Society's Imperative - Jewish Unity

Chabad changed the world, whether people realize this or not, and continues to change it. The Rebbe seeded his emissaries in every corner of the world to promote Jewish tradition. Chabad has become a household name and a powerful influence that continues unabated. Many thousands of Chabad centers world-wide serve to counter ignorance and reformist ploys by drawing Jews closer to Hashem.

The Rebbe said the plentifulness that God infuses into the world funnels down through the Rebbe, through his chassidim, through world Jewry, into the world. The way Jews behave, therefore, bears directly on what the world experiences.

If conflict exists among Jews, it impacts the world at large by constricting the bounty available because much of the bounty thereby transforms into wasteful and contradictory resources.

It is therefore behooves Jews to clear obstacles that impede the pipeline of plentifulness that feeds the world. Turbulence in the pipeline impedes as well. Only a unified Jewry can influence the world positively to once and make life with Moshiach a reality.

The key ingredient for clearing all impediments in the pipeline of plenty - is unity. Whether or not a Jew agrees with you or not should never be an issue or point of contention. A difference of opinion should be of no more import than the difference facial features make.

Only the instrument of unity can draw down the ultimate blessings - to the entire world. When we got the Torah at Sinai, we merited it because we stood united. To merit the utopia of the Era of Redemption, we again must stand united.

The world's welfare rests upon the shoulders of Jews, whether or not the rest of the world knows it or not.

A Rebbe-Dollar Story

Pictures are illustrative only

Rabbi Groner, the secretary of the Rebbe, related this story:

A young man, about 30 years old, waited in line to receive a dollar from the Rebbe. When his turn came up, he asked the Rebbe for a blessing that he find a suitable shidduch. The Rebbe gave him a dollar and said,  
“כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאד"
("For this thing is very near you" - Deut. 30:14).

Years passed and he began to entertain doubts the Rebbe's blessing would take effect. After all, the Rebbe implied the happening was "very near you", yet many years had passed him by. Finally, many years later, he found his soul mate.

It happened once, now with his family growing, that he discovered he can buy pictures of people who passed by the Rebbe for a dollar from a website online (MyMomentWithTheRebbe.org). All you need do is supply the date and approximate time, then search through the film strips provided, seeking the frame you want to purchase. Once you pay, you can download the picture.

Upon inspection of the film strip where he found his own picture, he was struck by an unusual circumstance. Because the lines of men and women would alternate in moving forward towards the Rebbe, a person, in charge of streaming the lines, would stop one line every so often to give the other line a chance to stream ahead. In his own "men's line", he was the last one in that line before it was stopped. The first woman in the "ladies' line" was now - none other than his wife!

He now discovered how accurate indeed were the words of the Rebbe. His [future] wife was in fact indeed "very near" to him; In fact, she was the next person to appear before the Rebbe, right after him.

Until now, he interpreted "very near" to mean temporally; Now he realized the Rebbe meant it in the sense of physical proximity.

Did Noah Latch a Hatch?

When Noah opened the ark's window to send the dove out for a 3rd time, and this time the dove did not return, it says, "... and Noah removed the covering of the ark ....".
  ויסר נח את מכסה התבה (Gen.8:13)

Now I ask you, how could he manage that feat? The dimensions of this "covering of the ark" are colossal, and no few mortals together could accomplish this lift of so much timber. (This roof covered an area the size of one and a half soccer fields in length, and half a soccer field's width in width.)

Surely Noah had no hydraulic lift built in. Did he construct a release mechanism where the roof could just roll off the top? Anyone preoccupied 120 years building an ark surely becomes a master contractor.

We know that the huge giant, Og, was the sole survivor of the Great Flood (Rashi; Gen.14:13, Ba'al HaTurim 7:23) outside of Noah's family, probably by holding on to the ark. There were times, after all, when the waters reached 45 feet higher than the highest mountain tops. Maybe as a thank-you gesture he lifted off the ark's roof for Noah. But no doubt he took his leave well before that because he felt land long before they made for the exit.

