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FROM THE PUBLISHER
Thirty years ago, a few days after Gimmel Tammuz 5754, I needed to go to Boro Park for an appointment. It had been a few days that I had been sobbing bitterly from the moment we heard the unthinkable news and feeling like it was the end of the world. The pain was so heavy that it actually felt like a physical one.
I sat there in the waiting room, watching other frum people coming and going while I carried an unbearable pain. It felt so incongruous and starkly contrasted with what was happening just a few miles away in Crown Heights and in all of our lives.
When we first heard the news on Gimmel Tammuz, we didn’t know what to do, so we headed to 770 and sat on the porch steps crying. 770 had been my second home. As a young child growing up on Eastern Parkway, the front of the Rebbe’s Shul was my backyard. Every Shabbos morning, we played hopping games on the half-moonetched pavement while our fathers davened and attended the Rebbe’s farbrengens.
As a grade-schooler, I spent many nights in 770. We attended every weeknight farbrengen, sitting in the back rows of the ‘vaiber shul,’ attempting to take notes on looseleaf paper of any Yiddish words and phrases we could catch as the Rebbe spoke.
On Simchas Torah, we waited hours to get a spot in the ‘middle shul,’ crammed with hundreds of girls from everywhere—who became our good friends as we bonded over the long wait—to see the Rebbe dance during Hakafos. There were many farbrengens where the singing was so loud and powerful that we felt certain Moshiach had arrived.
After receiving dollars, we would head back out into the street, slightly disoriented from having been rushed through the line with thousands of others, and all I could think was, “Rebbe, I just want to make you proud.”
Then, there was the first time I saw the Rebbe on the porch after he suffered a stroke on 27 Adar. I will never forget the sound of the collective gasp, and then the sobs, which were heard in the Shul as the curtain was pulled aside and we saw our beloved Rebbe that day.
Sitting in Boro Park that morning, I couldn’t understand how others could go about their day as if nothing had changed in the world. While totally agonizing, In truth, it was a zechus to feel the pain. It meant that we merited to experience being the children of the Moshe Rabbeinu of our generation and bask in the Rebbe’s light. Today, when I speak about the “golden years” we experienced at 770, I almost always find myself in tears. 30 years later, the pain remains so real, so current. While the connection to the Rebbe remains strong and continues to grow, there is still a part of me that will never be fully whole and will never stop missing the Rebbe.
But my tears are not just of sadness. I am so grateful for the Shlichus that I’ve been given because reporting on the powerful connection that our youth continues to have with the Rebbe and the many who learn and teach the Rebbe’s Torah is a daily reminder of the Rebbe’s leadership, which continues stronger than ever.
The tears are also mixed with joy, that while the younger generation today may not have been where we were or have seen what we merited to see, yet the Rebbe still remains the most important figure in 770 - and in the entire world, even more than back then.
My tears are also of yearning, to see the Rebbe again and fulfill the task which he gave us, to bring Moshiach now.
MICA SOFFER
Photo: Shalom Burkis
Rebbe, We Miss You Editorial / Mica Soffer
Our Nossi and Head
A letter from the Rebbe
The Rebbe at the Ohel
JEM gallery
The Only Job I Ever Had Dovid Zaklikowski
The Menachem Mendel Dilemma
Tzemach Feller
What Would the Rebbe Say?
Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin
Finding My Husband and Myself
Danit Schusterman
Hiskashrus Now Tzemach Feller
The Rebbe in Crown Heights
Yossi Feller
Chinuch For All Meshulam Nachmanson
Fascinated by the Rebbe
Yoni Brown
Test Your Knowledge
Quiz / Binyomin Weiss
What Makes a Community
The Rebbe, Frankl and Therapy Health / Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch
Chinuch Matters
Menachem Education Foundation
Sunday Dollar After 5754 Story / Asharon Baltazar
Crowdfunding and the Rebbe
The Inside Track Music / Sruly Meyer
Kids Korner Fun / Sari Kopitnikoff
Fish Magnet Activity / Parsha Studio
An Urgency in Salt Lake City Children’s story
Best Summer Salads Food / Sruly Meyer
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Our Nossi and Head
ON THE TRUE DEFINITION OF A REBBE
This letter was written by the Rebbe several months after the histalkus of the Friediker Rebbe. It was originally written in lashon hakodesh, and printed as an introduction to a maamor of the Friediker Rebbe. It is noteworthy to mention that the letter was dated Gimmel Tammuz 5710.
Third of Tammuz, 5710
Many seek and propose to explain the qualities and greatness of Chabad Rebbes in general, and, in particular, the Rebbe of our generation, my father-in-law, hareini kaporas mishkavo, in various ways: as a man of self-sacrifice, Torah genius, lofty character, tzaddik, possesses ruach hakodesh, miracle-worker, etc.
These qualities are further magnified when defined by Chassidus, which explains true self-sacrifice, true Torah genius, and so on.
And yet the main point [of defining a Rebbe] is lacking. In addition to being of an essential nature, it is particularly relevant, especially to us, his chassidim and followers, namely: that he is the Nossi, and the Nossi of Chabad.
A Nossi, broadly defined, is a “head of the multitudes of Israel.” He is the “head” and “mind” compared to them. Their source of life and vitality is derived from him. Through their attachment to him, they are bound and united with their source on high.
There are several types of Nesi’im: those whose influence was “internal” and personal, and those whose affect was of a more “superficial” nature. This is further divisible into the particulars of whether they imparted the
teaching of the “revealed” part of Torah, its mystical secrets, or both; whether they offered guidance in the service of G-d and the ways of Chassidism; whether they drew down material provision, and so on.
There are also Nesi’im who were channels in several of these areas, or even in all of them.
Such was the nature of the leadership of the Nesi’im of Chabad, beginning with the Alter Rebbe, leading up to and including my father-in-law, who embraced all these categories and areas: they nurtured their chassidim both “internally” and “superficially”; in Torah, divine service and good deeds; in spirit and in body. Thus, their bond with those connected with them was in all 613 limbs and organs of their souls and bodies.
Each and every one of us must know – that is, think deeply and implant the awareness in his mind – that the Rebbe is our Nossi and head: that he is the source and channel for all our material and spiritual needs. It is through our bond with him (and he has already instructed us in his letters how and by what means this is achieved) that we are bound and united with our source, and the source of our source, up to our ultimate source on high...
(Kuntres Yud Beis – Yud Gimmel Tammuz 5710. See also Igros Kodesh vol. 3 letter 635.)
The Rebbe at the Ohel
Throughout the years, the Rebbe would spend long hours davening on behalf of klal yisroel at the Ohel of the Frierdiker Rebbe. Often, the Rebbe’s response to a request for a brocho would be that he would mention them at the Ohel. JEM presents here a collection of pictures of the Rebbe at the Ohel, many of them during the days leading up to Rosh Hashana.
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Rabbi Krinsky being interviewed for COLlive Magazine at his home in Crown Heights
BY DOVID ZAKLIKOWSKI
The Only Job I Ever Had
Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky reflects on his work as one of the Rebbe's aides, Gimmel Tammuz 5754 and what transpired since
Photos: Agudas Chassidei Chabad Library, Lubavitch Archives and Marc Asnin
n Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky’s presence, there are no airs. His quiet charm envelops you. Through almost six decades, he has been one of the public faces of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Yet, he is self-effacing and refuses to be provoked by my sometimes sensitive questions.
We met in his home in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, less than a mile from Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. The objective of our meeting was to interview him for the Gimmel Tammuz issue of the COLlive Magazine, commemorating 30 years since that dark and fateful day of the third of Tammuz 5754 (June 12, 1994) and his thoughts about Lubavitch proving the naysayers wrong.
But personally, on that hot afternoon, I had another goal: to understand how Rabbi Krinsky–the chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch and Machne Israel, Chabad’s educational arm and social services agency, kept his composure on that fateful day—so painful for all Chassidim and Jews worldwide. Why doesn’t he get frustrated under pressure? Why does he not feel the need to criticize his antagonizers?
A hospital wedding
In the months leading up to the Rebbe’s passing, Lubavitch Headquarters had been relocated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan and operated out of Beth Israel Medical Center. Chassidim made it a hub since the Rebbe was taken there after suffering a stroke. Lubavitchers would daven, eat, and sleep there. Many remained there for Shabbos, and scores of others walked there on the afternoon of the holy day of rest.
“The Hassidim maintain a round-the-clock vigil,” the Jerusalem Post wrote in March, “Constant prayer services are held in the hospital’s tiny chapel, which is also a meeting room and a dormitory.”
There was a kosher bagel store around the corner, and some only made it to Crown Heights to shower. “At night, they sleep where they can. Many doze off in the chapel,” the Post reported. “Yeshiva students bunked down on exercise mats in the school gymnasium. Others sleep in their cars.”
One of the most memorable moments of that hazy period was the wedding of Rabbi Krinsky’s son Shmaya to Rivkah Gutnick, on May 31. The high-profile wedding of the son of the Rebbe’s aide and the daughter of Australian diamond magnate Rabbi Yosef Gutnick made headlines.
“A Marriage Made for the Rebbe” was the headline of the New York Newsday, one of several newspapers that had been regularly reporting on the Rebbe’s health. “Lubavitcher Hasidim Rivkah Gutnick, 18, and Shmaya Krinsky, 23, take a newlywed stroll outside Manhattan’s Beth
Israel Medical Center yesterday. The pair wed in a park there within sight of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson’s room, where he lies gravely ill.”
Despite that brief moment of celebration, it was a dire time. The doctors were not optimistic, and if there was one person who was under immense pressure from the international press, it was Rabbi Krinsky.
When one reporter asked if the Rebbe had a will, he said, “It would not be a revelation of any sort if he did. Most people have a will.” The question, Rabbi Krinsky then told the reporter, was disrespectful in his opinion, because the Rebbe was “very much alive.”
When the Worst Happened
The Rebbe’s health and the future of Chabad have been international news since the spring of 1992, when
the Rebbe suffered a stroke while davening at the Ohel of his predecessor and father-in-law, the Rebbe Rayatz, at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Cambria Heights, Queens.
In New York and Israel, these subjects were the focus of dozens of articles. Tsadok Yecheskeli served at the time as the New York correspondent of Yediot Aharonot, the country’s largest daily newspaper. “The rabbi was a well-known figure in Israel and in the Jewish world,” he said in an interview this past month. “We understood that this was a huge story.”
Ben Kaspit, the correspondent for the competing daily Maariv, recalled that the energy of the Lubavitchers was impressive. “I was amazed by the belief of the followers that he cannot die,” he said. “They were totally convinced he is immortal.”
As Yecheskeli was at the hospital daily for many hours, so too was Kaspit. The Chassidim’s devotion was so strong that both Israeli journalists questioned what the future of Chabad would be if the worst happened to the Rebbe. “He was such a central figure,” Yecheskeli said.
The Rebbe and Rabbi Krinsky enter the car on the way to the Ohel
“There was no way to know what would happen to the movement after the Rebbe passed.”
But on that Sunday morning—the 3rd of Tammuz—when the worst did happen, attention shifted back to 770 Eastern Parkway. The streets were full in Crown Heights, but eerie. Faces were white, strides were slow, and looks were distant.
I remember, once I learned of the horrible news, I remained in 770. Not knowing what to do, I watched—the people and the clock. People were shocked to the core and did not know how to express themselves.
For a few hours, I sat on the stairs outside the Rebbe’s room. People walked by as the Rebbe’s body lay on the ground covered in white. Most said a few words and moved on; some were crying bitterly. Others were reciting chants as they had done for the previous two years.
Outside 770 the differences were starker. Most were sobbing in any spot they could find. Others’
faces were blank, and then there were a few that were dancing. It made no sense, and was frustrating to me as a teen.
“People were dancing,” Yecheskeli of Yediot recalled his disbelief. “It was a contrary reaction than we expected. We expected sorrow. It was a surrealistic scene. You see people that admired him so much, who believed that he would not die, and then when he died, they were dancing.”
But for someone like Rabbi Krinsky, upstairs in his office, fielding calls from rabbis, dignitaries, and reporters while trying to organize the logistics of the Rebbe’s levaya, it should have been maddening. But looking back at the news reports it did not seem that way—at least outwardly.
“We all feel that we lost a father; we feel orphaned,” Rabbi Krinsky calmly said on that dark day. Of what was happening outside, he told reporters that he could not wrap his mind around what they were doing, but “you should give us
Rabbi Krinsky near the Rebbe on 27 Adar, 5752-1992
a chance to wrestle” with the deep mourning Chabad was enduring. “The wound is fresh, the pain is deep. It is difficult to talk.”
The Bostonian
The cool demeanor of Rabbi Krinsky becomes more animated whenever he speaks about his childhood. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1933, his father was a schochet and one of the few Chassidic Jews in the city. His father spent much of his free time studying from a sefer. He tells of how his home was a “center for Lubavitch in the city” and how many frum visitors to the city and shluchim of the Rebbe Rayatz would choose to stay and eat at his parents’ home.
Shortly before his Bar Mitzvah in 1945, his parents decided to send him to New York to study at the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth in Crown Heights. At that time, to see the Rebbe Rayatz was nearly impossible, especially for the younger students at the yeshiva. But he did meet the Rebbe’s son-in-law, then known simply as the Ramash, and was “immediately enamored by him,” he says.
The young boy would watch the future Rebbe’s dignified manner, how he davened, and how at a monthly farbrengen, where some twenty people would join, the Ramash, “would sometimes weave the names of the attendees into the narrative. It was something special.”
The yeshiva, on Bedford Avenue at the corner of Dean Street, was a twenty-minute walk from 770. Rabbi Krinsky’s parents would send him Penny postcards which would arrive at the official yeshiva address at 770. The Ramash handled the incoming mail to the Rebbe Rayatz and his various institutions, he recalled.
When his parents’ cards arrived, the Ramash didn’t pass them along to someone to deliver to the young student; he would ask someone to summon him to the office, where he would give it to him personally.
“I am not sure what his thinking was,” Rabbi Krinsky said, “but perhaps because they were postcards, anybody would be able to read it and he thought that it would be best to hand deliver them to me. He didn’t need to place them on the side for me, but he did. I was moved by the gesture.”
In Shevat 5710 (January 1950), the Rebbe Rayatz passed away. “I cried like a child,” Rabbi Krinksy recalled. “The passing was difficult for us all. But we understood that there was a bright future. All would be okay. I knew that the Ramash would be the Rebbe.”
An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse
Rabbi Krinsky’s becoming one of the Rebbe’s aides may have begun in the summer of 1949. His brothers were in business and they had a vehicle. Sixteen at the time, his father insisted that he learn how to drive a car as well. He told his teenage son that teaching your child how to drive is similar to what the Gemara states that parents should teach their children how to swim.
“I didn’t need to have a car or to drive one. But I got a license,” Rabbi Krinsky says.
One morning, in the early 1950s, as he was learning in the 770 Yeshiva, someone asked him if he had a license. “The Rebbe wants to go to the
Rabbi Krinsky addressing the International Kinus Hashluchim
Ohel,” they said. Looking back, he said, “I guess it was somewhere in Hashem’s Divine plan that I should get a license a few years earlier.”
He rushed out to rent a car, brought it to 770, and the Rebbe entered the front seat, which he was not prepared for. “I am driving,” he said, “and the Rebbe is sitting right next to me. I cannot describe the mental and emotional experience. My heart was trembling.”
From then on, he began to take the Rebbe to the Ohel regularly. Five years later, in the summer of 1957, after getting engaged to be married to his wife, Mrs. Devorah Krinsky (nee Kasinetz), he was called to the office of the Rebbe’s secretariat. Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Hodakov, the Rebbe’s chief aide, casually asked him what he was going to do after the wedding. “I am a yeshiva student,” he told Rabbi Hodakov. “I never held a job and I don’t really have any definitive plans yet.”
Rabbi Hodakov asked if he would like to join the Rebbe’s secretariat. “The Rebbe wanted me on his staff? It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he recalled thinking at the time. “But I was also a little bit lost,” he says. “Not really knowing exactly what it would entail.” Rabbi Krinsky said that he would.
Looking back, he says that working in the Rebbe’s office was challenging. He could have made work plans the previous night, and “the next day, I would not cover a single thing from the list I had prepared,” Rabbi Krinsky says. There was a constant flow, “Everything was moving, alive, and you had to go with it.” At the Rebbe’s study in the wooden paneled room, where the Rebbe learned, worked, and received visitors, every life experience that can conceivably happen in a day “arrived at the Rebbe’s desk.”
In the Rebbe’s presence, Rabbi Krinsky said, he never took anything for granted. “I never got used to anything. Every time you knocked on the Rebbe’s door, there was a new adventure. When you turned the doorknob to go in, your heart skipped a beat. Every single time there was excitement like it was the first time. It’s very special and I wouldn’t change one second.”
Many times he had to take initiative, one of them during one of the most painful times for the Rebbe in the late 1980s. After securing a restraining order to stop the stealing of books
from the Library of Agudas Chassidei Chabad, Rabbi Krinsky informed the Rebbe of what he had done and asked a question regarding the matter.
He didn’t know how the Rebbe would react and what the response would be, but the Rebbe said, referring to the biblical story of the public desecration of G-d’s name: “Moshe worried about all of Jewry, yet Pinchos had to do what he needed to do.”
Rising like the Phoenix
So how does Rabbi Krinsky keep calm and collected, when battling for the Rebbe’s library, executing the Rebbe’s instructions in the face of adversity, and keeping the integrity of the Chabad institutions? His answer: “I didn’t apply for the job; I guess the one who hired me felt that I could do what he hired me for. It is very simple.”
He simply adds that there were many more in the pool of possible candidates, and if he was chosen, there was a good reason. For his part, “I try to do what is right, and not to do what is wrong.”
When I continued to press Rabbi Krinsky that I didn’t believe it came that naturally, he relented and said that he had good role models. “I learned from the Rebbe and the Rebbetzin how to conduct myself,” he says. “I spent most of my life with them. I had the best people in the world to learn from, and the way they conducted themselves became sort of my nature.”
One was always showing the height of respect for another person. “There was nobody the Rebbe didn’t respect,” Rabbi Krinsky says, “he was concerned with the person who came to him, just as the person was interested to come to the Rebbe for guidance.”
As one who was in charge of audiences with the Rebbe for many years, he says that he was never surprised that a person who was not a community leader or activist and was not seemingly so important spent so much time in the Rebbe’s study. “Because for the Rebbe everyone was important, and everybody had a shlichus, a purpose in life.”
In people, the Rebbe always found goodness, “how they could be better themselves and how they could be better to other people.”
He also learned that it is important to respect another person’s privacy, with the Rebbe insisting on opening his own mail and making sure that the secretariat should not be privy to people’s personal correspondence.
Another lesson he learned was to appreciate the good in others. “The Rebbe saw everything with a different set of eyes,” he said, “a different set of eyeglasses, a different prism.”
