Ukraine Connection to Moshiach Times

Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukraine connection. Today (18 Nissan) is the Birthday of the father of the Lubavitcher Rebbe! Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson born (1878), one of the greatest Kabbalists in the last 500 years, and the former chief Rabbi of Yekatrinoslav, Ukraine (today, Dnepropetrovsk). It was announced yesterday (just hours before the birthday of the Rebbe's father commenced on the Jewish calendar) that Ukraine just elected a Jewish comedian as its President, in a massive 73% landslide victory! And the new President is from near Dnipro, where the Rebbe's father was the head Rabbi and where the Rebbe grew up as a boy.

The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, MH"M, was born in Nikolaev, Ukraine; and raised much of his childhood in Dnipro -- where today the largest Jewish Center in the world, operated by Chabad, was constructed in the past 10 years.

About the new president of Ukraine, it was written:
“Imagine, a pure-blooded Jew with the appearance of a Sholom Aleichem protagonist wins by a landslide in a country where the glorification of Nazi criminals is enacted into law,” Avigdor Eskin, a Russian-Israeli columnist, wrote in an analysis published earlier this month by the Regnum news agency.

The French-Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy also referenced Ukrainian Jews’ bloody history in an interview with Zelensky, the 41-year-old son of scientists who lived near major Soviet army bases in Ukraine.

“His Judaism. It’s extraordinary that the possible future president of the country of the Shoah by Bullets and Babi Yar is a self-affirmed Jew from a family of survivors from Kryvy Rih near Dnipro – the land of pogrom if ever there was one,” Levy wrote in an article published earlier this month in Le Point.

Ukraine to become first country outside Israel whose president and PM are both Jewish

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson (1878-1944), was born on the 18th of Nissan in the town of Podrovnah (near Gomel) to his parents, Rabbi Baruch Schneur and Rebbetzin Zelda Rachel Schneerson; his great-great grandfather was the 3rd Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch.

In 1900 Rabbi Levi Yitzchak married Rebbetzin Chanah Yanovski, whose father, Rabbi Meir Shlomo, was the rabbi of the Russian city of Nikolaiyev. In 1902, their eldest son, Menachem Mendel, later to be known as The Lubavitcher Rebbe, was born. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak lived in Nikolaiyev until 1909, when he was appointed to serve as the Rabbi of Yekatrinoslav (today, Dnepropetrovsk). In 1939 he was arrested by the communist regime for his fearless stance against the Party's efforts to eradicate Jewish learning and practice in the Soviet Union. After more than a year of torture and interrogations in Stalin's notorious prisons, he was sentenced to exile to the interior of Russia, where he died in 1944.

For more on Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, including the story of his valiant battle for Yiddishkeit, his arrest and exile, see Rebbetzin Chana's biography

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Also today in Jewish History, Lubavitcher Rebbe's Brit (1902)
On the eighth day following his birth on the 11th of Nissan, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, MH"M, was entered into the covenant of our Patriarch Abraham.

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The new president of Ukraine, Mr. Volodymyr Zelensky, is in close contact with Chabad in Ukraine, is proud of his Jewishness and participates in the events of the Chabad House. On the eve of the Passover holiday, he met with Chabad emissaries and received a Shmurah Matzah for the Seder. Am Yisrael Chai!

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The world’s largest Jewish center opened in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine several years ago, in the town where the Lubavitcher Rebbe's father was the Chief Rabbi, and one of the towns where the Rebbe grew up in his childhood. Built at a main intersection between the left and right banks of the Dnepr River, the 22-story, seven-towered, 538,000 square foot "Menorah Center" now sits, under the direction of of Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzki. As airplanes fly across the Ukraine sky at night, they can see what looks like a giant Menorah from a distance.

Kamenetzki, director of Chabad of Dnepropetrovsk, said that while in the past the city had been associated with suffering and persecution – the Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, of righteous memory, was arrested and the Rebbe’s brother and tens of thousands of other Jews were shot during a mass slaughter by Nazi forces – the whole world can witness a resurgence of the city’s Jewish life.