Most likely a hatch comprised part of the roof. As Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan renders it in his translation, "Noah removed the ark's hatch". After all, the very next words say, "he saw", which implies he opened it to take a look. Why remove a roof anyhow, when entry and exit were accomplished through a door? "Covering" (מכסה), apparently, can also mean a "segment of roof". It's just that this hatch is never made mention of until now.

Post-Holocaust Picture

American soldiers who liberated Europe are having the High Holiday services in the former home of nazi Joseph Goebbels (ימח שמו וזכרו) after his death.

Chabad's New Marching Orders

At the Annual International Conference of Chabad Delegates, Cheshvan 25, 5752, the Rebbe rocked his audience of thousands. He dispatched his emissaries with a new set of marching orders, calling this new mission "the gate through which from now on all outreach activity must pass through". Here we fathom this new mission from a short segment of the Rebbe's talk
(ספר השיחות ה'תשנ''ב, pp. 110-111).

"Emissaries have for long now disseminated chassidic wellsprings. In fact, the Previous Rebbe declared this - a mission accomplished! * "But because the Era of Redemption still hasn't dawned, it means something remains to be done! * "We know every generation contains a potential Moshiach (מגילת רות ברטנורא), one whom Hashem will appoint when the time is right. (see refs. of חתם סופר ; שדי חמד) "According to the Previous Rebbe, who is the only emissary of the generation and the only Moshiach of the generation, all work to bring Moshiach has been completed. Thus we've reached the stage that begins with "Please send with whom You originally meant to redeem them" * שלח נא ביד תשלח (Ex. 4:13). "In other words, the only mission that remains is to actually accept the countenance of Moshiach - which will effectually enable Moshiach to proceed and redeem all Jews from exile!" *

* A chassid now has a more important mission to discharge! * Normally the Rebbe would here insert the instructions that "remain to be done". Instead, he first discusses Moshiach's identity - for only thereafter can he deliver his intended instruction! * When Moses beseeched God to let Moshiach take the Jews out from exile to their ultimate redemption. * Note that this is a KEY requirement without which Moshiach is stuck in an inoperative mode!

Click on image to enlarge highlighted text and references

Until the 3rd of Tammuz 1994, all Lubavitcher (Chabad) Chassidim, and many Jews around the world, believed the Rebbe to be Moshiach. Thereafter, once nature apparently dashed mystical expectations and took its course on the aging, ailing rabbi, that belief faded for many Jews, although a considerable number of us Chassidim continue to believe he lives on as King Moshiach - as if nothing changed for the Rebbe; Only how we see the Rebbe has changed; It is a supernatural phenomenon.

Until that Motzei Shabbath (Chayei-Sarah 1991), Jewry had Maimonides to guide them on how to prepare for Moshiach. A Jew, he wrote, must "... believe in Moshiach ... he will come any day, and even if he tarries, ... still await him." But now the Rebbe ratcheted up this preparedness from a dormant, inactive state to one that calls for action. The Rebbe in effect said, "awaiting" Moshiach is over! From now on, he said, "Your task is - to receive the countenance of Moshiach!" (לקבל פני משיח)

Whereas Maimonides just mentioned the bare word "Moshiach", the Rebbe spoke of the "Countenance of Moshiach". Maimonides used the passive verb to "wait for"; The Rebbe, in contrast, used the active verb "to receive" (or "to accept"). He transformed preparing for Moshiach from hopefulness to a pursuit.

As the Rebbe once said to Chief Rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, ע''ה, in 1992, "The redemption stands at the door's threshold and awaits for every Jew to open the door and drag the redemption in!" Dragging is much more than sitting with arms folded and waiting.

Intuitively, for those who regard the Rebbe as Moshiach, and not just as a peak-profile personality, the Rebbe's words resonate clearly. To them it means - acknowledging the Rebbe as Moshiach! As if to say, "The only thing remaining for Jews to do is to accept Moshiach for who he is!"

Had the Rebbe simply said our task is "to receive Moshiach" (לקבל משיח), omitting reference to countenance (פני), there would have been no point to it. How can we "receive" or "accept" someone we don't know? To just say "receive Moshiach" removes the identity factor! It would make no sense asking his followers to receive a generic personage.