He tells of the time Yulla Lipchitz had a private
audience after her husband, famed sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, died. Mr. Lipchitz had asked her, a sculptor in her own right, to complete an unfinished sculpture of his: The Phoenix. Some protested that the phoenix bird was not a Jewish idea and that she should abandon it. “Rebbe,” she asked, “tell me, is the phoenix an oxymoron to Judaism?”
The Rebbe called in Rabbi Krinsky and asked him to bring a copy of the book of Iyov. The Rebbe pointed to the commentaries on the phrase “I shall multiply my days like the chol” (29:18), which describes a bird that lives for a thousand years and then renews itself and returns to its
Rabbi Krinsky addressing the annual gathering of Tzach - Lubavitch Youth Organization in New York
youth, seemingly the same concept as a phoenix.
Calmed by the Rebbe’s reassurance,Yulla committed to finishing her husband’s work. “This was predicted when she came to the Rebbe,” Rabbi Krinsky said, “the Rebbe found the positive where others only saw the negative.”
Nothing
Collapsed
Yecheskeli of Yediot recalled that a few days after the Rebbe passed away, he was guided to the office of Rabbi Krinsky, whom he calls “The amazing Krinsky.” He was shocked at what he saw. They were organized and ready for the future. “They knew how to react,” he said. “There was very strong leadership around [the Rebbe].”
He called Rabbi Krinsky a great CEO and said that despite all of the predicted doom and chaos, everyone at the office was “calculated and cool. Like a company with great leadership and knowing what they wanted.”
In the end, Yecheskeli said, nothing collapsed, and Chabad adjusted and thrived, “The rabbi (Rebbe) became a huge symbol, and basically is still living in many ways.”
Not all journalists were understanding like Yecheskeli, many pressing on the question of succession. “With his passing,” wrote Ari Goldman in the Baltimore Jewish News, “Lubavitch leaders will tolerate the question more than they once did, but they still will not openly speculate on a successor. ln fact, they still speak of the departed Rebbe in the present tense.”
At the time, Rabbi Krinsky replied: “It is hard to say, the Rebbe is the last of a kind. The more he is understood, the more we realize that he is the towering figure of the century, not just of a generation.”
In a statement to the press, Rabbi Krinsky poetically wrote: “It would be a grave error to think that our relationship with the Rebbe is now relegated to history. The Rebbe’s gift to us far exceeds the parameters of his life span of 92 years. Through his unique and inspired vision, the Rebbe endowed us with a passion for the good
Rabbi Krinsky stands as chazzan in the Rebbe’s room in recent years
and the G-dly and the means to understand that the good and the G-dly are inherent in our world and within each of us and in our everyday lives. It is a vision that will inspire us for generations to come.”
Looking back, Rabbi Krinsky told me that dealing with reporters was indeed challenging. You could never prepare for the next question, topic or challenge they placed before him, “You just had to deal with it.” He relates a story from the Rebbe about how he learned to deal with it.
During his first week in the secretariat, the Rebbe asked him to come into his office. “The Rebbe was sitting in his chair,” he recalled, “without his hat on, the first time I ever saw the Rebbe without one, and he was writing with a pencil on a sheet of paper.
After a few moments, the Rebbe handed him the page and asked to retype the document. The Rebbe’s edits were like a maze, “very labyrinthine, between the lines, on top of the lines with arrows pointing here, arrows pointing there.”
The Rebbe told him to start from the beginning and go through, “letter by letter, word by word, line by line and you’ll see that in the end everything will be okay.”
He took this to heart throughout all the challenges and fast-paced activity around him. “The Rebbe taught me,” he said. “Don’t get lost, don’t get excited. Line by line, and you see that in the end it will work out fine.”
The world around Rabbi Krinsky was chaotic on that bitter day—Gimmel Tammuz three decades ago. The sounds of sobbing, crying, dancing, and the police swirled through the office windows. While many at the office were frustrated, others discouraged and perplexed, and others frozen in fear of the future, one person remained level-headed.
At the end, he repeated over and over—if not out loud, in his mind. It may take a year. It may take a decade. Two. Or three. Patience. As the Rebbe told him, line by line. Or, it can be said, person by person.
As to the future of Chabad Lubavitch, Rabbi Krinsky is, as always, upbeat and positive. He sees the future as shining and bright. Rabbi Krinsky says Lubavitch has success that he could have never dreamed of. He also sees the level of Torah
study in Lubavitch schools to be much higher than in previous years. “I think it is getting better all the time,” he says, “I see it in my grandchildren and the bochurim I meet.”
Sitting back in his chair at home, his jacket off—the first time I have ever seen him that way— his tie loosely tied, the nonagenarian leaned back and smiled with a twinkle in his eyes, “I don’t plan on going anywhere,” Rabbi Krinsky said. “I still have a lot more to do. Learn more Torah and do more mitzvahs. I have a lot to still give over, and continue my work for the Rebbe. The only job I ever had.”
Dovid Zaklikowski is a biographer and archivist, his books can be found at HasidicArchives.com. He can be reached at DovidZak@gmail.com
Rabbi Krinsky during the interview
DILEMMA THE Menachem Mendel
GENERATIONS OF PEOPLE CARRYING THE REBBE’S NAME REQUIRES FLEXIBILITY IN SHIDDUCHIM
BY TZEMACH FELLER
RRabbi Mendel Groner, one of the Rebbe’s Shluchim to Eretz Yisroel who teaches in the Chabad Yeshiva in Kiryat Gat, was in a quandary. His eldest daughter had met a wonderful young man named Menachem Mendel, a name he shared.
The issue was that Rabbi Yehuda HaChassid famously instructed that one should not marry a woman whose father shares the same name as himself. If they wished to marry, one of them needed to change their name.
Rabbi Groner turned to Rabbi Yitzchok Yehuda Yaroslavsky, Rav of Chabad in the neighboring Kiryat Malachi. “He told us to add a name,” said Rabbi Groner, a change that would be done by either himself
or his prospective son-in-law.
Rabbi Groner decided he would change his own name, so that “I’ll be able to take more sons-in-law who are named Menachem Mendel.”
At first, he wanted to take the added name “Tzemach” which has the same gematria as “Menachem,” but he could not, because that was the name of his grandfather, who had passed away, but who was alive during his lifetime.
He decided on the name “Yisroel”, and when the pair decided to get engaged, Rabbi Groner was called up for an aliyah with the new name, Yisroel Menachem Mendel ben Yehuda Leib (his father, the Rebbe’s Mazkir, Rabbi Leibel Groner). A “Mi Shebeirach” was made for him
with the new name following the aliyah as well. “Since then, I am Yisroel Menachem Mendel,” he said.
The fact that Lubavitch men under the age of 30 are named Menachem Mendel is known and obvious. But how are there generations of Menachem Mendels in Lubavitch?
THE FIRST MENACHEM MENDEL?
On 27 Sivan, 5754, R’ Chaim and Bassie Treitel of Montreal, Canada, were blessed with a newborn son. They had a name in mind for their newborn son, but on Motzei
Shabbos, hours after they celebrated his shalom zachar, they heard the heart-shattering news.
Like tens of thousands of other chassidim, they rushed to New York, bringing along their newborn son. Sunday, Gimmel Tammuz, was the levaya. On Monday morning, in the Gan Eden Hatachton, the Rebbe’s holy antechamber at 770 Eastern Parkway, their young son was named Menachem Mendel.
Their son was one of the first to be named after the Rebbe, but he was far from the first Menachem Mendel.
Ostensibly, the name was given after the Tzemach Tzedek, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, whose name was Menachem Mendel. But in truth, doing so is quite unique among many chassidic dynasties when a current rebbe shares a name with a previous rebbe.
The Rebbe not only allowed this, but encouraged it.
When my grandparents Mrs. Mindel Feller, of blessed memory, and Rabbi Moshe Feller, had their first son in 1969, they had a conundrum. As chassidim, they wanted to name their son Yosef Yitzchak after the Rebbe Rayatz, but Rabbi Feller’s father was named Yosef Aryeh, so they couldn’t give the whole name. Rabbi Feller called up the Rebbe’s secretariat and presented his query.
Unbeknownst to him, the Rebbe was on the line.
Suddenly, the Rebbe’s voice came through on the call: “Zol zei geb’n di nom’n noch’n Tzemach Tzedek, vet er hob’n beide nemen.” — “Let them name him after the Tzemach
Tzedek, and he will have both names.”
Both names: Menachem and Mendel. But also both the names: of the Tzemach Tzedek and of our Rebbe.
Indeed, on at least two separate occasions, the Rebbe announced at a farbrengen that those who need a bracha for children who will grow up to be chassidim should name them after the Frierdiker Rebbe, and that if they can’t give that name, they should give the name Menachem Mendel, like the Tzemach Tzedek.
A CHANNEL FOR MIRACLES
On 12 Shevat, 5714, the Rebbe said that we are now in need of miracles, and that with the strength (koach) of being the Rebbe, “I am hereby announcing and saying: all those who are in need of a blessing for sons will be blessed this year with sons, and they will be chassidishe sons.…
“They should be given the name of the [Frierdiker] Rebbe. Those who can’t give this name because their parents have this name (as the minhag of Ashkenazim is not to give the name of the parents during their lifetime) — should give the name ‘Menachem Mendel,’ the name of the Tzemach Tzedek.”
Rabbi Groner was born—and named Menachem Mendel—following this sicha. While some other fathers have resisted changing their name, insisting that their son-inlaw does so, he is happy with his decision. “Since then, I have taken another two sons-in-law named
Menachem Mendel,” he says.
The Rebbe related a similar sentiment again on Shabbos Bereishis, 5715, stating, “May all those who are in need of a bracha for sons be blessed this year with living offspring, and they should name them after my father-in-law, the [Frierdiker] Rebbe, or with the name of the Tzemach Tzedek.”
The Rebbe also strongly encouraged and thanked Chassidim for naming their children after his family members.
After Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka passed away, the Rebbe urged chassidim to name their children after her. As the the Rebbe said on the first yahrtzeit: “Through naming a child after her and raising the child in her spirit, which is the literal fulfillment of the teaching, ‘just as his children are alive, he is alive’, this will add life (the meaning of her name, Chaya) for the child in a literal sense and bring her many long and happy years,”
Knowing how much the Rebbe cherished and valued this tribute, tens of thousands of chassidim have named their children Menachem Mendel in the thirty years since Gimmel Tammuz. As these Menachem Mendels carry the Rebbe’s name, they certainly merit to give the Rebbe much satisfaction. As the Rebbe told Rabbi Menachem Mendel Bruk, who named his son Levi Yitzchok, after the Rebbe’s saintly father, “Just as you have caused me great pleasure, so may Hashem cause you great pleasure, and may you have nachas from your family both physically and spiritually, and may you always report good news.”
WHAT WOULD THE REBBE SAY?
RENOWNED SCHOLAR
RABBI SIMON JACOBSON
CONVEYS THE REBBE 'S RESPONSE TO ISSUES FACING THE JEWISH WORLD
BY RABBI YEHUDA CEITLIN
Photo: Aharon Gellis
n the decades since Gimmel Tammuz 5754, Rabbi Simon Jacobson has emerged as one of the leading instructors of the Rebbe’s teachings to the masses. He has shown Jews and nonJews, as well as Chassidim of all ages, that the answers to life’s most complex dilemmas can be found in Torah and Chassidus as taught by the Rebbe.
His groundbreaking book, “Toward a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson,” was the first example of this. Published in 1995 by William Morrow, it has been translated into English, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, German, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, and Croatian.
The book shares the Rebbe’s pure outlook on every aspect of life — from birth to death, youth to old age; marriage, love, and family; the persistent issues of career, health, pain, and suffering; and education, faith, science, and government.
Rabbi Jacobson based this on his 14 years of work as a ‘choizer’ and Editorin-Chief of Vaad Hanochos Hatmimim, responsible for publishing more than 1,000 of the Rebbe’s talks. He also headed the research team for Sefer Halikutim — an encyclopedic collection of Chassidic thought (26 volumes, published 1977-1982).
A resident of Crown Heights, Rabbi Jacobson has since founded the Meaningful Life Center and hosts “MyLife: Chassidus Applied,” a weekly podcast and broadcast answering questions pertaining to all life matters and challenges according to Chassidus. Running for over 11 years and regularly posted on COLlive.com, the program has become a staple in many people’s lives. To date, Rabbi Jacobson has fielded over 180,000 questions in 500 episodes, where he crystallizes concepts quickly, succinctly, and poignantly for any level of listener.
Marking 30 years since Gimmel Tammuz, we turned to him to answer what the Rebbe would say about some important issues that the Jewish and Lubavitch world are currently facing, based on his understanding of the Rebbe’s teachings.
“I will base the answers either on things I have heard or read from the Rebbe explicitly or by extrapolating from what was said in similar situations,” he promised.
Here’s Rabbi Jacobson’s take on what the Rebbe would say about...
... OCTOBER 7, 2023:
Our natural first reaction is to cry and express outrage at such atrocities. It shocks and demoralizes us. But the Rebbe would say that we cannot allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and paralyzed. This is not the time to be intimidated and cower in fear. We need to channel our feelings into a demonstration of strength and resolve—in three ways.
1. Strengthen our bitachon: We should intensify our trust and belief that Hashem is always watching over us, especially in Eretz Yisrael “upon which Hashem’s eyes rest” all year long, even and especially during very difficult times. This enables us to maintain a high morale, and empowers us to face every adversity.
2. Military strength: The best way to deal with a sworn enemy is with strength in a firm and resolute manner. The Rebbe warned against showing weakness in such cases, and whenever Israel did, it suffered for it tragically.
3. Spiritual response. After terror attacks and during wars, the Rebbe called to add in Torah and Mitzvos, especially those that are directly associated with safety. Among them are Mezuzos, Tefillin, Tzedaka and Ahavas Yisroel. This spiritual battle is one all of us around the world must partake in.
...THE WAR IN GAZA AND THE HOSTAGES:
The Rebbe would say that in defending itself Israel should not be swayed by public opinion, from the United States Government or from any place it may come from. Furthermore, the Rebbe said that Israel should proceed with whatever it needs to do; even if the United States will publicly denounce it, they will privately support it.
The Rebbe regularly quoted Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim Siman 329), which states that everything must be done when lives are in danger. If someone is your sworn enemy, who has declared war against you, you must never let your guard down. Even if they come to negotiate trade matters, you must bear arms to defend yourself against a possible attack. Had Israel eliminated Hamas and its other terrorist enemies years ago, before they were able to build tunnels, we wouldn’t have had an October 7th.
War is bloody and civilians will be harmed (especially when they are being used as human shields by the terrorists). But when faced with a brutal enemy, the only way to total peace is through eliminating them and showing absolute strength that will deter any future adversary. The stronger you fight now, the more peace there will be later. The Rebbe stressed that doing so will save Arab
and Muslim lives as well.
The Rebbe emphasized (on Motzei Shabbos Bamidbar 5739) that despite Pidyon Shvuyim being a tremendous Mitzvah, there are some critical conditions. Namely, not to offer anything that will incentivize the captors.
In a war with such savage enemies, Israel must demand Hamas’ unconditional surrender, safe release of all the hostages, and total rescinding of their call for Israel’s destruction and the eradication of Jews. Unconditional surrender with an enemy that has mercilessly attacked you is the rule of war - like the U.S. and the Allies did to Nazi Germany and Japan.
The Rebbe did not speak against Arabs and his stance was not hawkish. It was about saving lives. A temporary ceasefire is ensuring the continued slaughter of more Jews and Muslims, which Hamas has promised to do.
... ISRAELI PEACE WITH SAUDI ARABIA:
The Abraham Accords were a tremendous vindication of the Rebbe's approach, which argued for peace-forpeace, not peace-for-land, offering cultural, economic, and tourist cooperation and opportunities (unlike others
who argued that Arabs won't make peace unless Israel gives land and agrees to establish a Palestinian State). The Abraham Accords demonstrated that this type of peace can be forged with Saudi Arabia and other countries without endangering Israeli lives.
... THE RISE OF ANTISEMITISM:
We don't give credence to the antisemites. The Rebbe never directly referred to the KKK or the neo-Nazis marching in Skokie, Illinois or elsewhere. He didn't give them that type of significance. He also recognized, as many have since come to see, that the anti-Israel sentiments of the left and antisemitism are synonymous.
The best way to deal with antisemites is to be an ever prouder Jew and demonstrate it for all to see. (Obviously we must do everything possible to protect ourselves from attacks). For the Rebbe, it wasn’t sufficient to be anti-antisemitism, but rather to fight for Judaism -- offense being the best defense. He called us to rise to the occasion and fight antisemitism by intensifying our Jewish commitment and performance of Torah and Mitzvos. Non-Jews respect proud Jews.
... TAKING PSYCHEDELICS:
In a 1966 letter, responding to a question about the use of the psychedelic LSD, the Rebbe wrote that this is “not the proper way to attain mystical inspiration, even if it had such a property. The Jewish way is to go from strength to strength, not by means of drugs or other artificial stimulants,” and to “utilize all one’s natural capacities, and when this is done truly and fully, I do not think there will be a need to look for artificial stimulants.”
Regarding medicinal use, the Rebbe writes that these drugs “have a place only if it is necessary for the physical health, in accordance with the mitzvah to take care of one’s health.” Obviously, the dispensing of these drugs should be done only by a legitimate and accredited doctor (who was “given the permission to heal”). Medicine has to always be taken responsibly, with the right intent and integration.
... THE SHIDDUCH CRISIS:
The Rebbe's main response to shidduch issues (without getting into whether there is a greater communal crisis today than there was in the past) was about setting the right priorities. Young men and women need to have their priorities in place and search for yiras shamayim, trust, midos tovos, and a commitment to build a life and family on the values and foundations of Torah and Mitzvos, as illuminated by Chassidus (as the Rebbe wrote in his letter to newlyweds).
The Rebbe was once asked what takes priority in looking for a spouse, sechel or midos (intellect or refined behavior). The Rebbe answered 'good midos' and added (although he wasn't asked), 'and regarding kesef (money), our sages don't even talk about it'. A home needs to be built on something more transcendent and eternal, not superficial and temporary, like money and comfort.
When people’s priorities are in the wrong place -- when money and materialism is more important than spiritual values -- it is not surprising if a shidduch crisis ensues.
The Rebbe also emphasized the importance of bitachon in Hashem, who is the “Matcher of matches,” to help create a vessel for Hashem’s blessings in finding your bashert, your soul-mate.
... THE BURDEN OF TUITION:
The Rebbe made it very clear that the hanhala of a chinuch institution have a responsibility to raise money to ensure that every child gets a proper chinuch. They and the teachers are there to support the children and not the other way around.
Parents who can't pay should be given scholarships, and there should never be a case when a child is sent home because parents can't afford to cover tuition. And exposing a child to such humiliation is abhorrent and unacceptable. If a principal or administrator doesn't know how to do that, they don't belong in the chinuch system.
Parents must see chinuch as a priority in their lives, and educating their children and paying tuition (to the best of their ability) is more important than other optional expenses (like vacation and leisure). And for those that are able, it means not only paying for their own children but also helping the school subsidize those that can’t afford to pay. But the school faculty has the responsibility to ensure that all children get a proper chinuch.
... YOUTH USING SOCIAL MEDIA:
When the Rebbe spoke against television being in a home, he compared it to bringing a “church” into your home. Parents must do all they can to ensure that their
children are exposed to kedusha and Torah-based influences, and protect their children from inappropriate content. Obviously, the same applies to today’s social media and other secular platforms.
When a child is still young enough that the parents can control the content the child consumes, the parents must demonstrate proper discretion.
But what about when children start growing up and are inevitably exposed to these platforms and technology in general, through friends and the like? Teaches the Rebbe, that the power of technology was created by Hashem “l’kvodo,” to honor Him, by spreading goodness and kindness, using it for disseminating Torah and Mitzvos, like schools using computers and tablets as education tools.
Since our children will at some point be exposed to technology, we need to educate them about the purpose of all these gifts. This isn't just about technology and social media but all the things we will encounter in life: The best defense is offense. We must teach our children to channel and harness these forces for the good and for the holy, to help spread knowledge of Hashem, helping “fill the world with Divine knowledge as the waters cover the sea.”
... THE STATE OF CROWN HEIGHTS:
The Rebbe would have nachas from the growth of Crown Heights. It is a vindication of the Rebbe's fight to save Crown Heights when everyone fled in the 1960s. After all the Rebbe’s efforts to ensure that Crown Heights not be abandoned, but rather thrive and flourish, it’s beautiful to see that the Rebbe’s words and promises -- “kan tzivah Hashem es ha’brocho” -- have been fulfilled. The Rebbe’s neighborhood has become a coveted destination, a place where people want to live, daven, learn and even eat kosher.
Of course, Crown Heights has its challenges like every community. But the Rebbe looked at the positive and potential of the community, encouraging us to do whatever we can to improve it, and assure that it lives up to the standards the Rebbeim would be proud of. (The Rebbe negated any efforts to compare us to others).
On that note, it’s important to emphasize that the Rebbe gave us directives on how to continue growing this neighborhood, including insisting on making simchas in Crown Heights. I remember when my father (famed journalist Gershon Ber Jacobson) wanted to make my sister's wedding in the Brooklyn Museum in 1979, the Rebbe insisted that doing so would be defying his directive “mit a trask”. The Rebbe clearly felt that it is a bracha for the couple and baal simcha to have their simcha in this neighborhood.
... THE FACT THAT MOSHIACH STILL HASN'T ARRIVED:
In the early 1990’s, the Rebbe himself asked the question, “after all the work has been done to prepare the world for Moishiach, why has he not arrived?!” And the Rebbe replied: “we indeed still have this question to Hashem!”
The Rebbe said on 28 Nissan 5751 “tut altz vos ir kent,” do all that you can. Our focus has to be on asking ourselves, are we doing everything we possibly can? I know for myself that I am not. There are 15 million Jews in the world - how many of them have been reached with Chassidus? There are close to 8 billion people in the world - how many of them know about Sheva Mitzvos Bnei Noach? What more can we do to “fill the world with de’eh es Hashem k’mayim l’yom mechasim”?
Until Chassidus is a household name like (l’havdil) Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and (now) Nvidia, we have more to do. There's a lot of work to be done. Hopefully, Hashem will have rachmanus and will bring Moshiach now, even before we do all we can.
Photo: Levi Kolton
Bring IllumiNations Into Your Life
Inside these 432 pages of adventure, you'll discover a unique collection of stories, some of which have graced the pages of the DollarDaily.org weekly newsletter 'IllumiNations,' captivating readers far and wide. Alongside these are dozens of previously unreleased tales and details, making each page a new discovery. With intriguing facts, a stylish magazine-style layout, and vibrant, full-color illustrations, "IllumiNations" takes you on a journey through over 250 narratives, spanning the globe from Alaska to Australia, California to Johannesburg, and beyond. In every story, you'll feel the deep theme of a Jewish soul finding its way home, one at a time, guided by the extraordinary individuals we call shluchim.
Finding a Husband and Myself
AFROM A PROFESSOR’S BOOK TO FINDING HER MATCH, SHIMONA TZUKERNIK’S LIFE CAME FULL CIRCLE.
BY DANIT SCHUSTERMAN
At the age of fifteen, while living a secular Jewish life in Johannesburg, South Africa, Shimona Krengel (now Tzukernik) asked her mother, Masha, why it wasn’t okay to marry a non-Jew. Upon hearing this, her mother immediately sent Shimona along with her two other daughters to a local Bnei Akiva mid-winter camp to connect with their Jewish roots. That is where Shimona discovered the Kuzari and began her intense journey seeking the truth of Yiddishkeit. Returning home, Shimona and her sisters began to keep Shabbos and started living a Jewish way of life.
Although surprised by the turn of events, Shimona’s mother was completely accommodating on their journey.
Always searching and wanting to learn more, Shimona discovered another book that opened her to the Rebbe in a new way. The book was titled "Return" and was written by Professor Herman Branover, a renowned expert in magnetohydrodynamics. Professor Branover's
narrative detailed his transformation from a secular Russian scientist to a devout Jew. His description of the juxtaposition of the cold, intellectual, climate of Russian life against the warm and emotionally secretive Chassidic gatherings he attended resonated deeply with Shimona who was herself in the throes of a similar battle. His encounters with the Rebbe piqued her curiosity and propelled her along the path of exploration that she had already begun. Shimona was astonished to learn that cosmic harmony was as integral to Judaism as matzah ball soup. ”Return” encouraged her to continue questioning her beliefs in her search for truth.
At the age of eighteen, Shimona spent a summer in Israel. There, she stayed with her father's cousin Leah Abromowitz and her husband Arieh who asked her one evening about her plans for marriage. The question took her by surprise as she was not ready to consider a shidduch at all. Despite Arieh’s insistence that he knew of a wonderful Lubavitcher
man for her, Shimona laughed it off, unable to fathom a relationship with a Chassid at that point in her life.
It was during that same year that, back in South Africa, Shimona met her mentor Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Kesselman, a mashpia in the Johannesburg community, through her close friend Bracha Meshchaninov whom she had met at Bnei Akiva. Rabbi Kesselman introduced Shimona to the depths of Chassidus. Over five years of studying with him, she developed a desire to visit Crown Heights and experience meeting ,the Rebbe.
It was in Crown Heights, among classes, gatherings, and with dynamic women, that Shimona began to feel that the world finally made sense. It was a time of profound spiritual awakening, marked by her deeper immersion in the teachings of the Rebbe and living amongst Chassidim. While studying in Machon L’Yahadus, matchmakers began suggesting potential matches for her but she was still not interested. One name, Yehoshua, an
Shimona Tzukernik
astrophysicist from Belgium, kept coming up.
Back in South Africa, Shimona’s sister had been married for several years and she and her husband had not yet been blessed with any children. She asked Shimona to seek the Rebbe's blessing for children for her and her husband.
Although Shimona was reluctant to wait in the heat, she agreed. Standing before the Rebbe, she mentioned her sister’s request for a bracha for children. The Rebbe gave her a dollar and for the first time spoke to her in English giving her a bracha for her sister. (Boruch Hashem, her sister and brother-inlaw went on to have a son born on Chai Elul).
After receiving the bracha and dollar for her sister, she continued walking on, but the Rebbe called her back. He handed her another dollar saying in French this time, “C’est pour son mari.” However,
given the Rebbe’s pronunciation, it sounded to her as if the Rebbe had said, “C’est pour ton mari” - “This is for your husband.” She was completely taken aback. The young man Yehoshua, whose name had kept coming up for her, spoke in French. Despite her initial reluctance, she agreed to meet with him.
Yehoshua came to pick her up for their first date, and upon seeing his long red beard, Shimona thought, “I never imagined marrying a man with a red beard.” Despite her initial thoughts that she wanted to date for a long period of time to get to know her potential match, the young couple were soon engaged to be married.
The Rebbe blessed their engagement, saying to her in English, “May G-d Almighty bless you to hear good news all the days of your life.” Shimona was delighted. Later, Rabbi Kesselman told her that he had had a sense of foreboding when he heard of the unusual blessing.
Ten days before their wedding, tragedy struck—Yehoshua passed away in a car accident in Belgium.
Shimona was devastated. In her grief, she sought the Rebbe's comfort and guidance and went to meet with him on the Sunday dollar line. As Shimona approached the Rebbe, she began to cry. Rabbi Klein a”h, the Rebbe’s secretary, introduced her as “the kallah whose chosson just passed away.” The Rebbe began speaking to her but in words that she could not understand. She realized only afterward that the Rebbe was speaking to her in Russian.
Shimona was left absolutely bereft, trying to understand why the Rebbe did not console her in a time that she needed it most. What she did not know was that the Rebbe had given her strength and hope – but in Russian, a clue to what was to come.
Exactly one year later, Shimona married her husband, Avremel, a Chassid from Riga. Upon their
Shimona on her wedding day
Shimona with her parents
engagement, the Rebbe blessed them to build an everlasting home among the Jewish people. Avremel revealed that he had seen Shimona once before they met, a moment when she was with Yehoshua. And when Shimona told her cousin of her engagement, she was told by Arieh that this match had been suggested to her years earlier – by Arieh himself.
sensitivity and understanding.
However, to make a marriage great, you also need to fulfill the Thou Shalts. They are built upon positive and nurturing behaviors and words that are caring and empathetic. The Thou Shalts encourage couples to empathize and find the good in one another.
It took years of spiritual and personal growth for her to be ready for this union.
Years later, while attending a study retreat in the Catskill Mountains, Shimona had the chance to meet Professor Herman Branover, the man whose book had influenced her life.
As she introduced herself as Shimona Tzukernik, Professor Branover asked her if she was related to Aharon Leib Tzukernik from Riga. Holding one of her twin boys, Shimona introduced him as Aharon Leib, named for her hus band Avremel’s father: Aharon Leib Tzukernik a”h.
The following principles can also be helpful:
Professor Branover started to tear up and told Shimona that he had indeed known her father-in-law back when he lived in Riga and was very moved by the connection. He remi nisced about his friendship with him in Riga, bringing the journey of faith and destiny full circle.
According to Gottman, the Thou Shalts include deepening your understanding of your spouse's inner world, enhancing fondness and admiration, spending quality time together, and accepting each other’s influence.
On Shavuos, you can also take the opportunity to evaluate your relationship with your spouse. Are your words accepting, friendly, compassionate, and understanding? Or are they critical, aggressive, insulting, or belittling?
1 Soften your approach to the argument. Be less confrontational in your responses. Instead, make your tone with your spouse soft and tender so he or she will feel secure. Avoid criticism at all costs! Spouses cannot connect when they tear each other down.
2 Validate what your spouse is feeling, instead of criticizing.
3 Listen sincerely to your spouse. Hear what he or she is really saying.
4 Show an understanding of the heart. Put yourself in your spouse’s shoes while listening intently to what he or she says. Then, communicate that you see the
If the overall tone of your conversations are angry, critical, or confrontational, you are probably transgressing the Thou Shall Nots. If you are using affirmative and encouraging words then you are fulfilling the positive emotional “mitzvos” for one another, and growing closer together each day.
Beginning your conversations with the right attitude is one way to fulfill the “commandments.” In the same way that we meditate about the greatness of G-d and our love for Him before we pray, couples should also arouse a love for one another and think about the importance of their relationship before they speak. The inner message is, “I love you and care about you, and I want to deepen our relationship.”
When you begin with the right intention, you’ll have a greater chance of using words that build happiness in your marriage. Having the right inner message may be your best guide in evaluating whether what you are about to say will push your spouse further away or bring him or her closer.
Hiskashrus Now
HOW YOUNG AND OLD ARE CONNECTING TO THE REBBE, 30 YEARS AFTER GIMMEL TAMMUZ
BY TZEMACH FELLER
Sicha Yomis
HEARING THE REBBE ON A DAILY BASIS
It started during a very difficult time. It was Elul, 5755, and Lubavitch was hurting. Rabbi Itche Meir Gurary, the legendary mashpia of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim in Montreal, Canada, was looking for a way to keep the feeling of connection to the Rebbe going. He asked his son, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Gurary, also a mashpia in the yeshiva, to prepare short audio clips of the Rebbe’s sichos, which could then be played for the bochurim.
The technology of the day was limited; Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Gurary would seek out published sichos that were relevant to that day—either because of what is learned in the day’s Chitas or Rambam or because of something special that took place on that day. Then he’d listen to the sicha, noting how long each potential clip would be. Finally, he painstakingly copied the sicha onto a blank cassette tape and played this
for the bochurim. All this, every day, five days a week.
It didn’t take long for word of this new initiative to spread. Before long, yeshivos and Lubavitch communities around the world were clamoring to be sent what became known as the Sicha Yomis (daily sicha).
At first, Sicha Yomis was an audioonly experience—people simply
sat and listened. But then Rabbi Gurary asked Rabbi Hirshel Raskin, a mashgiach in the yeshiva, to begin preparing transcripts of the sicha that was to be played, so that the bochurim would be able to follow along. Soon after, R’ Tzvi Hirsh Notik, a member of Vaad Hanachos B’Lahak, was recruited to prepare transcripts in Yiddish, which would be as true to the spoken words of the
As we mark the 30th anniversary of Gimmel Tammuz, it is evident that zar’o bachayim-hu bachayim. The Rebbe lives on through the many Chassidim who continue to deepen their connection to the Rebbe.
But what does hiskashrus mean to the 40-year-olds who remember the Rebbe from early childhood, the 20-somethings who never saw him but are building chassidishe homes, and the young children whose parents were born after Gimmel Tammuz?
Here’s a look at some of the many initiatives created in recent years— decades after Gimmel Tammuz—that keep the flame of hiskashrus alive.
Rebbe as possible.
Two years ago, Rabbi Shmary Gurary of Crown Heights, a cousin of the Montreal Gurarys, reached out. He felt that an English transcript would add to the program’s reach. He took upon himself to raise the approximately $50,000 a year to have the 300 sichos translated.
Today, hearing the Rebbe’s voice on a daily basis is a practice done by many, whether together in shul on a loudspeaker or alone via Spotify and streaming apps. In addition to the newly available English transcripts, Sicha Yomis has launched a website—TheDailySicha.com—and an app, making the Rebbe’s teachings accessible through another medium for Chassidim yearning to hear the Rebbe’s holy voice.
Achos
Hatmimim
TRAVELING TO THE REBBE - FROM CROWN HEIGHTS
When Sara Blau was in 10th grade
at Bais Rivka High School in Crown Heights, her teacher, the legendary Morah Chaya Korf, recognized that there was room for growing and developing the Chassidshe atmosphere. She watched as the many visitors for Tishrei descended upon Crown Heights, and witnessed their dedication to learning and farbrenging
“I saw that Tishrei time, when the girls from Eretz Yisroel came to 770, there was something that they had that I wanted to bring to Bais Rivkah,” Morah Korf related in an interview shown at the 5th annual EmBRace Live event. “So we made a contest called ‘Nosim L’Rebbe’ — traveling to the Rebbe. We’re also traveling to the Rebbe, even though we live in Crown Heights.”
The new program focused on spending time in 770 learning, farbrenging, watching videos of the Rebbe, and listening to niggunim. And the new initiative worked. “It got me to do things, like saying Tehillim on Hoshana Rabba, spending time learning in 770, and so on,” Blau recalls.
It motivated Morah Korf to begin an initiative, one which sought to revive a decades-old group that was founded in Riga, Latvia. Around the year 1937, an association of girls from chassidishe families founded an association called Achos Temimim “to organize the study of ma’amarim of Chassidus dealing with avodah and farbrengens.” (Igros Kodesh, Vol. 4, p. 187).
“In Riga, there was an Achos Temimim before the war; with the Frierdiker Rebbe being there, they wanted to learn more chassidus , and the Frierdiker Rebbe really encouraged it,” Morah Korf related.
Today, Sara Blau is the extracurricular activity director at Bais Rivkah and oversees Achos Hatmimim, together with the shluchos and the student Achos leadership. It is a program of action: learning b chavrusa , organizing farbrengens , studying Chitas, and taking on incremental growth with hachlatos. High school seniors at Bais Rivkah hope to land the coveted position of Achos head. “It really changes girls’ lives,” Blau
related. “It made it normal — it’s not nerdy to be chassidish. The funloving girls were learning. It put chassidishkeit on a pedestal in a very positive way.”
Achos proved so popular that nearly every Lubavitch girls’ high school features a branch of Achos Hatmimim, and thousands of girls are inspired to deepen their connection with the Rebbe. “It makes chassidishkeit real to them,” Blau said. “It helps them work on their relationship with the Rebbe.”
Project Likkutei Sichos
THREE FRIENDS UNITING CHASSIDIM WORLDWIDE THROUGH LEARNING
As Yud Shevat 5780 approached, three friends resolved to do something special to mark 70 years of the Rebbe’s leadership. Rabbi Moshe
Gourarie (Toms River, New Jersey), Rabbi Yisroel Wilhelm (Boulder, Colorado) and Rabbi Shmuli Nachlas (Vaughan, Ontario, Canada) had the idea of learning the entire Likkutei Sichos, the 39-volumes of the Rebbe’s talks that were edited by the Rebbe.
“The initial idea was to have 70 chavrusos each week to ultimately finish Likkutei Sichos,” Rabbi Gourarie said. “But within days we realized that there seemed to be a much greater interest than we anticipated.” By Yud Shevat, the number of participants surpassed 770.
Rabbi Gourarie explained that the project has two components: the end goal is to finish Likkutei Sichos, and the journey is to learn two sichos every week. To facilitate this, Project Likkutei Sichos has gone to unprecedented lengths to make the Rebbe’s Torah accessible to as many people as possible.
“Rabbis Eliezer Robbins and Moshe Goldman put together a group that would translate the sichos. They work
together with Sichos In English, and every sicha on the project has been translated into English—most for the first time.” The Yiddish-language sichos are also translated into Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Russian, plus audio classes in Portuguese.
The project’s website, projectlikkuteisichos.org, includes some 30 weekly classes and several ways to internalize the sicha, like a weekly farbrengen, a dvar Torah that adapts the sicha for presentation, and ten-minute summaries.
The project’s schedule sees its 10,000 participants learn two sichos a week. At that rate, they will complete Likkutei Sichos over approximately 10 years. The project’s founders have heard story after story about how the project has inspired the hiskashrus of participants.
A Brooklyn-born girl, who left her Chassidish roots and lived in Boulder, was encouraged by Rabbi Wilhelm to learn Likkutei Sichos. Enthusiastically participating in weekly classes, she began reconnecting with her roots. Last
Students watch Connection Point
year, she called her grandmother in Brooklyn, saying, “Bubby, I’m going to travel to the Ohel on Gimmel Tammuz, and I want to bring you with me. I want to bring you to the person who brought me back to Yiddishkeit.”