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"Reb Levik" Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson (father of the Lubavitcher Rebbe) was considered one of the greatest Talmudic and Kabbalistic scholars of his generation. He served as the chief rabbi of the city of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, during the bloody Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent Communist oppression. Despite terrible persecution directed at religious leaders in those days, he remained fearlessly defiant in strengthening Jewish learning and practice in his city and throughout the Soviet Union. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was eventually arrested, tortured, and subsequently banished to exile in a remote village in Kazakhstan. His spirit, however, was not extinguished, even while his body was broken and eventually gave way to his early passing.

His selfless efforts for Jews and Judaism even in the face of a sadistic superpower regime determined to leave no trace of them were later tenderly nurtured by his son and disciple, the Rebbe. The Rebbe conducted Soviet Jewry’s affairs clandestinely from afar, and eventually saw the decades of his father’s effort blossom into full bloom upon the fall of the Iron Curtain and the public resurgence of Jewish life there.

Soviet Jewry, however, is not alone in the debt of gratitude it owes to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak. His personal example, demonstrating how Judaism will survive against all odds and how we must adhere steadfastly and proudly to its ideals, serves as a shining beacon of inspiration for all of us today, and for all generations to come.

We are likewise collectively indebted to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and his life’s partner, Rebbetzin Chana, of righteous memory, for giving us the Rebbe, whose application of their teachings and way of life to all the rest of us changed the very course of world Jewry.

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After her husband had been imprisoned, tortured and interrogated for nearly a year, Rebbetzin Chana, the Rebbe's mother, was informed that her husband and one of the great kabbalists of the generation, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, had been tried in Moscow for his “criminal activity” of spreading Judaism, and sentenced to five years of exile in the far-flung village of Chi'ili in Central Asia. There he would be completely isolated from other Jews. He was 61, and after his horrendous prison experiences his health was in such a dreadful state that he was nearly unrecognizable.

Rebbetzin Chana, then 59, could have stayed home and tried her best to get food sent to her husband. Instead she decided to go into exile to be with her husband and support him, no matter what that entailed. Upon arrival, she realized just how dismal the situation was. She arrived early spring, “when the ground turns into deep mud, making it difficult to walk in the street. But to obtain life’s most basic necessities, it was necessary to walk a long distance, although it was virtually impossible to get out of the quagmire. When you put your foot down, it became bogged down in the sticky morass, and you needed the strength of Samson for every step you took.” The moisture and warmer weather brought swarms of fleas, mosquitoes and other biting insects. Clothing would become covered in black dots within hours, soiled by the fleas. Rebbetzin Chana burned a type of fuel made from mud, dried-out grass and straw she had gathered, which didn’t provide light or fire, but a thick black smoke to keep the insects away. Often, the strong night winds blew that awful smoke in their faces.

Every season was extreme. Summer brought unbearable heat that forced everyone indoors for cover, and winters were beyond frigid. It wasn’t uncommon for people to freeze to death. Rebbetzin Chana gathered assorted types of “bricks” and fashioned a crude furnace to help keep warm.

Rebbetzin Chana and her husband moved to a few different shacks while in exile, each place with its own challenges. The shacks were made of clay, with muddy floors, and were often darkened by swarms of mosquitoes. They were damp, moist and small, often without dividing doors between the rooms, offering no privacy. Bigger shacks with the luxury of a wooden floor meant more people with whom to share the space. In one place, they had only roach-infested cots to sleep on.

It was forbidden to purchase food; everything was government-regulated with ration cards and quotas, requiring long daily treks and endless lines. Throughout their years in exile, the Rebbetzin and her husband suffered severe hunger, at one point going without any bread for a month! Their health deteriorated, and Rabbi Levi Yitzchak became extremely weak and frail.

These were the conditions of exile. Yet Rebbetzin Chana was there to take care of her husband and keep up his spirits. It was due to her resourcefulness and determination that she was able to get food whenever possible and physically care for her husband, literally saving his life. She knew that more than bread for survival, he urgently needed materials to write down his copious thoughts of Torah and Kabbalah. She was determined to obtain such supplies. She taught herself how to make ink from various herbs and grasses, and presented her homemade ink to her overjoyed husband. He wrote along the margins of the few holy books and notebooks she had brought him.