On the other hand, the Rebbe would never just come out and say "I am Moshiach" (explained here). Instead, he used an indirect figure of speech to say the same thing! To ask Jewry "to receive the countenance of Moshiach" is an ingenious way to say the same thing!

Countenance (פני) in Hebrew means "face", as if to say "accept him - he whom you recognize". It can also mean "inner essence", as if to say "accept him - and what he stands for". Or, a 3rd meaning of לקבל פני is "to greet someone", as if to say "prepare to greet him". All meanings fit the Rebbe's agenda.

The overall impression the Rebbe left on those who would deny he meant himself is, on its own, not bad. They felt he meant that emissaries (and all Jews whom they can influence) shift their yearnings for Moshiach into high gear and imbue the enterprise with more vigor. How? By delving into Moshiach literature and anticipate the imminent Era of Redemption. Furthermore, this attitude and expectation should infuse us with gusto to prepare for Moshiach's arrival. And while Chabad itself was already percolating with this expectant energy, especially in the latter years, it must now trickle down to embrace and galvanize all of world Jewry. While this is a glorious agenda, the identity of Moshiach is safely sidelined, and therefore NOT what the Rebbe meant!

The Rebbe never used words that lacked precision. The above identity-free understanding of "receiving Moshiach" cannot comprise the entire sweep of the Rebbe's words. He meant something of earth-shaking import because his whole speech served to initiate a new mission - and to retire previous priorities. He demanded all his emissaries to adopt a new mindset from which to project from now on. No matter what their activities had been until now, from now on a new mission supersedes all previous protocol. The emissary must reconfigure his approach to imbue first and foremost this new approach the Rebbe here set forth. In fact, said the Rebbe, if this new approach cannot permeate every interaction and aspect of an emissary's functions, that emissary will have failed his mission!

It stands to reason this new agenda means to get everybody on board to accept the Rebbe as Moshiach. This new mission does not invalidate former duties of an emissary; Instead it becomes the essence of all duties, the axis that traverses through all other activity to bind them collectively into a new, vital perspective. As the Rebbe himself said it, this was "the gate through which from now on all outreach activity must pass through".

Where else do we use the phrase "accepting the countenance"? We find it in the Jewish custom of making a "reception of countenance" (קבלת פנים), the final formality before the bride and groom enter under the wedding canopy's ceremony. After the hall is rented, the kesuva (כתובה) has been written and signed, the flowers, food and drinks are in place, the band and photographers, and the guests, have arrived and are waiting; Everything is prepared! The last function before the wedding, therefore, is - the קבלת פנים.

Similarly, by use of this phrase, the Rebbe hints to us that everything necessary for the Era of the Final Redemption is in place, ready to go. Only one final קבלת פנים is necessary - namely - accepting the Rebbe as Moshiach - so he can do his job - for, as he often reminded us, there can be no king without a people. In other words, it is incumbent upon Jewry to appoint the king for the king to be able to do his job. As the Rebbe said, in the above excerpt, only that acceptance "... will effectually enable Moshiach to proceed and redeem all Jews from exile!"

We also find this term (קבלת פנים) as we greet the Shabbos in song (לכה דודי) Friday night (פני שבת נקבלה). Shabbos, in essence, symbolizes the utopia for which the world was created in the 1st place, that Era of Ultimate Redemption Moshiach wants to usher in now, if only we accept him as the living King Moshiach!

The Yoke of Torah

Good rules make you free. But how can that be; Don't restrictions, by definition, impinge on freedom? No - because inside a framework of good rules you can learn, explore, achieve and thrive. Outside this framework, good rules no longer protect you or guide you. There is constructive freedom and destructive freedom. We discuss the former.

A sports analogy will clarify this point. Take the game of baseball. Suppose the batter strikes out and a raucous group of spectators insists the batter be given one more chance, to which the players agree. Imagine then, a pop-up foul ball is dropped and the fielder complains he could have caught it were it not for the sun that blinded him; The players acquiesce and they call the batter out. Or, imagine a player sliding into base and the umpire says, "He was close enough" to be called safe, although the player was tagged out before touching the base. And so the game resumes.

