Not (Only) “For the Sake of” Heaven
מב. תרגום מקטעים משיחות ליל שמח”ת קודם הקפות תשנ”ב (1) 42. Simchas Torah, Tishrei 23, 5752 – September 30, 1991 (1)
מב. תרגום מקטעים משיחות ליל שמח”ת קודם הקפות תשנ”ב (1) 42. Simchas Torah, Tishrei 23, 5752 – September 30, 1991 (1)
An answer of the Rebbe (written in 5730) to someone who asked why it is the Chabad custom to use Esrogim from Calabria and not from Eretz Yisrael, which would support the Yishuv in Israel?
If the Sukka represents G-d’s love for the Jewish people, wouldn’t the Baal Shem Tov, the great champion of Ahavas Yisroel, want to beautify his Sukka in every way possible? Why then did he rely on leniencies?
From the position advanced age, R’ Pinye Korf has a unique perspective on today’s bachurim. On the one hand, he has been serving as mashpia in American yeshivas for nearly fifty years. On the other hand, he is one of the few left from the previous generation who learned in Tomchei Tmimim in Samarkand. He was one of the founding students of the yeshiva in Brunoy under the influence of the legendary mashpia, R’ Nissan Nemenov.
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.
There are Chabad Houses that seem to churn out moving stories that sound like they were taken from stories of the holy Baal Shem Tov recounted on motzoei Shabbos. The following story comes to us from far away, from the Chabad House for Hebrew-speakers in Melbourne, led by the shliach, Rabbi Dudu Lider.
Undeterred by the KGB, he sat down and wrote this impassioned audacious letter to Leonid Brezhnev, the secretary-general of the Communist party. It was a furious confession that opened with three words he would have been reluctant to utter just two years before:
It’s important to remember that the mitzva to teach a child Torah is the father’s obligation. It’s a Biblical mitzva as it says, “and you shall teach your children.” Being that this is so, the father is granted special abilities to accomplish this.
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.
A collection of relevant halachos regarding Sukkos from AskTheRav.com & Halacha2Go.com By Horav Yosef Yeshaya Braun, Mara D’asra and member of the Crown Heights Beis Din
Over a period of thirty-five years, Rabbi Abba Brenenson of Kfar Chabad has been involved in the holy work of a scribe, writing strictly kosher tefillin, mezuzos, and Torah scrolls, and the demand for his merchandise is extremely high.
I was on shlichus in Tashkent in 5753. My friends and I used military trucks for Mivtza Succa. At the time, I wrote the following journal entries: