her to eat now, Mommy? those times when we round dimpled cheeks and What's bothering her? laugh or cry alone. demonstrating that she finally knows Why is she crying?” who I am. For weeks, I'd cuddled We received good her, spoken to her, rocked her on But crying is a baby's news and, my shoulder, cooed to her and sang very effective way of overflowing with to her -- and today she communicating. The happiness, we can't acknowledged that she recognizes more upset she sounds, help but laugh out me. She smiled back. the more we'll attempt one thing loud -- even though no one is after another just to curtail her present to hear it.

distressing wails. A friendly smile in passing greeting. And then there are times when A full, guttural laugh. These are we've experienced an overwhelming ways that we humans communicate A silent tear. Bitter weeping. hurt -- too personal and deep to with one another. It is how we share Hysterical sobs. These are ways share with another -- and we retreat our joy, kinship and friendship with that, from infancy upwards, we in solitude, our heart torn to pieces, each other. share with each other our sadness overcome with sobs. and sorrow, our pain and

discomforts, our frustrations and But if, from earliest infancy, we cry Until today, my newborn baby, Sara disappointments. and smile as a form of Leah, communicated only through communication, to whom are we her crying. Babies cry... and wail... communicating with these solitary and cry some more. That is how Our tears and our sobs draw tears and smiles? they convey their discomfort -- their empathy. Our smiles and our hunger, their pains, their tiredness, laughter elicit happiness. Perhaps these tears and smiles indicate that even in our aloneness,

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we aren't ever really alone. That worldwide on issues relating to even in our solitude, we realize that From the very beginning of our lives, women, relationships and mysticism. we are sharing the deepest of our we use our smiles and our tears to emotions. Intuitively, we understand communicate. Sometimes, it is our About the artist: Sarah Kranz has been illustrating magazines, that we are being heard -- by the silent but powerful way of sharing webzines and books (including five One who hears and sees all cries with another person. children's books) since graduating and smiles. from the Istituto Europeo di Design, And sometimes -- whether it is our Milan, in 1996. Her clients have After experiencing a tragedy beyond intention or not -- it is our truest way included The New York Times and our comprehension, the lonely tears of expressing that deep down we Money Marketing Magazine of London cascading down our cheeks is our realize, we are never alone. way of protesting to You, of beseeching You to put an end to our suffering. Or, as good fortune smiles our way and a grin forms across our Chana Weisberg is the author of two features, it is our way of books on the lives of Biblical women acknowledging our gratitude to You and on the feminine soul. She is the for all the good You shower on us. dean of the JRCC Institute of Torah Study in Toronto and lectures

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Parshah in a nutshell

Parshah Korach Numbers 16:1-18:32

Korach incites a mutiny challenging Moses' leadership and the granting of the kehunah ("priesthood") to Aaron, accompanied by Moses' erstwhile foes, Dathan and Aviram. Joining them are 250 distinguished members of the community, who offer the sacrosanct ketoret (incense) to prove their worthiness for the priesthood. The earth opens up and swallows the mutineers, and a fire consumes the ketoret-offerers.

A subsequent plague is stopped by Aaron's offering of ketoret. Aaron's staff miraculously blossoms and brings forth almonds to prove that his designation as High Priest is Divinely ordained.

G-d commands that a terumah ("uplifting") from each crop of grain, wine and oil, all firstborn sheep and cattle, and other specified gifts be given to the Kohanim.

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Week At A Glance Portugal. On Monday, June 23 -- 28 Sivan on the Jewish calendar -- at 10:30 A.M., they arrived in New York. m o n d a y Shortly after his arrival, the Rebbe's father-in-law, the then Sivan 25 | June 14 Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Yoseph Yitzchak Schneersohn (who had been rescued from Nazi-occupied Warsaw in On This Date: Jews debate before Alexander (313 BCE) 1940), appointed him to head the social and educational Jewish victory in public debate with Ishmaelites, Canaanites outreach programs of Chabad-Lubavitch. Thus the Rebbe and Egyptians before Alexander the Great. (Talmud, Taanit began his decades-long revolutionary work to revitalize 3) Jewish life in the Western Hemisphere, which spread, by means of the emissaries ("shluchim") he dispatched from his 3 of the "Ten Martyrs" killed (2nd century CE) New York headquarters, to every part of the world. Among the millions of Jews cruelly killed by the Romans were the "Ten Martyrs" -- all great sages and leaders of Israel -- memorialized in a special prayer recited on Yom ------Kippur. Three of them -- Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha and Rabbi Chanina S'gan Hakohanim -- f r i d a y were killed on Sivan 25. Sivan 29 | June 18

On This Date: Spies dispatched (1312 BCE) ------Moses dispatched 12 spies to tour the Holy Land in preparation to its conquest by the people of Israel. t u e s d a y Sivan 26 | June 15 Light Shabbat Candles before sunset

On This Date: R. Chananya ben Tradyon killed (2nd ------century CE) Rabbi Chananya ben Tradyon, one of the "Ten Martyrs" (see s h a b b a t entry for Sivan 25 above) was killed on this date. When the Sivan 30 | June 19 Romans discovered him teaching the outlawed Torah they wrapped him in a Torah scroll, piled bundles of twigs around Rosh Chodesh him, and before setting him afire they placed damp woolen cloths on him to prolong the agony of being burned to death. Torah reading: Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32) As the flames engulfed him, his disciples asked him, Haftarah: Isaiah 66; I Samuel 18 & 42 (haftarah for "Master, what do you see?" Rabbi Chananya replied: ""I see Shabbat Rosh Chodesh) a scroll burning, but the letters flying up to Heaven." Ethics of the Fathers: Ch. 4 Jews expelled from France (1332) Laws & Customs: Rosh Chodesh observances ------Today is the first of the two Rosh Chodesh ("Head of the Month") days for the Jewish month of Tammuz (when a t h u r s d a y month has 30 days, both the last day of the month and the Sivan 28 | June 17 first day of the following month serve as the following month's Rosh Chodesh). Special portions are added to the On This Date: Rebbe arrives in US (1941) daily prayers: Hallel (Psalms 113-118) is recited -- in its After escaping Nazi-occupied Paris, and many perilious "partial" form -- following the Shacharit morning prayer, and months in Vichy France, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi the Yaaleh V'yavo prayer is added to the Amidah and to Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and his wife, Rebbetzin Grace After Meals; a special version of the Musaf prayer is Chaya Mushkah, boarded the SS Sorpo Pinto in Lisbon, said.

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