You can sense this game, with its arbitrary regulations, will bore you more than amuse you. Without the rigor of strict rules, you will never try your best, simply because you don't know what to expect. Why bother making the extra effort; Why bother training to perfect an outcome if shaky rules can be invoked and in effect nullify your best efforts?

The game of baseball, or any game, brings out the best in players when the rules are strictly enforced. Only within the confines of a stringent framework of rules can you
expect a player to improve and perfect his talents. Rules eliminate wasteful behavior and give the player choices he can make about where he wants to excel, or where he needs to exert more effort to succeed.

Arbitrary rules rob you of freedom. On the contrary, arbitrary rules frustrate freedom. Living without rules - which means without a fixed set of rules - for rules always exist - is living with abandon. It means a life in which you cannot thrive. Living with abandon can only diminish useful freedom and success.

Similarly, under the guidelines of God's rules in Torah, the Jew has freedom to flourish or excel, without the worry of making wrong choices. As long as he abides by the rules, the Jew is protected from foolish behavior and wasteful efforts. Like the rules of a sport, the rules of life, as defined in Torah, do not oppress the individual, nor does the individual feel restrained. The rules become integral, natural boundaries and the game of life, as the game of sport, proceeds with genuine freedom. Failure under such an intact system is not because the system fails the person; It only highlights where the failure can be corrected.

There is a problem, however; Who's to say which system of rules is worthy for adoption? After all, a set of bad rules can frustrate the person from achievement or pleasure. A prison's set of rules, for example, stultifies one mentally. The Jew, at least, needs not worry about this dilemma, because Torah has proved itself over millennia to provide the best of all systems to integrate with. (Of course the best reason Torah's rules are the very best and infallible system is because the benevolent Creator created it and He knows best.)

The Jew is especially lucky because a truthful assessment of the best system means a person must waste much of his life testing system after system, comparing them all, before arriving at a conclusion - something a Jew can confidently and gratefully bypass. Even the Jew of a non-observant background is lucky because, once he discovers the advantages of a Torah-true life and considers the wonderful tradition and heritage he belongs to, he can easily embrace it.

Of all Gentiles, only the Noahide is as fortunate as the Jew because he too partakes in a system dictated by Torah and remains a Torah-true individual, albeit with a different, but wonderful, set of relevant rules.

___   ____    _____     ____    ___

Here's another way of seeing how the yoke of Torah facilitates life's challenges:

Is It Really “Too Hard”?
by Gutman Locks

Have you ever heard a rabbi say, “You have to accept upon yourself the yoke of Torah”? Apparently, this rabbi agrees with those who say a Torah life is very hard. Truth is, life without the Torah is the life that is too hard, and when you bring Torah into your life, it makes life much, much easier.

The yoke attaches the plow to the animal. Comparing Torah to a yoke is a metaphor showing us we should use the Torah to pull the plow of life.

Even before the yoke was invented the animal had to pull the plow. People had to eat. But, without the yoke, the animal was attached to the plow with only a harness. It had to pull that heavy plow with its head and neck muscles. What a tremendous burden that was!

Then some wise farmer came up with the idea to put a yoke around the animal’s shoulders. This allows the animal to pull the plow with its big shoulder muscles instead of its small neck muscles. What a wonderful thing the yoke is. The animal loves its yoke. The yoke saves the animal from so much pain and suffering.

In America today: 27% of non-religious, white, teenage girls, and 50% of non-religious, black, teenage girls, have one, two, or three different types of venereal diseases.

Fifty percent of babies born to non-religious girls are born out of wedlock - i.e. mommy is not married, no father at home.

Sixty-five percent of non-religious marriages end in divorce.

According to one popular talk show host, in 85% of non-religious marriages, one of the partners, every once in a while, sleeps with someone other than their spouse.

That life, the non-religious life they live, is the life that is “Too Hard” - not the Torah life.

If you will keep Shabbos (which, in fact, is a pleasure), and your wife will cover her hair (to be modest), if you put on tefillin (to pray), and if the home is kosher (so even your eating is holy), if the kids get a Jewish education (so the Jewish people and values continue), then none of these statistics will apply to you and your family.

Now tell me, which is the life that is too hard?