Connection Point
A CURRICULUM FOR 50 CHABAD ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
Children learn from many people: their parents, their teachers, and their friends. What about learning from the Rebbe?
Connection Point was created so that children are given the opportunity to learn directly from the Rebbe, through watching, studying and internalizing the Rebbe’s sichos. The program is led by the team at JEM, and includes a number of tracks that are tailored to make the Rebbe’s sichos accessible and bring them to life—especially those sichos delivered to children.
A typical series will include three weekly videos of a sicha, followed by watching all three sichos during the fourth week. As they watch and listen to the sicha, children fill out question sheets and are entered into raffles for exciting prizes. Often, parents are invited to join their children during the final monthly segment of the Connection Point series.
In schools around the world, Connection Point has made moments of hiskashrus a highlight of the week, infusing children with an enthusiasm and a deeper understanding of the Rebbe’s Torah and hora’os . The program—which is made possible by the generosity of Yossi and Nechama Dina Katz—has continued for more than seven years, and educators have heaped praise on its innovative approach to hiskashrus.
“Connection point has allowed our middle school students to live with the Rebbe in an incredible way,” said Rabbi Yaakov Garfinkel, middle school principal at Lubavitch Educational Center (LEC) in Miami, Florida. “The students look forward to it and are meaningfully impacted
by it. We look forward to continuing this partnership, educating our students to be true chassidim.”
JEM recently created a brand-new Connection Point curriculum in preparation for Gimmel Tammuz 5784. The curriculum is divided into three sections, titled Adoneinu, Moreinu, and Rabbeinu. As each curriculum does, it turns to the source for guidance, focusing on what the Rebbe himself teaches us about hiskashrus
“Connection Point shares with our children the Rebbe’s guidance and inspiration, not as a decadesold memory, G-d forbid, but as a living, vibrant, relevant relationship, enhancing their hiskashrus in a very real way,” said Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin, Executive Director of JEM.
The immersive curriculum, launched in 50 Chabad elementary schools and engaging more than 3,000 children, features exercises, games, and weekly at-home missions. JEM produced three Connection Point films, bringing foundational concepts
Students watch Connection Point
of the Rebbe and Hiskashrus to life in a child-friendly format.
Good Night My Child
THE LAST THING KIDS HEAR AT THE END OF THE DAY
While Connection Point has brought a deeper hiskashrus to thousands of elementary-aged children, JEM introduced Good Night My Child, a nightly 2-3 minute video of the Rebbe curated for children as young as two or three years old. For many parents, it’s a connection they wish they had themselves.
"It’s a beautiful way to infuse our nightly routine with the Rebbe,” said Sarale Hyams of Inverrary, Florida. She and her husband Motti show Good Night My Child every evening to their five children, ages 2-9. “As someone who never met the Rebbe, I am jealous of my children for having something like this every night," she said.
Narrated by Mrs. Bracha Wiemer, a Shlucha of Chabad at George Mason University in Virginia, the videos include special moments with the Rebbe like davening, niggunim, farbrengens and other special events.
Uniquely, Good Night My Child does not include videos of sichos or maamarim , opting instead to focus on what will be easiest for the very youngest children to relate to. The videos, dedicated in memory of Virgin Islands Shlucha Henya Federman OBM, are designed to be shown at bedtime and are available on JEM.tv free of charge from 5:3010:00 p.m. in each local time zone.
"The thought of a video just before bed didn’t seem like the best idea, but then we did it a few times, and since then we are hooked,” said Hindy Levy, a shlucha in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “It slipped straight into the bedtime routine and the kids are obsessed with it. We watch it twice every night. Once just to see it, then they all have a chance for questions and comments and we watch again just to answer their questions.
“I love that their last moments of the day are filled with Rebbe,” she says.
Halikut
A LIVE TOURNAMENT BETWEEN BOCHURIM ON THE REBBE’S TORAH
“There’s nothing more beautiful than walking into a dorm and seeing the learning of the Rebbe’s sichos; or standing in line on the jetway and seeing the learning of the Rebbe’s sichos.”
That’s how Rabbi Tzvi Altein—who directs Vaad Talmidei Hatmimim— describes Halikut, a transformative program for studying the Rebbe’s sichos. It focuses not on what is learned, but on how it is learned, encouraging deep immersion in Likkutei Sichos.
Participants can choose between a track that completes one sicha per week or a more intensive track covering all sichos for the week’s Parsha, completing a volume annually.
Children watch Good Night My Child
The curriculum is not new or unique—the way that it’s studied is.
“There’s learning, and then there’s koching—immersing oneself--in what you’re learning, until you know it well,” Altein explained. “Once you look at a sicha that way, you look at the world in a different way: you look at the world through the Rebbe’s eyes.”
To encourage bochurim to internalize their learning, a carefully designed system of incentives was created. Over the three-year program, bochurim are tested on their knowledge, with higher grades earning larger rewards.
However, rewards alone don’t justify the effort expended by many participants. “What’s important is that we’ve managed to make Halikut a very ‘cool’ thing that a bochur wants to participate in,” Altein explained.
Annually, a siyum event celebrates all participants, followed by a final exam with sets of seforim and other rewards for high scorers. The top bochurim compete in a live tournament, with the winner receiving a set of the Rebbe’s Torah. The event concludes
with a banquet, creating a special atmosphere.
Vaad Talmidei Hatmimim addresses the challenges today’s generation faces in hiskashrus. Altein explains that their programs promote connection with the Rebbe. “The
truth of the matter is that the real hiskashrus is through Torah,” Altein says. Other programs have their place, but “To reach the essence of the Rebbe is accomplished by learning the Rebbe’s Torah, which bochurim can achieve through this program.”
Bochurim take the Halikut final test
Photo: Aharon Gellis
Sweet Dreams Generated Here.
AGUDAS CHASSIDEI CHABAD - LUBAVITCH
Lubavitch World Headquarters
Tuesday at 9:30pm 3 Tammuz 5784
At Campus Chomesh - Beis Rivkah 470 Lefferts Ave.
Anash and Tmimim are cordially invited to join the Details to
The Rebbe in Crown Heights
The places where the Rebbe lived and visited in the neighborhood after 5711 (1951).
By Yossi Feller
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770 EASTERN PARKWAY Lubavitch World Headquarters since 1940, where the Rebbe davened, learned, led farbrengens and held yechidus. It was later connected with 788 with its basement serving as the main shul.
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346 NEW YORK AVE apartment of the Rebbe and Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka for 15 years after arriving in the United States in 1940.
1304 PRESIDENT ST home of the Rebbe and Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka since 5716 (1956). Following the Rebbetzin’s passing, the Rebbe davened at the amud there.
781 EASTERN PKWY National Westminster Bank USA (today Bank of America). During the court case surrounding the Chabad library, the Rebbe went there to access his safety deposit box.
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1414-1418 PRESIDENT ST Rebbetzin Chana’s apartment, regularly visited by the Rebbe. After becoming 770 Yeshiva’s dormitory, the Rebbe visited the bochurim’s Seder in the dining room.
824 NOSTRAND AVE Gayheart Hall, where the Rebbe held the famous farbengen of Purim 5715 (1955), offering the blessing of wealth.
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585 ALBANY AVE Albany Manor, where the Rebbe held 5 farbrengens, the last on Purim 5720. Currently being developed for affordable housing.
711 EASTERN PKWY the Kerestirer Mikvah the Rebbe used in the early years.
EMPIRE BLVD between Brooklyn and Albany, where the Rebbe stopped to view the Lag BaOmer street fair in later years.
708 MAPLE ST the Rebbe stopped on the way to the Ohel to view the Lag BaOmer children’s fair in 5751 in the park of the high school.
1506 UNION ST Women’s Mikvah of Crown Heights, privately used by the Rebbe in later years.
470 LEFFERTS AVE Bais Rivkah Elementary School, named Campus Chomesh for Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. The Rebbe stopped by its groundbreaking ceremony in 5748 (1988).
1457 UNION ST the Rebbe paid a surprise visit to the Kollel there on Iyar 5733 (1973), and inspected the apartment where the Jaffe family from England would stay for Shavuos. Now home to Unzer Shul.
723 EASTERN PKWY original Bais Rivka school building. The Rebbe visited the 770 bochurim’s Seder there on the first night of Pesach 5712 (1952).
676 EASTERN PKWY the 770 Yeshiva kitchen in the mid-5720s (1960s), visited by the Rebbe to review the bochurim’s Pesach Seder.
749 EASTERN PARKWAY current dormitory of 770 Yeshiva, where the Rebbe first visited the bochurim’s Seder in 5727 (1967).
309 KINGSTON AVE the Farband - Ufaratzta building, where the Rebbe visited the 770 bochurim’s Seder for several years and that of the rescued Jewish children from Iran.
1383 PRESIDENT ST the Rebbe would visit the Kozlover Rebbe’s extensive library in the 1950s, and Seder of the Russian Jewish immigrants after the F.R.E.E. organization purchased the building in 5732 (1972).
1367 PRESIDENT ST the Rebbe visited the Seder of newly-observant Jewish women at Machon Chana Institute.
824 EASTERN PKWY the Rebbe visited the Seder of newly-observant Jewish men at Yeshiva Hadar HaTorah, as well as the Seder of rescued Jewish children from Iran in 5740 (1980).
816 EASTERN PKWY the Rebbe visited the apartment of his secretary Reb Eliyahu Quint after the passing of his wife in 5720 (1960). Now home to the Shluchim Office.
178-184 BROOKLYN AVE the Rebbe visited the apartment of the Bobover Rebbe after the passing of his baby daughter in 5718 (1958).
2230 CHURCH AVE Biltmore Ballroom, near Flatbush, where the Rebbe held 5 farbrengens.
836 FRANKLIN AVE Franklin Manor, where the Rebbe held 2 farbrengens due to its larger hall.
BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN where the Rebbe walked to do tashlich on Rosh Hashana. When its gates were closed in 5717 (1956), the Rebbe climbed its wall.
PROSPECT PARK, where the Rebbe stopped to view the Lag BaOmer children’s fair in the early years.
CHINUCH FOR ALL
Chabad's school network for Israeli children is an unlikely success story.
By Meshulam Nachmanson
few months after the Rebbe had accepted the leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch, he urged the creation of a Chabad educational network in Eretz Yisroel. It was in the summer of 5711 (1951) when Chabad was facing a critical junction, still reeling from the losses of the Holocaust and Jewish life destroyed under Communism in Russia. But the Rebbe was looking to the future.
“It would be advisable for you to explore the possibilities of also establishing institutions there (in the Holy Land) that would join the network of educational institutions… called “Oholei Yosef Yitzchak Lubavitch” after the Rebbe (Rayatz), my father-in-law,” the Rebbe wrote to the famed Chabad activist Rabbi Zushe Wilmowsky.
The letter, dated 5 Tammuz, 5711, didn’t hide Chabad’s financial constraints at the time. “Although we do
not currently have the means to send significant resources from here, I can certainly find a source for modest initial expenses, provided there is a sincere interest in this,” the Rebbe wrote.
Building a single school in Israel, let alone a full network was far more complicated than doing so in the United States. Due to political mechanisms, schools in Israel were divided into ideological and party-based streams until 1953. Chabad’s proposed network didn’t fit into existing “streams”the Labor, General, Mizrachi, or Agudah streams.
Yet, no challenge could deter Reb Zushe, who earned the moniker “the partisan,” both due to his years fighting the Nazis during WWII and his subsequent activism in the Holy Land. To fulfill the Rebbe’s request, he worked on creating a fourth government-recognized education track. It was called “zerem bilti zarmi” – roughly translated as “a non-partisan stream.”
Despite additional financial and
logistical challenges, four schools were up and running by the winter of 5712 (1951), thanks to his efforts, and those of other passionate chassidim. This created the basis for the Reshet Oholei Yosef Yitzchok education network, which would eventually spread across the land of Israel.
The Reshet was very dear to the Rebbe, having been named for his predecessor and father-in-law, the Rebbe Rayatz - R’ Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn. It was a fitting tribute to the life of the Rebbe Rayatz, who had risked his life, been arrested, and even sentenced to death for the “crime” of educating Jewish children in Soviet Russia.
Every year, at the farbrengen marking Yud Beis Tammuz, the anniversary of the release of the Rebbe Rayatz from that arrest and sentence, the Rebbe would encourage Chassidim to donate to the Reshet and would shower his brachos on those who did so. The Reshet is thus one of the only institutions which the Rebbe would personally hold an appeal (magbis) for.
Never-Ending Growth
During the first years, the Rebbe was intimately involved in each detail of the Reshet, as it is commonly called, urging, encouraging, and even sending money to ensure its success. Many renowned chassidim served in leadership roles in the Reshet, including Harav Dovid Chanzin, Rabbi Zalman Abelsky, Rabbi Itchke Gansbourg, Rabbi Aharon Mordechai Zilbershtrom, Rabbi Moshe Slonim, Rabbi Meir Freiman and Rabbi Yisroel Butman.
Chassidim of a generation ago recall Rabbi Chanzin, a respected talmid chochom, maggid shiur, and rov. He personally traveled to distant cities to convince parents to send their children to Reshet schools. His dedication was matched by his successors, who invested immeasurable time and effort to continue growing the Reshet.
It took many years and much effort for the Reshet to overcome all the challenges and become a flourishing network of successful schools in cities across Israel.
As the years passed, several demographic and societal changes necessitated a change to the Reshet’s mode of operations. Firstly, generations of Reshet alumni, many who had become frum, desired a fully frum school system for their children. Along with that came the explosive growth of Chabad communities in areas spread across Israel, and they desired the traditional Cheder framework.
On the other side, as the Israeli state schools became progressively less religious, a need arose to have an alternative that would serve the needs of the general Jewish public in Israel.
With more and more parents turning to the Reshet schools, some of the schools soon became the educational center for a mixed assortment of children who were not (yet) frum, children from fully religious families, and children from “regular” Chabad homes.
It became obvious that Reshet would have to find a way to serve each demographic, providing each one with a curriculum and policies tailored to them without compromising the sacred values instilled by the Rebbeim.
Change For Good
The Reshet stepped up to the challenge and expanded its operations. A new, young, and energetic team joined the existing Reshet staff and transformed it. No longer just a network of schools, it became more of a “Ministry of Education,” fulfilling all educational needs for all segments of Israel’s Jewish population.
Under their masterful leadership, a number of streams were created within the Reshet. Each stream is effectively a network of its own, with its own network, custom-built curriculum, and staff and administration to fit its unique needs.
The fastest-growing network within the Reshet is the ‘Gan Chabad’ schools, which offer early childhood education. With societal differences not as noticeable in young children, these preschools service any demographic within a given city.
Parents from all communities and locations across Israel are clamoring to have their preschoolers join a ‘Gan Chabad,’ and the numbers
R' Zushe with the Reshet students
reflect that: No less than 36 new ‘Gan Chabad’ preschools opened in one year.
Other branches of the Reshet include Beit Chinuch Chabad –schools for children from frum homes, ranging from Dati Leumi to fully frum Sephardi homes, and Talmud Torah Chabad for children from Lubavitcher homes.
The newest and arguably most impressive network of the Reshet is the ‘Shalhavot Chabad’ system. These schools are for the wider Jewish population in the country. Comparable institutions in the USA are rare, with full-day Hebrew schools being the closest parallel. The schools provide quality Jewish education alongside quality secular education, emphasizing innovative hybrid learning.
The ‘Shalhavot Chabad’ network is also experiencing dizzying growth, with 6 schools opening this past year and more openings planned for the upcoming school year.
These numbers are remarkable on their own account, and they become truly astounding when the Reshet administration points out that fully 10% of all new schools opening in
Israel are Shalhavot Chabad schools.
Part of the demand for these schools lies in the changes that the state-run schools have undergone over the past decades. In the past, many, if not most, of the state schools would hire virtually only Jewish teachers and would strongly emphasize teaching Tanach and Jewish holidays, albeit not their practical application.
Today, in the name of “pluralism” and “multiculturalism,” young Jewish children are more likely to be taught about other religions than about some basic tenets of Yiddishkeit. And after decades of legal battles, some schools removed even the minimal Jewish education they had previously offered.
However, the overwhelming majority of Israelis believe in preserving and teaching Jewish values and traditions. This leaves many of them searching for a viable alternative to the state-run schools, and Shalavot Chabad presents exactly that.
“The Reshet is not an organization that was created to fulfill a specific need or fill a limited gap. Rather, it is the central body that deals with
anything chinuch-related throughout the entire Eretz Yisroel,” says Rabbi Eliyahu Krichevsky, CEO of Reshet Oholei Yosef Yitzchok.
“Such a setup is unmatched in the USA and perhaps the entire world,” he adds. “Elsewhere, Hebrew schools operate in a separate realm from the Cheder schools, and schools serving Chabad communities have separate circles than those serving other communities. Here, they are all united under one mosad, created by the Rebbe for this purpose.”
All-Around Care
The Reshet not only manages school networks but also offers a comprehensive educational program for teachers known as “Shluchei Chinuch.” This program enables teachers to earn Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.
Among the resources provided are content for each Yom Tov and Chassidic Yom Tov (yoma d’pagra), educational games and content that teachers can give students before vacations, and conferences for both teachers and students.
Before each summer, the Reshet prepares a complete program and curriculum for summer camps operating under the network, ensuring that the summer is also utilized for education.
In 2015, the Reshet created a comprehensive online “Pedagogical Center,” serving as a hub for centralized curriculum resources. The center offers tens of thousands of worksheets, presentations, tests, and other learning materials that Reshet teachers and professional staff created.
Where It All Started
With the incredible success the Reshet now sees, it could be easy to forget the hardships of the early
days. But Rabbi Krichevsky says that they do not forget “From where they came… and before whom you are destined to give a judgment and accounting.”
“It is a tremendous merit, but also a tremendous responsibility to work in a mosad which the Rebbe personally pushed to create and so strongly encouraged,” he says.
Rabbi Rafael Brod, a Reshet activist, fully agrees. “Every once in a while, I am reminded of the incredible zechus. It might be when I am learning a Yud Beis Tammuz farbrengen of the Rebbe, when the Rebbe asks chassidim to donate to the Reshet and promises brachos to those who do. Or when I am learning the Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh, and come across a letter where the Rebbe is personally thanking a donor. Or, when I visit one of the Reshet’s nearly 600 mosdos and see some of
the 40,000 students, and realize that I am a part of this revolution.
“The realization that we are fulfilling the Rebbe’s vision, that we are growing a mosad that the Rebbe cared so much for, is what drives us to continue expanding Reshet Oholei Yosef Yitzchok, and all its various branches and divisions,” he says. “We cannot rest until it lives up to the Rebbe’s full vision: To grant authentic Chinuch to every single child in Eretz Yisroel, regardless of age, stage, or social standing.”
Truly, one can say that the Reshet is the Rebbe’s Ministry of Education in the Holy Land.
