Six young tmimim — all legally minors, are caught by the NKVD at an underground 24 Teves Farbrengen in Berditchev. They claim to be orphans, and are thus sent to a Soviet orphanage to be “reeducated” as “useful” citizens…
“The Iron Curtain” was crumbling in 1991, but one fine September day, the Soviet Premier was taken hostage and tanks rumbled into Red Square. It looked like the curtain was descending once more… The world was petrified, but the Prophet of the Generation didn’t understand why…
Rabbi Sholom Ber Avtzon retells the story of “the Rebbe’s Sefer Torah”
I sat with Rabbi Abba Dovid Gurevitch for a fascinating talk about the different Succos holidays he celebrated at various stages in his life. R’ Gurevitch is in his late eighties and is brimming with riveting accounts interwoven with Chassidic history as well as kiruvim from the Rebbe. Talking with him took me back twenty-five years to when I was a young bachur when I sat in a spacious succa in the backyard of the Gurevitch family in Tashkent and heard fascinating stories from him about the harsh conditions under communist oppression.
Author’s Note: For generations, this unique Sefer Torah was referred to as “The Sefer Torah of Mesirus Nefesh,” an obvious reference to the continuous mesirus nefesh shown for over twenty-one years by the Schapiro brothers of the famed Slavita Press. There are, however, varying accounts as to how the Sefer Torah came to be and how the brothers received it. The two main versions of its history are recounted in the text below.
The winter of that year—5547 (1786–7)—was most severe, the first snow falling in Liozna during the festival of Sukkot. Sitting in the sukkah required a fur coat and fur-lined boots, and on several occasions the snow had to be removed from the sukkah.
There was a special connection between Rabbi Berel Junik, of blessed memory, and the recently concluded month of Iyar.
The atmosphere of Rosh Hashana was felt from the first tekia on Rosh Chodesh Elul. During the first week of Elul, the elder Chabad Chassidim who came from various cities began to make their appearance. They would come for three months or more and devote themselves to avodas Hashem during these auspicious days; tasting from the “tree of life” (the inner teachings of the Torah) and breathing the atmosphere of Beis Chayeinu to fuel them for an entire year.
In 5694 (1934), the Rebbe Rayatz planned a second trip to Eretz Yisrael. The question arose as to who would accompany the Rebbe on this trip? Recently discovered documents reveal that a chassid by the name of Rabbi Chaim Eliezer Heber was considered
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Mochkin who passed away this past Shabbos Chazon, the ninth of Av, was born ninety-five years ago on the fourteenth of Shvat 5684, to his father, the Chassidic mashpia, R’ Peretz, and his mother, Mrs. Henya Charshe, who were then living in the Ukrainian village of Semenivka.
Elul 5695/1935. The KGB bursts into the homes of seven Chassidim in the dark of night and arrests them. Beis Moshiach retraces the course of events of eighty-four years ago as well as the fate of the seven heroes.
A compilation of pearls from Chai Elul Yomanim (diary entries) by tmimim learning in 770 over the years
He was one of the great opponents of the nascent Chassidic movement; He was the life-force of the committee of Lithuanian rabbis of Vilna, Slutzk, Brisk and Shklov who proclaimed a cherem against the Baal Shem Tov
November 7, 2019