What connects a young artist who wants to buy a pair of t’fillin with a resident of Crown Heights who pays $3,000 for a painting of the Rebbe MH”M – and how does all this become clear in an answer in Igros Kodesh?
A teacher with thirty students or a parent with six-seven children and more soon realizes that the educational approach that worked with one child won’t necessarily work with another child. Each child needs to be regarded as an individual.
A few people had a rare relationship with the Rebbe, in which their love for the Rebbe shone through powerfully and they merited that the Rebbe reciprocated with a double portion of love and caring.
A question that shluchim are often asked is, where did you learn to become a shliach? Does Chabad give a course before you go out on shlichus?
One of the narratives repeated in this week’s parsha concerns Miriam, Moshe’s sister, who spoke ill of her brother, as recounted earlier in the Book of Numbers. As a result of this “indiscretion,” she was afflicted with tzaraas (a skin lesion, which renders a person ritually unclean and in quarantine). In this week’s parsha, the Torah admonishes us to be careful in treating these skin lesions. Then the Torah exhorts us to “Remember what G-d, your G-d, did to Miriam on the way when you left Egypt.”
The Rebbe explains that the Chabad custom of not washing and eating challa at the third Shabbos meal is because at this meal there is a lofty level of holiness that is a microcosm of the future time, so that for the body just a taste is enough.
A point from the weekly D’var Malchus with a relevant message.
After a military operation lasting more than seven weeks (!), the Israel Defense Forces still didn’t obliterate the five rocket launchers that caused national paralysis. This was because they were still searching for the telephone numbers of Arab families still in Gaza to protect the missile sites, to ask them nicely if they could please vacate the premises, as if they couldn’t hear the rockets firing over their heads, hour after hour…
“Throw the dice, it’s your turn,” I urged Shmuli who was lost in thought. Shmuli jiggled the dice in his hands, then tossed them on the board. He got “snake eyes” (six and six).
The Rebbe said that the Rebbe Rayatz’s sichos just prior to Yud Shvat 5710 were meant to provide us with a message as to how to understand the events that were to follow. * In the most recent sichos of 5751- 5752, the Rebbe reiterates in an unprecedented way that there will be eternal life as a soul in a body without any interruption (i.e., the Rebbe will live on forever without the need to experience histalkus).
A point from this week’s D’var Malchus with a relevant message. * Chinuch toward absolute kabbalas ol, a pluralistic chinuch, or a combination?
R’ Dovid Geudj, R’ Alon Nevo and lately, also R’ Eli Devoras have brought spiritual meaning to their work at the corporate giant Intel, and have turned their Chabad activities at the company into something that wouldn’t put even a large Chabad house to shame. * In addition to the shiurim, they hold farbrengens with many participants and do a tremendous amount of work around the holidays. * “People know that just like any place in Eretz Yisroel and the world, there are Chabad representatives at Intel too.”
R’ Shraga Elimelech (Meilich) Kaplan went to Tomchei T’mimim and became one of the diligent talmidim there. * For many years he was persecuted because he spread Torah and he was even arrested several times. He finally left Russia for Eretz Yisroel where he was appointed maggid shiur in the new Tomchei T’mimim in Lud and the rav of the Chabad community there. * Part 2 of 2
September 3, 2014