THIS YUD BEIS TAMMUZ, FULFILL THE REBBE’S ANNUAL APPEAL AND SUPPORT RESHET OHOLEI YOSEF YITZCHOK AT THEREBBESMAGBIS.COM
םשׁה ךורבּ תבּשׁ
זיא'ס
BY YONI BROWN
Fascinated by the Rebbe’s Torah
A YESHIVA UNIVERSITY STALWART DISCOVERED THE REBBE’S TEACHINGS - AND WROTE A BOOK ABOUT THEM
Rabbi Dr.Yosef Bronstein is a proud product of Yeshiva University. His father worked there for over forty years. His father-in-law, Rabbi Hershel Reichman, has been a Rosh Yeshiva for over thirty. Bronstein grew up in Far Rockaway, New York, attended YU’s high school, spent three years learning in Israeli hesder yeshivos, then completed a BA, learned Semicha, gained a graduate degree, learned in Kollel, and earned a Ph.D.—all at YU. But his new book isn’t on Talmud or even Rav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik’s thought. It’s called Engaging the Essence: The Torah Philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Writing a book on the Rebbe’s Torah requires summarizing over 70,000 pages of material, the whole library of the Rebbe’s Sichos, Maamarim, and Igros. Understanding it well requires a strong background in Chabad Chassidus and Kabbalah. Yet, Bronstein’s training and credentials were in Talmud. His Ph.D. dissertation examined works of Halachic Midrash, such as the Sifra and Sifri, and he co-authored Reshimos Shiurim, Rav Soleveitchik’s lectures on Maseches Kiddushin
Still, alongside his primary pursuit of Talmud study, Rabbi Bronstein had long found himself drawn to the deeper dimensions of Torah. At nineteen, while studying in Israel, he became fascinated by the poetic mysticism of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook— Israel’s first Chief Rabbi. “Until then, I do not think I would have had an articulate answer for why I was learning Gemara or even why I was committed to mitzvos,” he later wrote in the Tradition journal. Back in YU, he explored Rav Kook’s sources of inspiration, including the Tanya.
Tanya turned out to be a world unto itself. He learned it twice and searched YU’s library for commentaries and books on the subject. Google took him to Chabad.org, and, one day, he noticed what sat next to the Tanya section in YU’s library: books on the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
“I quickly realized there was something
special here,” he says. “I discovered that the Rebbe wasn’t just an inspirational leader who created a social movement; the Rebbe had fascinating and sophisticated things to say on every topic in Judaism—and in a very well-sourced and very original way.” Yosef studied with several chavrusas , but says, “For those first several years, it was mostly just me in the YU library, learning Sichos and eventually Maamarim.”
Bronstein’s interest in the Rebbe’s Torah— and Jewish philosophy broadly—wasn’t just academic, it was personal. “I was motivated to make sense of my own life and commitments, to find meaning and connection to G-d within them,” he later wrote in Tradition “What does a relationship with G-d look like in the modern world? How should one experience prayer? What is my role as a husband and father? What is the value of working for a living?”
In 2013, he began teaching courses in Jewish philosophy at YU’s Isaac Breuer College. He taught courses on Rav Kook, Rav Soleveitchik, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and contemporary topics in Jewish thought. In 2016, he felt sufficiently fluent in the Rebbe’s Torah to attempt to create a course on the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s philosophy. This presented the opportunity to teach the Rebbe’s Torah in
a structured way, organized around its foundational concepts. “The Rebbe’s Torah is organized around the parashah; there are foundational principles there, but it’s not organized thematically,” he says. “I had to create a structure.”
His students’ post-course feed-
and learning the Rebbe’s Torah is a fascinating intellectual experience of limud haTorah, but even beyond that, I saw many of the ideas resonated with people—it helped them find meaning in Torah and Mitzvos.”
In 2017, after moving to Ramat Bet Shemesh in Israel, he began turning the course into a book—and immediately encountered challenges.
back—and his experience sharing the material at shuls around New York City—motivated him to pursue the subject even more. “I could tell people were interested,” he says. “The Rebbe is one of the Jewish world’s most public figures,
“It’s simply a lot of material to sit and learn,” Bronstein says. He’d need years to learn through countless Sichos, Maamarim, and I gros , and try to organize it all by topic. Secondly, his background in Chabad thought was largely limited to his time studying the Alter Rebbe’s works. “To do the kind of work I was hoping to do, I’d have to go back and understand how the Rebbe’s Torah draws on previous Rebbeim ; the Hemshechim of the Rebbe Rashab, for example.” The prospect of navigating hundreds of complex volumes of Chabad Chassidus seemed overwhelming.
Additionally, the Rebbe’s Torah’s intellectually rich style made rearticulating the main concepts a challenge. “The Rebbe’s Torah is very intertextual; it’s like learning Gemara in the sense that numerous sources are put into conversation with one another, organized around questions and
answers,” he says. “Even in a regular Sicha you may find dozens of sources interwoven to develop a key conceptual idea and reinforce a practical lesson.” But to create a broad conceptual overview of the Rebbe’s Torah, he often had to summarize an entire Sicha in just three lines.
To overcome these challenges, Dr. Bronstein turned to academic and contemporary Chabad works—especially the works of Reb Yoel Kahn. Still, he wanted to work with scholars who’d spent their lives immersed in Chabad thought. While still in America, a friend had introduced him to Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, Chabad.org’s director. A collaboration took shape, as did the book. Rabbi Shmotkin, Rabbi Dovid Olidort of Kehot, Rabbi Eli Rubin, and Rabbi Levi Shmotkin reviewed and commented on the material. “It allowed me to ask questions and ensure the material was presented as accurately as possible,” he says. “The book certainly benefited.”
Working from an apartment in Ramat Bet Shemesh, researching, and corresponding with Chabad. org’s team at all hours of the day and night, Bronstein’s book emerged over several years. In its final form, Engaging the Essence opens by introducing the broad conceptual ideas central to the Rebbe’s Torah, continues by exploring ways these ideas impact our approach to life, and ends by exploring the Rebbe’s perspective on contemporary issues.
The book's central argument aims to show how the whole of the Rebbe’s Torah forms a cohesive philosophy. “Even someone who’s learned Sichos
may miss the way that the Rebbe’s ideas form a holistic worldview and can provide a meaningful framework for life and avodas Hashem,” he says. “The Rebbe’s approach to science, to the role of women, and to dealing with an illness are all interconnected—and they’re all entirely rooted in earlier sources, but the Rebbe put the pieces together in an innovative way.”
The book maintains an objective analytical tone, yet Bronstein found his journey through the Rebbe’s Torah and Chabad Chassidus personally meaningful. “I was fascinated by the concept of bitul and Hashem’s unity,” he says. “Firstly, in the sense that the whole world is batul to Hashem, and the implications this has for how we experience everything—from the natural world to the time we spend in our office earning a living. Secondly, on an individual level, in the sense that
we’re not autonomous, independent entities but parts of a larger whole: be it Am Yisrael, the world, or Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And then, expressing our true identity means leaving our ego aside and making space for the whole.”
For Dr. Bronstein, the Rebbe’s Torah is a vast potential source of existential meaning that has remained largely untapped beyond Chabad—perhaps simply due to lack of exposure. He hopes this book can change that. “I’m not intending this to be the single authoritative book on the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Torah,” he says. “It’s an access point.”
“As someone who grew up in the modern orthodox world, before this, I knew very little about the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Torah,” he says. He hopes Engaging the Essence—as a structured, thematic study—will make it accessible to those without a background in Chabad thought and terminology and give those already immersed in the Rebbe’s Torah a new appreciation for the way it forms a complete Torah philosophy.
Reflecting on his hopes for the book’s impact, Bronstein notes that the book’s publication comes amidst a war in Israel. “If I have a prayer for this book, it’s that people will discover the sense of living life with a clear mission and purpose to create Geulah. The Rebbe taught that no Jew can suffice with their personal Torah learning and Mitzvos. Instead, he urged us to live with a sense of a larger mission: to help create the ideal world. This idea permeates every line of the Rebbe’s Torah.”
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Test Your Knowledge About the Rebbe
Quiz yourself on key events, people, and places that shaped the life of the Rebbe
PLEASE NOTE THAT CORRECT ANSWERS ARE BASED ON INFORMATION CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE REBBE
1. Which city has the Rebbe never been to?
A. Lubavitch, Russia
B. Nice, France
C. Riga, Latvia
D. Warsaw, Poland
B. Kingsbridge Armory
C. Brooklyn Navy Yard
D. Brooklyn Army Terminal
2. Which one of these rabbonim did the Rebbe not receive smicha (rabbinical ordination) from?
A. Rogatchover Gaon, R' Yosef Rosen
B. Sridei Aish, R' Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg
C. Hannover Rov, R' Chaim Pinchas Lubinsky
3. In which city was the Rebbe arrested for speaking Torah in public on Purim?
A. Berlin, Germany
B. Leningrad, Russia
C. Nice, France
D. Otwock, Poland
5. Which of these were established before the Rebbe accepted the leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch?
A. Lubavitch Youth Organization (Tzach)
B. Nshei Chabad in Israel/USA
C. Reshet Oholei Yosef Yitzchok
D. Sefer Torah to Welcome Moshiach
6. Which of these is one of the Rebbe's official 10 Mivtzoim (campaigns)?
A. Building Public Menorahs
B. Moment of Silence in schools
C. Giving Tzedakah
D. Learning Rambam daily
7. Which publication did not regularly publish sichos of the Rebbe?
A. Algemeiner Journal
B. Kfar Chabad Magazine
C. Hamaor quarterly
D. Talks and Tales
8. Which niggun was not taught by the Rebbe (yet sung often)?
A. Hu Elokeinu
B. Hoshia Es Amecha
C. Shamil
D. Atah Bechartanu
9. How often did the Rebbe visit his mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, while she lived in New York?
A. Daily
B. Weekly
C. Shabbos and Yomtov
D. Monthly
10. Which of those words were originally said by the Rebbe?
A. Lechatchila ariber
B. Tracht gut ven zain gut
C. A little light dispels a lot of darkness
D. Tut altz vos ir kent
11. In which order did the Rebbe establish the following:
A. Lag BaOmer Parade, Tzivos Hashem, Children's Sefer Torah
B. Tzivos Hashem, Lag BaOmer Parade, Children's Sefer Torah
C. Children's Sefer Torah, Tzivos Hashem, Lag BaOmer Parade
12. Which of these were not established by the Rebbe in the Holy Land?
A. The Kfar Chabad village
B. Shikun Chabad in Yerushalayim
C. Nachlas Har Chabad, Kiryat Malachi
D. Kiryat Chabad in Tzfas
13. How would the Rebbe open his michtav klali (communal letters before yomim tovim)?
A. "To all sons and daughters of Israel, wherever they may be"
B. "To all children of Israel, in every corner of the world,"
C. "To every Jewish man and woman, no matter the distance"
D. "To all who belong to the house of Israel, wherever you reside"
14. Which did the Rebbe encourage in 5752 (1992) in connection with bringing Moshiach?
A. Organizing communal Pesach Seders
B. Being careful with Kiddush Levana
C. Celebrating your birthday
D. Holding Farbrengens on Rosh Chodesh
15. Which of these non-Jewish officials have been to the Rebbe's Ohel?
A. Argentinan President Javier Milei
B. New York Governor Kathy Hochul
C. U.S. Senator Cory Booker
D. All of the above
WHAT MAKES A COMMUNITY?
THE HALACHIC STATUS OF A KEHILLAH
In this age of hyper-individualism, the power of ‘community’ is often invoked as the antidote to prevalent problems of isolation and loneliness. In halacha too, we find ideas such as ‘rabim,’ ‘tzibur’ and ‘kahal,’ all of which convey the ability of a group of people to come together and form a larger whole, themes that also received a significant amount of focus in the Rebbe’s teachings.1
Perhaps the most powerful example of this can be found in the concept of a ‘kehillah’ (an organized Jewish communal entity). Which ‘kehillah’ one belongs to is a major part of one’s Jewish identity, and its contribution to the Jewish lived experience can hardly be overstated.
It may therefore be interesting to consider: what in fact is the halachic-legal underpinning for a kehillah and its officers to make decisions that impact the community? And what is the nature of the relationship that ties all of the community’s members together?
While there is much to be said on this subject,2 we will focus here on
1 See e.g. the Rebbe’s last farbrengen, Shabbos parshas Vayakhel 5752 (Sefer Hasichos 5752, pg. 440-441), on the theme of ‘Vayakhel,’ and countless other examples.
2 For a contemporary halachic monograph relating to the halachos of a tzibur and kahal, see in particular Tuvei Ha’ir (5760), consisting of 22 chapters plus appendices, over roughly 600 pages. For
an intriguing halachic approach that views the ‘kehillah’ as a form of legal ‘partnership’ (shutfus) between the community members that comprise it.3
The subject of ‘shutfus’ is quite extensive in its own right, and references to partnership and joint legal ownership are scattered throughout the Mishna and Gemara.4 Our connection with Hashem is also sometimes described as having the nature of a partnership.5 But what similarity do the concepts of a kehillah and a shutfus have with
each other?6
To explore this, we’ll turn to a controversy that enveloped the Hungarian kehillah of Sighet in the 1880s. The kehillah there had opted to officially enroll with the central Orthodox organization in Budapest, a move that sparked backlash from a chassidic faction within the community who sought to break away and form their own communal body called ‘Kehal Sefardim,’7 completely independent from the existing kehillah. The issue became the subject of much acrimony8, with both groups
some insight into the Rebbe’s involvement with these matters, see e.g. Likut Maanos Kodesh - 5746.
3 There is much ‘lomdus’ regarding other communal concepts such as korbanos tzibur and whether they have a ‘din shutfus’; for a lengthy treatment of these lomdishe themes in the Rebbe’s torah, see Kovetz Hashivim - Yeshivas Kiryat Gat (5780) pgs. 46-122.
4 It would appear that these halachos were first systemized by Rambam in Hilchos Shluchim V’shutfim (Laws of Agents and Partners). (For an interesting historical approach to understanding some of these halachos, see: ‘Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World’ (2017), by Mark R. Cohen). The core halachos of shutfus are now codified in Tur and Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat, siman 176, and in adjacent simanim.
5 Based on Shabbos 119b; see e.g. Likutei Sichos vol. 15, Lech Lecha IV (osiyos 4-6), and in numerous sichos and maamarim throughout the years.
6 It is perhaps of interest to note that an ‘eiruv’ between multiple chatzeiros is actually called ‘shituf’ (see Rambam Hilchos Eiruvin ch. 1; Tur, Shulchan Aruch & Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch siman 366 and siman 386). Notably, if there’s an existing food partnership between the members of the chatzeiros, an additional shituf may be unnecessary (see Rambam Hilchos Eiruvin ch. 5, and see his Pirush Hamishnayos to Eiruvin 6:5); this suggests that shituf is (perhaps a lesser bond than eiruv and) more akin to the concept of shutfus, and hence the term. See also Min Hamayim - Eiruvin (5778), siman 61, for an interesting analysis of this point.
7 Chassidic communities in Hungary were often referred to by the appellation of ‘Sefardim,’ presumably due to the association created from switching the nusach ha’tefillah from ‘Nusach Ashkenaz’ to the so-called ‘Nusach Sefard.’
8 See e.g. at length: Akiva Padwa, ‘Parshas Kehal Sefardim B’ir Sighet’ in Kovetz Ohr Hatzafun, Teves 5782, pgs. 28-40.
publishing large halachic pamphlets to plead their case and draw support from other rabbanim.9
Up until that point in history, the standard Ashkenazi model of the ‘kehillah’ was a single, centralized, communal entity for a given geographic location. While the ReformOrthodox split a few years earlier had begun upending this system10, it appears that a new (functionally) Orthodox kehillah splitting off from an existing local Orthodox kehillah was largely unheard of at the time, and this raised all kinds of novel halachic questions.
Part of the halachic debate revolved around the issue of viewing the kehillah as a shutfus which was now being split between its ‘partners’ - the members of the once-united kehillah.
Some Rabbis sought to find precedence for this concept in a response (teshuva) of the Chasam Sofer to a query posed to him in 1839. He was asked about Jews who lived in the countryside and only visited the nearest city for the Yomim Noraim; the kehillah considered them to be dues-paying members, but they complained that this was unfair, as they
9 See Kedem Auction #48, lot 69: ‘Two Books on the Split in the Sighet Community – Ohev Mishpat – Lviv, 1887 / Milchemet Mitzvah – Sighet, 1888’.
10 More on the Hungarian ‘teilung’ can be found in the Wikipedia entry ‘Schism in Hungarian Jewry’ in English, Hebrew and Yiddish, and in related entries.
BY RABBI SHRAGA HOMNICK Sgan Rosh Kollel of Kollel L’hora’a Ma’asis
were not benefitting from the community’s services like the locals were.
In articulating the communal and financial ties between the city and the country folk, the Chasam Sofer stated:11 “Bnei ha’kehillah - din shutfim yesh lahem,” the members of a kehillah have the legal status of shutfim. According to Shulchan Aruch,12 a partner with joint ownership over an item or entity cannot demand that he be compensated if another partner ends up getting more use out of it. Rather, as a joint partner, he is welcome to use it more often and make his ownership stake more worth his while. Similarly, argued the Chasam Sofer, the claim presented by the country folk in this case is not a valid one as they are, in his view, regarded as shutfim in the kehillah, and are merely welcome to avail themselves more of the community’s services if they wish to.
Various rabbanim involved in the Sighet feud invoked this teshuva to take the analogy further and apply the process for how a partnership is dissolved to the issue of a kehillah that decides to split apart. Those opposed to the split argued that this should be considered an ‘undissolvable’ partnership.13
11 Shaalos Uteshuvos, Orach Chaim, siman 193.
12 Choshen Mishpat, siman 171, end of se’if 8 in Rama.
13 See e.g. Milchemes Mitzvah, pgs. 9b, 13b, 18b, and elsewhere throughout.
Interestingly, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, writing to a rabbinic colleague around this time in 1881,14 also invoked this Chasam Sofer to argue that an individual is halachically beholden to his kehillah. In his view, however, Chasam Sofer’s comparison of a kehillah to a shutfus was understating the powerful bond that holds a community together which is even stronger than a shutfus!
Though kehillah structures have continued evolving and changing in the time that’s elapsed since,15 this chapter in halachic history reminds us of the importance that our ‘kehillah’ holds in our lcrives, and of the imperative to remain united.
Ultimately, after much strife, the ‘Kehal Sefardim’ did end up reintegrating into the main kehillah of Sighet. Ironically, these questions reemerged fairly recently in the community of Kiryas Joel, in which a breakaway faction sought to assert its halachic right to split and form its own kehillah (see Kovetz Ginas Veradim Satmar, no. 9 (5770), pg. 160 onward). The Rav of the main kehillah in Sighet during the original controversy was R. Chananya Yom Tov Lipa Teitelbaum, ancestor of the subsequent rebbes of Satmar.
