Beis Moshiach presents the maamer the Rebbe MH”M delivered on Yud Shvat 5715, in accordance with the custom established by the Rebbe to review each year a section of the Rebbe Rayatz’s maamer Basi L’Gani of 5710. • This year we focus on the fifth section of the profound and foundational chassidic discourse.
In our previous articles, we spoke at length about the qualities of a Jewish king, Malchus Beis Dovid and Melech HaMoshiach. We quoted the Rambam (T’shuva, 9:2): “[These changes will come about] because the king who will arise from David’s descendants will be a greater master of knowledge than Shlomo HaMelech and a great prophet, close to the level of Moshe, our teacher. Therefore, he will teach the entire nation and instruct them in the path of G-d.”
Among the thousands of families who live in Crown Heights today, only a few dozen were present in the first years of the Rebbe’s nesius, and only very few merited basking in the presence of the sixth nasi, the Rebbe Rayatz, seeing him daven and being blessed by him in yechidus. One of those few is R’ Yehuda Leib (Leibel) Posner, the son of the famous Chassid R’ Sholom Posner a”h, who was one of the T’mimim in Lubavitch, about whom the Rebbe Rayatz said, “Sholom is mine.”
“You can do mivtzaim everywhere,” he says, “even with chareidim and knitted kippot types. I have a rule, for example, that we don’t begin until we say the 12 P’sukim and Yechi. That’s my rule, everyone knows it, the teachers and principals.”
They grew up in old-time Lubavitcher families and were raised on Geula and Moshiach from childhood. The ability to explain things, along with their fascinating lectures, were known already in their youth, and at a relatively young age they displayed superlative talent in their life’s work – raising the next generation of Chabad. * In this joint interview, R’ Gershon Avtzon of Cincinnati and R’ Sender Wilschansky of Milan, discuss the integration of the pleasantness and appeal that is characteristic of Chabad along with unyielding firmness, the inner source for a lack of involvement in publicizing the Besuras HaGeula, and their common chinuch approach: no to compromise and yes to principles.
To mark the special day of Yud Shvat, Dov Levanon presents a compilation of stories about the relationship between the Rebbe MH”M and the T’mimim, unusual expressions about hiskashrus to the nasi, and the Chassidic conduct expected of the “seventh generation.”
When Pharaoh had a change of heart and decided to pursue the newly liberated Jewish people, the Torah relates how he prepared himself for that pursuit…
How can we get children to feel secure at home? What ingenious solution did the Rebbe advise a woman who wanted to bring her angry son back home? Why does the key to success lie in the Shabbos meals? How do the children feel when their father is tired at the Shabbos table? * A practical article on chinuch, part 1 of 2, by R’ Nachman Twersky, a longtime mechanech in Crown Heights, based on a speech.
A businessman who asked for the printing of a Tanya received instructions from the Rebbe to use the meticulously accurate printing plates prepared by Rabbi Sholom Jacobson. They had been made with great toil and effort by a printer in New Jersey, and they were placed in the cockpit of an airliner and sent to the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. From there, they were transferred to the Lufthansa offices in South Africa and taken for safekeeping at a local Chabad House. A dramatic 3 a.m. phone call brought the printing plates back to the center of attention, and ten years after the story began, Rabbi Jacobson met the child who had been restored to life in the merit of the Tanya printing.
In an exclusive and inspiring interview, Rabbi Shachar Shaer, well-known educator and principal of the Chabad Talmud Torah in Elad, discusses the publishing of his first book, “N’chanech V’Natzliach.” He recalls his childhood in Rechovos in an atmosphere of shlichus, the moment he burst into tears before his son’s teacher, homework for teachers, the complexity of the parent-teacher relationship, and success in education. How much involvement should parents have in what’s happening in school? Is there such a thing as a helicopter parent? How do we define success in education? What educational message did he learn from an elderly toy salesman excited over a new piece of merchandise?
Presented for 11 Shvat, the day the Rebbe accepted the Chabad leadership.
January 27, 2015