How is it appropriate to include in the description of the Messianic Era the concept that “delicacies will be commonly available, like dust”? Delicacies are things that are connected with the body viewed in its most despicable capacity, “the skin of a snake”!
“Sometimes it seems impossible for me to actually bring the lesson into action. Today, for example, we read about building the Mishkan, and how we have to create a personal Mishkan within ourselves and within our homes. How do we do that?”
On sharing a meal with Rabbi Dovid Horodoker. * “The biggest chiddush was that I heard and knew that R’ Dovid suffered from starvation and still thought Chassidus; not about bread and butter but about Elokus, and at length, and he davened for even longer.”
Rabbi Michoel Mishulovin, shliach of the Rebbe at the Chabad house near the Bolshaya Bronnaya shul, tells about Yidden in Russia who are becoming religiously observant after seventy years of communism.
Our observance of the Mitzvos should not be confined to our limited human faculties. We must always endeavor to reveal the inner Shtus D’k’dusha, the inner voice that comes from our soul’s essence that inspires and enables us to go beyond our boundaries.
In the world of Chassidus, it has been said about a certain tzaddik that he managed to conceal his tzidkus (righteousness) by being famous as a baal Nigleh; whereas another tzaddik managed to conceal his scholarship with his great tzidkus. It can be said about Rabbi Yaakov Friedman a”h, who passed away eleven years ago, that with his modesty he concealed his entire personality. Rabbi Yaakov, one of the outstanding individuals of our time, was multifaceted, but he hid it all with his anava (humility) and bittul (self-abnegation) that were part and parcel of who he was. Anyone who knew him would say, “Er iz geven a gehoibener Yid” (he was a spiritually elevated Jew). Although quite true, such a general statement could only be made by one who did not have the privilege of knowing him up close. With that phrase, they express the enormous distance they felt when they came in contact with him for even a few minutes. However, those who spent time with him got a glimpse of his true greatness. “V’ha’chaI yiten el libo” – may the living take it to heart and may this article be a z’chus L’ilui Nishmaso.
For more than a year, Chabad Chassidim throughout the world have followed the story of Rabbi Eliyahu Hecht from Tzfas. In an exclusive account, Rabbi Ze’ev Yisroel Crombie, chairman of the rescue committee, shares his personal recollections of the many miracles that ultimately led to the final acquittal.
“And so, now I’m on my way to Siberia. I thought that the Rebbe was dispensing business advice, but he must have seen that there is something there, in Siberia, that I must achieve, some part of my mission in life that must be played out in the frozen east. I could have gone in comfort, as a wealthy businessman and government contractor. Now I am going in chains…”
Zalman and Shaindy Berenshtein set out on shlichus to Kochi, India. Despite their previous experiences in India, they did not anticipate how difficult it would be to get started, but a letter from the Rebbe about shlichus helped them make their decision.
February 7, 2019