14 Kovetz Hamayan 29-1 (5749), pg. 24.
15 How to apply these halachic principles in a contemporary context is beyond the scope of this format.
Around eight years ago, I was watching a video of the Rebbe during the year of Hakhel, where the Rebbe said to someone who requested a bracha that in order to merit it, they needed to perform an activity that brings Jews together.
As a psychologist, I wondered what kind of Hakhel could I create, considering that I was not a shliach? How could I bring psychologists together and influence the connection between therapy and spirituality?
In search of an answer, I remembered a recent article by Rabbi Yossi Jacobson who wrote about the communication between the Rebbe and Professor Viktor Frankl. The Rebbe, who was supportive of Frankl’s ideas, sent a letter through a woman who was on her way to visit Vienna with a message for him. As the article relates, the Rebbe asked her to “Send Dr. Frankl my regards…and tell him in my name that he should not give up. He should be strong and continue his work, with complete resolve. No matter what, he should not give up. If he remains strong and committed, he will certainly prevail.”
Why would the Rebbe be so supportive of the psychology of Viktor Frankl? In a letter from May 31, 1962 (27 Iyar 5722) the Rebbe explained that he was concerned about a prevailing attitude of some psychiatrists and psychologists that were “treating their patients by talking against G-d, against respect for a higher reality, against respect
of a father and mother etc.”
The Rebbe continued, “some doctors have helped and healed their patients in the right way, especially since one professor found the courage in his soul to declare that, contrary to the opinion of the famous founder of psychoanalysis, faith in G-d and a religious inclination in general, which gives meaning to life, etc. etc. is one of the most effective ways of healing. Nonetheless, due to several reasons, this philosophy has not penetrated the mainstream of these doctors...”
I too wondered why I had not been exposed or trained in the psychology of Viktor Frankl and Logotherapy.
Based upon the Rebbe’s respect for Frankl’s work, I decided to “answer the call” by creating a series of activities to promote the work and teachings of Viktor Frankl, including organizing conferences, writing books and building training programs. This is just one example of the Rebbe’s influence in so many areas of my life.
I must admit that the Rebbe’s insights on the psychology of Viktor Frankl changed my life and the lives of countless individuals whom I have helped by assisting them in finding more meaning in their lives. Unfortunately, finding meaning and spirituality in therapy is not something I learned about in graduate school or at any conferences of
psychology. In fact the opposite is true. Freud, for example, described religious belief as “an obsessional neurosis” Albert Ellis, one of the founders of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, maintained that psychotherapy should have no relationship “whatsoever with any kind of …G-d or devil, or any kind of sacredness” and described religion as being “directly opposed to the goals of mental health.”
As a psychologist, I believe that the Rebbe’s advice in this regard is extremely important and can influence the future direction of therapy. As therapists, we can choose to focus on a person’s past and their traumas, and spend endless sessions talking about their upbringing. Or we can help our clients find meaning, and focus on important concepts such as trust and positive thinking.
We can already see that the orientation of therapy can have a significant impact on the outcome of therapy. The Rebbe was instructing us not to dismiss spirituality or religiosity as an impediment to emotional growth, but to embrace it.
A further example of this approach is what I wrote about in my previous book called “Think Good and It Will Be Good”. There, I mentioned how the Rebbe, quoting Duties of the Heart, explained that the level of trust needed to affect a positive
BY DANIEL SCHONBUCH
outcome should resemble that “of a prisoner in a dungeon in his master’s domain.” The prisoner puts his trust only in his master, for “he is given over to his hand. No other person can cause him harm or help him.” This itself, explained the Rebbe, “is the foundation for a person’s trust that G-d will bestow apparent and manifest good upon him, even if he is not worthy of this kindness.” I pondered deeply about giving my clients a “foundation of trust” which could help them reduce depression or anxiety, even if they experienced low self-esteem or self-doubt.
The Rebbe was teaching us about building a total relationship and trust in G-d which can manifest spontaneous psychological changes. In this case, a person gives up all fears and turns solely towards G-d for relief. Interestingly, this unique approach has been validated in recent studies that examined the effects of Spiritually Informed Therapy (SIT) and the 12-step programs where people are asked to turn to G-d for help and support.
As we prepare for Gimmel Tammuz we all need to reflect on the Rebbe’s impact and how his guidance can influence almost every area of our lives.
Chinuch Matters
PRESENTED B Y COLLIVE AND THE MENACHEM EDUCATION FOUNDATION (MEF)
Teaching Tip
BY MUSHKIE LIPSKER @evergrowingeducator
10 Connection Questions
You’ve probably heard of an icebreaker question “What’s your favorite color?” or “What’s your favorite food?” Connection questions are like ice breaker questions but deeper. They ask about personal experiences and feelings to build deeper connections. Here are some connection questions that are great for parents, teachers and counselors to discuss with their students or campers. And of course - the adults can answer these questions, too!
1. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go and why?
2. Tell me your funniest joke.
3. Can you tell me about a time someone was really kind to you?
4. If you could plan one day of camp or school, what would you put on that day?
5. What’s the best dream you ever had?
6. If you could listen to only one song for the rest of your life, which song would it be?
7. What’s something you did that you’re really proud of?
8. Can you tell me about a time when you felt super excited or really happy?
9. If you could have one person join you at school or camp for a day, who would it be?
10. What’s one thing you wish grown-ups knew about kids like you?
The Rebbe as a True Teacher
When asked who their chinuch role model is, so many teachers share that it is the Rebbe who they look up to for guidance and inspiration in their teaching, even in the post-Gimmel Tammuz reality.
What guidance did the Rebbe give? He taught the truth, and as a shepherd leads his flock, he taught it in a way that our generation would be able to live by and internalize. As a true educator, he didn’t leave it at teaching but gave personal guidance as well. Gimmel Tammuz is when we start breaking for the summer, and on these days when we aren’t showing up in the classroom as part of our daily grind, let’s think of lessons from the Rebbe that we could bring to our classrooms for the next school year.
Is it teaching Torah with relevant lessons, is it being there to provide guidance to our students in need, is it trying to smile and shine a positive perspective on every situation?
What lesson will I take from the Rebbe and bring into my teaching?
Excerpted from Chinuch with the Times (published by MEF). Available at mymef.org/shop For more on
What
Meet the Mechanech:
Rabbi Avrumi Freeman
TEACHER AT LAMPLIGHTERS JEWISH ACADEMY OF OXNARD IN CALIFORNIA
drew you to Chinuch?
I began teaching at Darchai Menachem in Crown Heights, and there was one student in particular that I was able to help significantly. Watching him grow and develop skills truly inspired me, and made me realize the major impact I could have. It led me to decide to continue my future in Chinuch.
Do you still have a connection with the child you mentioned?
Yes. I still occasionally stay in touch with the family, and the mother sends me updates, which I always appreciate.
How is your school different from other schools in terms of classes?
Our school in Oxnard is organized not by age or grade, but by the students' skill levels. This unique setup allows me to keep my students for multiple years, fostering deeper relationships and continuity in their education. Generally, we aim to have 10-15 students in each multi-age class. This year, my first class of eighth graders is graduating—a group I’ve had the privilege of teaching for the past six years.
What was the level of your students when you began teaching them and where are they holding now?
When I began teaching my students, they had just learned how to read and were ready to start developing their Chumash skills. As they progressed, we moved on to Mishnayos and then Gemara. This included teaching them how to think critically and ask questions about the Gemara.
Eventually, we started studying Chassidus. Each of these subjects served as building blocks for the next,
and I was able to see how they utilized their skills from one subject to another. It's amazing to see what an incredible level of learning these boys have been able to achieve. Often, during class, I feel like I'm teaching adults.
Do you see a benefit in keeping the students from year to year?
Keeping students from year to year, a practice from the Rebbe’s times, has great benefits. This continuity helps teach middos, which take years to develop. Working with the same students allows me to focus on different Middos and nurture their talents through our established connection.
Additionally, staying with the same group fosters responsibility and accountability, creating a supportive learning environment that enhances their educational experience.
How do you build relationships with your students while maintaining boundaries as a teacher?
My students describe me as strict but nice. I'll play sports with them at recess, but in the classroom, there's no playing around - we focus on learning, and they come to enjoy it.
Why should someone go into Chinuch?
If you want your day to be filled with Torah and meaning, and you want to focus 100% on building up the next generation of Jewish children, Chinuch is the way to go. The impact you can have on children is truly unbelievable.
News & opportunities
Work in Chinuch
New Chinuch Shlichus opportunities are available:
Bnos Chomesh - Brooklyn, NY - Judaic teachers and secular studies teachers. They welcome teachers who share their vision of challenging and connected learning in an atmosphere of positivity and growth.
Chabad Early Learning CenterRockway, NJ - Seeking an Associate Early Learning Center Associate Director and a teacher for 3-4 year olds.
Shaloh House - Boston, MA - Seeking Couple for Chinuch Shlichus at a thriving Chabad House, Preschool, Elementary School and Camp.
Registration for the 24th Annual Kinus
To find out more about these opportunities visit mymef.org/shlichus
Hamechanchim, jointly organized by Merkos Chinuch Office and the Menachem Education Foundation is open. Register now at kinushamechanchim.com
Registration for the Kinus Mechanchos Chabad daytime program and Zoom track is still open. Register now at chinuchconvention.org.
Ask the Mechaneches
Mrs. Geula Newman
SHLUCHA AT CHABAD OF BEVERLYWOOD AND 8TH GRADE MECHANECHES AT BEIS REBBE, LOS ANGELES, CA
Q: What are ways to instill hiskashrus to the Rebbe in our children?
In a letter written by the Rebbe soon after Yud Shvat, the Rebbe emphasized to educators the importance of conveying to students how deeply the Frierdiker Rebbe loves and cares for each one of them individually. We must create the right context, environment, and energy for them to feel the Rebbe’s love, empowerment, and guidance.
So, how do we provide this context? It begins with understanding that Chinuch means being a Dugma Chaya; our passion and dedication will ignite an even stronger fire within our children. When we live with Hiskashrus every day, we open pathways for our children to do the same.
Whether it's learning the Rebbe’s teachings, watching Rebbe videos, following his Horaos, or living with the anticipation of Moshiach, our passion and dedication will ignite an even stronger fire within our children. This will inspire them to embrace the Rebbe’s detailed instructions joyfully and understand that they are chosen and entrusted to bring Moshiach.
In our minds and hearts as educators we are strong and firm about what is “past nisht” because we know how much the Rebbe cares about it. Yet, we work with each child where they are at so that the imparting of the message is in the way that it can have the effect the Rebbe wants it to have.
Hiskashrus is a gift, and the empowerment to bring Mashiach is a treasure that should be portrayed in the most uplifting way. We have the Zechus to take care of the Rebbe’s children, the Rebbe’s soldiers, and it is a significant responsibility. When we inspire them, they often surpass our expectations, as they are the ones who will point clearly and say “והונאו יל-א הז” with the immediate revelation of Moshiach.
By Asharon Baltazar
A ‘SUNDAY DOLLAR’ AFTER GIMMEL TAMMUZ A STORY ABOUT THE REBBE’S EVERLASTING BLESSINGS
David Dana, a resident of Beit Shemesh and a tourist guide, grew up in France in a non-observant household. His path towards reconnecting with Judaism began when Rabbi Yaakov Mazuz reached out as part of an initiative to nurture a stronger bond with Jewish heritage among the youth.
During that period, Rabbi Mazuz orchestrated trips for young people to visit the Rebbe in New York. David joined one such group in late 1989, composed of approximately one hundred people. It was an unforgettable experience. From the Rebbe showering the group with endless gestures of warmth and affection to signaling to raise their glasses and say “L'Chaim,” David considered his time in the Rebbe's presence as nothing short of electrifying. The encounter left a lasting impression on him.
But the moment etched deepest in David's soul was his experience
during ‘Sunday Dollars’. Following his initial encounter when he received his first dollar for charity and a blessing from the Rebbe, David waited impatiently for the following Sunday. And each subsequent time, he walked away feeling extraordinarily light, the sensation of holding something tangible from the Rebbe— a dollar, always graced by a warm smile and more blessings.
The visit sparked a transformation for both David and his group. Many strengthened their observance of mitzvot, and David himself underwent a significant shift towards religious adherence. In the following years, he made frequent journeys to the Rebbe, never missing his chance to participate in Sunday Dollars.
On the 3rd of Tammuz 5754 (1994), David felt indescribable pain. No more dollars, no more standing in the Rebbe’s holy presence, and no more bursts of inexplicable happiness. Yet, despite his
grief, he found solace in the teachings of rabbis and Chassidus. They reminded him that a faithful leader and shepherd never truly abandons his flock. Drawing strength from the wisdom of the Zohar, David took comfort in the belief that the righteous continue to exert influence in this world even after their physical departure—sometimes even more far-reaching than during their lifetimes.
Several months later, on the eve of Chanukah, David flew to New York. The hustle and bustle of Erev Shabbos mattered little as he entered the Rebbe’s Ohel in Queens for the first time. Tears streaming from his face, he prayed, recited Tehillim, and then made a few personal requests.
David was at a crossroads in life at the time. Considering the prospect of immigrating to Israel filled him with both hope and trepidation. He wanted a clear, divine sign regarding his decision to move to the Holy Land. His other request
involved finding a shidduch for himself.
After finishing his prayers, David left the Ohel, unable to shake the pessimism tugging at his heart. He remembered the days meeting the Rebbe, clutching a dollar afterward. He didn't need to rely on faith to experience the Rebbe’s love for every individual. Each visit left David with a physical souvenir he could put in his pocket, a physical manifestation of his spiritual connection with the Rebbe.
Now, it seemed, all of that was history. For a fleeting moment, David entertained a frightening thought: Were prayers and requests made at the Ohel even heard? This grim mood accompanied him into Shabbos. He struggled to invest enthusiasm in the holy atmosphere of the prayers, Torah lessons, and farbrengens.
Sunday only deepened David's sense of emptiness. Oh, everything was so different, he mused. His previous Sundays in New York
were not just another day of the weekend – it was a day dedicated solely to meeting the Rebbe. With Sunday now free, David opted to go shopping in Manhattan. Later in the afternoon, he sat down to a dairy meal at a kosher restaurant in the city and in vain attempted to fill the spiritual void.
As David completed his meal, he handed the cashier a ten-dollar bill and received some change on top of a single-dollar bill in return. Before he tucked the money into his pocket, he caught sight of a neatly written inscription on the dollar. David’s heart lept. He also used to write the date and the words of the blessing on the dollar bills he received from the Rebbe. David held the dollar closer to read the small letters and nearly fell from his chair.
“I received it from the Rebbe Shlita ... [in the year] 5751,” the writing read. And there was another note, recording what the Rebbe said while giving this
dollar: “For the move to the Holy Land…”
Words escaped David; his mind reeled.
Divine Providence presented him with a dollar from the Rebbe on the same day David would’ve received it from the Rebbe’s hands. And the little inscription offered an unequivocal answer to his burning question.
Pulse thundering in his ears, David studied the bill again. The bill’s recipient recorded the year, 5751, א"נשת in Hebrew. An anagram of the word, as how Lubavitchers would write the year, was אשנת - “get married” in Hebrew.
Less than six weeks later, David became an Israeli citizen. That same year, he got married, cementing their roots in Israel with a permanent home. Indeed, the faithful shepherd had not abandoned his flock.
(Translated from Sichat Hashavua #1329)
Was Crowdfunding the Rebbe’s Idea?
Across the globe, thousands of institutions proudly bear the Rebbe's name. From Chabad houses to yeshivas, from chesed funds to educational facilities, from community shuls to outreach programs, there is no end to the variety of mosdos furthering the Rebbe’s profound influence.
Single-handedly, the Rebbe formed an empire of organizations unified by one collective goal: hastening the arrival of Moshiach.
With heartfelt dedication to the Rebbe’s vision, each moised serves its respective community in an endeavor to bring more light to the world. Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Well, it’s easier said than done.
The challenges began with the financial aspect. How could the organizations ensure cash flow? Where would they find funds to cover the costs? How were they expected to sustain themselves?
The Solution: A Directive for Tzedakah
The Rebbe spoke of tzedakah with tremendous fervor and endorsement. “Not only will your donation sustain the future of Yiddishkeit,” said the Rebbe, “but it will also be a great cause of bracha in your personal life.” On another occasion, the Rebbe urged the generosity of the chassidim, explaining that “when it comes to giving tzedakah, there should be no calculations.” Together with every sicha came a call to action for the
observance of mitzvos, specifically tzedakah. At each farbrengen, the evening ended with a directive for giving. In every personal correspondence or public letter from the Rebbe, the act of charity was emphasized and encouraged.
“Never Be Satisfied!”
A philanthropist once informed the Rebbe of his recent donation to a Chabad moised. The Rebbe’s response: “Next time, you’ll be able to give double.”
The Rebbe consistently urged donors to enhance their generosity. With a kind smile and holy eyes, the Rebbe’s focus was always on the next step - how you would multiply your Tzedakah, which initiative you could fund next, what additional support you could offer the mosdos. The Rebbe was never satisfied with one donation. Instead, he encouraged supporters to continuously aim higher.
The Rebbe Himself Was a Supporter
Every Sunday, thousands of individuals from various walks of life stood in line to encounter a moment with the Rebbe. And every Sunday, thousands of dollars were distributed to these individuals for the purpose of tzedakah. In today’s terms, we can almost say the Rebbe served as a “matcher” for all of the charity given that day. In truth, however, the funds weren’t being matched by the Rebbe. They were being provided.
The Rebbe supported the institutions in many ways
beyond Sunday morning dollars. From the Rebbe’s own pocket, mosdos such as Machon Chana and Kupas Bochurim received donations on a consistent basis. Some were anonymous, while others were publicly distributed. Regardless of how the funds were given, the Rebbe devoted significant effort and attention to ensuring the financial stability of the institutions.
The Secret to Wealth
The Rebbe’s endorsement of tzedakah often came along with a blessing, assuring donors that their contributions would lead to financial success on a personal level. When told that the individual didn’t possess the funds to pledge, the Rebbe still continued to encourage their donation, adding that “Whatever amount you pledge, Hashem will open a new conduit to help you fulfill it.” This bracha inspires countless acts of generosity until this very day.
Crowdfunding Started Before Gimmel Tammuz
Modern crowdfunding involves one platform where many individuals join together in support of a shared cause. While the technology for such an infrastructure did not exist in the early ’90s, the vision was already born. Through the constant directive of tzedakah, the Rebbe centralized the idea of funding institutions as a public mainstay of Jewish life. The Rebbe's
approach can be seen as a precursor to the method of “campaigns” that would later emerge, where the collective effort of many led to significant financial success. The community was encouraged to give, and in turn, they would witness the tangible impact of their contributions.
Tachlis, What Is the Point of It All?