When Passover neared, she spent days traveling to find a utensil for Passover, knowing Rabbi Levi Yitzhak would not eat otherwise. She successfully obtained a tin-plated pail made from new materials.

Once, to their surprise and joy, they received a package with white flour, and she set some aside to make two hamantashen for the holiday of Purim. Rebbetzin Chana expressed how important and meaningful it was for them to be able to observe even a minor custom. She exerted tremendous effort to enable herself and her husband to celebrate any and every observance.

“The Great Shabbat” before Pesach - as of 5776

We call the Shabbat before Pesach “The Great Shabbat” because of a great miracle that transpired on the Shabbat before the Jewish Exodus from ancient Egypt.

What miracle was that? It turns out many answers exist to this question, but here we’ll only consider the unique view of Chabad’s Alter Rebbe, from his “Shulchan Aruch”.

“When the Jews ushered in their Pesach lambs on that Shabbat, Egyptian firstborns clustered around them and asked the Jews what they were doing ... They were told, ‘It’s for a sacrifice to God Who will kill the Egyptian firstborns.’”

“The firstborns then went to their fathers and to Pharaoh requesting they expel the Jews. When rejected, the firstborns went to war against their fathers and Pharaoh, killing many of them. This is what is meant by ‘the Egyptians were struck down by their firstborn’.” [Psalms 136:10]

Note the Alter Rebbe makes no mention of the Jews’ success but rather highlights the internal war that arose between the firstborns and their fathers. So what greatness is there in this miracle?

The answer lies in what the Rebbe continues to say, that this miracle served as “the start of the redemption and the miracles.” That is, the greatness of this miracle is not just because many Egyptians were killed (“the Egyptians were struck down by their firstborn”), but rather the order and demand by the Egyptian firstborns to free the Jewish People was the turning-point that embodied the beginning of the Exodus!

This miracle had even higher value than the miracles of their exit from Egypt. The exodus from Egypt occurred once the power and force of Egypt was broken or annulled, during the Plague of Firstborns, when God took out the Jews. In contrast, the miracle of The Great Shabbat occurred while Jews were still within the Egyptian exile, when, nevertheless, the dominant representatives of Egypt (their firstborns) demanded the freedom of the Jews.

This is why on The Great Shabbat we read part of The Hagaddah, for, just as on the night of Pesach, when the Jews left Egypt, we read The Hagaddah, so too we read part of it on this Shabbat, because that’s when actually began “the start of the redemption and the miracles”!

So what has this to teach us now? In my humble opinion, we are seeing the start of The Ultimate Era of Redemption as today we watch all enemies of Israel striking down and destroying each other (in accord with Isaiah 19:2).

(On the other hand, why we continue to suffer horribly from individual sacrifices by Muslim vermin - eludes me! It is simply unintelligible and horrifying.)

The Whys of the Wise

The Haggadah refers to "the 4 sons" about whom Torah speaks to. The wise son's mention is followed by mention of the wicked son.

Why this juxtaposition? Why aren't the 4 sons ordered from good to bad, so that better sons appear before the worst of them (such as the "simple one" or the "one that can't ask")?

Placing the wicked son next to the wise one comes to teach us, by way of hint, the great value there is in performing Torah's commandments in a simple, humble and unpretentious manner, in performing them without questioning. After all, Torah enjoins us, "Be faithfully simple with Your G-d" (Deut.18:13).

Even though the wise son asks questions - to dig deeper all the time to reach a more profound level of understanding, from which no harm can come, nevertheless, occasionally, like a double-edged knife that can turn on you, a multitude of questions can demonstrate the lack of a simple attitude, a lack of submission to the yoke of Torah. Questioning can on occasion become a slippery slope to slide off the good path, a means to justify wickedness, G-d forbid.

This juxtaposition, therefore, comes to suggest a warning. As the Previous Rebbe once overheard from elder chassidim, "The asking of WHY can sometimes arise from an impure instinct!" There can be a fine line between the whys of the wise and the whys of the Rasha.

Jewish Demise from Unsuspecting Quarters

"In every generation," the Passover Hagadah tells us, "people rise to destroy us, and Hashem saves us from their plots".

Those who wish evil upon the Jewish people fall into one of two categories; Either they want to extinguish the Jew's spiritual bond to Hashem; Or they wish to destroy the physicality of Jewish presence.

The Greek king Antiochus tried to extinguish Jewish spirituality. He instituted harsh decrees to force Jews to forget their Torah and break their faith in Hashem.

Haman, on the other hand, chief viceroy to the Persian king Achashverosh, tried to exterminate the Jews scattered throughout the 127 countries of the empire by killing every Jewish man, woman and child.

In recent history we can point to two such notorious villains as well, Stalin and Hitler.

Stalin successfully destroyed millions of Jews - spiritually. He forced Jews to break with Torah and faith in Hashem, by destroying synagogues and yeshivas and banning religious observances. Hitler, on the other hand, in his attempt to engineer "the final solution", murdered some six million Jewish people throughout Europe, from infants to the elderly.

It's not known that Jews helped Haman, but it is known Jews helped Antiochus. It's not known that Jews helped Hitler, but it is known Jews helped Stalin.

Besides these two sorts of Jewish destruction, yet another form of destruction arose from the Jewish quarter, probably unwittingly, in recent Jewish history. These unsuspecting destroyers of Jewry comprise the secular leftists, the "reform" Jews (whatever brand their reform takes), or the ignoramuses. These three groups, in effect, also render nothing short of a Jewish holocaust. They first suffer a spiritual suicide, because they, their children and grandchildren abandon Torah observance and tradition, and then these assimilated offspring intermarry and drop out of the Jewish gene pool, which effectively translates into a passive, physical genocide. After all, Jewish men who marry Gentile women break their branch of genetic Jewish continuity. What Hitler or Stalin would have done to them, these do for Hitler and Stalin in abstentia!

This present generation's counterpart of Haman or Hitler is the Iranian regime, among others.

Apropos of the group of Gentile haters who seek to destroy Jews spiritually, a present menace looms large. This hostile bunch seeks the demise of Jews - on the sly. They are the Catholic missionaries funded by America's Southern Baptists who by stealth work to "convert" Jews. By stealth - like the pig who flaunts his split hooves to onlookers and says, "Look, I'm kosher!" (when, in fact, it lacks the internal physical sign for being kosher). Obviously the Jews they bait are the ignorant ones, those weak on Torah knowledge. They have well over 300 million dollars budgeted for this cause. You already find them peddling their piddling spirituality in every large city of Israel, under some "Messianic" rubric [A theme they steal from authentic Judaism]. In the U.S. they have succeeded in persuading some 300,000 Jews to regard their human idol as a god. They succeed because these baited Jews hunger spiritually and cannot find or cannot meet Jewish representatives to satisfy their hunger. One of several missionary agencies for this duping purpose is called "Jews for Jesus" (יש''ו).

In the end, of course, the outcome will be "... and Hashem saves us from their plots". But meanwhile, because all Jews constitute one family - one big collective body - if the left arm hurts, the right arm wants to help. The best way to fight these destroyers is to teach the truth of Torah to these Jews "roaming in the dark". Torah is the glue that binds Jews to Judaism. This blog, for example, might just serve one day to attract the hungry soul of one lone Jew in some far flung corner of this world who, upon learning the truth, returns to Hashem; And by saving that one soul - I will have saved an entire world.

Pesach 5771 - The Holiday of Redemption

Happy and kosher Pesach my friends!

Below I include another sign of the imminent Era of Final Redemption, may it happen now already, and catapult the world into a higher sphere of experience!

Signs are nice - but we've had our fill of signs already. We want the real thing, and we want it now. The Rebbe said, "We're the last generation of exile"; Well, how long is this last generation to last?

A few posts ago, I translated The Previous Rebbe's explanation of Psalm 93 (link), and how turbulent waters shall submerge much of a country, which apparently refers to the Japanese tragedy. Here below is new footage of the incredible disaster.

See what 4 or 5 minutes can do to a town.