I have tried both, and I can tell you from the bottom of my heart it is much easier to be a religious Jew than a “free”, do whatever you want, secular Jew. It is hard, depressing, and empty to live the “American dream”, no matter which country you dream it in. In fact, that dream turns out to be a needless nightmare.

There are always going to be problems in life, no matter what you do. If you focus on the problems, you are going to be miserable. There are also always beautiful things going on in life and if you focus on them, you will be happy. It’s your call.

The Sukkah's Embrace

What has love to do with the shape of a Sukkah? This lecture by Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson explains it. A surprising relationship exists between the architecture of the Succah and the most intimate form of amour between God and Jew; Whereas other forms of love relate to other holidays. (LINK)

A Soup-Story of Auschwitz

Where Mengele (יש''ו) did his "experiments"

My dear mother, ע‫''‬ה, hardly ever answered my questions as to what happened in Auschwitz, the concentration camp she eventually was liberated from. Sometimes she'd try, but then the hairs on her arm would stand on end, which she'd sometimes show me - her way to get me to back off. Other times she'd just politely say "No".

Nevertheless, from childhood into adulthood, once in a blue moon I'd give that question a try. On occasion she'd respond with a "safe" story, one for which she'd feel no surge of anxiety. (Like the time she worked, as seamstress, sewing clothes in a German officers' barrack, where German soldiers, male and female, drank heavily and fell asleep, and she sewed a huge hem into her "skirt", into which she stuffed many sugar cubes she took out of a large barrel, then shared her "treasure" with the other inmates in her "bunk" that night.)

But then, once, in my adult life, she did tell me a story she'd witnessed. She was in the kitchen, busy making chicken soup on a Friday afternoon, getting it ready for Shabbos, and I was sitting at the kitchen table behind her. (She was, by the way, an outstanding cook, never needing a recipe to prepare mouth-watering, aroma-savoring Hungarian dishes.) One of the ingredients she used in her chicken soup was large slices of cow bones, those with marrow in them. This triggered a memory she decided firmly to share with me on the spur of the moment.

She turned around, said "You want to hear a story of Auschwitz?", sat down across from me and began telling me.

Railways into Auschwitz

My mother often saw transports of Jews coming into Auschwitz behind wire fences that separated her camp ground from the transport platform. As I understood it, Auschwitz had two sets of rails that hugged either side of a platform onto which the Jews, transported there in cattle-cars, were unloaded. Both sides of this platform were last stops for this railway system.

The far end of the train's offload platform was fenced off; This was a "one-way" platform. At the other end, towards which Jews were prodded to "line up" and navigate to, sat the nefarious "Doctor" Josef Mengele, may his name be blotted out forever. Here this monster decided the fate of over 1.5 million Jews. On his hand he wore a white glove. With his little finger, he pointed right or left as each Jew passed him by, then and there determining this Jew's fate to live or die.

A unique, obsessive hobby of this fiend was to make "experiments" on twins.

She related: One particular day, this barbarian noticed in the crowd making their way towards him a father and son, both hunchbacks. Mengele suddenly was seized with excited frenzy.

With wicked delight he took the father and son into the "kitchen", where stood two huge pots used to make "soup" for the enslaved inmates. This soup was nothing more that hot water and some peels of potato thrown in. He had the father placed in one pot and the son placed in the other, and boiled them until their flesh simply could come away from the bone with minimal effort. He did this just so he could compare the bones of father and son.

Surprisingly, she got through the whole story under full composure. That's my memory of it, which I here record, for the first time since about 30 years ago, when I first heard it. (I saw a picture of that demon on the web and decided to write up this short story I'll never forget.)

UPDATE (Jun 9/15): Just read this article regarding Auschwitz, where it also makes mention of father and son hunchbacks, and what happened to them. Not that my mom's story needed corroboration, but the morbid proof is overwhelming.
quote: 
"Above all, the Lilliputs dreaded suffering the same fate as two male dwarfs — a hunchback and his son — who’d arrived in the camp three months after them.

Having decided to send their skeletons to a museum in Berlin, Mengele had ordered his staff to boil their bodies over a fire until the flesh separated from the bones."

A Story of Rav Mordechai Eliyahu ע''ה

Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Tzefat, tells a fascinating story of his father, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, ע‫''‬ה, which Reuven, from choppingwood.blogspot.com, translated:

When our teacher, Rav Eliyahu, ob”m, was the chief rabbi of Israel, he traveled to France for an official visit. France, as usual, was not with us. As always, she exerted pressure on Israel to abandon sections of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel for the benefit of the Arabs. During that period, the pressure was quite strong.

The visit schedule included a state reception in the presence of French President Jacque Chirac. Before the official reception the Rav had to follow the accepted tour route, including the State Museum which contains cultural treasures of the French people.

During the visit they showed the Rav a throne upon which Napoleon sat. “When did Napoleon live?” the Rav asked. The hosts were embarrassed by the question, and “explained” to the Rav when Napoleon lived. The Rav then asked, “Is the throne of Napoleon for sale?” An awkward silence hung over the room. “No,” the hosts finally answered, “This is a very important item. We don’t sell historic heirlooms.”

They continued the visit and arrived at the section which described the French monarchy. They showed him the room of Louis XIV: “Who was Louis XIV?” the Rav asked. “What did he contribute to the world? Was he ethical?”

“No,” the hosts answered honestly. “The entire monarchy was not that ethical, but this is our history, and we’re proud of it and honored by it.”

At the state reception with the French president, before a large crowd, the Rav spoke about his visit to the museum. He told the guests how embarrassed his hosts felt that a rabbi from Israel would not know who Louis XIV was. After all, these are very important historical figures.

“I asked them whether they were ethical people and they hemmed and hawed, but they told me that this is their history, and they’re proud of it.”

The Rav said to the crowd, which included the president of France and some of his cabinet: “You expect me to know and honor French history, despite the fact that I’m not a citizen of France. Am I, as an Israeli, not supposed to know and honor my own history? Do the French not have to honor the Bible which has made such a great contribution to the world? Am I able to dishonor the words of Moses that told us not to place the Land of Israel into the hands of strangers? Why must we honor your kings, who lived two or three hundred years ago, but dishonor a chain of our own kings who lived long before them?”

The Israeli translator from the embassy was not so bold as to translate the Rav’s words exactly.

The rebbetzin signaled to the Rav – who wasn’t intimidated by anyone, and stopped in the middle of his talk, and said, “I understand that my translator does not exactly recognize the rabbinic mode of speech. I ask the Chief Rabbi of France to translate my words.”

He had no choice. The Rabbi of France rose to translate the Rav’s talk. The Rav explained that he tried to find out the price of Napoleon’s throne. “I wanted to buy it.” The audience burst out laughing. He explained how they “explained” to him, in all seriousness in the museum that the effects from Napoleon are very important, and not for sale. “These are historical items, and we don’t sell our history.”

“Napoleon lived two hundred years ago,” the Rav answered, “and you respect him and refuse to sell his throne. Now I ask: must we sell Jerusalem, a city that has belonged to the Nation of Israel for 2,800 years?”

The entire audience was moved, stood up and began to applaud. Even the President of France stood up, approached the Rav, shook his hand firmly and said to him, “I have never heard words like these.”

The French President turned to the invited guests and said, “We would like to bestow upon the Rabbi a precious golden medallion that we give only to heads of state. When we arranged this reception we did not think to give it to the rabbi. But the instructive words of Rabbi Eliyahu were a ‘once in a lifetime experience.’ We would like to express our appreciation to him with this state medallion.”

After his translation (link), Reuven adds, "I tell this story because it’s not just a story about Rav Eliyahu. It’s a story about ourselves. This is a story of life training. It’s a story of faith – for if we are strong in faith, we will prevail."

Rabbi Chiya's Parable

A story in Talmud (Bava Metzia 85b) tells of Rabbi Chiya who planted seeds of flax, then, from the harvested flax spun a large net, which he used to trap deer, which he then skinned; The meat he delivered to orphans and from the skin he fabricated parchment. He then laboriously wrote out the Torah on scrolls of parchment, packed his scrolls, walked to towns where such literature was absent, and personally taught the children Torah. He then left these scrolls to the children, for them to further disseminate Torah's teachings.