“Tzedakah is great, because it hastens the Geulah.” 30 years later, we believe that every act of charity brings us another step closer to the Rebbe’s ultimate goal: the coming of Moshiach! RaiseThon is honored to be a conduit of tzedakah for many of the Rebbe’s mosdos and organizations. This year alone, millions of dollars were raised to further the influence of Lubavitch girls’ schools, yeshivas, Chabad houses, and chessed initiatives that advance the Rebbe’s mission statement.
The Rebbe’s timeless message of generosity and community support remains as relevant today as ever. As we continue to expand the Rebbe's vision, we witness the remarkable impact of our collective efforts. This Gimmel Tammuz, we invite you to join us in supporting the Rebbe’s mosdos. Every donation, large or small, contributes to the future of Yidddishkeit, adds in the dissemination of Torah and Mitzvos, and brings us closer to the ultimate redemption with the power of tzedakah and unity. Visit RaiseThon.com to support the moised of your choice today!
the inside track
By Sruly Meyer
While working on producing several albums for Benny Friedman, we turned to Yossi Green to try to get one of his compositions on an album. Meeting him was a badge of honor, as well as an unforgettable experience.
Yossi is not only one of the biggest legends in Jewish music but also a treasure trove of incredible behind-thescenes stories of how his life affected his music and how his songs were made.
Yet, despite our respect and eagerness, we couldn't find a song of his that was a good fit for Benny's style and the album we were working on. We went to Yossi's house multiple times over several years without making that a reality.
After releasing two albums without a Yossi Green composition, we headed back to his house in Seagate, New York, for one more try. This time, we came equipped with a bottle of mashke. Yossi welcomed us in and we told ourselves, "We're not leaving here without a song."
We began chatting about Yigal Calek, Dedi, and Mendy Wald. We discussed Avraham Fried's greatest Yossi Green hits. And Yossi regaled us with a story of MBD walking into his house late at night, rain pouring, lightning crashing. MBD was in tears, having just returned from a visit to a hospital where he sang for an unwell child. The songs from these stories were amazing, but the stories behind them were even more magical.
Yet no matter what notes Yossi tapped on his piano, it wasn't working. The conversation was great, but it was almost 3 hours later, and there was no song. I caught a glance from Benny that might be a gesture to call it a night. It was late and we had a long drive back. But I wasn't leaving without a song.
Then, after a few l'chaims, we started to talk about the Rebbe, Chabad, and Yossi's memory of growing up
The Niggun That Inspired a Song
hearing about Chabad niggunim. Yossi, with his fingers on the keys slowly alternating between chords, noticed how our faces lit up when we spoke about the Rebbe and Chabad niggunim.
Soon, Yossi wasn't playing any random keys; he was playing a niggun - 'Tzama lecha nafshi.' It was very beautiful and we started singing it together. Halfway through, Yossi stopped playing for a moment. He smiled at us and said, "That's what you like, right? It's obvious you want a niggun!"
That's when you could hear the notes changing, and we weren't listening to 'Tzama,' but a brand new composition. A powerful new melody was born in front of our eyes, built on the back of familiar chords and proudly carrying the DNA of a Chabad Niggun.
The song was titled "Es Tzemach Dovid" and was featured on Benny's 2016 album, Fill the World With Light. I think about that song whenever I think about our relationship with niggunim.
When people ask me what it takes for a song to be considered "Jewish," I always say it has to have a soul; it has to feel connected to something that came before it. Even more so, a niggun has to come from someplace and have its roots in something true.
One of the gifts the Rebbe gave us, and not often mentioned when describing the Rebbe, was the aspect of cherishing niggunim. The Rebbe personally taught chassidim niggunim with the understanding that it was part of our Chassidic DNA.
Niggunim are our connections to the past, to a way of life and a state of mind that was clearly very important to the Rebbeim. On that night with Yossi Green, I saw its refining impact in a clear way.
Behind the Chabad Album of Eitan Katz
Eitan Katz has already released 13 albums, among them three “Live in Jerusalem” recordings, three unplugged sessions, and a wedding album. But when we asked him about his 14th release, The Chabad Album, he spoke with excitement as if it was his debut.
“We say, ‘Chadeish Yameinu K’Kedem.’ The question is, how are we making something new if it’s old? Isn’t that backward?” Eitan asks. “But the way I understand it, we use older experiences to inform and inspire the new. We turn backward to know the road forward.”
Eitan says this philosophy is the backbone of his new album, featuring 12 Chabad niggunim. “Chassidic Niggunim is Torah,” he says. “It’s music, but it’s deeply connected to how I live my life, how I daven and sing at weddings. For me, this project is a mission to continue showcasing the beauty and depth of Chabad niggunim, honoring the past while inspiring the future.”
Eitan was born in New Jersey and lived in Los Angeles, California, where his father Avsholom Katz served as a chazzan. “The niggun ‘Ki Hiney’ is one of the first Chabad niggunim I heard,” he says. “My father sang it on Yom Kippur.”
When he was 6 years old, his family moved to the affluent central Israeli city of Ra’anana. He recalls helping out the local Chabad Shliach Rabbi Eliyahu Shadmi with Mitzvoim. He went with Yeshiva bochurim in search of other Jews to do a Mitzvah.
By the time he was 14, the family returned to Los Angeles. There, he accompanied his brother Shlomo Katz and his band to perform at Chabad events, like the Chanukah celebrations in San Francisco led by Shliach Rabbi Yosef Langer. “I even sang backup for Yehuda Glantz at a Chabad Telethon in Los Angeles,” Eitan recalls.
Eitan currently lives in Far Rockaway, NY. He performs worldwide, and two of his bandmates are Chabad musicians Yoni Lorber and Yehuda Piamenta, whose influences have been significant both on the road and on this album.
Growing up, Eitan was inspired by artists such as Avraham Fried. “I was obsessed with ‘K’shem Sheani,’” he reminisces. “I would take a tape recorder, sing harmonies, and play it back to see how it would sound.”
But it was Fried’s Chabad Albums like “Avinu Malkeinu” and “Nigun Ha’Baal Shem Tov” that were
really transformative for him. “I still listen to the Nichoach (Niggunei Chassidei Chabad) albums,” he admits. “They transport me back to old Russia, enveloping me in the music.”
These influences are evident in his live shows and performances at simchas, where Chabad niggunim, especially during the dancing, is a staple. It led him to create the new Chabad Album which has been five years in the making.
“I took my time because I wanted to get it right,” Eitan explains. “I have to be mechadesh (renew) music to honor the niggun but also let the music serve it. I asked myself, how can I replicate this music without making it different? The music is meant to enhance the niggun, not overshadow it.”
Eitan says it was important for him not to modernize the niggunim on the album. “I spent a lot of time and money perfecting this album, and I’m proud of the production, but I took great pains to keep it authentic to its source,” he says.
Though he never met the Rebbe, Eitan proudly shares that he learned Chabad Chassidus, including the Alter Rebbe’s Tanya, and was greatly influenced by the Rebbe. “I loved watching videos of the Rebbe singing Tzama,” he says. “It was heart-stopping. To me, it defined what a niggun is and how to sing it.”
The Chabad Album’s songs were chosen from arrangements developed during live performances. Other tracks include “Ho’aderes V’hoemuna” and “Ro’eh Yisroel,” which feature guest artist Eli Marcus. “Eli’s energy is amazing, and the niggun breathes so nicely,” Eitan says.
The Chabad Album is available online everywhere Jewish music is streaming and available for download.
A Niggunei Chabad Album Guide
Nichoach - 16 volumes
Released between 1960-1976
Nichoach, an acronym for Nigguneiu Chassidus Chabad, is the foundation of every Chabad niggunim production to come after it. It was first collected by Rabbi Shmuel Zalmanov at the instruction of the Rebbe Rayatz to publish a book of all Chabad melodies with musical notation.
In 5717 (1957), the Rebbe asked that Nichoach be recorded in musical form. Mr. Velvel Pasternak guided the Chassidim, who had never had any experience in music production before. It's been reported that the Rebbe personally chose the songs for each album and listened to early drafts.
Piamenta - 2 albums
Niggunei Harav - Songs of the Rebbe (1991) and The Rebbe’s Nigunim (2019)
Niggunei Harav, created by the legendary brothers Yosi and Avi Piamenta, is often cited as an inspiration for other baalei teshuva hearing niggunim in an Israeli/Sefardic accent. After Yosi’s passing in 2015, Avi produced another Chabad album on his own with his signature upbeat style.
Zalman Goldstein - an 18-album collection
Released between 1994-2014
The most prolific creator of Chabad albums in the past 30 years is Zalman Goldstein, who released 18 productions under the Jewish Learning Group. His "Chabad Classics" series features over 250 instrumental tracks of Chabad niggunim with guest artists like Andy Statman, Yaron Gershovsky, and Chilik Frank. The series includes the 60-piece philharmonic performance at the Chabad Centennial Symphony and has become an iconic Chabad niggunim companion.
Avraham Fried - 4 Albums
Released between 1996 -2009
Avraham Fried’s contribution to Chassidic Jewish music was well-established before he started releasing Chabad niggunim albums. But Fried brought more than his energetic voice to the albums Hupp Cossak, The Baal Shem Tov’s Niggun, Avinu Malkeinu, and Yankel Yankel. His household name allowed the niggunim to reach the masses, well beyond Chabad circles.
Neemos Chabad - Mona Rosenblum
2 albums released in 2010
Longtime music staple Mona Rosenblum was behind this clever instrumentation and high production values, infusing familiar niggunim with Chassidic vitality. Stravinsky-like flute work, string tremolos, and driving backbeat paint a lush and tasteful musical background to the niggunim. This two-album series also had a Piano songbook that is currently out of print and was considered one of the most used songbooks for years.
Moshe Laufer: CHABAD
5 albums released between 2011-2024
Moshe Laufer, one of the most famous arrangers in Jewish music, has released 5 albums in his Chabad series. The albums feature over 50 musicians, multiple singers, and extensive adult and children's choirs. Some of the singers featured in this series are Shlomo Cohen, Mendy Jerufi, Yoni Shlomo, Eli Marcus, Tzudik Greenwald, Simche Friedman, Yiddish Nachas, and Yossi Green.
L'chaim: Chabad Tish
2 albums released between 2011-2020
After releasing countless albums of niggunim from Chassidic dynasties, Rabbi Yosef Moshe Kahana created the two-album “L’Chaim Tish Chabad.” Kahana produced a unique musical project that focuses on restoring niggunim to their original and authentic version, with a contemporary rendition. They feature Chassidic non-Chabad singers Zanvil Weinberger, Aharele Samet, Motti Wiesel, Yanky Daskal, Yosef Zev Braver, and Moshe Damen.
The Tzama Series
7 albums released between 2015-2024
Tzama began as live performances of a Chassidic evening of inspiration and niggunim, and later produced 7 albums containing 77 songs and more singles. They are sung by various vocalists, among them contemporary Israeli artists. They even have dance videos to accompany some of the niggunim.
Chaim Hershkowitz Presents: The Rebbe’s Niggunim
2 videos released in 2016 and 2019
This unique feature focused on the niggunim that the Rebbe introduced on Simchas Torah. It not only taught niggunim to children but also shared the story behind them. The videos feature Benny Friedman, Eighth Day, Shlomo Simcha, Eli Marcus, and Chaim Fogelman.
Bentzy Marcus: Seder Niggunim
2 volumes released in 2020 and 2022
Bentzy Marcus produced this live professionally recorded Seder Nigunim with Benny Friedman and Eli Marcus. It was accompanied by a choir of 60 voices to properly bring out the same experience you'd get from singing together at a Farbrengen. The second volume features Boruch Sholom, Berel Zucker, and Aryeh Leib Hurwitz.
The Salt Lake City Bris
Shalom Aleichem!
My name is Rabbi Benny Zippel, and I’m a Chabad Shliach in Salt Lake City, Utah. New York is on the east coast of America, and Utah is all the way on the other side of the country, close to the west coast. It’s a beautiful place, full of snowy mountains that people come to visit from all over the country, but b’ruchniyus, Salt Lake City wasn’t always so beautiful.
That’s why, in 1992, my wife and I came here to serve the Jewish community, and we’ve been doing that ever since!
Early on, we noticed Jewish parents weren’t giving their baby boys proper brissim. There was a pediatrician – a children's doctor – on a nearby air force base who would perform brissim for the community, but the doctor knew these “brissim” weren’t being done according to halacha.
For the Mitzvah of Bris Milah, a regular circumcision by a doctor isn't good enough, it has to be done by a Yid, and in the right way. We wanted all the Jewish babies in Utah to have a kosher bris.
We realized this was something we needed to work on. So right away, we invited a frum Mohel from Los Angeles to visit Salt Lake City whenever we needed one. We’d organize his flights, and offer our home for the Simcha. Sometimes people wanted to have the bris in their own home. It didn’t matter to us, just as long long as they were giving their child a kosher bris! We also invited community members to bring their older boys to the mohel for hatofas dam bris, to fix the bris that the pediatrician did years ago.
•
“Mazal tov, Cheryl!” My wife smiled into
the phone, wishing her good friend well after the birth of her second baby boy.
We knew Cheryl well. She and my wife were very close. Sadly, she didn’t marry a Jewish man – but her baby was still Jewish, and we were looking forward to helping her arrange a proper bris.
There was just one thing about Cheryl. She was a VERY organized woman. She always needed to know exactly what was going on, and what her schedule was going to look like.
It was the summer, Tammuz to be exact, and we planned the bris for a Monday morning. She agreed to give her three-year-old boy a hatofas dam bris in our home first, at exactly 11:30 am, followed by the bris of the new baby at 12 noon in her home. Everything was arranged.
“Great!” Cheryl said to my wife. “So the Mohel has your address, and knows where to drive from the airport… That’s good. We’ll be there at 11 am, just to make sure everything is in order. I’ve already
got the caterer confirmed for noon at my house, but my in-laws may come slightly earlier to help out… Oh! I almost forgot… the balloons! You can’t have a party without balloons. Those will be at my place, too. Everything should be set to go.”
“Perfect!” answered my wife, trying to keep up with Cheryl’s planning and all her excitement. The pressure was definitely on. This would be a grand celebration, but it was well worth it. We were doing this for the mitzvah!
•
But the Motzei Shabbos before the Monday morning bris, I got a call from New York. It was probably the most difficult call I’d ever gotten in my life, sharing news I never thought I’d hear.
The date was Gimmel Tammuz, 5754.
“The Rebbe…” the voice on the other end of the line shook uncontrollably, almost unable to finish the sentence, “...the Rebbe is not with us physically.”
I felt like I’d been hit with a brick. The Rebbe had been sick for a very long time, but this… this was something no one had expected.
Knowing the Mohel was a Chabad Chossid as well, I immediately hung up the phone and dialed his number, only thinking about how we could pull off this bris, given the horrifying news. His wife picked up the phone.
“I’m so sorry, he’s on his way to the airport now. He’s going to New York, and will be sitting shiva there all week.You’ll have to find someone else. I really apologize…”
I needed to find another mohel to come do the bris!
Now, Chassidim and Rabbonim from all over the world were traveling to New York. Everyone wanted to be in 770, united through this very hard time, and I wanted to be there too. So I called the airline to book myself a ticket. It was midnight. I wasn’t sure if I’d have any luck at that hour, but I figured I’d give it a shot.
"Knocking on doors at midnight like a crazy person was the only thing that allowed these two Jewish boys to have a bris."
“Sorry, sir,” said the woman from the airline, “our last flight to the East Coast left an hour ago. Our next flight won’t leave until 5:00 AM tomorrow morning, and it makes a stop in Dallas, Texas.” I remember feeling so broken.
I had no Mohel, and I’d have to wait until 5:00 in the morning to start my trip, stopping in Texas, of all places, but I had no other choice. I booked the ticket and got my things together.
My mind was foggy. I felt completely lost. All I could do at that point was cry and say Tehillim until it came time to leave my home,
travel to the airport, and board the plane. After landing in Dallas, I had to move past my misery and keep figuring out this bris!
Now, this story took place in the 90’s, before cell phones became popular. So during my stopover, I went to find a payphone.
I called one Mohel I knew of and I explained the whole situation.
“Rabbi, I’m really sorry, but I can’t help you on such short notice,” was his response.
I didn’t have time to despair. I had to continue my search. So I called the number of a Mohel from
Denver, Reb Feder, and to my relief, he agreed!
“Don’t worry about the expenses. Just put everything on your credit card, and I’ll pay you back,” I assured him. Finally, I could breathe a sigh of relief!
The next thing to do was let Cheryl know. Still standing at the payphone, I dialed my home number, asking my wife to tell Cheryl about the emergency change of plans.
“Just let her know something came up, and I won’t be able to make it Monday morning, but you’ll be there, and a different Mohel will also be there. That’s all she needs to know,” I explained to my wife.
“You know what, Cheryl’s actually on the other line right now,” she said. “Let me give her your message. Don’t hang up. I’ll let you know what she says in just a minute.”
I anxiously waited for what felt like forever. It was such a relief to hear my wife’s voice again.
“Alright, so… this is what she said.” My stomach began to twist. I knew my wife very well – I knew the voice she was using. This was not going to be good news.
“Either you and the regular Mohel will be there tomorrow morning for our toddler at 11:30 and the baby at noon, or there won’t be a bris at all. And if the bris doesn’t happen tomorrow, she says you should never speak to her about a bris again. There won’t be one at all, and she doesn’t want to discuss it further.”
If I felt broken before my flight to Dallas, well, now I felt a thousand times worse.
How was I supposed to get back
to the other side of the country that quickly?! But if I didn’t, then these two boys would never receive a proper bris!
•
My flight to New York landed at LaGuardia airport at 2 pm. I hadn’t put a thing in my mouth since Shabbos afternoon, but I had no time to eat. There was too much on my mind, and too much to do.
I took a taxi straight to 770, and sat with some of the other shluchim upstairs in the Zal saying Tehillim. Personally, I had one eye on my Tehillim, and one eye looking out for our Mohel from L.A. Soon the levaya began outside 770 and proceeded on to the Ohel.
I came back to Crown Heights from the levaya at 11:30 that night to find Chassidim sitting on the floor of 770, crying and saying Tehillim. By now, I hadn’t eaten for 36 hours, and my mind was moving a million miles a minute. The bris was supposed to happen 12 hours later, and I had no clue where the mohel was, or how I would convince him to come back to Utah with me.
Without thinking, I did the only thing I could think of.
I marched right out of 770 onto Eastern Parkway and started knocking on doors. I knocked on every Jewish door on the street, and then made my way to Union St., knocking on every single door. From there to President St., searching all of Crown Heights for this one mohel from California.
By now, it was already after midnight, and people must have thought I was a meshuganeh – knocking on random people's doors asking for a
mohel at midnight – but I kept going! Some people even thought I was sick and offered to call Hatzalah. But I wasn’t sick. I was just determined.
At every door, I asked people if they knew where my mohel might be staying. It was disappointing to get so many nos, but I knew I had to continue.
After some time, someone finally gave me some information I could use.
“Yea, actually, I think he’s staying in a basement on Montgomery St., between Brooklyn Ave. and New York Ave.,” the man at the door told me.
These words were music to my ears! I was so grateful to Hashem! I raced in that direction with a newfound Koach!
When I made it to the block, I began knocking on every basement door, until finally, he opened the door. It was him. It was finally, really him!
“What are you doing here?! It’s after midnight!” he asked in total shock.
“Listen, my good friend. We have two brissim to do in under 12 hours, and we need you there.”
He looked at me seriously. “But…. didn’t my wife… she told me that she told you that I can’t do it? That you should find someone else?”
“Yes, she did!” I answered, going on to explain the new situation. “...That’s why, if you don’t come, THERE WILL BE NO BRISSIM! NOT TOMORROW, NOT AT ALL!!! We cannot let that happen!”
I held my breath and waited for an answer.
“I’m going to think about it,” he finally told me after a few moments. But by that time, I wasn’t myself. I couldn’t think. I could only act, and what I did, I had NEVER done before, and NEVER did again.
I marched into the basement, took his bag, took him by the collar of his shirt and shlepped him outside. As this was going on, he started to yell at me. “Benny, I think you're sick. I think we need to take you to a doctor – something seems really wrong with you. You're going crazy.”
He was right! I was going crazy. But it didn't matter. I had to do this. I called a car service to come pick us up, and within minutes, we were on our way to LaGuardia airport.
•
Our Delta Airlines flight landed in Salt Lake City at 10:00 am. I immediately called my wife to have her let Cheryl know we were back on schedule.
B”H, we made it to my house on time for the hatofas dam bris at 11:30, and for the bris at Cheryl’s at 12 noon. It was a very special simcha, where I was even given the honor of being Sandek!
Mission accomplished. Knocking on doors at midnight like a crazy person was the only thing that allowed these two Jewish boys to have a bris.
This story is part of the Tzaddikstory.org collection and will be published in a future volume of Amazing Miracle Stories for Kids, a nonprofit endeavor to share stories of Tzaddikim, miracles and more.
KOSHER
DID YOU KNOW? IMAGINE
Just as eating healthy food strengthens our bodies, making sure to eat Kosher food strengthens our Neshama & ability to do the right thing.
One morning, your mother surprises you with a huge plate of candies and ice cream for breakfast! At first, you feel so happy and excited to eat all of it. But then you start to feel funny in your stomach & you realize that you might not have enough energy to play today. You remember that the breakfast options you usually have are full of good things that make you strong & healthy. They have all the nutrients that your body needs to feel good & have energy for the whole day. Even though sweets are yummy and tempting, it’s the healthy breakfast that really helps you feel your best & have lots of fun. We always want to choose the nutritious options that help you be strong and ready for all the exciting things you’ll do each day!
DELVING DEEPER
BRING IT HOME
Within us lies a special spark, a Neshama, that wants us to do good & kind deeds. Just like our bodies, this essence requires nourishment to stay healthy & strong. What kind of foods fuel this special spark? Kosher foods! By consuming kosher foods, we provide our Neshama with ample energy to help us do the right things! The Torah delves into the specifics of kosher animals & fish, including the distinguishing signs that enable us to identify them.
The next time you eat a snack, check the package to find the Kosher symbol on it.
Using your air-dry clay, shape an oval, for the body. A small circle, for the eye. A little leaf shape, which will be used as a fin.
Overlap sequins horizontally to create fish scales. Cover tail and fin with glue and sequins. Set aside.
Cut a strip of magnet to fit the fish and use tacky glue to attach it to the bottom of the fish. Let it dry for 24 hours.
Fish Magnet PARSHA
Shape the tail of the fish by making a rope with the clay and bending it into the shape of a heart, help it form together using your popsicle stick until it looks like a good tail. Apply a thin layer of tacky glue on the oval covering most of the clay, Leave space for the face of the fish.
Attach the small ball for the eye with tacky glue and put a sequin on top for color. For the mouth, push in 2 red sequins into the clay.
And just like that, you have a cute Kosher Fish Magnet with Fins & Scales!
Glue the fin on top of the scales. Glue the tail to the back of the fish.
of Magnet Stickers
Sequins
Stick
Dry Clay
Glue
*We would love to see how your Parsha Studio Project came out! Send us pictures to, info@jcm.museum
The Best Summer Salads
SUMMER IS A GREAT TIME TO UPGRADE YOUR SALAD MENU AND SERVE IT FOR YOUR OUTDOOR GRILLING PARTIES OR SHABBOS MEALS. WHEN THE HEAT IS UP, YOU WANT REFRESHING FLAVORS, AND THESE SALADS ARE ALL VERY BRIGHT AND TASTY.
COMPILED BY SRULY MEYER
FOR COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS, EMAIL: SRULY.MEYER@GMAIL.COM
Strawberry Summer Spinach Salad
BY SRULY MEYER @srulycooks
NOTHING SCREAMS SUMMER MORE THAN DELICIOUS RED STRAWBERRIES. ADD THOSE TO MORE FRUIT, SOME VEGETABLES AND CRUNCHY PISTACHIOS AND YOU HAVE A SALAD THAT IS PERFECT FOR A COOR BITE DURING A HOT DAY. PLUS: IT'S SUPER EASY TO MAKE.
SALAD INGREDIENTS:
1 cup of sliced strawberries
1 bag of fresh baby spinach
1 large cucumber, sliced.
1 cup of pomegranates
1/2 cup of pistachios
VINAIGRETTE INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. In a small bowl or a jar with a tight-fitting lid, add the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey (or maple syrup) and Dijon mustard.
2. Whisk together until the ingredients are well combined, or if using a jar, secure the lid and shake vigorously until the vinaigrette is emulsified.
3. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to your preference.
4. Drizzle over your strawberry spinach salad and toss to coat the salad evenly.
Kale and Peach Salmon Salad
BY SRULY MEYER @srulycooks
THIS RECIPE SHOULD BE CALLED A MEAL IN A BOWL. WITH A GENEROUS PORTION, YOU'LL GET ENOUGH PROTEIN, VEGETABLES, HEALTHY FATS, AND FIBER FOR A BALANCED AND NUTRITIOUS MEAL. IT'S ALSO FILLING THANKS TO THE NUTS AND MIGHT BE MISTAKEN FOR A TREAT DUE TO THE SWEET PEACHES. IN SHORT, IT'S WORTH A BITE.
INGREDIENTS:
SALAD:
4 cups kale, chopped (remove stems)
2 ripe peaches, sliced
1 avocado, diced
1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted
SALMON:
4 salmon fillets
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
FOR THE DRESSING:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
Sruly Meyer runs COLlive Magazine's food and music sections and owns a marketing agency in Hollywood, Florida. He is a home cook, recipe developer, and an online influencer discussing food, travel, and Jewish parenthood.
INSTRUCTIONS:
PREPARE THE SALMON:
1. Preheat your grill or oven to 400°F (200°C).
2. In a small bowl, mix the honey, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, garlic powder, and smoked paprika.
3. Brush the salmon fillets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
4. Spread the honey mustard mixture evenly over each fillet.
5. Grill or bake the salmon for about 12-15 minutes, or until it flakes easily with a fork. Cooking time may vary based on the thickness of the fillets.
PREPARE THE SALAD:
6. Place the chopped kale in a large bowl. Massage the kale with a small amount of olive oil and a pinch of salt until it becomes tender (about 2-3 minutes).
7. Add the sliced peaches, diced avocado, red onion, and toasted pecans or walnuts to the bowl.
FINISHING:
8. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper until well combined.
9. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine and serve.
Citrus Salad with Endive and Lime Honey Dressing
BY CHEF SUZIE GORNISH @chefsuzi_
CITRUS SALAD IS SO REFRESHING
IT'S PERFECT FOR THE SUMMER. TOP IT OFF WITH YOUR FAVORITE NUT AND LEMON HERB DRESSING FOR A PERFECT ADDITION TO YOUR MENU.
INGREDIENTS:
1 Grapefruit
1 Cara Cara Orange
2 Blood Oranges
1 Navel Orange
1 Lemon
1 Lime
1 Avocado sliced
1 cup Walnuts rough cut
1 head Red Endive
1 cup fresh Arugula
1/4 cup fresh pomegranate seeds
LIME DRESSING
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp fresh chopped chives
DIRECTIONS:
1. Peel all citrus with a paring knife so that all the white membrane is removed. Slice citrus into rounds and set aside.
2. Place arugula on the bottom of a platter and arrange the different types of citruses on top.
3. Top with endive, avocado, and walnuts.
4. Drizzle with lime dressing and garnish with pomegranate seeds.
Chef Suzie Gornish was trained in a Michelin Star restaurant in Antwerp, Belgium and is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. She currently works as a kosher boutique private chef and lives in the Five Towns on Long Island, NY.
Balsamic and Maple Mushroom Salad
BY RIVKY KLEIMAN @simplygourmetbyrivkykleiman
THE FLAVOR PROFILE OF THIS SPECTACULAR DISH GIVES A CITYDINING VIBE. THIS SALAD IS AN EXPERIENCE. SERVES 6
1 8-oz (225-g) pkg baby bella or shitake mushrooms (or a mixture), sliced pinch salt
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp maple syrup
MAPLE SHALLOT DRESSING:
1 shallot, sliced
2 tsp Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp maple syrup
⅓ cup olive oil
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
DIRECTIONS:
1. To prepare the mushrooms: In a medium frying pan, heat olive oil. Add mushrooms and heat until mushrooms release their juices. Add a pinch of salt and pepper along with the balsamic vinegar and maple syrup. Raise heat and stir continuously until all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Combine all dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Puree with an immersion blender until smooth.
3. To serve, combine lettuce, cabbage, mushrooms, avocado, tomatoes, and cucumber in a large salad bowl.
4. Drizzle with dressing and toss. Garnish with Chinese pecans.
Rivky Kleiman is a recipe developer, cookbook author of the Simply Gourmet cookbook series and co-author of the acclaimed Beis Yaakov Cookbooks. Rivky also has a new line of spices and delicious maple syrup available on her website, cookingsimplygourmet.com
SEND THEM PACKING
THE STUFF YOUR KIDS WILL NEED, BUT MIGHT NOT USE, FOR CAMP.
BY MORDECHAI SCHMUTTER
ENOUGH CLOTHES FOR A MONTH – Every piece of clothing should be labeled with your child’s name. If you have a common name, like Schwartz, you should just bring enough clothes for the whole bunk.
5,000 YARMULKES – because he’s going to lose most of them. Especially on overnights, when everyone sleeps head to head. Around a campfire.
SOMETHING TO WEAR THAT IS RED AND SOMETHING ELSE THAT IS BLUE – in case war breaks out. This happens nearly every summer.
WATERPROOF SLIPPERS OR CROCS – so he can wear them in the shower and he doesn’t have to wash his feet. Also useful for when he goes swimming in the lake. Especially if they float.
ROBE – in case he’s part of the skit.
NEIGEL VASSER SET – for water fights.
SHABBOS SUIT – Shabbos suits are the #1 item that kids forget, according to statistics based solely on my own life experiences. To be fair, I also forgot my suit when I went to my own Shabbos sheva brachos. Which is ironic, because I remembered to wear it to all my other sheva brachos.
CLOTHES HANGERS – for when pigs fly.
SOCK BAG – so that he doesn’t lose as many socks in the laundry. Unless he forgets to zip it.
LAUNDRY BAG – You can also use a garbage bag, because all the clothes he comes home with will probably get tossed anyway. Get one with a drawstring to keep the odors in.
LINENS – should be as embarrassing as possible.
SLEEPING BAG – so that if there’s an overnight, your child will not have to sleep directly on a large rock.
TISSUES – to wipe his nose with, because he’s mostly wearing short sleeves.
BUG REPELLENT – to be used up in a bug repellent fight on the first day. Or to keep unwanted pests out of the bunkhouse. (“Quick! What’s the correct dose for a raccoon?” “I think all of it.”)
BATHING SUIT – for bathing. Also for swimming.
BIG TOWELS – for swimming and showers. Send two towels, because your child will drop one in the pool.
WASHCLOTHS – your child will honestly not know what to do with these. They’re an extra thing he has to carry to and from the shower while holding his robe closed.
The following is a packing list for things your kids need in camp. It’s possible the camp already sent you a packing list, but there’s a pretty good chance you accidentally packed it. If your kid already left for camp, you can still go through this list, and then jump into your car and chase down the bus. Unless what you forgot is something that your kid won’t notice is missing for the two weeks until visiting day, such as a toothbrush. As long as he has a toothbrush holder, he’ll just assume.
NOTE that if your child is a girl, you should adjust the list accordingly. For example, most girls’ camps do not require a baseball mitt, which means, I guess, that girls don’t hurt their hands as much when they catch baseballs. On the other hand, they might need to bring whatever it takes to keep their hair from turning into a clown wig.
SOAP BOX – for public speaking, I guess. Should contain soap.
SHAMPOO, DEODORANT, MOUTHWASH -- Make sure your kid knows what everything smells like, so he can later figure out what’s leaking.
TOOTHBRUSH – will taste like whatever’s leaking.
HAIRBRUSH – for scratching bug bites.
SWIMMING GOGGLES – to find his slippers in the lake.
WRITING PAPER – so your child can learn origami. And wastepaper basketball.
STAMPS AND ENVELOPES – and make sure he knows how to use them – how to address the envelope, where to put the stamp, and that he should not use a row of stamps to seal the envelope. This is not automatic knowledge anymore.
BASEBALL CAP – in case there’s baseball. The brim of the cap will also provide sun protection for the back of your son’s neck, which is good because that’s the part that gets irritated by the iron-on labels.
SUNGLASSES – so your kid doesn’t have to make that face kids make when they go outside in the sun.
These will get lost before he even leaves the house to get on the bus to go to camp.
SEFORIM – Inexpensive ones, if possible. Like those paper mishnayos that are clearly not made to stand up to kids.
CANTEEN – Not the kind of canteen that sells snacks. The disappointing kind, that holds water.
FANS – your child might need two fans: One fan gets clipped to the edge of his bed, providing white noise and blowing all of his hair in the same direction so he doesn’t have to comb it in the morning. The other is a small portable battery fan that should be able to withstand being dropped, because that’s mostly what he’s going to do with it. That and talk into the wind in a robot voice.
FLASHLIGHT – so he can do things after lights out, such as read, play Frisbee, and shove writing paper into the back of the fan.
EXTRA BAG – for him to bring home anything he didn’t go to camp with, such as woodworking, the entire rest of his canteen allowance that he bought on the last day, small woodland creatures, and other people’s socks.
by Shmully Blesofsky
The Farband Then & Now
305 Kingston Avenue, a centrally located destination for learning, shopping, and eating, is still referred to as “The Farband” by longtime Crown Heights residents and has a long and interesting history.
In 1898, when Frederick Rowe, a real estate developer, formed the Eastern Parkway Company, he envisioned Crown Heights as a “restricted quiet neighborhood.” He even proposed erecting pillars at the Eastern Parkway junctions on Brooklyn and New York Avenues to limit traffic.
Rowe’s dream of Kingston Avenue being a residential thoroughfare with few commercial buildings was soon dashed with the completion of the Kingston Avenue subway station in 1920. The arrival of the Municipal Bank to Kingston and Eastern Parkway in 1924 cemented the transformation, and
developers began to see opportunities for future commercial growth.
In 1930, despite the onset of the Great Depression, two leading developers of the United Improvement Corporation of Brooklyn purchased the first two homes on Union Street. They announced plans to demolish them and build a 40x80 “business building” for $35,000. The developers hired architect Morris B. Adler, who deviated from the traditional brick design and created an Art Deco style building with a cast stone terracotta facade. It had “choice stores” of different sizes along the ground floor on Kingston Avenue, a main hall on the second floor, and a Bowling & Billiards in the basement.
The building was an immediate success and became a bustling center.
In the 1930s, it housed the Wolkoff
Tolerance Society, which, in addition to “spreading tolerance,” raised funds for Jewish charities and organized an annual “matzah drive.” Politicians from all over the city frequented the venue to deliver speeches and engage with the community. Mayor John P. O'Brien spoke at their opening.
In the early 1950s, the ‘Yiddish Natsionaler Arbeter Farband’ or the Jewish National Workers Alliance, an early Yiddish-speaking Labour Zionist Mutual Aid Society with centers across America, purchased the building to be a cultural center for its Crown Heights chapter. The building was subsequently called the “Farband” (association in Yiddish).
The Farband engaged in numerous social projects and activities. In its early days, it focused on housing and health insurance for its members, and in the later years it
held oneg Shabbos gatherings and hosted family celebrations as well.
In the late 1960s, the area underwent significant changes, and almost all the Jews left the neighborhood. The Rebbe urged Chassidim to stay and purchase local real estate.
When word got out that the Farband was about to be sold to a club, Tzeirei Agudas Chabad (Tzach, or the Lubavitch Youth Organization) put considerable pressure to sell it to Lubavitch. Their efforts were successful and the building was purchased for $60,000 by taking on two mortgages and paying a small amount in cash.
Because the building fell into decline in the late 1960s, Tzach Chairman Rabbi Dovid Raskin was tasked with renovating the space for activities. By then, the cast stone was wearing out, so
the facade was given a facelift by covering the outside with aggregate stone, essentially pebbles spread on a paste of cement. Colored pebblestones and specific patterns were chosen to accentuate the building and the stores along the Avenue, and that facade remains to this day.
The building was then renamed the Ufaratza Building, and the changes were evident. In the upstairs main hall, where the ‘Unity Democrat Club’ once held their meetings, Pegisha gatherings for those interested in Judaism were being hosted. Where members of the Farband once spouted their socialist ideals, now was made available to host a L’chaim for a mere $60. The double-wide storefront club center where fantasies of spreading tolerance were spoken was transformed into Kievman’s Shoe Store.
In 1972, the yeshiva bochurim’s seder was held there, and the Rebbe paid a special visit. After a short sicha to the bochurim, the Rebbe headed down the stairs with R’ Yankel Katz at his side and the bochurim in tow. When they reached the bottom of the staircase, perhaps noting its length and Katz’s advanced years, the Rebbe said with a smile, “Es is tzvei un tzvantzivk trep!” - “There are 22 steps!”
Today, 305 Kingston Avenue boasts the Crown Heights Kollel, offices of Tzach, Sarai wig shop, the Mercaz Stam bookstore, Union Car Service, See View Optical, and the busy Ess-and-Bentch eatery.
The Levi Yitzchok Library in the basement buzzes with activity, continuing the building’s tradition of being a communal center, this time in the light of Torah and Chassidus.
A Family of 9 on United Refuah
Meet the Davidi* Family
*Name changed for confidentiality
Membership Type: Family
Members Since: 2019
In over five years of membership, United Refuah shared in a total of 381 medical services for the Davidi family, addressing over 60 medical diagnoses.
Services included preventative care, vaccinations, sick care, maternity care including delivery, hospitalization, emergency room care, diagnostic imaging, physical therapy, and more.
“United Refuah has genuinely been the best option for our family.”