Why did he bother going through all this trouble, when he could have simply purchased written scrolls and then distribute them?

The Maharsha explains that only if children studied Torah from a Chumash made with pure intentions could Rabbi Chiya be sure the Torah he taught children would endure.

In other words, had Rabbi Chiya used the commercial option, he could not have guaranteed that all the money that traded hands in every transaction, was, in fact, earned 100% righteously. Even a shred of doubt that that money was earned wrongfully or improperly, without the purest intentions, would have transformed itself into a negative influence that would rob the children of the full impact he himself could deliver by teaching the children, given his pure intentions from the start and all along this long chain of events.

(I relate this story in response to suggestions I mitigate my Lubavitcher message - that the Rebbe is King Moshiach and we live in the initial period of the Era of Redemption. I blog to deliver a specific message I do not intend to dilute. This Rabbi Chiya story encourages me that my pure intention will yield positive results.)

(My obstinacy reminds me of the Rebbe's explanation of an otherwise incomprehensible Midrash that might interest you - "A Midrash Explained - The Future Foretold".)

The Bamboo Plant and the High Holidays

You can learn about yourself as you learn about the wonderful bamboo plant, both growing in Hashem's garden.





A beautiful 2-min. video well worth your time:

Mission in Hell

A social phenomenon in current Israeli society is the "festival". The great Woodstock Music Festival of 1969 that took place in upstate New York serves as its model. These festivals no longer happen in America but in Israel the tradition carries on and draws a large following. Thousands of Israeli youth gather at various venues several times a year to spend a few days together and indulge in whatever theme prevails. It could be a Beer Festival, a Music Festival or an Artwork Festival; Actually it's just an excuse to just come and "hang out" and have fun together.

One Chabad chassid got the bright idea to "crash" such sites. He took it seriously and finally won approval by the director of these festivals and of the police. He and his team create a Chabad "domain" within these festivals. It has become so well entrenched, in fact, the team, in whatever festival it happens to find itself, goes by its own autonomous name - "Festival of Lights"; A festival within a festival. Another most important result thanks to this Chabad initiative has been the removal from the festivals of a once-rival group - christian missionaries.

Last Shabbos the "Festival of Light" team, under the direction of self-appointed Chabad emissary, Rabbi Michael Kedlborg, joined the "Drugs Festival", in what turned out to be the largest festival of the last decade in Israel. His team comprised a small group of Chabad men who staked out a spot where they set up their large tents to accommodate the drifting youth.

The venue for this Drugs Festival was near "Yesod Hama'alah" situated in the Hula Valley.

Festival conditions were extreme and hectic. In the shade, the temperature registered 103 degrees. The soil, very dry and dusty, spawned a constant cloudy overcast of powdered dust. A storm swept through Friday afternoon that whisked away many tents. Portable chemical toilets weren't emptied and by Shabbos afternoon began overflowing. A single, small faucet in the sprawling area malfunctioned.

Despite these difficulties, the "Festival of Lights" team, with heroic effort managed to set up their tent-halls and get ready for Shabbos, which included two huge pots that eventually provided cholent for hundreds of participants.

On Friday night about 10,000 Israelis streamed to the festival! They filled the entire landscape, the basin of a huge fish pond that long ago dried out.

The Chabad structure attracted many attendees the entire night. Scores of kiddushes were said, as were hundreds of "LeChaim's". Like a watchtower on a dark sea, the teeming masses got a taste of Jewish light.

When the young rabbi awoke Shabbos morning, he found thousands of youngsters already up, under the influence of various drugs, dancing and jumping about to loud, deafening music.

"I felt really bad, as if in a dream of being in hell. I felt like my strength was oozing from me. I wanted to pack it in. I couldn't take this sick, oppressive atmosphere. But during the day, as hundreds were coming in to visit us, and were saying the Shabbos kiddush, learning some Tanya and discussing with us profound issues, I understood that the whole atmoshpere was merely an external shell, and what really mattered to them and what their souls yearned for was, in fact, the Redemption! The director of the Festival too was very grateful for our participation."

The following pictures were taken soon after arrival on Friday, afterwhich they had no spare time left: