Editor's Note:
Dear Friend,
The most important part of the Rosh Hashanah service is hearing the shofar. Even if you can’t attend the entire service, be sure to hear the shofar. And if you can’t get out at all, see if your Chabad rabbi can pay you a “house call.”
What about the shofar is so central to Rosh Hashanah?
Here is a thought: In life, we may set out with the best intentions, but sometimes things don’t go as planned, and we must “right the ship” and refocus.
Back to the sounds of the shofar. We start off with tekiah (one long, smooth blast). It is followed byshevarim (three short ones) and then teruah (a series of even smaller blasts). And then comes a finaltekiah.
The opening tekiah represents the beginning; everything is going smoothly. But then our journey through life gets a little bumpy—shevarim and teruah. Nevertheless, as long as we keep focused, eventually everything will return to being as smooth as the tekiah.
On Rosh Hashanah we set goals for the coming year. But then, things turn out more challenging than expected. This is the message of the shofar: hang in there, it might be a bumpy ride, but if you stay focused you will succeed, and even more.
May you have a happy, healthy, and sweet new year!
Eliezer Zalmanov,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial team
Let Him InSo strange.
We trust that He is good, and that all He does is good.
Yet we pray. Because to us things don’t look so good. After all, His goodness is so distant from us. Beyond our understanding. Far beyond.
If so, shouldn’t we simply continue to trust? To surrender to a higher understanding?
Yet He asks us to pray. To complain and to kvetch. And He listens. And He answers our prayers.
Because this is what He most desires from us: that we make room for Him in our lives, in all that matters to us as flesh and blood human beings.
And that begins when we share with Him those things that touch us most deeply. Deep within our hearts.
“Serve G‑d, your G‑d, with all your heart,” the Torah says. The sages ask, “What kind of service do you do with your heart?”
And they answer, “Prayer.”
Pour out your heart to Him. It is the one place He can enter only once you let Him in.
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This Week's Features
What Is Rosh Hashanah?
The anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, a day of judgment and coronation, the sounding of the shofar . . .
Rosh Hashanah
What Is Rosh Hashanah?
What: It is the birthday of the universe, the day G‑d created Adam and Eve, and it’s celebrated as the head of the Jewish year.
When: The first two days of the Jewish year, Tishrei 1 and 2, beginning at sundown on the eve of Tishrei 1 (check out this year’s date).
How: Candle lighting in the evenings, festive meals with sweet delicacies during the night and day, prayer services that include the sounding of the ram’s horn (shofar) on both mornings, and desisting from creative work.
Why Rosh Hashanah Is Important
Rosh Hashanah means “Head of the Year.” Just like the head controls the body, our actions on Rosh Hashanah have a tremendous impact on the rest of the year.
As we read in the Rosh Hashanah prayers, each year on this day “all inhabitants of the world pass before G‑d like a flock of sheep,” and it is decreed in the heavenly court “who shall live, and who shall die ... who shall be impoverished and who shall be enriched; who shall fall and who shall rise.”
It is a day of prayer, a time to ask the Almighty to grant us a year of peace, prosperity and blessing. But it is also a joyous day when we proclaim G‑d King of the Universe. The Kabbalists teach that the continued existence of the universe depends on G‑d’s desire for a world, a desire that is renewed when we accept His kingship anew each year on Rosh Hashanah.
What’s It Called?
● The most common name for this holiday is Rosh Hashanah, the name used in the eponymous tractate of Talmud devoted to the holiday.
● The Torah refers to this day as Yom Teruah (Day of Shofar Blowing).1
● In our prayers, we often call it Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance) and Yom Hadin (Day of Judgement) since this is the day when G‑d recalls all of His creations and determines their fate for the year ahead.
First Priority: Hear the Shofar
The central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, on both mornings of the holiday (except if the first day is Shabbat, in which case we blow the shofar only on the second day).
The first 30 blasts of the shofar are blown following the Torah reading during morning services, and as many as 70 are then blown during (and immediately after) the Musaf service. Many communities listen to 100 blasts over the course of the Rosh Hashanah morning services. For someone who cannot come to synagogue, the shofar may be blown the rest of the day. If you cannot make it out, please contact your closest Chabad center to see about arranging a “house call.”
The shofar blowing contains a series of three types of blasts: tekiah, a long sob-like blast; shevarim, a series of three short wails; and teruah, at least nine piercing staccato bursts.
(Read more about the shofar blasts, here.)
The blowing of the shofar represents the trumpet blast that is sounded at a king’s coronation. Its plaintive cry also serves as a call to repentance. The shofar itself recalls the Binding of Isaac, an event that occurred on Rosh Hashanah in which a ram took Isaac’s place as an offering to G‑d. (Read more on the reasons for shofar here.)
Other Rosh Hashanah Observances
Greetings: When you meet a fellow Jew on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, wish him, “Leshana tovah tikatev v’tichatem” or, for a female,“Leshana tovah tikatevee v’tichatemee” (“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year”). Afterward, wish them a “G’mar chatimah tovah” (“A good inscription and sealing [in the Book of Life]”). (More on the Rosh Hashanah greetings here.)
Candles: As with every major Jewish holiday, women and girls light candles on each evening of Rosh Hashanah and recite the appropriate blessings. On the second night, make sure to use an existing flame and think about a new fruit that you will be eating (or garment that you are wearing) while you say the Shehechiyanu blessing. Click here for candle lighting times in your area and herefor the blessings.
Tashlich: On the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah (provided that it is not Shabbat), it is customary to go to a body of water (ocean, river, pond, etc.) and perform the Tashlich ceremony, in which we ceremonially cast our sins into the water. With this tradition we are symbolically evoking the verse, “And You shall cast their sins into the depths of the sea.” The short prayer for this service can be found in your machzor.
Rosh Hashanah Prayers
Much of the day is spent in synagogue. The evening and afternoon prayers are similar to the prayers said on a regular holiday. However, the morning services are significantly longer.
The holiday prayerbook—called a machzor—contains all the prayers and Torah readings for the entire day. The most significant addition is the shofar blowing ceremony. However, there are also other important elements of the prayer service that are unique to Rosh Hashanah.
The Torah is read on both mornings of Rosh Hashanah.
On the first day, we read about Isaac’s birth and the subsequent banishment of Hagar and Ishmael.2 Appropriately, the reading is followed by a haftarah reading about the birth of Samuel the Prophet.3Both readings contain the theme of prayers for children being answered, and both of these births took place on Rosh Hashanah.
On the second morning, we read about Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac.4 As mentioned above, the shofar blowing recalls the ram, which figures prominently in this story as a powerful display of Abraham’s devotion to G‑d that has characterized His children ever since. The haftarah5 tells of G‑d’s eternal love for His people.
(More on the Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah, here.)
The cantor’s repetition of the Amidah (Silent Prayer) is peppered with piyyutim¸ poetic prayers that express our prayerful wishes for the year and other themes of the day. For certain selections, those deemed especially powerful, the ark is opened. Many of these additions are meant to be said responsively, as a joint effort between the prayer leader and the congregation.
Even without the added piyyutim, the Rosh Hashanah Musaf prayer is significantly longer than it is the rest of the year. This is because its single middle blessing is divided into three additional blessings, each focusing on another one of the holiday’s main themes: G‑d’s kingship, our wish that He “remember” us for the good, and the shofar. Each blessing contains a collage of Biblical verses that express its theme, and is then followed by a round of shofar blowing.
Rosh Hashanah Feasts
We eat festive meals every night and day of the holiday. Like all other holiday meals, we begin by reciting kiddush over wine and then say the blessing over bread. But there are some important differences:
a. The bread (traditionally baked into round challah loaves, and often sprinkled with raisins) is dipped into honey instead of salt, expressing our wish for a sweet year. We do this on Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat before Yom Kippur), in the pre-Yom Kippur meal and during Sukkot.
b. Furthering the sweet theme, it is traditional to begin the meal on the first night with slices of apple dipped in honey. Before eating the apple, we make the ha’eitz blessing and then say, “May it be Your will to renew for us a good and sweet year.”
c. Many people eat parts of the head of a fish or a ram, expressing the wish that “we be a head and not a tail.”
d. In many communities, there are additional traditional foods eaten, each symbolizing a wish for the coming year. Many eat pomegranates, giving voice to a wish that “our merits be many like the [seeds of the] pomegranate.” Another common food is tzimmes, a sweet carrot-based dish eaten because of its Yiddish name, merren, which means both “carrot” and “increase,” symbolizing a wish for a year of abundance.
e. It is traditional to avoid nuts (here’s why) as well as vinegar-based, sharp foods, most notably the horseradish traditionally eaten with gefilte fish, since we don’t want a bitter year.
f. On the second night of the holiday, we do not eat the apples, fish heads, pomegranates, etc. However, before we break bread (and dip it in honey), we eat a “new fruit,” something we have not tasted since the last time it was in season. (Read this blog post to learn the reason for the new fruit and the other traditional foods.)
(Read about the elaborate array of symbolic foods eaten in Sephardic communities here.)
What’s Next?
Rosh Hashanah is the start of the Yamim Nora’im (High Holidays). The holy day of Yom Kippur when we gather in synagogue for 25 hours of fasting, prayer and inspiration, is just a week later. The days in between (known as the 10 Days of Repentance, or the Ten Days of Return) are an especially propitious time for teshuvah, returning to G‑d. Yom Kippur is followed by the joyous holidays ofSukkot and Simchat Torah.
The season of the High Holidays is a time for an epic journey for the soul, and Rosh Hashanah is where it all begins.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Leviticus 23:23.
2.Genesis 21:1–34.
3.I Samuel 1:1–2:10.
4.Genesis 22:1–24.
5.Jeremiah 31:1–19.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
How to Choose a Shofar by Menachem Posner
Finding the right shofar takes time, but it can be an educational (and even entertaining) challenge. Here, some tips on how to go about the search as the High Holidays approach. (Photo: Abir Sultan/Flash90)
Throughout the Jewish month of Elul, the sound of the shofar can be heard every morning coming from synagogues and homes in Jewish neighborhoods around the world. On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar will be blown by experts trained not only in producing a moving sound, but in the complex halachot (Jewish laws) of the shofar. During the month of Elul, it is customary to blow the shofar every morning after prayers (after morning services, besides for Shabbat and the day before Rosh Hashana) and many also practice in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah. As such, shofar sales soar.
Standing behind the counter in his bright and airy Judaica store on Long Island, Yossi Gurevitch clearly knows his customers. They banter pleasantly as he guides them through towering displays of honey dishes, Jewish books, mezuzahs, High Holiday items and more.
With Rosh Hashanah around the corner, there is a prominent presentation of shofars—expertly crafted ram’s horns—to be blown in celebration of the New Year. Between customers, in English sprinkled with Hebrew and Yiddish, the native of Kfar Chabad, Israel, shared some insider tips on how to select the best shofar.
Q: What’s the most important thing to look for when purchasing a shofar?
A: First and foremost, make sure that the shofar you get is certified kosher. It should be sold in a reputable store, bearing a label from a reliable rabbinic organization. In recent years, there has been talk of people producing authentic-looking shofars from synthetic material or covering over significant blemishes in ways that render the shofar unkosher.
Now even if a shofar started out kosher, you want to make sure it is still OK. You want the sound to be produced by air coming in through the narrow end and whooshing out the wider end. If there are cracks or other holes, discard the shofar—and please let me know about it, so I can remove it from the display—and keep on looking for the one that’s right for you.
Yossi Gurevitch examines a shofar in his Judaica shop on Long Island, N.Y.
You also want to make sure it is at least a tefach (handbreadth) long, but you will rarely see such a small shofar on the market that you need to really worry about that.
Q: Assuming kosher authenticity, there are still so many shofars to choose from. How do I know which one is right for me?
A: Every shofar gets sold eventually; there is no right or wrong one. The most important thing to check is the narrow opening. Make sure that it is not sharp since you will be pressing it against your lips. Also make sure that it has a nice shape that feels good to your mouth. The shofar is not blown from the center of the mouth (like a trombone), but from the right side.
The shofar should naturally curl upward when you have it in blowing position. Generally speaking, a bigger shofar is easier to blow with less strain on your lips. It will probably produce a deeper sound as well. But some people like the higher pitch, so get what works for you.
Buyers should get the feel of a shofar, with its various sizes, shapes and colors.
Those really big shofars on the market are made from kudu horns. While they are valid according to many halachic authorities, they are not ideal (and invalid, according to some).
You want to get a shofar from a ram’s horn, which serves to recall how G‑d provided Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac.
Q: Does the color matter?
They should even try out the sound of a shofar that interests them.
A: No. It is simply a result of the color of the ram. Black, brown, white or any combination is equally kosher.
Q: How much do you think I should be paying?
A: A decent shofar may cost you between $45 and $100, with larger ones costing more. If you want to invest in a shofar you will use for the rest of your life, it is probably best to disregard the price tag if you can, and concentrate on finding one that you can blow easily again and again.
Q: Do you mind if I try out a shofar right here in the store?
A: By all means! We understand that you cannot be expected to purchase a shofar without first giving it a “test drive.” So feel free to toot away. Try different shofars and find one that feels right for you.
Even if a shofar produces an initial blast that feels right, try to blow a full sequence of 30 blasts, and see how that works. Note that there is a minimum length for the blasts, with the long tekia lasting as long as the shevarim (three blasts), terua (nine staccato blasts) or shevarim-terua that it frames, and you may not always pause for breaths.
Can you get the whole thing out with ease? If yes, you’ve probably found your shofar. If not, keep on digging.
A selection of shofars in Gurevitch’s store.
Q: Any final thoughts before I complete my purchase?
A: Even if you have a great shofar and are confident that you can produce the proper tones, don’t miss out on praying with the community in a synagogue. First of all, this will avail you to the spiritual advantages of communal prayer. Secondly, there are many laws surrounding the proper sequencing and pace of the shofar blasts.
If you do need to blow for someone who cannot get to synagogue, make sure to study the laws and practice blowing, so that you are up to the task.
Oh, and let me wish you and your readers a shanah tovah—a happy, healthy and sweet new year!
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
What Would We Do Without Rosh Hashanah? by Yossy Goldman
Rosh Hashanah is more than just a holiday; it is Judgment Day. That’s why the traditional greeting at this time is not “happy holiday,”or even“good yom tov”or “chag sameach,” but rather “shanah tovah” or, in Yiddish, “ah gut yohr” (“good year”). The heavenly court will be deciding our destiny and determining our fate for the new year, so our wish forWhat if there were no season dedicated to self-appraisal and assessment? each other is that these days of reckoning go well, and that we each be blessed with only good things for the new year.
And this is precisely what makes our New Year observances distinctively different from those of so many others around the world. For Jews, New Year’s Day is joyous but sombre. No late night partying for us. No drunken revelry as the clock strikes midnight. Actually, I’ve often wondered whether New Year’s Eve partygoers are just having a harmless, fun night out, or if there is some kind of subconscious drowning of sorrows in drink as they mourn the passage of another year and all its unfulfilled dreams.
And I’ve also often wondered what we Jews would do without Rosh Hashanah. This is the season of cheshbon hanefesh (spiritual stocktaking), when we take inventory of our most personal, intimate moments. We reflect on the year gone by, our successes and our shortcomings. We consider and reconsider our relationships with G‑d and with other people. We try to pinpoint our failings so that we may correct them for an improved year to come. We make amends with those we may have hurt in the year gone by. We put an end to the petty grudges and faribels (grievances) of life, and look forward to a better, happier, more serene and peaceful future.
But what if we didn’t have Rosh Hashanah? What if there were no season dedicated to self-appraisal and assessment? Would we create it on our own? And if not, would we ever emerge from the rut we work ourselves into over a long, hard year? I imagine that we would just continue along the same tedious treadmill of life until something drastic arrived out of the blue to jolt us from our lethargy.
Without Rosh Hashanah, would we ever stop to consider whether the way we are living is the way we really want to live? Would we ever pause and become introspective enough to rethink life’s game plan? More than likely, we would just keep running the rat race and, as some wise person once observed, “In the rat race, even if you win you’re still a rat!”
Rosh Hashanah is a time when we are compelled to sit up and take notice, to put the brakes on the mediocre merry-go-round and shout, “Stop the world, I want to get off!” These Days of Awe compel us to think about life, about ourselves, aboutWould we ever stop to consider if we're really living the way we want to live? our families, relationships and our way of life. And if necessary, to do a re-think. It gives us the chance for at least an annual “compass reading” to establish our sense of direction so that, if necessary, we can alter our course and reroute ourselves. How does the voice inside our GPS put it? “Recalculating.” Most of us do need to recalculate from time to time.
So if we didn’t have this once-a-year challenge and opportunity for personal introspection, what are the chances we would actually sit down and do it of our own volition? Probably very small indeed. Well, thank G‑d we do have Rosh Hashanah. And the time for stocktaking is now. Or, as the legendary Hillel put it inEthics of the Fathers, “If not now, when then?”
In our chaotic, often mad, world we ought to appreciate and embrace this wonderful opportunity. Honestly and truly, what would we do without Rosh Hashanah?
I wish my readers, our community—and indeed the world—a shanah tovah. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, safe, secure and spiritually rewarding new year.
Rabbi Yossy Goldman was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1976 he was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, as a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to serve the Jewish community of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is Senior Rabbi of the Sydenham Shul since 1986, president of the South African Rabbinical Association, and a frequent contributor to Chabad.org. His book From Where I Stand: Life Messages from the Weekly Torah Reading was recently published by Ktav, and is available at Jewish bookshops or online.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
How Heartbreak Helps Us Heal on Rosh Hashanah by Karen Wolfers-Rapaport
Remember the profound and pivotal moments in your life?
Remember when you felt deeply in love, when you felt extreme rapture, when you felt unending loss? These were the moments when words became frivolous and limited. These were the momentsThe shofar is the key to a shattered heartwhen perhaps all you could do was cry.
On Rosh Hashanah, G‑d chooses to help us express what is too deep to be expressed by words. He chooses the shofar for its ability to pierce the essence of this noble day, as it cries out to G‑d.
In fact, the Talmud defines the teruah sound of the shofar as being like the sobbing of Sisera’s mother.1 And one reason why we blow the shofar 100 times is that it corresponds to her 100 cries for her son.2 Sisera, a formidable enemy army commander, was defeated in battle by the Jewish nation. His mother sobbed over his demise, as any mother would.
Why does the cry of the shofar recall the mother of Sisera, our foe? After all, isn’t there something else to focus on during one of the holiest days of the year?
One possible answer is that there is nothing more genuine than a mother crying over the death of her child. This is a true broken heart.
This type of cry is stripped of ego and fear. It’s unadulterated. It’s raw. And this is the cry we must hear when the shofar is blown.
“In the king’s palace,” said the Baal Shem Tov, “there are many gates and doors, leading to many halls and chambers. The palace-keepers have great rings holding many keys, each of which opens a different door. But there is one key that fits all the locks, a master key that opens all the doors. That master key is a broken heart.”
The shofar’s sound breaks our heart.
Breaking anything is hard, especially the heart. But the rewards are great for such work—the gates to G‑d are open.
Think of our enemy’s mother. We are meant to memorialize even her on Rosh Hashanah, because of her broken heart.
What does your broken heart look like?
Perhaps, if we focus on what we had to lament in the past year—the lost opportunities, the suppressed parts of our best selves, the fear and anxiety that interfered with our personal progress, the barriers that prohibited our soul from shining in the way it was meant to shine—we can tap into what we are meant to break when the shofar is blown.
The wail of the shofar can encourage us to use the “master key” and beOnce something is repaired, it becomes stronger unyieldingly honest with ourselves. This key can help us ask ourselves some difficult questions about this past year and what we want to do with the next.
The shofar is the key to a shattered heart. But this is just the beginning! The shattering of the heart can become a stepping stone for its repair. Emptying the negative and sabotaging contents of the heart allows it to be filled with a more positive, life-affirming center!
Often, once something is repaired, it becomes stronger, more vital and even more effective than it had been before. It becomes like new.
This Rosh Hashanah, when we hear the eternal cry of the shofar, let this master key unlock our hearts, opening us up to blessings from G‑d.
Karen Wolfers-Rapaport is a psychotherapist specializing in Narrative Therapy. She holds a BA from UCLA, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Boston College. She received her training from Tufts University. In addition to her therapeutic work and freelance writing, Karen works with families from Israel’s Prime Minister’s office and Ministry of Defense, teaching them English in preparation for their diplomatic posts abroad. A proud mother, she is blessed to live in Israel.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 33b.
2.Aruch, quoted in Tosfot on Rosh Hashanah 33b.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
Everything Else You need to Know About Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah
October 2-4, 2016
Quick Links: Holiday Times | Find a Service | Holiday E‑Cards | Tishrei in Ten | Sukkot / Simchat Torah © Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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VIDEO
What G-d Wants from You
A Rosh Hashanah Message
By Chana Weisberg
Watch (2:11)
8 Tips for a Fabulous Rosh Hashanah
Why this month is special and what to do about it
Watch (1:39)
A Rosh Hashanah Meditation
Once, after Rosh Hashanah prayers, the Alter Rebbe asked his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, “With what meditation did you pray this Rosh Hoshanah?” He replied, “With the verse, ‘All mankind shall prostrate themselves before You’.” Then the Mitteler Rebbe asked his father, “With what meditation did you pray?” The Alter Rebbe responded, “I prayed with my lectern.”
Watch (7:34)
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://embed.chabad.org/multimedia/mediaplayer/embedded/embed.js.asp?aid=1635532&width=auto&height=auto"></script><span style="clear:both;" class="lb" id="lbdiv">Visit <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish.TV</a> for more <a href="http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/default_cdo/aid/591213/jewish/Video.htm">Jewish videos</a>.</span>
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Essay
Do Chabad Teachings Say Anything About the Mind-Body Problem? by Eli Rubin and Max Ariel Abugov
Introduction: Philosophical Questions
As human beings we are constantly confronted by the mind-body problem. On the one hand we have physical bodies, complete with arms, legs, a heart and a brain. On the other hand we have mental states, we think, we become emotional, we desire things, we understand things, we enjoy sunsets and the scent of flowers. This led the 17th century René Descartes to a conclusion that schisms the mind from the body. He postulated that there is a mental substance, res cogitans, and a physical substance, res extensa. He understood G‑d to be a third substance that is neither mental nor physical, and which chooses to make these created substances exist.1
From a philosophical point of view Descartes’ position, known as dualism, is deeply problematic. If mind and body exist independently of each other, if the mental and the physical are in fact two completely different substances, how do they interact with one another? How does the brain, a physical lump of grey meat, apprehend ethereal mental concepts?How does the brain, a physical lump of grey meat, apprehend ethereal mental concepts?2
The question of how the mind, or the soul, and the body, relate to each other has concerned philosophers from ancient times till today. But Descartes’ dualism has often been rejected, usually in favour of monistic theories positing that mental and physical phenomena actually consist of the same substance. There isphysicalism, claiming that all is matter. There is idealism, claiming all is mind. There is neutral monism, which suggests that all is neither one nor the other, but a third, unified substance that is the combination of both.3
Today, many people assume that everything is physical, that there is no mental state independent of the physical brain. Accordingly, there is no mind and no soul, and hence no mind-body problem. But rather than solving the mind-body problem, this simply replaces it with a problem of a different name. A leading contemporary philosopher thinking about this new conundrum is David Chalmers, and he calls it the “hard” problem of consciousness: Chalmers wants to understand how and why we have subjective experiences.4
A computer, for example, processes large quantities of information—apparently without having any mental awareness or subjective experience of those processes. But when humans process information something happens besides the physical, electronic or chemical changes happening in the body and in the brain: We experience these processes subjectively, there is a feeling of “what it is like.” Philosophers call these subjective experiences qualia.5
Chalmers argues:
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.6
This line of thinking has led Chalmers away from physicalism and persuaded him to consider the view that all physical substance—including rocks and electrons—fundamentally possesses some kind of mental quality.7 Today this line of thinking is seen as innovative and controversial, but in truth it is one of the most ancient and persistent ideas in the history of philosophy. Similar theories can be found both among early Greek thinkers, and in the Jewish philosophical, kabbalistic and midrashic traditions. Philosophers refer to this as panpsychism, which means that everything (pan) has a mind or a soul (psyche).
It is important to note, however, that not all panpsychic theories are the same. As with other complex philosophical questions, we should realize that different thinkers often fit similar ideas into vastly different systems of thought, and we should always be weary of false equivalences and conflations.8
Chabad: A Parallel Conceptual Universe
As a counterpoint to the prevalent assumption that everything is physical, the Chabad view is that everything is divine.9
The Chabad intellectual tradition might be described as a conceptual universe that runs parallel to the Western one. It engages with many of the questions raised in the western philosophical tradition to which Descartes, Chalmers and their interlocutors belong, but brings a different set of concepts, assumptions and goals, and a different terminology to the table. This is true of the mind-body problem and the “hard” problem of consciousness, The Chabad intellectual tradition might be described as a conceptual universe that runs parallel to the Western one…and it is true of many other philosophical quandaries as well.10
In Chabad thought these questions are made all the more problematic because we are not simply talking about the interface of the mind—or the soul—and the body, but also about the interface of G‑d and the world. As the Talmudic sages put it, “just as the soul fills the body, so G‑d fills the world.”11 This is taken to a whole new level of difficulty when we consider that G‑d is infinite and the world seems to be composed of finite matter. How can the finitude of creation possibly be filled with infinite divinity?
The crucial point for the present discussion is that in Chabad thought these paradoxes are all resolved by what can be described as a panentheistic false-dualism: Chabad does not subscribe to a monistic idealism (“everything is ideas”) according to which our experience of the physical is some kind of mirage. The physical is at least as real as the spiritual. But both physicality and spirituality are refractions of singular divinity. From this perspective, the designation of the physical realm as a “world of falsehood” (עלמא דשיקרא) should not be understood as a denial of the reality of its existence. The falsehood lies in the impression that the utter singularity of all-encompassing divinity is compromised by the dual modes of divine manifestation.
The unavoidable reality of the physical universe is emphasized in an oft cited discourse by the fourth rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn (“Maharash,” 1834-1888):
The existence of the world, and all that is created, is a reality… For if we say it is only that it so appears to us, if so what is the meaning of the verse “In the beginning of G‑d’s creation” (Genesis 1:1)? Did not no creation occur at all, but rather it was made to appear to us as if it was so? Therefore we must say that the world does exist as a substantive reality (yesh ve-davar)…12
In the same breath, R. Shmuel also emphasizes that the physical reality of creation is not something other than G‑d:
In truth there is no physical existence other than divinity, for in truth the capacity for concealment is also divinity like the capacity for revelation… All the physical things that are created are themselves literally divinity.13
Even more radical than the equation of physicality with divinity is a phrase oft repeated by the seventh rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of righteous memory, which emphasizes that physical existence is ultimately a deeper expression of divine reality and truth than spirituality: “The created being is itself [an unmediated manifestation of] the true being [of G‑d]…” For the most part, however, this truth remains concealed by the very facade of otherness and duality that most gives it expression. It is only “through the work in this world to remove the concealments and veils…” that “it will be revealed in the created being that it itself is [an unmediated manifestation of] the true being.”14 As will be further explained below, it is precisely in the most abject sphere of cosmic being—or more precisely, in the transformation of the abject into the exalted—that the greatest expression of divine transcendence is found.
***
Hasidic Panpsychism
There are many relevant texts that could be cited as examples of the different ways in which Chabad teachings approach the problem, its solution, and various resulting implications. Already in the first generation of Chabad we find that panpsychism was an issue of particular interest and controversy. One early chassidic work, titled “Testament of the Baal Shem Tov” records the following “major principle:” “In everything that exists in the world there are holy sparks, there is nothing empty of the sparks, even wood and stones, and even all the actions that a person executes…”15 Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi similarly cites the Lurianic teaching that “even in the literally inanimate—like stones, dust and water—there is a soul and spiritual life… which enlivens and creates the inanimate, All reality is divine thought thinking itself.that it may emerge as an existence from nothing…”16
In a direct attack on this concept, Rabbi Eliyahu—the famed gaon of Vilna— wrote that the chassidim “proclaim of every stick and every stone, ‘These are your gods, Israel!’” By borrowing a phrase from the biblical episode of the golden calf, he equated chassidism with Judaism’s worst example of public idolatry.17 The Gaon apparently sought to uphold a dualistic schism between the spiritual and the physical, between G‑d and the world. Elsewhere, he explicitly argued that G‑d transcends the world, and that it is only divine knowledge and superintendence that extends into the created realm.18
The Gaon’s attack was countered by R. Schneur Zalman with a sharp argument proving that divine superintendence could not be accounted for without resort to a form of divine panpsychism. Following the Maimonidean principle that divine knowledge is self-knowledge—G‑d being the knower, the subject of knowledge, and the knowledge itself19—R. Schneur Zalman concludes that G‑d’s knowledge of the world entails that the world itself is not in any way separate from G‑d. Implicitly referring to those who shared the Gaon’s position, he wrote:
Since they believe that G‑d knows all created beings in this lowly world and superintends them, they are compelled to accept that His knowledge of them does not add to Him any plurality or novelty, for He knows all through knowing His self. It as if His being and essence and knowledge are all one.20
Aristotle famously described G‑d as “thought thinking itself.” But the Maimonidean view, as interpreted by R. Schneur Zalman, is that all reality is divine thought thinking itself. In technical philosophical terminology the complexity of the Chabad position might be captured with the designation “theological panpsychic false-dualism.” But even as we speak of panpsychism we must also recall that “G‑d’s thoughts are not as our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8). G‑d’s thoughts extend beyond the realm of ideas to animate and encompass physical reality as well.21 We must also recall that G‑d ultimately transcends the category of thought altogether.22 However central the principle of divine panpsychism is to the Chabad system of thought, it must always be considered in terms of what Elliot Wolfson has designated “the logic inherent” to Chabad thought: “a way of thinking that begets an annihilation of thinking.”23
The Mitzvah: Fusing Body and Soul
From the Chabad perspective there is no “hard” problem of consciousness. Consciousness is not an anomalous product of the physical universe. Rather, the physical universe is an anomalous product of divine consciousness. The “hard” problem of Chabad thought is: How does the finite universe exist without compromising the infinite singularity of G‑d?24
Rather than an outright rejection of dualism, Chabad teachings constantly affirm that G‑d at once fills the finite realm immanently (memale kol almin) and infinitely transcends it (sovev kol almin). Yet G‑d’s essential being (atzmuto u-mahuto) is neither finite nor infinite. Nor can G‑d’s essential being simply be reduced to that which encompasses those poles. G‑d is instead understood to transcend all definable categories and limitations, and can therefore be equally manifest in the finite and the physical as in the infinite and the spiritual. The result of this false-duality is the impression that the finite world is something other than the infinite G‑d. The limbs of the person’s body that are performing the mitzvah… become a literal vehicle for the supernal will.But the truth is that G‑d is the immanent core of all reality.25
Moving from the cosmic to the microcosmic, a similar model of false dualism—or more precisely, false multiplicity—is applied to the relationship between the soul and the body. In the second chapter of Likutei Amarim—Tanya, R. Schneur Zalman describes a hierarchy of souls, but emphasizes that “all of them, from the beginning of all levels to the end of all levels… are drawn from the supernal mind [of G‑d].” The difference between one soul and another is only in the degree to which they openly reveal G‑dliness in their own lives and actions, and in the world around them. But all souls are fundamentally bound up in the circle of divine consciousness. Here too, R. Schneur Zalman cites Maimonides’ principle that G‑d is the knower, the subject of knowledge, and knowledge itself.
The divine quality of the soul extends to the physical body as well, but it only becomes overtly revealed therein through the performance of mitzvot, divinely mandated commandments. In Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapter twenty-three, R. Schneur Zalman explains that when a person performs a commandment “the lowest faculty of their divine soul (levush ha-hitzon shel nefesh ha-elokit), which is its capacity for action, is vested in the animation of that mitzvah performance… Therefore, also the limbs of the person’s body that are performing the mitzvah… become a literal vehicle for the supernal will [of G‑d]. By way of example, the hand that distributes charity to the poor… the feet that walk in the cause of a mitzvah, and likewise the mouth that speaks words of Torah, and the brain that thinks of Torah matters, fear of heaven, and the greatness of G‑d.” Body and soul function as one, yet mirror the false-duality of the cosmic singularity.These limbs and organs, R. Schneur Zalman explains, are themselves “sanctified” because they have become transparent to their divine core.26
The divine nature of the body can only be openly revealed through mitzvah observance and Torah study. But in truth, the Baal Shem Tov taught, even the body’s most mundane cravings are identical with the cravings of the soul. “Hungry as well as thirsty, their soul enwraps itself within them” (Psalms, 107:5). In its original context this is a poetic image describing wanderers lost in the desert, whose souls contract as their hunger and thirst intensifies. But the Baal Shem Tov decontextualized the verse and reinterpreted it to mean that the divine soul is enwrapped within the hunger and thirst of the physical body. Externally the body’s cravings seem mundane, even crass, but in truth they stem from the soul’s craving to raise up the divine sparks that are concealed throughout all reality. Not only is the body not the enemy of the soul, on the contrary, the body and the soul are actually in sync. They function as one, yet mirror the false-duality of the cosmic singularity.27 The soul’s mission on earth, accordingly, is to make the body—and all aspects of earthly life—transparent to the divine core of all reality.28
Yehidah: The Singular Substance of Everything
The above passages allude to another oft discussed theme in Chabad teachings. Drawing on earlier rabbinic sources, each individual soul is understood to have five general levels.29 The lowest,nefesh, corresponds to the soul’s capacity for action, which is channeled through the body to have transformative impact in the physical world. The highest is referred to as yehidah, meaning singularity, because it is utterly bound up with the singular essence of G‑d. The yehidah transcends the false dualism that distinguishes between the physical and the spiritual, and therefore cannot even be associated with the loftiest of spiritual soul faculties. Yet it is precisely the transcendence of the yehidah that is the immanent core of all levels of soul expression, including the lowest, Once the essence is revealed it illuminates all faculties of the soul and all aspects of reality.which animates the actions of the body.
Though the yehidah is discussed in many Chabad teachings, its significance is most fully articulated and emphasized in a treatise by the seventh rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of righteous memory. In this treatise, On the Essence of Chassidus, the essential core of divine being and the essential core of the soul are described in precisely the same terms. In both cases, the disclosure of the essence is synonymous with the dissolution of the false opposition between spirituality and physicality, light and darkness, good and evil:
All [spiritual] revelations, even the very loftiest, are bound in the category of light and revelation… Consequently, the existence of evil… is in opposition to them, and it is therefore not in their power to transform it to good (only to battle with it till it is effaced). Only the essence of G‑d… which is uncontained by any form and which can have nothing in opposition to it… has the power to transform it to good.30
The essential transcendence of G‑d, in other words, is such that spirituality and physicality alike—and even good and evil—are equally inadequate to give it expression. It is axiomatic that the physical realm conceals the all-encompassing presence of G‑d. But here it emerges that the same is true of the spiritual realm, of spiritual experience and activity as well. The only way in which the essence can be tangibly disclosed is in the overcoming of binaries, through transforming evil into good, through infusing physical reality with the spirit of divinity.
Paradoxically, Chabad’s radical conception of divine transcendence leads us to find the greatest expression of that transcendence in the most abject sphere of cosmic being, or more precisely, in the transformation of the abject into the exalted. The same applies on the microcosmic plane—the essential potency of the soul is only expressed in transformative activities that overcome the divide between body and soul, revealing the G‑dly core even of physical existence. But once the essence is revealed it illuminates all faculties of the soul and all aspects of reality:
Only when the [soul] faculties come to refine a physical object beyond the individual self… (using it for the sake of heaven)—specifically then is the yehidah revealed in them.31
In the final paragraph of his treatise on yehidah—which he also associates with the essence of chassidic teaching itself—the Rebbe cites the messianic vision articulated by R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi in Tanya, chapters thirty-six and thirty-seven:
The physicality of the body and the world will be purified… as it is written ‘all flesh [shall see] together etc.’ ‘all dwellers of your universe’… This ultimate wholeness of the messianic era… is dependent on our actions and work throughout the era of exile…32
In philosophical language we might say that the ultimate goal of all human endeavor is to overcome the false sense of dualism that leads us to the mind-body problem in the first place.33 We achieve this through Torah study and mitzvah observance, through serving G‑d in all aspects of earthly life, and through transforming evil into good.34 We are not simply bodies, nor are we minds, nor do we merely combine the two. Ultimately, there is but one single substance, uncompromised by the mind-body duality. The multiple dimensions of existence are real. Yet they are all refractions of the singular substance of G‑d.
Eli Rubin studied Chassidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America and at Yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia. He has been a research writer and editor at Chabad.org since 2011, focusing on the social and intellectual history of Chabad Chassidism. Through his writing, research, and editorial work he has successfully participated in a range of scholarly interchanges and collaborative endeavors.
Max Ariel Abugov recently graduated with a B.A. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked at the Boundaries of Anxiety and Depression Lab. He also attended Yeshivas Kol Yakov Yehudah Hadar Hatorah in Crown Heights, where he developed a deep appreciation of Chassidus. He is passionate about the interdisciplinary study of psychology, philosophy, and religion.
FOOTNOTES
1.See Justin Skirry, “René Descartes: The Mind-Body Distinction” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, viewable here.
2.See Howard Robinson, "Dualism", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here. A classical Jewish reference to the mind-body problem, often referenced in Chabad teachings, is the remark of Rabbi Moshe Isserles (“Rema,” 1520-1572), in his gloss to Shulkhan Arukh,Orakh Hayim 6:1. Rema suggests that the liturgical formulation praising G‑d as “the one who acts wondrously” (ha-maphlia la’asot) can be understood as an allusion to the fact that G‑d “preserves the spirit of man within him, binding something spiritual to something physical, all through Him being the healer of all flesh, for then man is healthy and his soul is preserved within him.” (Emphasis added.)
3.See Leopold Stubenberg, "Neutral Monism", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here.
4.See also Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is almost Certainly False(Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2012), 45-46: “On a purely materialist understanding of biology, consciousness would have to be regarded as a tremendous and inexplicable brute fact about the world. If it is to be explained in any sense naturalistically, through the understanding of organic life, something fundamental must be changed in our conception of the natural order that gave rise to life.”
5.See Michael Tye, "Qualia" inThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here.
6.David J. Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness” in the Journal of Consciousness Studies2(3): 200-19, 1995, viewablehere.
7.See David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory(Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 1996), 299: “I hope to have said enough to show that we at least ought to take the possibility of some sort of panpsychism seriously: there seem to be no knockdown arguments against the view, and there are various positive reasons why one might embrace it.” See also the relevant discussions of panpsychism in Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2012), 57-58 and 61-63.
8.For an overview of some important proponents of various forms of panpsychism throughout the history of western philosophy, see William Seager and Sean Allen-Hermanson, "Panpsychism" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here. For a classical rabbinic example of panpsychism that is often cited in Chabad literature, seeBereishit Rabbah, 10:6: “There isn’t a single blade of grass that does not have an angel in heaven that smites it and tells it to grow…” For more direct examples from kabbalistic and chassidic teachings—including the particulars of Chabad’s panpsychic conception, which is rooted in a Maimonidean axiom—see below.
9.See Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, Sefer Hasichos 5690 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1995), 86, (ער איז אַלץ, אַלץ איז ער) and further sources cited there, n. 10. Also notable are the words of Rabbi DovBer Schneuri (“the Mitteler Rebbe”), son and successor of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad (“the Alter Rebbe”): “The central object of my father’s teachings, was to fix the simple singularity of G‑d—that is, the essence of the infinite—in the mind and heart of each individual according to what they can conceive, each according to their ability…” ( Introduction toImrei Binah.) The singular existence of G‑d is a topic that is dealt with in great richness and depth throughout the Chabad corpus, but its locus classicus is the second section ofLikutei Amarim—Tanya,Shaar Hayikhud Ve-ha-emunah. For a more succinct treatment see the first section of Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapters 20-21.
10.For more on the relationship between Chabad teachings and the western tradition of philosophy, touching on the work of William James, Isaiah Berlin, Hilary Putnam et al, see Eli Rubin, Can You Square the Circle of Faith? How to preserve an open mind and a unified core of cohesive meaning.
11.Midrash Tehillim, 103a
12.Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch, “Mi Komokhah” in Likutei Torah—Torat Shmuel, Sefer 5629 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1992), 161-162.
13.Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch (“the Rebbe Maharash”), Ibid., 163. See also Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, Torat Shalom(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1970), 198: “All is encompassed in G‑d’s essence, accordingly no other being exists at all. Yet, this implies that nothing was created, which is impossible to say, since creation is itself the divine name elokim. It is a divine name and therefore true. That is, elokim exists, and accordingly there is concealment (that is, there is otherly existence, which is the concealment). However the concealment is encompassed in the essence, because the divine name elokim—which is the divine power that contracts—is also of the essence…”
14.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (“the Rebbe”), “Ve-hit’halakhti”, in Torat Menachem—3—Shnat 5711, 115. The word manifestation is inserted into my translation of this passage to emphasize that it is not to be taken as a reductive description of divine being, but rather as an apotheosistic description of physical being: In contrast to the revelation of G‑d via the medium of spirituality, physicality is a direct manifestation of divine being. While this idea was most emphasized by the seventh rebbe it has a long history in Chabad thought. For a discussion of the concealing and concrete dimension of reality as the more unmediated embodiment of divine being in the thought of the third rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek (1789-1866), see Eli Rubin, Covert Luminosity: The reshimu, the kav, and the concretization of creativity.
15.Tzavaat ha-Rivash #141. Page 71 in the Kehot Publication Society, 1998 edition.
16.Likutei Amarim—Tanya,Shaar Hayikhud Ve-ha-emunah, Chapter 1.
17.See Mordecai Wilenski,Hasidim and Mitnaggedim, vol. 1 (Bialik: Jerusalem, 1990), 188-189.
18.Aderet Eliyahu to Isaiah 6:3; Supplementary notes in Be’ur ha-Gra to Sifra di-Tzeni’uta,Sod ha-Tzimtzum, p. 75 [38a in Hebrew pagination]. For a more detailed discussion of these sources see Eli Rubin,Immanent Transcendence Chassidim, mitnagdim, and the debate about tzimtzum.
19.Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei ha-Torah 2:10.
20.Shaar ha-Yichud veha-Emunah, ch. 7, pp. 165–166 [83a–b in the Hebrew pagination].
21.See Likutei Amarim—Tanya, end of Chapter 48: “His thought and knowledge, with which He knows all the creations, encompasses each one of them from top to bottom, and its interior and innermost being, all literal actuality…” On the distinctions and similarities between thought and speech as applied to the concept of divine creation see Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapters 20 and 21, see also the relevant discussion of those chapters in Eli Rubin, “Speech, Externalization, and Divine Singularity,” in 'The Pen Shall Be Your Friend': Intertextuality, Intersociality, and the Cosmos - Examples of the Tzemach Tzedek’s Way in the Development of Chabad Chassidic Thought.
22.See Shaar Ha-yikhud Ve-ha-emunah, note to chapter 9, p 173 [87a in Hebrew pagination]: “After the infinite light is vested in the receptacles of chabad, then it is possible to say what Maimonides writes ‘He is the knower, the subject of knowledge, and the knowledge itself, and in knowledge of himself etc.’ …But without the tsimtsum and investment mentioned above it is not possible at all to say ‘He is the knower, and He is the subject of knowledge etc.’ For he is not in the category of knowing and knowledge at all, but entirely transcendent without limit beyond the category of wisdom, to the extent that wisdom [even divine wisdom] is considered in comparison to Him as [the realm of] physical action.”
23.Elliot R. Wolfson, “Nequddat ha-Reshimu - The Trace of Transcendence and the Transcendence of Trace: The Paradox of Simsum in the RaShaB’s Hemshekh Ayin Beit,” in Kabbalah 30 (2013), p. 94. The idea that the ultimate goal of Chabad thought is to go beyond the entire category of thought altogether is given explicit expression by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn inLikutei Dibburim Vol. 1(Yiddish Edition, Kehot Publication Society 2009), 305 [153a in Hebrew pagination]. Commenting on the biblical prophecy that in the messianic era divinity will be revealed so that “all flesh shall see,” he argues that this signifies a fundamental shift in the way we apprehend divinity: “We will see, and the seer will be the body… In the present era, the soul allows the body to understand an intellectual concept. This means that the soul is the communicator [of divine revelation] and the body the recipient. But when the messiah will come the body itself will apprehend; it will see divinity with the sight of its physical eyes literally; and it will be the communicator [of divine revelation] while the soul will receive [that revelation] from the body.” Our current mode of apprehending G‑d is conceptual and spiritual, and therefore chiefly mediated by the soul. But in the messianic era we will apprehend G‑d somatically and physically, and the soul will receive this more essential form of revelation through the mediation of the body. This passage is particularly relevant given the present discussion centering on the relationship between body and soul, and the relationship between singular divinity and physical reality.
24.See the closing passage ofShaar Ha-yikhud Ve-ha-emunah, chapter 3.
25.See for example, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi,Maamarei Admur Hazaken 5569 (Kehot Publication Society: New york, 2005), 262: “Such is the immense exaltedness of the essence of the infinite… just as He is not grasped and limited in the physicality of the created realms (b”ya) so He is not grasped in the spirituality of the realm of emanation (olam ha-atsilut), for before Him are literally equal spirituality and physicality, [the realms of] emanation and action, as it is written “as dark, as light” (Psalms 139:12), and up and down are equal…”; Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, “Patach Eliyahu 5715” in Sefer Ha-maamarim Melukat Vol. 2(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2002), 106: “The binding of nature and that which transcends nature is through the revelation of the [divine] essence, which transcends both of them.” See further sources discussed and cited below.
26.See also Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, Likutei Dibburim vol. 1 (Yiddish Edition, Kehot Publication Society 2009), 310 [155b in Hebrew pagination]: “The hidden power [namely, the essence of divine being] that is in the physical is only revealed when the physical is used for the purpose for which the creator created it.” This concept will be further elaborated below.
27.Keter Shem Tov (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2004), section 194, in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, also discussed and elucidated by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Likutei Sichot vol. 19 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2006), 295-297.
28.See also Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Veshavti Be-shalom 5738 in Sefer Ha-maamarim Melukot Vol. 2(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2002), 17-38.
29.See Bereishit Rabba, 10:9 and Devarim Rabbah, 2:37. See also Zohar Vol. 1, 81a and 206a; Zohar Vo. 3, 152a.
30.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, “Inyannah Shel Torat Ha-chassidut” in Sefer Ha-erchim Habad vol. 1(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1970) section 19, p. 5771. The present translations are all my own, for a full English translation of this treatise see On the Essence of Chassidus (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1986), viewable here.
31.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Ibid., section 20, p. 5772-5773.
32.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Ibid., section 21, p. 5773; Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapters 36 and 37. In a footnote to the main body of the text inInyannah Shel Torat Ha-chassidus, the Rebbe takes the opportunity to further underscore Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s inclusion of the non-Jewish nations in his vision of universal transformation. The latter writes that “from the overwhelming revelation to the Jewish people the darkness of the nations will also be reached (יגי' חשך האומות ג"כ).” Drawing on a text from Rabbi DovBer Schneuri (“the Mitteler Rebbe”) the Rebbe suggests that this can be read to mean “the darkness of the nations will also be transformed,” adding that this is “similar to what was explained above that [through the revelation of the yehidah] bad itself is turned to good.” This remark is particularly significant as it complicates the assumption that Chabad discussions of the soul and its relationship to G‑d, and discussions of the yehidah in particular, apply uniquely to Jews. In this definitive treatise, which consciously lays bare the essence of Chabad chassidic teaching through the central motif of the yehidah, the Rebbe concludes with a statement implying that this transformative vision must ultimately overcome the distinctions between Jew and non-Jew as well. For an important and illuminating discussion of the highly complex discourse in Chabad texts on this issue, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Apocalyptic Crossing: Beyond the (Non)Jewish Other” in Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (Columbia University Press: New York, 2009), pages 224-264. See also Jonathan Garb,Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 2015), 200 n. 12; Wojciech Tworek,Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi(Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College London, September 2014), 126-136. Here it is also worth citing a related passage by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, Kedushat Levi Ha-Shalom, Vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1958), 413-414, as recently discussed by Shaul Magid, “Jewish Ethics Through A Hasidic Lens”, inHasidism Incarnate (Stanford University Press, 2015), 62-66, and by Eli Rubin, 'The Pen Shall Be Your Friend' Intertextuality, Intersociality, and the Cosmos - Examples of the Tzemach Tzedek’s Way in the Development of Chabad Chassidic Thought.
33.For more on the overcoming, or overturning, of the mind body duality in the messianic era, see Likutei Dibburim Vol. 1 (Yiddish Edition, Kehot Publication Society 2009), 305 [153a in Hebrew pagination], and the relevant discussion above, n. 23.
34.For an extended exposition on why the sanctification of the mundane, and the transformation of evil into good through a fundamental process of return to G‑d (teshuvah), provides the ultimate expression of the transcendent essence, see Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Veshavti Be-shalom 5738 in Sefer Ha-maamarim Melukot Vol. 2(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2002), 17-38.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
Relevance of Torah
Is the Torah an ancient book for a vanishing people, or is it alive and well in you? by Lazer Gurkow
Redundant
In this week’s Parshah, the Torah provides the coordinates for its location in the cosmos:
It is not in the heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us” … Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us.”1
At first blush it appears superfluous to inform us that the book that is in our hands is not in the heavens. It makes as little sense as myWhat is the Torah to you? asking you to run around the corner to ascertain that I am not there. If you are reading this passage, and you are on Earth, you know that the Torah is on Earth too, not in heaven; and it is in your country, not across the ocean.
However, on reflection, these verses yield a powerful message. Rather than a set of coordinates, they transmit a teaching that informs our entire approach to the Torah.
Relevance
What is the Torah to you? Is it an interesting book and a good read, or is it the word of G‑d that binds you? When you attend a Torah class and learn the Jewish dietary laws, do you walk away thinking about the changes you need to implement in your diet, or do you come home to tell your spouse and friends about the interesting habits of others? Does the Torah have relevance to you?
In all seriousness, the question boils down to this: Is the Torah an ancient book for a vanishing people, or is it alive and well in you? If the Torah is not alive in you, whose task is it to keep it alive? If not yours, whose? And if it’s not yours, why not?
These verses appear toward the end of the Torah because it is G‑d’s challenge to us. Now that we have completed reading the lion’s share of the Torah, G‑d is telling us: I want you to know that I never meant for it to be irrelevant and abstract. It is not in the heavens for heavenly, pious and holy people who devote their lives to scholarship and charity. Neither is it across the ocean for distant tribes from other parts of the world.
The verses continue: “Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.”2
The Torah is meant for you. Just like Uncle Sam, the Torah wants you. You can’t duck this responsibility, and you can’t shirk this privilege. It is not an anthropological study of how people lived years ago in distant places. It is about you.3
I once met a Jewish couple in an apartment building where I had koshered someone’s kitchen. When I told them that a new Jewish family was about to move in to their building they rejoiced. When I mentioned that I had just koshered the new family’s kitchen they said, “Aaah, that kind of Jew.” After a brief pause they recovered and said, “That’s all right, we welcome all kinds to our building.”
This is the vital mistake that G‑d wants us to avoid when we read the Torah. The laws of kosher are not for the other kind of Jew. They are for you and me and every Jew on the planet. The Torah belongs to you. When G‑d issued His commandments, He was talking to you too. When he said that Jews must keep Shabbat and Passover and Rosh Hashanah, He included you. The kosher Jew is not a different kind of Jew. He is your kind. You too are a kosher Jew. Even if you don’t know it yet.
Bonding
The Torah and the Jew are like a father and mother. Both parents make a critical contribution to the conception and birth of a child, and the child can be ushered into the world only if the parents collaborate to create new life.
The Torah is a container filled with intensely sacred Divinity. When we study the Torah and implement its teachings, we are suffused with its holiness and Divine energy. We become holy creatures, as it were. But if we study the Torah as an academic curiosity, and don’t see ourselves and our role within it, the holiness of the Torah remains aloof, trapped in the Torah and unable to permeate us or the world at large.
A student without Torah cannot channel holiness into the world. And the Torah without its students also cannot channel holiness into the world. It is only when the two mate that our person and our world become holy. This bonding means that we become relevant and important to each other. It is not enough that we learn about each other and remain distant. Just as the conception of a child comes about through intimacy, the holiness that the Torah is designed to usher into the world comes about through connecting with the Torah and making it relevant.
Learning about Torah from a distance, as a book that has no relevance for me, won’t generate the spark that the Torah is designed toA student without Torah cannot channel holiness into the world generate. It is only when we learn to take it seriously, as providing instructions for daily life, that the Torah becomes a channel of Divine blessing in our lives.
To bond with the Torah is to give it relevance in our daily lives. Whether it is by taking on the observance of its laws on a personal level, or by working to maintain a higher level of consciousness even as we go about our daily tasks, the challenge is the same. It is to recognize that when I study the Torah, G‑d is talking to me. Not to my neighbor and not to my friend, but to me. He wants me to take Him seriously. Seriously enough to implement change in my life.4
G‑d Reciprocates
When we implement change in the way we approach the Torah, G‑d implements change in the way He treats us, and we merit a year of blessing and abundance, plenty and joy. When we see the Torah as a relevant document, our concerns become relevant to G‑d, and He ensures that blessings flow to us from heaven.
G‑d treats us the way we treat Him. If we build a hiding place for Him in heaven, He will hide there. If we usher Him down to Earth, He will descend and join us.
FOOTNOTES
1.Deuteronomy 30: 12-13.
2.Deuteronomy 30: 14.
3.Me’or Einayim, ad loc.
4.Ibid.-------
Nitzavim In Depth
A condensation of the weekly Torah portion alongside select commentaries culled from the Midrash, Talmud, Chassidic masters, and the broad corpus of Jewish scholarship.
Parshat Nitzavim In-Depth
Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20
That the leader or the sage is superior to the wood-hewer or the water-carrier is only from our earthbound perspective, which sees a “hierarchy” of roles. But when “you all stand before G‑d,” there is no higher and lower—what seems “low” here is no less lofty and significant in G‑d’s eyes.
“This day” is a reference to Rosh Hashanah, the day on which we all stand in judgment before G‑d. (The Torah reading of Nitzavim is always read on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah.)
It is written (Psalms 79:1): “A song by Asaf: Alien nations have entered Your estate, they have defiled Your Holy Temple, they have laid Jerusalem in ruins . . .”
Should not the verse have said “A weeping by Asaf,” “a wail by Asaf,” “a lament by Asaf”? Why does it say “A song by Asaf”?
But this is analogous to a king who built a nuptial home for his son, and had it beautifully plastered, inlaid and decorated. Then this son strayed off to an evil life. So the king came to the nuptial canopy, tore down the tapestries and broke the rails. Upon which the prince’s tutor took a flute and began to play. Those who saw him asked: “The king is overturning the nuptial canopy of his son, and you sit and sing?” Said he to them: “I am singing because the king overturned his son’s nuptial canopy, and did not vent his wrath upon his son.”
So, too, was asked of Asaf: “G‑d destroyed the Temple and the Sanctuary, and you sit and sing?” Replied he: “I am singing because G‑d vented His wrath upon wood and stone, and did not vent his wrath upon Israel.”
The Melech HaMoshiach (“anointed king”) is destined to arise and restore the kingdom of David to its glory of old, to its original sovereignty. He will build the Holy Temple and gather the dispersed of Israel. In his times, all laws (of the Torah) will be reinstated as before; the sacrifices will be offered, the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year instituted, as outlined in the Torah.
Whoever does not believe in him, or does not anticipate his coming, denies not only the other prophets, but also the Torah and Moses. For the Torah testifies about him: “G‑d shall return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and He will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom the L‑rd your G‑d has scattered you. If your outcasts shall be at the ends of the heavens, from there will the L‑rd your G‑d gather you, from there He will take you. . . . G‑d will bring you . . .” These explicit words of the Torah encapsulate all that has been said [regarding Moshiach] by the prophets . . .
The Hebrew word used here for “he will return” is notveheishiv—which means “he will bring back”—butveshav, which literally means “he will come back.” Our sages learned from this that the Divine Presence resides among Israel, as it were, in all the misery of their exile, and when the Jews are redeemed, G‑d speaks of it as His own redemption— He Himself returns along with Israel’s exiles.
Another interpretation: The day on which Israel’s exiles will be gathered is so monumental and difficult, that it is as though G‑d Himself must literally take each individual Jew with His very hands out of his place. Thus the verse says “You will be gathered up, one by one, O children of Israel” (Isaiah 27:12). We find this also regarding the exiles from the other nations, as the verse says, “I shall return the exiles of Egypt” (Ezekiel 29:14).
From the time of the creation of the universe, man had the choice to be righteous or wicked. So it was for the entire duration of the Torah, in order that there be merit for us in choosing good and punishment for desiring evil. But in the days of Moshiach choosing good will be in our nature, and the heart will not lust for that which is not proper for it, and will have no desire for it at all. This is the “circumcision” spoken of here, as lust is a “foreskin” blocking the heart, and the “circumcision of the heart” is the removal of lust. In those times man will return to what he was before Adam’s sin, when he naturally did what is proper to do, and there were no conflicts and contradictions in his will . . .
This is the meaning of what our sages said, interpreting the verse (Ecclesiastes 12:1) “There shall come days of which you shall say: I have no desire in them”—“These are the days of Moshiach, in which there is neither merit nor guilt” (Talmud, Shabbat 151b). For in the days of Moshiach there will be no desire [of evil], annd thus no merit or guilt—since merit and guilt are both the products of a free will.
If it were in heaven, you would be required to climb up there and learn it.
On that day Rabbi Eliezer brought them all sorts of proofs, but they were rejected. Said he to them: “If the law is as I say, may the carob tree prove it.” The carob tree was uprooted from its place a distance of 100 cubits. Others say, 400 cubits. Said they to him: “One cannot prove anything from a carob tree.”
Said [Rabbi Eliezer] to them: “If the law is as I say, may the aqueduct prove it.” The water in the aqueduct began to flow backwards. Said they to him: “One cannot prove anything from an aqueduct.”
Said he to them: “If the law is as I say, the may walls of the house of study prove it.” The walls of the house of study began to fall in. Rabbi Joshua rebuked them, “If Torah scholars are debating a point of Jewish law, what are your qualifications to intervene?” The walls did not fall, in deference to Rabbi Joshua, nor did they straighten up, in deference to Rabbi Eliezer. They still stand there at a slant.
Said he said to them: “If the law is as I say, may it be proven from heaven!” There then issued a heavenly voice which proclaimed: “What do you want of Rabbi Eliezer—the law is as he says . . .”
Rabbi Joshua stood on his feet and said: “The Torah is not in heaven!” . . . We take no notice of heavenly voices, since You, G‑d, have already, at Sinai, written in the Torah to “follow the majority” (Exodus 23:2).
Rabbi Nathan subsequently met Elijah the prophet and asked him: “What did G‑d do at that moment?” [Elijah] replied: “He smiled and said: ‘My children have triumphed over Me, My children have triumphed over Me.’”
Freedom of choice has been granted to every man: if he desires to turn toward a good path and be righteous, the ability to do so is in his hands; and if he desires to turn toward an evil path and be wicked, the ability to do so is in his hands . . .
This concept is a fundamental principle and a pillar of the Torah and its commandments. As it is written [Deuteronomy 30:15]: “See, I have set before you life [and good, and death and evil]” and “See, I set before you today [a blessing and a curse].” . . . For were G‑d to decree that a person be righteous or wicked, of if there were to exist something in the very essence of a person’s nature which would compel him toward a specific path, a specific conviction, a specific character trait or a specific deed . . . how could G‑d command us through the prophets “do this” and “do not do this” . . . ? What place would the entire Torah have? And by what measure of justice would G‑d punish the wicked and reward the righteous . . . ?
How is it fitting to love G‑d?
A person should love G‑d with such great and powerful intensity that his soul is bound in this love and is constantly pursuing it, as one, for example, who is smitten with lovesickness—as one who is so obsessed with a carnal love that his mind is never free of desire for that woman. . . . Even more so is the love of G‑d in the hearts of those who love Him . . .
This is what King Solomon meant when he said by way of metaphor, “For I am sick with love.” Indeed, the entire Song of Songs is a metaphor for this concept . . .
It was a hot July day during the summer of 1866. The children of Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch, five-year-old Sholom DovBer and his brother Zalman Aharon, had just come home from cheder and were playing in the garden which adjoined their home.
In the garden stood a trellis overgrown with vines and greenery which offered protection from the heat of the sun. It was set up as a study, with a place for books, etc., and the rebbe would sit there on the hot summer days.
The children were debating the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. Zalman Aharon, the elder by a year and four months, argued that the Jews are a “wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy 4:6) who could, and do, study lots of Torah, both its revealed part and its mystical secrets, and pray with devotion andd’veikut (“attachment” to G‑d).
Said the young Sholom DovBer: “But this is true only of those Jews who learn and pray. What of Jews who are unable to study and who do not pray with d’veikut? What is their specialness over a non-Jew?”
Zalman Aharon did not know what to reply.
The children’s sister Devorah Leah ran to tell their father of their argument. Rabbi Shmuel called them to the trellis, and sent the young Sholom DovBer to summon Bentzion, a servant in the rebbe’s home.
Bentzion was a simple Jew who read Hebrew with many mispronunciations and barely understood the easy words of the prayers. Every day he would recite the entire book of Psalms, pray with the congregation, and make sure to be present in the synagogue whenEin Yaakov was studied.
When the servant arrived, the rebbe asked him: “Bentzion, did you eat?”
Bentzion: “Yes.”
The Rebbe: “Did you eat well?”
Bentzion: “What’s well? Thank G‑d, I was sated.”
The Rebbe: “And why do you eat?”
Bentzion: “So that I may live.”
The Rebbe: “But why live?”
Bentzion: “To be a Jew and do what G‑d wants.” The servant sighed.
The Rebbe: “You may go. Send me Ivan the coachman.”
Ivan was a gentile who had grown up among Jews from early childhood and spoke a perfect Yiddish.
When the coachman arrived, the rebbe asked him: “Did you eat today?”
“Yes.”
“Did you eat well?”
“Yes.”
“And why do you eat?”
“So that I may live.”
“But why live?”
“To take a swig of vodka and have a bite to eat,” replied the coachman.
“You may go,” said the rebbe.
(From the writings of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn)
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Women
Confessions At Coleman by Sara Hecht
I recently received the message below from a woman I met on two of my visits to sing at Coleman Federal Correctional Institution in Sumterville, Fla. Her words moved me deeply and brought me back in time to my first musical performance at a women’s prison.
“I just wanted to tell you how wonderful the concert at Coleman was…you touched our souls that day...I hope you will continue to keep the ladies in your prayers and visit them and sing for them as you can. G‑d bless you.”
I grew up studying the Tanya, the magnum opus of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad Chassidic movement. He speaks of the battle of body and soul, the agendas of each, and how they learn to work together to fulfill a mission in this world. I always loved the Tanya; Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s metaphors movedI feel the jarring vibration of soul against body my mind. But today his words are no longer metaphors to me; they live inside of me, in the daily grind, in the grit and substance that make up the mundane and meaning of my every day.
Sometimes it actually hurts, the discordance of soul and body—their stark differences, the temperature of their movements, the directions they each want to take. And when I feel their separateness, when I feel the jarring vibration of soul against body, that’s when I know something isn’t right. After all, we’re here to teach body and soul to work in tandem. So when they’re not—when I bruise from the clash of their disharmony—I know that something is missing, that my soul is hungry. Hungry for substance to fill the spaces around its growing distance, so that it can once again lean into my body and drive it to accomplish like only soul knows how.
That’s when I start to pray. What I pray for in those moments is a simple chance to feed someone else’s soul. To feed someone else’s soul, and be nourished by the meal we share. I’m hungry to give, I tell Him. This soul knocking against my body is saying, “Get me out of here or give me a reason to stay. The walls of this body are too hard, hardened by a pop culture world; this body’s got no give, until it's softened by giving.”
And while I know the feeling of a seemingly unanswered prayer, I don’t at all believe in that premise. Because the prayer to activate my soul has never gone unanswered, and I wonder, perhaps, if it is because those prayers are powered by what prayer is really all about: a begging to be closer to where we come from.
Indeed, the answer came to me gift-wrapped by G‑d Himself. A dear friend, Rivkie Lipskier—who co-directs the Chabad Jewish Student Center at University of Central Florida, and gives Torah classes to Jewish female inmates at Coleman FCI via the Aleph Institute—asked me to come and sing for women in prison.
It came gentle and gift-wrapped, but when I opened that box, it knocked the wind out of me. It took my breath away and showed me that when my heart is bursting, when my lungs are expanding and gasping for air, that’s not mere biological function; that’s a piece of the Divine leaping around inside of me.
To look into the eyes of every woman in that room, to hear my soul say to each one, without words, that we are connected, that we are one, that notwithstanding the apparent walls of this prison nothing separates us one from another nor us from our Creator, that takes your breath away.
To be so close to my audience—not only in spirit, but also in space—that I can hand them tissues to dry the tears we’re waiting for Him to dry, that takes your breath away.
To draw no stage curtains save the ones that veil our hearts and minds, and to bare our emotions to each other with a vulnerability we rarely dare to show, that takes your breath away.
To have no sound system bar the acoustics of my soul to sing, and yet to feel like my voice has never reverberated better in all my life, that takes your breath away.
There is something about the Infinite that makes you want to come back for more. More, and more and more. They wanted more; I wanted more. I wanted to live that experience again. I wanted us to feel our souls wildly alive in our bodies; I wanted to tell another human in prison that we were all living this life in unison, that we were all battling a battle, that we were all waiting to go home.
So I called the Aleph Institute to arrange more visits for me to sing at U.S. correctional facilities. Across the state of Florida, from Miami to Coleman; from Ocala to Tallahassee and Quincy; and later to Danbury, Conn., and I wanted to feel our souls wildly alive in our bodiesChowchilla, Calif., wherever I went, I met women waiting to go home. But in each place, as we connected over the source of our souls, we realized how at home we truly were.
At Central California Women’s Facility—the largest female prison in the world—women of every race, faith and ethnic group were in the audience, and somehow everyone found a piece of themselves in the music. Together, we learned that even as we grieve and regret, longing to go home in space, our indomitable soul that mirrors the Divine always knows how to be at home in spirit.
And I learned that even living in the free world can feel like incarceration, and that sometimes it takes a visit to a soul in prison to get a full-blown taste of home.
Sara Hecht is a freelance writer, composer and singer from Australia. To book Sara for a musical performance, visit sarahecht.com.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
Unravelling the Mystery of My Father's Hebrew Name by Jolie Greiff
I was due to give birth in less than a week, and I still didn’t know the exact name to give our about-to-be-born son. I was starting to panic. Then a late-Friday-afternoon phone call from a Chabad rabbi thousands of miles away turned my anxiety to joy.
Here’s the story.
My father went by the Jewish name Kushel Kalman. That’s the name I’d heard growing up, and on my ketubah, my Jewish marriage certificate,I was starting to panic I am written in as the daughter of Kushel Kalman.
After my father passed away, my mother wanted to order his grave marker. She called my father’s uncle to check on the exact Hebrew name and spelling since Uncle Clarence and my father shared the same name. They were named for the same family member, Uncle Clarence’s grandfather, my father’s great-grandfather. Their English name was Clarence Calvin Lewis.
Family legend held that the original Clarence Calvin was a wonderful man. He was a butcher and lived a long life. Beloved by generations of family members, there were 10 descendants named after him from the Lewis and Mendelsohn families.
Uncle Clarence, only eight years my father’s senior, was still alive after my father died. He was the “religious” one in the family, sure to know the right name. He told my mother that the actual name was “Kushniel,” and he’d heard it read one time during the reading of the haftorah, the additional reading after the Torah service.
My father’s grave marker was inscribed Kushniel Kalman.
When I was expecting, I found out that our baby was a boy. Of course, we wanted to name him for my father. My husband checked the Concordance, which lists in alphabetical order the words and phrases found in the Bible. Kushniel was not listed. I spoke to our wonderful rabbi, Rabbi Reuven Aberman. I told him that my father went by “Kushel,” but it seemed the proper name of his ancestor was “Kushniel.”
Rabbi Aberman told us that it was unlikely that Kushniel was the real name. And Kushel was clearly a nickname. He thought the real name might be Yekutiel, one of Moses’ names. He suggested we do more research.
I spoke to our friend Zelda, a Yiddish professor. She called a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who was an expert in Jewish names. He told her Kushniel was an Edomite name from the Second Temple period. No one named Kushniel was ever recorded to have divorced.
Rabbi Aberman was skeptical and said to check further. He asked if I knew where my father’s ancestor was buried. Uncle Clarence told me that his grandfather was buried in Reading,There must have been Hebrew on the grave marker. We needed to find out. Pa. Rabbi Aberman suggested that we ask a family member to check the tombstone.
Uncle Clarence had retired to Florida, so I wrote to my father’s brother, my Uncle Meyer, and asked if he would please check for me. A few weeks later, I received a letter telling me that Uncle Meyer and his wife, my Aunt Grace, went to the old cemetery, and they found the right grave! The name was written (hold your breath here) “Cusniel Kalman.”
Rabbi Aberman said that there must have been Hebrew on the grave marker, too. We needed to find that out.
Uncle Meyer and Aunt Grace were in their 70s. I didn’t feel I could trouble them to go back to the cemetery. My due date was rapidly approaching, so my friend Yehudis Wisnefsky suggested that we call Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, one of the Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in Philadelphia. He referred me to Rabbi Yosef Lipsker in nearby Reading.
I called, and asked if the good rabbi might be able to please call the cemetery and ask to check their records. He laughed. “I can see you’ve never been to that old cemetery! There isn’t anyone there to call.” But he offered to go to there himself.
Indeed, he and his brother-in-law went to the cemetery, and they, too, found the stone with “Cusniel Kalman” engraved on it, along with a date from 1903. They realized that there must be Hebrew on the back of the stone, but the nearby bushes were so overgrown that the back was completely covered. That’s why Uncle Meyer and Aunt Grace had not seen Hebrew writing—there was none on the side they saw. The two rabbis used a machete to hack away at the bushes. Finally, the Hebrew side was revealed. Inscribed were accolades of a G‑d-fearing and pious Jew who died at a ripe old age. His name was written as יקוסיאל קלמן—Yekusiel Kalman. It was misspelled, with the Hebrew letter samech instead of tet. Whoever engraved the stone must have written the name phonetically, and had not checked on the proper spelling. (Yekusiel is the Ashkenazic pronunciation of the Hebrew name Yekutiel.) And the Hebrew date and the secular date did not coincide.
Rabbi Lipsker’s brother-in-law called late Friday afternoon and gave me all the information. He told me that he and Rabbi Lipsker both prayed at the gravesite, recited psalms and told Yekusiel Kalman that, G‑d willing, he would have a great-great-grandson carrying his name. My husband and I practically jumped for joy! We felt overwhelming gratitude toward both Rabbi Lipsker and his brother-in-law.
At our son’s brit milah (circumcision), he was inducted into the covenant of Abraham our father, with the proper name of my wonderful father and his esteemed great-grandfather. We were so happy and thankful!
After my mother passed away, my sisters and I ordered a grave marker for her and a new one with the proper name for our father as well. When going through our parents’ house, we found our parents’ ketubah, with my father’s name, of course, listed as Yekutiel Kalman.
When my son was 9 years old and my daughter 6, we were living in Los Angeles. We knew that the following summer, our family would be moving back to Israel. So we went for a trip to Reading, to visit with Uncle Meyer and Aunt Grace. For Shabbat, we went to the Lipskers. How wonderful to meetWe visited the old cemetery the man who had helped us so many years before!
We also visited the old cemetery and saw where the original Yekusiel Kalman was buried. And we went to the newer cemetery and visited the graves of my grandparents, and Uncle Clarence, whose stone read: “Yekutiel Kalman.”
The translation of Yekutiel is “to hope in G‑d.” It’s a wonderful name for our son, especially appropriate as we were married for six-and-a-half years before he was born, but we never gave up hoping that G‑d would bless us with a child.
Our son turns 19 next week. He has grown into a wonderful young man. Our thankfulness to G‑d only increases.
Jolie Greiff is a journalist and a mother. She lives with her husband and two children in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
3 Benefits of Being a Ba’al Teshuvah by Lieba Rudolph
“Wait, I think that’s the doctor!” Zev exclaimed as we hurried out of the car to say hello. I had never seen the doctor before, but I had heard all about him. He came to shul on Shabbat a few weeks ago for a bar mitzvah. Zev told me how much he enjoyed their conversation,I had to learn everything from scratch largely because the doctor was so interested in our Jewish journey. That doesn’t happen very often.
Our meeting on the street was unplanned; we all had other places to go. Somehow, though, once we started talking, the doctor wasn’t rushing to leave anymore. He picked up the conversation where he and Zev left off: He still couldn’t believe that we, and so many other people in shul, weren’t born as observant Jews.
“You should carry an old picture of yourself,” I teased Zev as I confirmed that he was once a golfer with a 5 handicap. (Not that I know what that means—I can’t get past why you would want to play a game that requires you to have a handicap.) We introduced the doctor to the generally accepted term for people like us: ba’alei teshuvah. I told him that it literally translates as, “masters of return.” (“Halevai,” I quickly added with a smile. That’s the Jewish way of saying, “If only.”) I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but I did want to reassure him that if he came to shul, he would be in the company of many beginners who had just begun a little earlier.
Encounters like these thrill me. Because finally, after a very long time, I appreciate that there are many real benefits to being a ba’alat teshuvah. Here are three of them:
I learned a lot in my secular education. Even if I did forget most of what I learned in school, there’s still a lot that comes to mind regularly: about Edmund G. Ross or fruit flies or (my favorite) the Milgram experiment. And while I’m not certain how my 500-word English essays helped my writing, I can surely credit my SAT preps for introducing me to words like cistern and harbinger. I may always struggle with Hebrew because I learned it as an adult, but I can sing along in French to much of “La Marseillaise”—that comes in handy once in a while, too. And because I was educated in America, I learned that “1492” was the year Columbus sailed there. When I learned that 1492 was also the year the Jews were expelled from Spain, I had no trouble remembering the date. But most of all, I know I need to somehow find a way to use my knowledge, my education and my past to bring greater holiness into our world. Learning how to write those 500-word essays probably helped me articulate Torah thoughts more than I realize.
I appreciate my observance because I worked so hard for it. Nothing about Jewish observance was “second nature” to me. I had to learn everything from scratch—and I was already married with two children. I don’t know where the perseverance came from; I’m just grateful that my husband and I both had it. I couldn’t wait for the day, though, when I might be mistaken for an “FFB,” someone who was “frum from birth.” (Frum is the Yiddish way of saying “observant.”) I wondered if I would ever be comfortable in my Jewish skin. Now I realize that discomfort is the hallmark of a ba’al teshuvah,andI celebrate that quality. It’s great for getting me to improve myself.
I can relate to the mindset of people who aren’t observant. I understand what it’s like to grow up with nebulous notions about G‑d and Judaism. Which is why I also understand how people might resist hearing about Moshiach. But as a ba’alat teshuvah, especially through Chabad, I also understand that redemption is an essential Jewish concept that will transform the world, and that learning Torah and doingI appreciate my observance mitzvahs can bring this time sooner. (As a woman, I appreciate how Moshiach’s arrival is likened to giving birth—to an almost 6,000-year-old baby, no less—with all the pain and focus that are necessary to complete the job.) I can even elucidate some of the harbingers of redemption (think global anxiety and circus politics) to anyone who’s interested in doing more to bring the redemption.
And when I say anyone, I mean any one. Because humankind’s good deeds are cumulative, and one more good deed is all it’s going to take. I’m not sure what that one good deed will be and when it will transform the world, but we’ll all know Moshiach when he comes. One thing’s for sure—the word ba’al teshuvah will take on a whole new meaning.
Lieba Rudolph lives in Pittsburgh, PA, and writes a weekly blog about Jewish spirituality.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Your Questions
Rosh Hashanah Is on the Wrong Day! The past of your life starts now by Tzvi Freeman
Hello Ask-The-Rabbi Rabbi,
Rosh Hashanah is on the wrong day. And that means there’s a serious mistake in the prayer book.
Every Rosh Hashanah, we say, “Today is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day.” So let me tell you something about the Jewish calendar: Rosh Hashanah is not “Happy Birthday, World!” It's the anniversary of the sixth day of creation. The Jewish calendar places creation at the 25th day of Elul, five days earlier!1
So what's up with this “beginning of Your works” and “remembrance of the first day?”—Rush H. Shawna
Hello Rush!
That's what happens when you hyper-complicate everything. Think straight and simple and everything works.
“Today is the beginning of Your works” doesn't meanIt’s not an anniversary. It means what it says: the beginning. As in “time starts now.” an anniversary. It means what it says: the beginning. As in “time starts now.”
“A remembrance of the first day” doesn't mean an anniversary celebration. It means a replay. As in “system reboot.”
And it's on the sixth day because the first time the world began, it began on the sixth day.
Okay, that part is not so simple. It might even sound nuts. But a lot of reality sounds nuts.
So let me explain:
The world didn’t really begin until the prototype human being became conscious and did its thing—which was on the sixth day. At that point, retroactively, the world had begun five days earlier—on the first day.
And that replays every year, on Rosh Hashanah. Every Rosh Hashanah, the world begins again, retroactively, from the first day.
Who Discovered the World?
So what did Human 1.0 do on its first day?
Here's how the Zohar tells the story.2 Zohar—right? Not to be taken at face value. Everything here has deep, metaphorical meaning. So think deep:
When Adam first stood on his feet, all the animals saw him and were in awe. They followed after him like servants following their king.
But then he said to them, as it says in Psalms,3 “Come, let us all bow down and thank G‑d, our maker.”
And they responded (also as in Psalms4), “G‑d is king!”
Meaning, the first Adam made three discoveries and one great accomplishment:
He discovered there was a world.
He discovered he didn't make this world.
He discovered there was something greater than him that did.
And he got the whole world to go along with his discoveries.
Now, you have to recognize, this was an enormous change in the world’s status. Because now it had a background. And nothing really exists until it has a background.
Take water. What makes water water? Only the fact that there are places where there is no water.
As one clever person put it, “We don't know who discovered water, but it certainly wasn't the fish.”
The fish have no background. They know of nothing but water. Therefore, fish do not know that water exists. Until they are flapping around without it. But that doesn’t last too long.
To put it another way: You can't recognize that something is until you can imagine it not being.You can't recognize the existence of a thing until you can experience or at least imagine its absence.
So if you would have asked one of those animals that was worshipping Adam, “How long has this world been around?” (let’s assume for now that there were some intelligent ones amongst them)—you would get nothing more than a blank stare. Because not only is there no concept yet of a beginning, there’s not even a concept of a world.
World As Art
But we know that we are inside a world. Which means that we have something inside us that somehow can conceive of not-world. It's called human intelligence.
When we engage that intelligence, the world resonates with our discovery. Because, in truth, every creature has a sense of wonder.
And that's when the world becomes a world.
What's so great about becoming a world? Because now it has meaning. It says something. It sings the wonders of its Creator. Every creature, every detail of it.
It becomes art.
If this change in status had been entirely Adam’s idea, it would not have affected the past. It would have been an epic event, a new dawn—leaving the old world behind in the dimness of twilight.
But that was not the case.
The world was originally meant to be a glorious work of art. It was only waiting for someone to recognize it for what it truly was. Because there is no art without an audience.Human consciousness is both the audience and the punchline to existence. Without some observer to applaud, and say, “This is magnificent! I'm in awe! What art! What an Artist!”
To get it.
You know those stories where a punchline at the end turns the meaning of every detail around, forcing you to go back and re-read the whole thing?
That’s what Adam provided. He made the previous five days of creation into a whole new story.
Waking Up
So we are Adam. And we go through that story of the Zohar every morning.
Each one of us wakes up each morning believing that “I just am. Things just are. Why are there things? Because I am here.”
None of us can imagine a world without us. You and I, we each see ourself as the center of everything. We wake up to a world that worships us.
As in:
“Mommy, before I was born, were there birthday parties?”
“Yes dear.”
“And did they have birthday cakes?”
“Certainly.”
“And birthday gifts?”
“Of course!”
“What a waste!”
You laugh—but that's every one of us, the raw human being.
It's only once we engage our brains, we realize, “That's ridiculous. There's a world out there. There doesn't have to be a world, but there is. And it's not here because I'm here—because I didn't make it.”
“Which means I'm inside something greater than me. Something that grants me consciousness and life.”
“Which means I must have purpose, and my life has meaning.”
At which point the world begins to be. A whole world that was here before you were ever born also now comes to have been.And a whole world that was here before you were ever born also now comes to have been.
Because you discover what it was here for in the first place. It's here as a piece of glorious art, so that you will discover its Artist. It’s a whole new story.
The Big Morning
That's every morning. Which is why we have to meditate and pray every morning. Doesn't matter that you did it yesterday—today you have a new consciousness, you are a new person, and your world has to be rebooted once again.
But Rosh Hashanah, when the shofar is blown, that's the Big Morning. It's a replay of the very first morning of the first human consciousness.
The Ari (great Kabbalist, 16th century) taught that every year, a new packet of time, energy, life and consciousness is allotted for that year alone. As Rosh Hashanah enters, that packet recedes back to its origin. Time itself is absorbed back into the nothingness. All that remains is just enough life to sustain basic system functions.
And then, as the shofar is blown, a new life enters. A new state of consciousness. A new energy. And even a new continuum of time.
Meaning that even the past is renewed.
The past of this coming Rosh Hashanah is not the present you experience now. That will have disappeared, and a new past will be created.
And as on the very first Rosh Hashanah, we are the ones to decide just how real this new creation will be.
That's the whole judgment thing of Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, the real judge is you.It’s our judgment—how we see ourselves. And how we see our world.
Is our world a world?
Do our lives have meaning?
Is there wonder?
Maamar Zeh HaYom 5742. See Maamar Zeh Hayom 5741 for a proper understanding of this maamar.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription. FaceBook @RabbiTzviFreeman Periscope @Tzvi_Freeman .
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Our reader likely knows this from a comment of the Tosafot in Talmud Rosh Hashanah 8a. If he knew it from Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus 29, he would see that the source for the line in the High Holiday prayer book is right there. It’s found in a few other places, as well. There’s another opinion that the world was created on the 25th of the month of Adar. Some explain both are true, and the whole thing is much deeper than you can imagine. That’s for another time.
2.Zohar 1 221b. Ibid3 107b. Tikunei Zohar, tikun 496. The last line is from the version of the story in Pirke D’Rabbe Eliezer, chapter 11.
3.Psalms 95:6.
4.Psalms 93:1.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Your Questions
I Cannot Stop on Shabbat by Malkie Janowski
Question:
By far the most difficult commandment for me to keep is Shabbat. I never seem to get everything done in time on Friday, and can't just leave it alone as I should. Can you help me?
Answer:
I think this is really a challenge for us 21st century Americans, accustomed as we are to thinking that we need to hold the reins, taking control of every aspect of our lives. The idea that we should just stop—really stop—and let the world and the stock market and business and politicians continue on without us is simply foreign. We just don't think that way.
Here's a tidbit about Shabbat that lots of people don't know. Shabbat belongs to a category of mitzvahs called eidut, the Hebrew word for “testimony.” In other words, when we keep Shabbat, we are giving testimony about something. What exactly are we testifying to? The answer is found in the words we say in the kiddush blessing as we welcome Shabbat: G‑d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.
This testimony has a far more profound impact than simply imitating G‑d's behavior of “resting.” What our Shabbat observance affirms is our belief that not only did G‑d create the world many, many centuries ago, but that He remains its Creator, and continues creating and sustaining it at all times. And He can manage to do this without our help. On Shabbat, we step back, refrain from all creative activity, release our control of our piece of the world, and attest to the fact that G‑d is truly the only one in charge.
The fact that keeping Shabbat is hard for you means that you're really tuning in to what it's about. As you say, you can't seem to leave it alone. That's exactly it! When that struggle arises, grab ahold of that statement and make it a positive one. I will leave it alone and show G‑d that I trust He knows what He's doing, and that He's the One making it all happen. I can rest.
It's incredibly freeing.
Malkie Janowski is an accomplished educator who lives in Coral Springs, Florida. Mrs. Janowski is also a responder on Chabad.org's Ask the Rabbi team.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Story
The Returnee by Menachem Posner
The students of Rabbi Dov Ber, the great Maggid of Mezerich, prized the opportunity to serve their master. Thus, they developed a rotation, in which they each took a turn assisting their teacher.
It happened during the turn of Meilech, who would one day gain renown as Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk:
“Meilech,” called the Maggid from his room. “Do you hear"Do you hear what they are saying in heaven? what they are saying right now in heaven? The mitzvah to love a fellow Jew means that one must love a complete sinner exactly as one would a pristine tzaddik (righteous person).
“A tzaddik is able to arouse latent abilities that are hidden deep in the soul of another, thus enabling even a sinner to return to G‑d,” continued the Maggid. “The Chevraya Kadisha (Holy Brotherhood, a term used for the elite disciples of the Maggid) has the ability to arouse a complete sinner to return to G‑d.”
The following morning, Rabbi Elimelech shared this wondrous teaching with his fellows, who understood that they had their work cut out for them. They immediately set out to understand the Maggid’s words, each one offering his interpretation. During the course of the conversation, they shared stories and teachings of the sages on the subject of teshuvah (repentance).
Suddenly, the door opened and a stranger walked in. He stood for a few minutes, listening to their conversation, before shouting: “What are you doing, sitting around in a synagogue talking about Torah study and repentance? What is Torah? What is teshuvah?”
He then continued to berate them and laugh at their sincere discussions.
The men rose to pray with great fervor and copious sobs. They then recited Psalms together, allowing the inspired words of King David to express their desire to help others come closer to G‑d.
Unmoved, the man continued to scoff, calling them “batlanim” (“loafers”). Undeterred, they continued to display only kindness, telling him how every Jewish soul is"What is Torah? What isteshuva? infinitely precious in the eyes of G‑d.
Slowly but surely, their words had the desired effect, and the man turned his life around, becoming a pious and G‑d-fearing Jew.
This story, which was told by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, was preserved by Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli who heard it from his brother, Rabbi Elimelech, and related it to the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. (Sefer Hasichot 5700, Hebrew Edition, pp. 119-120)
Rabbi Menachem Posner serves as staff editor for Chabad.org.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Miriam’s Melt-in-Your-Mouth Rosh Hashanah Brisket by Miriam Szokovski
Somehow, brisket has become standard Rosh Hashanah fare across North America, so I would be remiss not to share my recipe as well as a few tips I’ve picked up along the way.
I’m no meat maven, but I’m learning, and the two most important things to consider when cooking brisket are:
Let the meat shine. Often people drown brisket in all kinds of bottled sauces, but I suggest saving that for cheaper cuts. Use spices, herbs and milder liquids to enhance the flavor of the brisket.
Patience, patience, patience! Cook the meat on a low temperature for a long time. Don’t try to rush it, or you’ll end up with hard, dry, chewy meat—not the pleasant, melt-in-your-mouth texture you were hoping for.
Now, on to specifics. Cut the onions in rounds, and put them on the bottom of a baking dish. Mix the paprika, garlic powder, chives and salt in a small bowl. Pat the spice rub all over both sides of the meat, until it can hold no more. Now put the brisket on top of the onions and into the oven at 400° F for 1 hour, uncovered.
Take it out and turn the oven down to 250° F. Pour ½ cup balsamic vinegar and ⅓ cup honey over the meat. It may look like not a lot of liquid, but the meat and onions both let out lots of juices, and you end up with plenty (as you can see in the pictures). Cover the pan tightly with foil and return to the oven. Cook for another 4 hours, until meat is fork tender—meaning a fork goes in with almost no resistance. Approximately once an hour take it out and turn the meat, so both sides get equally moist. (If you’re busy, you can skip the turning; just make sure to turn it once, about halfway through.) Cooking time will vary, depending on the size and thickness of your brisket, so make sure to use the fork test.
Once it’s ready, refrigerate the meat overnight, then remove from the sauce and cut into thin slices, against the grain. Return slices to the sauce and reheat in the oven or over a low flame on the stovetop when ready to serve. Freezes well. Serve with the sauce and onions.
Ingredients:
3 lb. first-cut brisket
2 tbsp. paprika
2 tbsp. garlic powder
2 tbsp. dried chives (optional)
1 tbsp. salt
2 large Spanish onions
½ cup balsamic vinegar
⅓ cup honey
Directions:
Slice the onions in rounds. Place them in the bottom of a baking dish.
Combine the paprika, garlic powder, chives and salt in a small bowl. Cover the brisket with the spice mixture. Pat it in gently until the meat can hold no more.
Place the meat on top of the onions and put it into the oven at 400° F for 1 hour.
Take the meat out, add the balsamic vinegar and honey, and cover the baking dish tightly. Lower the temperature to 250° F and cook for another 4 hours, until the meat is fork tender.
Refrigerate the meat until completely cold (preferably overnight), then cut in thin slices against the grain. Return the sliced meat to the sauce. Reheat in the oven, or over a low flame. Serve with the onions and sauce.
Yields: Approximately 40 thin slices.
Do you eat brisket on Rosh Hashanah? How do you cook it? Any special family recipes?
Miriam Szokovski is the author of the historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Rosh Hashanah Pavlova by Miriam Szokovski
In this Pavlova, three of the traditional Rosh Hashanah foods come together in a way that is sure to impress. The airy meringue shell is filled with honey-vanilla cream, topped with green apples and drizzled with pomegranate coulis.
Even better, there’s no need to hold the brisket! You can easily make this a non-dairy dessert.
Meringue Ingredients:
3 egg whites (from large eggs)
1 cup + 2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. corn starch
1 t vanilla
½ t vinegar
Meringue Directions:
Beat egg whites until stiff.
Mix the corn starch into the sugar.
Pour the sugar into the egg whites a little bit at a time while mixing. When the mixture is thick and stiff (ie. You should be able to turn the bowl upside down without the mixture falling out), add the vanilla and vinegar. Mix just enough to combine.
Line a cookie sheet with baking paper, and heat oven to 250 F.
Spoon the mixture into a circle, about 1 inch thick. Then build it up around the sides to create a bowl shape with a nice well in the center.
Bake for 1 hour, then turn the oven off and leave the shell inside for several hours. Do not open the door until it is fully cooled.
Keep the base in a cool, dry place for up to 2 days, until you’re ready to use it. It should be crisp on the outside and sticky and marshmallowy on the inside.
Filling Ingredients:
1.5 cups heavy cream (dairy) OR 8 oz. Rich’s Whip (non-dairy) OR 1.5 cups coconut cream (non-dairy).
2 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp. honey
Filling Directions:
Beat heavy cream until soft peaks form, or beat Rich’s Whip or coconut cream until stiff.
Gently mix in the honey and vanilla.
Pomegranate Coulis Ingredients:
Seeds of 1 pomegranate
¼ cup water
2 tbsp. sugar
Juice of ½ a lemon
Pomegranate Coulis Directions:
Simmer all the ingredients for at least half an hour.
Blend.
Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve at least twice.
Refrigerate.
To Assemble:
Spoon cream into the shell.
Chop up 1-2 tart green apples and lay them gently on top of the cream.
Drizzle with pomegranate coulis.
Serve immediately.
Miriam Szokovski is the author of the historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
Shimon Peres, 93, Proclaimed Centrality of Judaism to Israel and the Jewish People by Menachem Posner
Shimon Peres, who served in a variety of political and defense positions before and after Israel’s founding, and who later in life became the nation’s ninth president and the world’s oldest head of state, passed away in Tel Aviv at the age of 93. Here Peres writes a letter in a new Torah in Belweder, Poland, accompanied by Rabbi Shalom DovBer Stambler, left, director of Chabad Lubavitch of Poland, and Rabbi Levi Stambler, director of the Jewish Community of Dneprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine.
Shimon Peres, the often controversial Israeli leader who served in a variety of political and defense positions from before Israel’s founding, and who later in life became the nation’s ninth president and the world’s oldest head of state, passed away today in Tel Aviv following complications from a stroke. He was 93 years old.
An influential force in Israeli political life, Peres stood apart from many of his fellow secular Zionists who sought to jettison traditional Judaism from the fledgling state. Born to a noted rabbinic family in pre-war Poland, throughout his life Peres considered Torah, its mitzvahs and faith in G‑d to be the very foundations of the Jewish people. It was a conviction that was reinforced, expanded and deepened after meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—later in life.
Born Shimon Perski in 1923 in Visnieva, Poland, Peres proudly related that he was conceived only after his parents—Yitzchak Getzel, a wealthy timber merchant, and Sarah, a volunteer librarian—had sought a blessing for children from a Chassidic rebbe.
As a young boy, Shimon was deeply influenced by his maternal grandfather, Torah scholar Tzvi Hirsh Meltzer, who taught him Talmud daily and whose heartfelt prayers, he would relate, motivated him to pray with great devotion.
In 1934, his family migrated to British Mandate Palestine, settling in Tel Aviv. During an emotional farewell at the train station, Meltzer held his grandson tight. “My child, be a Jew!” he pleaded. In 1942, the rabbi was murdered by the Nazis, defiantly wearing his tallit as he marched ahead of his community to his death inside a burning synagogue.
Peres grew up quickly and his eloquent writing and speeches attracted the attention of Labor Zionist founder Berl Katznelson and Zionist Labor organizer David Ben-Gurion, who later became the modern State of Israel’s first prime minister. The two appointed him to the secretariat of Mapai, an Israeli Socialist party.
In 1945, Peres married Sonia Gellman, a mitzvah-observant Jew. The couple settled in Kibbutz Alumot and went on to have three children: Tzvia Valdan, a doctor of philology; Yoni Peres, a veterinarian; and Nehemiah Peres, an engineer, founder and managing partner of a venture capital fund.
Peres at Lubavitch World Headquarters; he sought the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s guidance over the years on numerous issues.
Peres was recruited by the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces, and tasked with special assignments involving personnel, defensive acquisitions and military research. He was later appointed head of the naval service. After the 1948 War of Independence, he was appointed head of the Ministry of Defense delegation to the United States.
Upon his return to Israel in 1952, at age 29, he was appointed by Ben-Gurion as director general of the defense ministry. Among his accomplishments were strong ties with the French and German political and military establishments, as well as the creation of Israel’s nuclear program.
As a result of his sincere respect for traditional Judaism, Peres was sometimes dispatched by Ben-Gurion to work with rabbinic leaders on crucial matters like the deferment of military service foryeshivah students. Years later, Peres recalled to his close friend, journalist David Landau, that when he was discussing the matter “with the venerable rabbis, I felt like I was sitting with my grandfather.”
Peres at Lubavitch World Headquarters, waiting for his audience with the Rebbe.
“I had reverence toward these people,” Peres said, “I didn’t sit with them to haggle.” Peres said he was impressed by their "very cogent [argument that] throughout the Diaspora period even the czars and other rulers had facilitated the existence of yeshivot. ‘Did I want all the yeshivot to be abroad?’ I thought this was a powerful argument.”
As a result, an agreement was reached in which full-time yeshivah students would enter the military at age 25 for a brief three-month induction, followed by reserve duty.
In 1959, he entered politics under the banner of Mapai. After he was elected to the Knesset, he was appointed by Ben-Gurion as deputy to the Minister of Defense, serving in this capacity for six years.
Peres went on to serve as a member of the Knesset for 48 years—the longest term of service in the history of the Israeli parliament. He served as a minister in 12 different cabinets and served twice as prime minister (1984-86, 1995-96). His portfolios include deputy minister of defense (1959-1965), minister of defense (1974-77, 1995-96), foreign minister (1986-88, 2001-02) and treasury minister (1988-1990).
Correspondence from the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory
Encounters With the Rebbe
Like so many other leaders among Israel’s secular political, military, scientific, financial and educational establishment, Peres sought the advice and blessing of the Rebbe. He traveled twice to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn for face-to-face meetings with the Rebbe, and wrote numerous letters and sent in-person intermediaries to consult on sensitive matters that to this day remain classified.
During their first meeting, in 1966, some 15 months before the Six-Day War, the Rebbe alerted Peres to his view of the impending Egyptian threat and his opinion that it could be solved by focusing Israel’s efforts on Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser. Peres described the meeting, which lasted for more than an hour, as something he had waited for with significant anticipation.
After the war, Peres was among the generals and other notables pictured in tefillin, thus giving expression to what the Rebbe worked to become a national phenomenon—thanksgiving to G‑d in recognition of His miraculous deliverance during the war, as opposed to Israel’s becoming lost in euphoric and hubristic overconfidence in the wake of victory.
By the time he came to the Rebbe again in 1970 as Minister of Transportation and Communications in Golda Meir’s Labor Party government, the Rebbe had repeatedly and publicly expressed his opinion that post-Six-Day War attempts to offer militarily strategic areas of land in exchange for vague promises of peace was a dangerous, even suicidal, approach to peacemaking and would, G‑d forbid, only bring more bloodshed in its wake in Israel and spur terrorism in other parts of the world. Peres, as is known, favored a romantic approach, hoping that Israel’s overtures would somehow spur its declared enemies to act peacefully.
Reciting a blessing over the lulav and etrog in Israel during Sukkot.
Yet Peres knew that despite the Rebbe’s grave and fundamental disagreement with his approach, he would always be available for strategic counsel related to Israel’s own well-being as well as to help assure the success of its missions for safekeeping Jews across the globe.
In an interview with JEM’s “My Encounter With the Rebbe,” Peres recalled that the Rebbe discussed with him issues pertaining to Jewish identity in Israel, including many specifics regarding the Russian émigrés who were beginning to arrive there from the Soviet Union, and a host of other subjects.
The Rebbe underscored to Peres the importance of educating Israel’s populace, especially the young, about Judaism and its age-old traditions, and ensuring that this infuses the very character of Israel. Addressing Peres’s opportunity and responsibility as communications minister, “the Rebbe told me that we need to apply modern communication—which then meant radio, telephone and television—as vehicles for Jewish education,” according to Peres.
Recalling that meeting, Peres said that the Rebbe “foresaw what the future bode with the same clarity with which he discerned the present. He understood very well our immediate security challenges, yet was also determined to meet the future, by investing in education.”
Along those lines, Peres said the Rebbe “engaged in both our present and our future with the same urgency, because they dare not be separated. He felt that any gap between them invites sure danger.”
He went on to say that the Rebbe was “unique in how he fused the spiritual and the practical.”
Inspecting a historic Torah scroll with Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar.
The national Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, whose correspondent covered the Peres visit to Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, recorded in its Feb. 13, 1970 edition a far simpler reaction by Peres. Upon leaving the Rebbe’s wood-paneled study, the paper reported, Peres exclaimed: “He is the greatest human being I’ve ever met. His is true greatness!”
Characteristically, the Rebbe’s concern extended to the entire family. Following that meeting, the Rebbe wrote a letter to Sonia Peres, acknowledging the note she had sent with her husband, thanking her for her heartfelt good wishes, and providing her with the blessings she had requested for the couple and their children.
The Rebbe also replied in writing to Peres’ elderly father, describing his pleasure from meeting his son personally and discussing with him weighty matters of significant importance, and expressing his hope that their discussion would lead to concrete action.
In 1984, when Peres wrote to the Rebbe to inform him of the details of his ascension to the premiership in a power-sharing agreement with Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud Party, as well as to request the Rebbe’s blessing for success in his new position and for the new year, the Rebbe replied fairly succinctly, and then added a long postscript.
Donning tefillin in 1985
The Rebbe reminded Peres that 1.) during their meeting nearly 15 years earlier, he had proudly told the Rebbe that he, Peres, was born after his parents had turned to a righteous person (a Chassidic rebbe) for a blessing; and 2.) that Peres had responded to the Rebbe’s concern about some very grave issues at the time, “Der Aibershter vet zicher helfen” (“the One Above will surely help”).
The Rebbe thus urged him to fulfill his role in a manner that would satisfy the rebbe who had blessed his parents, and in a manner that would elicit G‑d’s blessing now, which is surely the way of Torah—called the “Torah of Life”—and its mitzvahs.
Despite the chasm in their approach to Israel’s security, the Rebbe’s exhortations to Peres about Jewish education continued to influence him, and he implemented and supported numerous programs aimed at furthering Jewish education throughout the state. He also frequently helped Chabad in Israel in its work spreading Judaism to soldiers and many others.
It is perhaps as a result of his deep respect for the Rebbe that Peres remained particularly close to a number of Chabad Chassidim in Israel throughout the decades. One close friend was the longtime mayor of Kfar Chabad, Rabbi Shlomo Madanchik, who would visit the Peres home often, bearing a lulav andetrog on Sukkot, reading the full Megillah for him and his wife on Purim, handing out shmurah matzah for Passover and throughout the year, regularly updating the Peres family with information about the weekly Torah portion and the like.
Peres shakes the lulav with Rabbi Schneur Goodman of Ashdod, Israel, circa 1979.
‘Without Sinai, What Meaning Does Life Have?’
In 1990, Peres spearheaded the left-led effort to take down the Shamir government in protest of Shamir’s refusal to negotiate with Palestinian representatives. Peres succeeded in convincing enough parliamentarians to support him in a no-confidence vote, and the Shamir government fell.
Efforts by Peres to form a new government, however, were stymied by two members of parliament from the Agudat Yisrael Party, who refused to attend the vote in which the proposed new Peres-led government would be approved.
They were largely seen as acting out of respect to the Rebbe’s well-known position about the mortal danger to Israel of territorial concession in exchange for promises of peace.
“To my sorrow,” he later reflected, “the Chabad movement did not support me politically, but I still treasure the Rebbe’s outstanding leadership and tremendous impact.”
On the third of Tammuz, in 1994, while Peres was serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister, the Rebbe passed away. Soon afterward he wrote a public, heartfelt letter focusing on the Rebbe’s intimate involvement in Jewish affairs all over the globe. Peres wrote, “In the places where danger lurked for Jewish people, his emissaries risked their lives to fulfill his secret missions to save Jews—in Soviet Russia, in Islamic lands and in many other lands. It is in his merit that the Jewish embers have been preserved in those places.”
Commenting on the Rebbe’s humility and genuine interest in every individual, he described the Rebbe as the embodiment of Hillel’s teaching to “love people and bring them close to Torah,” and “The legacy that he bequeathed was a love of Jews as they are, and the constant search to find that which united him and others.”
With Rabbi Lazar at the 2012 opening of the Russian Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow
His final term as prime minister began in November 1995, after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. But he was ousted only half a year later in the aftermath of the Oslo accords.
In 2007, at the age of 83, Peres was elected to serve as the ninth president of Israel.
In that role, he traveled to Jewish communities around the globe and experienced firsthand the manifold work of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries. But he took particular pleasure in seeing the rebirth of Judaism through its length and breadth, marveling at the manifestation of the Rebbe’s vision as well as the flourishing of the Rebbe’s decades-long clandestine work there.
“I see you, the shluchim of Chabad in many places around the world, among them remote, forsaken and hostile places,” he said in a 2013 message he videotaped and sent to the shluchim. “You aremitzvah messengers of the Rebbe—of his desire that the Jewish people continue and be sustained as a nation.”
By the time he retired in 2014, he was the oldest head of state in the world.
Just a few months ago, before he was felled by a stroke from which he never fully recovered, Peres reflected on the essence of the Jewish people, asserting that a nation defined only by memories of the Holocaust and the creation of a secular Zionist state cannot sustain itself.
“Without Sinai, what meaning does life have?” he asked rhetorically.
Shimon Peres was predeceased by his wife in 2011. In addition to his three children, he is survived by eight grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
Peres visiting the Chabad Yeshiva in Lod, Israel
In Lod, Israel© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
Independent Study Charts Chabad’s Transformative Long-Term Impact During and After College by Dovid Margolin
A groundbreaking study of Chabad-Lubavitch's impact on university campuses throughout the United States was released this week, the first time that independent researchers have systematically examined the movement's impact on students. The independent study was commissioned by the Hertog Foundation. (Photo: Dovid Birk)
A groundbreaking study of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s impact on university campuses throughout the United States was released today, the first time that independent researchers have systematically examined Chabad’s transformative impact on students during and after college.
Commissioned and funded by the Hertog Foundation in New York, the study was conducted by noted social scientists Dr. Mark I. Rosen and Dr. Steven M. Cohen, along with Arielle Levites and Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz. Over a period of three years, they analyzed survey data from more than 2,400 alumni under the age of 30 and conducted extensive in-person interviews with students, parents, faculty, university officials, and local Chabad and Hillel leaders at 22 campus Chabad centers. The Hertog Study of Chabad on Campus gauges Chabad’s post-college impact according to 18 different measures of Jewish engagement, and details the means and methods that produce that engagement.
According to Cohen, research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford University, the study is a pivotal one: “In the context of American Jewry’s legitimate concern for its Jewish future, this is a vital study that’s coming at the right time.”
The study reveals that Chabad on campus is having a significant and lasting effect on the long-term Jewish engagement of students from all backgrounds.
The data indicates that “students’ involvement with Chabad on campus has a very strong impact on their Jewish lives after college,” states Rosen, associate professor and director of field-experience programs at the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University and the lead author of the study. “The impact is across the board, and is actually strongest for those who were raised Reform or unaffiliated.”
The study reported that those raised Reform who were active with Chabad had a 113 percent increase in their overall engagement compared to their counterparts who hadn’t been active with Chabad during college—2.13 times higher. For students raised with what they termed “no denomination,” Jewish engagement was 107 percent higher, and those raised Conservative measured 63 percent higher than students not active with Chabad.
Many Students From Unaffiliated Homes
Dr. Mark I. Rosen of Brandeis University
From USC and Arizona State to Harvard and Yale, campus Chabad centers have sprung up at nearly every American institution of higher education with Jewish students. The Chabad centers are directed by Chassidic couples who by appearance stand out among the college crowd—the rabbi sporting a beard, his spouse and co-director modestly dressed, both with young children in tow.
The study empirically confirms that the large numbers of young Jews attracted to Chabad centers on campus hail overwhelmingly from backgrounds very different than those of the emissaries who influence them. The study found that 88 percent of Chabad on campus attendees do not come from Orthodox homes, with a significant portion not affiliated at all. Those unaffiliated are described by the study as “usually the most difficult group for most Jewish organizations to attract and engage.”
“It’s counterintuitive that they would show up at all,” says Rosen.
Cohen, a seasoned researcher who has been studying the Jewish community for decades, points out that some within the broader Jewish community have been under the assumption that “to reach young Jews who are distant, you need other Jews who are distant to attract them.
“[But what] we’re seeing here is that you do not have to be assimilated to reach other assimilated Jews. In fact, Chabad shows that it’s actually better to be engaged and Jewishly learned to succeed.”
And though this population “is clearly hard to reach,” Cohen adds, once engaged with Chabad, “they travel far.”
Dr. Steven M. Cohen, director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford University
Long-Term Connection
So what actually draws students to check out Chabad at college?
The Hertog report reveals that the first encounter is often the result of a friend’s recommendation to join Chabad’s plentiful Friday-night Shabbat meals or convivial holiday programs, where they are warmly welcomed to what alumni described as a “homey” atmosphere. It’s also fun.
The social scene on Friday night was variously described by students as “cool, fun, hip, lively, vibrant, and exciting,” states the study.
But what keeps them coming back afterward is “personally connecting with the rabbi or rebbetzin in some fashion,” says Rosen, author of several books and numerous publications, including an important study of the campus Hillel organization.
The study finds that it is the “extraordinary level of concern” shown by the emissaries toward each individual that establishes the students’ “foundation for Jewish growth.”
That personal care, Rosen says, affects pivotal life decisions by students, such as dating and marrying Jewish.
Other ways in which the impact was measured include a belief in G‑d, post-college participation in Jewish learning, an emotional attachment to Israel and donating to Jewish causes.
The report reveals that first encounters with Chabad on campus are often the result of a friend’s recommendation, where they are warmly welcomed to what alumni describe as a “homey” atmosphere. And what is warmer than Havdalah? (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
Strong Roots, New Growth
Chabad-Lubavitch’s work on American college campuses stretches back to the 1940s and `50s, when the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, and his successor, the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—sent rabbinical students to campuses to serve as resources for Jewish students.
The Rebbe also spent many hours meeting personally with Hillel student groups and individual students, answering their existential questions and guiding them in their campus challenges, always urging them towards greater Jewish observance and pride. He also counseled Jewish organizations on creative ways to engage campus students Jewishly.
Chabad centers nationwide traditionally dedicated significant attention to student outreach. In the late 1960s, however, the movement also began establishing permanent student-focused centers near major American academic institutions across the United States.
The last decade-and-a-half has seen extraordinary growth in the number of Chabad centers and the percentage of Jewish students impacted nationwide. In 2000, Chabad had 30 student-dedicated centers nationwide; today, in large part due to significant pioneering investments made by philanthropist George Rohr and his family over the last 16 years, 198 U.S. campuses are served by student-dedicated Chabad Houses (of a total 235 permanent student centers worldwide), and Chabad is a regular presence on more than 400 universities around the globe. That number continues to grow, with several in the pipeline at any given time.
One eyewitness to the growth and evolution of Chabad on campus has been Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, co-director of Lubavitch House at the University of Pennsylvania and president of Chabad on Campus International, the umbrella organization for campus-based Chabad work. He and his wife, Chava, founded the campus Chabad House in 1980 and just recently celebrated extensive new renovations on the building.
“When we first came to Penn, people really didn’t know what to make of us,” says Schmidt. “Today, a student might come to Penn while his or her friends are at the University of Michigan, Stanford, or Miami, and they’ll all share their respective experiences at the Chabad Torah class or challah bake or ‘Shabbat 1000.’ That’s a big change from 36 years ago.
“But the foundational approach of what we do on campus hasn’t changed at all,” says the rabbi. “Making personal connections, forming friendships, being there in a student’s time of need and sharing the treasures of Judaism—all of which come directly from the Rebbe’s teachings and example—remain very much the same.”
Torah classes, one-on-one study, the Sinai Scholars program and other Jewish learning opportunities are available to students and led by Chabad. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
Creating a Welcoming Environment
The impetus to study Chabad’s effect on campus did not originate from the movement. That came from investor and philanthropist Roger Hertog, president of the Hertog Foundation and chairman of the Tikvah Fund.
Hertog says he long wondered about “the efficacy, the value of the impact on students coming to Chabad Houses.” Conversations with Chabad on campus leadership eventually led him to engaging researchers to systematically gather and evaluate data about its work on campus.
Almost four years later, Hertog notes that what surprises him most is that “Chabad is able to reach across lines and create a welcoming environment for young people, and then get them interested in learning more.”
“I think it will make the donors and all the people involved proud of what they’re doing,” says Hertog.
The researchers found that the higher the level of participation in Chabad, the higher the frequency of post-college Jewish learning for those raised with no affiliation, Reform and Conservative. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
George Rohr, who serves as chairman of the board of advisers of Chabad on Campus International, concurs.
“Over the years,” says Rohr, “many friends from across the denominational spectrum who have college-age children have asked me questions like ‘Why is my cool, independent, fun-loving, intellectually curious child at XYZ college so attracted by this couple who appear to be so different than him or her?’ This study answers those questions.”
Examining the factors that contribute to Chabad’s success, the authors delved deeply into the goals and modus operandi of the campus emissaries. They explored how emissaries encourage students to adopt Jewish practices, assessing whether they are in any way coercive; they examined Chabad’s approach to the public role of women, emissaries’ overall compatibility with college populations, their relationships with college administrations, their budgets and fundraising responsibilities, and their opinions on the role of Hillel on their campuses.
The researchers discovered what they describe as the emissaries’ “complete acceptance” of students, and how despite their “scrupulous and unwavering personal observance” they “do not consider students who do not follow these practices to be any less Jewish [than they are], and they do not impose these practices upon them.”
This and a series of traits and behaviors, including intellectual and spiritual depth, authenticity, modeling a strong personal example while demonstrating a flexible, personalized approach to each student converge to form a deeply resonant experience for the student—one that has a powerful and long-lasting impact on his or her life.
Putting up a sukkah on campus (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
“There are many external things—great food, warmly greeting people—that are practiced elsewhere, too,” explains Rosen. “But there’s a lot that Chabad does that is not easily replicated: The dedication, devotion and commitment of the rabbis and rebbetzins in both their work and personal lives. The way their entire family is involved. The Talmudic wisdom. The Chassidic teachings. The teachings of the Rebbe. Can you take a few ingredients and apply them? Sure. But can you bake a cake without all of the ingredients?”
Hertog says that he is particularly taken by the study’s portrayal of female Chabad emissaries, with whom students often forge deeper bonds even than with the rabbi. “Her role is unheralded in the Jewish world in how giving she is,” states Hertog. “Given all she does as a mother caring for her children, often cooking for very large numbers of people, and on top of that, to have students coming in at all hours of the day, every day, and to engage with them. That’s a pretty impressive finding.”
Rosen says that the biggest surprise for him was “how long so many students stay in touch with their campus Chabad representatives after college. Generally, few students stay in touch with their college faculty after they graduate. But 60 percent—that’s three out of five students—were in touch with the Chabad rabbi or his wife during the previous 12 months. You keep your rabbi and rebbetzin after college. That’s quite remarkable.”
“It’s gratifying that this landmark study confirms empirically what many of us have long known instinctively,” says Rohr. ”The reason behind Chabad’s success on campus is the utterly selfless dedication and hard work of every single emissary—both the husbands and the wives—and their unconditional love for each student. Their sincerity and self-sacrifice is incredibly compelling to students, and their warmth allows these students—whether or not they agree with the emissaries on a variety of subjects—to form lasting and rewarding relationships with them.”
Chabad emissaries see one of their most important roles as opening up their homes to Jewish students and modeling observant Jewish family life for them. Young children are active and involved in Chabad events. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
History and Continuity
Both Rosen and Cohen say the Hertog study is an important report to be read by people who care about the future of the American Jewish community and Jewish continuity. Professor Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., agrees, saying the findings point to a changed atmosphere on campus.
“Go back a generation ago to when Yitz Greenberg wrote about universities as the death knell of Judaism. You had Jewishly committed students who were going to college and leaving their Judaism behind,” explains Sarna, a leading Jewish historian and author of American Judaism: A History, and most recently, of Lincoln and the Jews. In this study, “we see today’s students coming to college uninterested in Jewish life and become turned on to it, rather than the reverse.”
Sarna believes that the effects of the life-long investment of the Chabad campus emissaries will be increasingly felt throughout the Jewish world.
Many students are introduced to tefillin and have the opportunity to don them, assisted by rabbis and oftentimes their own peers. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
Reciting prayers over candles before Shabbat (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
“Chabad rabbis are there to stay forever,” he says, “so they develop a history and continuity with the institution. They’re there for the long haul. With so many of the Chabad centers relatively new now, we’ll likely see a yet far larger Chabad impact 20 years from now.”
Echoing Sarna’s projections, Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of Chabad on Campus International, says: “This news bodes well for the Jewish future.”
All told, Chabad’s work both on campus and in communities around the world stems directly from what Hertog calls “the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s big idea.”
“The Rebbe had a big goal, a vision, to look and see something in every Jew, no matter how observant they are,” he says. “Sending [religious] young men and women [and their families] to cities or campuses not only around the United States but all over the world, that is a profoundly big idea. That you can bring Jewish people closer to Judaism and that each person has something to offer, that’s an idea that is alive today as it was when the Rebbe was alive, and will continue on.”
Male students tend to form close relationships with the rabbis, while female students develop strong bonds with their wives. The data shows that these relationships continue long after college is over. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
The data also suggests that those with moderate and high levels of participation in Chabad come closer to the mainstream Jewish community in the post-college years. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
Challah-making is a popular activity on campus, a skill that emissaries hope women take with them when they leave college and eventually start families of their own. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
The likely impact of involvement with Chabad during college is pervasive, affecting a broad range of Jewish attitudes and behaviors. These include religious beliefs and practices, Jewish friendships and learning, communal involvement, dating and marriage, an emotional attachment to Israel and the importance of being Jewish. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
It’s Official: There’s a Chabad House in Normal, Illinois by Menachem Posner, Chabad.edu
The Telsner children send a clear message: Home is now Illinois State University.
Surrounded by an endless sea of golden cornfields, Normal, Ill. (and its sister city of Bloomington) has a zoo, a sports coliseum, state university, city hall, airport, and now, a brand-new Chabad House.
“I’m more than excited about this,” says Jacob Levin, a native of Northbrook, Ill., who also serves as vice president and secretary of the local Hillel House. “We’ve been talking about some of the services that Chabad can offer, and I’m really looking forward to being involved.”
Rabbi Chaim and Rochel Telsner are relocating with their three children to Normal, where they will serve the Jewish student population at Illinois State University (ISU), founded in 1857.
There are as many as 1,000 Jewish students at ISU; Levin estimates that about 5 percent of them are engaged in Hillel activities. The school has a total population of roughly 20,000 students.
The town took its unusual (or perhaps usual) name from the university, which was then called a “Normal School,” the standard term for teachers’ colleges.
Despite its less-than-exciting ring, Rabbi Telsner, who is originally from London, notes that he and his wife “really took to the vibe of the place, which is nice and colorful—just what you’d like to see in a college town.”
Normal (which sits 130 perfectly flat miles from Chicago) will now be the fourth city in Central and Southern Illinois to have a Chabad House, following Champaign (U of I), Peoria (Bradley University) and Carbondale (SIU).
Rabbi Chaim Telsner has info (and items) at the ready about programs on campus.
‘Getting the Word Out’
The Telsners were previously CTeen directors in Rochel’s hometown of Skokie, Ill., and have extensive experience providing guidance and programing for young adults.
The Telsner family
“We are very grateful to Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky [vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement], Chabad on Campus International and the Rohr Family Foundation for helping us make this new Chabad House a reality,” says Rabbi Meir Moscowitz, regional director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois. “My father, Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, of blessed memory, began with one Chabad House at Northwestern University in 1978, and things have been growing exponentially ever since.”
The Telsners plan to kick off the year with a barbecue dinner that will serve as a “welcome back” event for students and a general welcome for the new Chabad. The couple hopes to be fully open for business in time for Sukkot.
With a new crop of incoming freshman, the couple has their work cut out for them.
“Our first point of business will be to get to know the students,” says Rochel Telsner. “We have lots of ideas of programs and services, but first we’ll focus on making friends and getting the word out. Everything else will follow.”
The town of Normal, Ill., looking east on North Street, with its historic theater in front. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Watterson Towers, a high-rise student dormitory at ISU (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
A Grand Day for Angola Jews, Complete With a New Torah by Karen Schwartz
Rabbi Dovid Cohen of Montreal, Canada, puts the finishing touches on a Torah scroll for the Angolan Jewish community. A Hachnasat Sefer Torah celebration, or welcoming of a Torah scroll to its new home, was followed by dinner and live music. (Photo: Israel Bardugo)
Chabad Lubavitch of Angola celebrated its grand opening on Sunday and welcomed a Torah written specifically for their community. About 150 people gathered midday for ribbon-cutting ceremonies for both the building and the synagogue, and also watched as mezuzahs were affixed to the new spaces and plaques were unveiled, dedicated to the founders.
Government officials, residents and guests attended, in addition to a number of philanthropists, including Jacob Karako, Ouriel Mansour, Elazar Benjamin and Haim Taib. Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, executive director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Central Africa, flew in from Kinshasa, Congo, for the festivities.
Chabad of Angola is directed by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Devorah Leah Chekly, who moved there with their young daughter a year-and-half-ago. The Cheklys, who speak French, Hebrew and English, have been reaching out to the estimated 300 Jewish families living full-time in Angola, in addition to visitors. Initially housed in a small apartment, the family will now move into the three-story villa and workspace.
“It’s bigger and can cater to more people,” says Bentolila. “And it makes it very clear that we’re here to stay.”
In the evening, the group reconvened at the Epic Sana Hotel in Luanda—the country’s capital and largest city—to put the finishing touches on a new Torah with the help of sofer (scribe) Rabbi Dovid Cohen of Montreal, Canada. The Hachnasat Sefer Torah celebration, or welcoming of a Torah scroll to its new home, was followed by dinner and live music.
Angola draws businesspeople from around the world—men and women who come for a week, a month or longer, sometimes with families in tow. Whether they are looking to pray, learn or simply connect, the social hall and synagogue will offer the room needed for spiritual activities, classes, holiday programs, life-cycle events, consultations with the rabbi and more.
“They’re doing a great job bringing people together,” says Bentolila of the young couple, who typically draw 50 to 60 people a week to Shabbat services and meals.
At the podium, Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, executive director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Central Africa, flew in from Kinshasa, Congo, for the festivities. (Photo: Israel Bardugo)
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Chekly, co-director of Chabad of Angola with his wife, Devorah Leah, welcomes the crowd at the grand opening of the new building and synagogue. (Photo: Israel Bardugo)
Bentolila is marking a significant milestone of his own.
Twenty-five years ago, in 1991, he moved to Africa as an emissary of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to open Chabad-Lubavitch of Central Africa in the Congo as the headquarters for countries with small Jewish communities throughout Africa. “Our task,” he says (referring to the collective work of emissaries there, including his wife, Miriam), “is to bring light to all the Jews in our communities in Africa—to bring light and warmth to those Jews who for some reason come for work. Angola is part of our mission.”
He hopes to see the Chabad House there continue to thrive: “I’m looking forward to the day the new space becomes too small. Then we will need to expand even more.”
(Photo: Israel Bardugo)
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Chabad of Angola co-directors Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Devorah Leah Chekly, with their daughter (Photo: Israel Bardugo)
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(Photo: Israel Bardugo)© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber
This Week's Features
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What Is Rosh Hashanah?The anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, a day of judgment and coronation, the sounding of the shofar . . .
Rosh Hashanah
What Is Rosh Hashanah?
What: It is the birthday of the universe, the day G‑d created Adam and Eve, and it’s celebrated as the head of the Jewish year.
When: The first two days of the Jewish year, Tishrei 1 and 2, beginning at sundown on the eve of Tishrei 1 (check out this year’s date).
How: Candle lighting in the evenings, festive meals with sweet delicacies during the night and day, prayer services that include the sounding of the ram’s horn (shofar) on both mornings, and desisting from creative work.
Why Rosh Hashanah Is Important
Rosh Hashanah means “Head of the Year.” Just like the head controls the body, our actions on Rosh Hashanah have a tremendous impact on the rest of the year.As we read in the Rosh Hashanah prayers, each year on this day “all inhabitants of the world pass before G‑d like a flock of sheep,” and it is decreed in the heavenly court “who shall live, and who shall die ... who shall be impoverished and who shall be enriched; who shall fall and who shall rise.”
It is a day of prayer, a time to ask the Almighty to grant us a year of peace, prosperity and blessing. But it is also a joyous day when we proclaim G‑d King of the Universe. The Kabbalists teach that the continued existence of the universe depends on G‑d’s desire for a world, a desire that is renewed when we accept His kingship anew each year on Rosh Hashanah.
What’s It Called?
● The most common name for this holiday is Rosh Hashanah, the name used in the eponymous tractate of Talmud devoted to the holiday.
● The Torah refers to this day as Yom Teruah (Day of Shofar Blowing).1
● In our prayers, we often call it Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance) and Yom Hadin (Day of Judgement) since this is the day when G‑d recalls all of His creations and determines their fate for the year ahead.
First Priority: Hear the Shofar
The central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, on both mornings of the holiday (except if the first day is Shabbat, in which case we blow the shofar only on the second day).The first 30 blasts of the shofar are blown following the Torah reading during morning services, and as many as 70 are then blown during (and immediately after) the Musaf service. Many communities listen to 100 blasts over the course of the Rosh Hashanah morning services. For someone who cannot come to synagogue, the shofar may be blown the rest of the day. If you cannot make it out, please contact your closest Chabad center to see about arranging a “house call.”
The shofar blowing contains a series of three types of blasts: tekiah, a long sob-like blast; shevarim, a series of three short wails; and teruah, at least nine piercing staccato bursts.
(Read more about the shofar blasts, here.)
The blowing of the shofar represents the trumpet blast that is sounded at a king’s coronation. Its plaintive cry also serves as a call to repentance. The shofar itself recalls the Binding of Isaac, an event that occurred on Rosh Hashanah in which a ram took Isaac’s place as an offering to G‑d. (Read more on the reasons for shofar here.)
Other Rosh Hashanah Observances
Greetings: When you meet a fellow Jew on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, wish him, “Leshana tovah tikatev v’tichatem” or, for a female,“Leshana tovah tikatevee v’tichatemee” (“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year”). Afterward, wish them a “G’mar chatimah tovah” (“A good inscription and sealing [in the Book of Life]”). (More on the Rosh Hashanah greetings here.)Candles: As with every major Jewish holiday, women and girls light candles on each evening of Rosh Hashanah and recite the appropriate blessings. On the second night, make sure to use an existing flame and think about a new fruit that you will be eating (or garment that you are wearing) while you say the Shehechiyanu blessing. Click here for candle lighting times in your area and herefor the blessings.
Tashlich: On the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah (provided that it is not Shabbat), it is customary to go to a body of water (ocean, river, pond, etc.) and perform the Tashlich ceremony, in which we ceremonially cast our sins into the water. With this tradition we are symbolically evoking the verse, “And You shall cast their sins into the depths of the sea.” The short prayer for this service can be found in your machzor.
Rosh Hashanah Prayers
Much of the day is spent in synagogue. The evening and afternoon prayers are similar to the prayers said on a regular holiday. However, the morning services are significantly longer.The holiday prayerbook—called a machzor—contains all the prayers and Torah readings for the entire day. The most significant addition is the shofar blowing ceremony. However, there are also other important elements of the prayer service that are unique to Rosh Hashanah.
The Torah is read on both mornings of Rosh Hashanah.
On the first day, we read about Isaac’s birth and the subsequent banishment of Hagar and Ishmael.2 Appropriately, the reading is followed by a haftarah reading about the birth of Samuel the Prophet.3Both readings contain the theme of prayers for children being answered, and both of these births took place on Rosh Hashanah.
On the second morning, we read about Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac.4 As mentioned above, the shofar blowing recalls the ram, which figures prominently in this story as a powerful display of Abraham’s devotion to G‑d that has characterized His children ever since. The haftarah5 tells of G‑d’s eternal love for His people.
(More on the Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah, here.)
The cantor’s repetition of the Amidah (Silent Prayer) is peppered with piyyutim¸ poetic prayers that express our prayerful wishes for the year and other themes of the day. For certain selections, those deemed especially powerful, the ark is opened. Many of these additions are meant to be said responsively, as a joint effort between the prayer leader and the congregation.
Even without the added piyyutim, the Rosh Hashanah Musaf prayer is significantly longer than it is the rest of the year. This is because its single middle blessing is divided into three additional blessings, each focusing on another one of the holiday’s main themes: G‑d’s kingship, our wish that He “remember” us for the good, and the shofar. Each blessing contains a collage of Biblical verses that express its theme, and is then followed by a round of shofar blowing.
Rosh Hashanah Feasts
We eat festive meals every night and day of the holiday. Like all other holiday meals, we begin by reciting kiddush over wine and then say the blessing over bread. But there are some important differences:a. The bread (traditionally baked into round challah loaves, and often sprinkled with raisins) is dipped into honey instead of salt, expressing our wish for a sweet year. We do this on Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat before Yom Kippur), in the pre-Yom Kippur meal and during Sukkot.
b. Furthering the sweet theme, it is traditional to begin the meal on the first night with slices of apple dipped in honey. Before eating the apple, we make the ha’eitz blessing and then say, “May it be Your will to renew for us a good and sweet year.”
c. Many people eat parts of the head of a fish or a ram, expressing the wish that “we be a head and not a tail.”
d. In many communities, there are additional traditional foods eaten, each symbolizing a wish for the coming year. Many eat pomegranates, giving voice to a wish that “our merits be many like the [seeds of the] pomegranate.” Another common food is tzimmes, a sweet carrot-based dish eaten because of its Yiddish name, merren, which means both “carrot” and “increase,” symbolizing a wish for a year of abundance.
e. It is traditional to avoid nuts (here’s why) as well as vinegar-based, sharp foods, most notably the horseradish traditionally eaten with gefilte fish, since we don’t want a bitter year.
f. On the second night of the holiday, we do not eat the apples, fish heads, pomegranates, etc. However, before we break bread (and dip it in honey), we eat a “new fruit,” something we have not tasted since the last time it was in season. (Read this blog post to learn the reason for the new fruit and the other traditional foods.)
(Read about the elaborate array of symbolic foods eaten in Sephardic communities here.)
What’s Next?
Rosh Hashanah is the start of the Yamim Nora’im (High Holidays). The holy day of Yom Kippur when we gather in synagogue for 25 hours of fasting, prayer and inspiration, is just a week later. The days in between (known as the 10 Days of Repentance, or the Ten Days of Return) are an especially propitious time for teshuvah, returning to G‑d. Yom Kippur is followed by the joyous holidays ofSukkot and Simchat Torah.The season of the High Holidays is a time for an epic journey for the soul, and Rosh Hashanah is where it all begins.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Leviticus 23:23.
2.Genesis 21:1–34.
3.I Samuel 1:1–2:10.
4.Genesis 22:1–24.
5.Jeremiah 31:1–19.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
How to Choose a Shofar by Menachem Posner
Finding the right shofar takes time, but it can be an educational (and even entertaining) challenge. Here, some tips on how to go about the search as the High Holidays approach. (Photo: Abir Sultan/Flash90)Throughout the Jewish month of Elul, the sound of the shofar can be heard every morning coming from synagogues and homes in Jewish neighborhoods around the world. On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar will be blown by experts trained not only in producing a moving sound, but in the complex halachot (Jewish laws) of the shofar. During the month of Elul, it is customary to blow the shofar every morning after prayers (after morning services, besides for Shabbat and the day before Rosh Hashana) and many also practice in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah. As such, shofar sales soar.
Standing behind the counter in his bright and airy Judaica store on Long Island, Yossi Gurevitch clearly knows his customers. They banter pleasantly as he guides them through towering displays of honey dishes, Jewish books, mezuzahs, High Holiday items and more.
With Rosh Hashanah around the corner, there is a prominent presentation of shofars—expertly crafted ram’s horns—to be blown in celebration of the New Year. Between customers, in English sprinkled with Hebrew and Yiddish, the native of Kfar Chabad, Israel, shared some insider tips on how to select the best shofar.
Q: What’s the most important thing to look for when purchasing a shofar?
A: First and foremost, make sure that the shofar you get is certified kosher. It should be sold in a reputable store, bearing a label from a reliable rabbinic organization. In recent years, there has been talk of people producing authentic-looking shofars from synthetic material or covering over significant blemishes in ways that render the shofar unkosher.
Now even if a shofar started out kosher, you want to make sure it is still OK. You want the sound to be produced by air coming in through the narrow end and whooshing out the wider end. If there are cracks or other holes, discard the shofar—and please let me know about it, so I can remove it from the display—and keep on looking for the one that’s right for you.
Yossi Gurevitch examines a shofar in his Judaica shop on Long Island, N.Y.You also want to make sure it is at least a tefach (handbreadth) long, but you will rarely see such a small shofar on the market that you need to really worry about that.
Q: Assuming kosher authenticity, there are still so many shofars to choose from. How do I know which one is right for me?
A: Every shofar gets sold eventually; there is no right or wrong one. The most important thing to check is the narrow opening. Make sure that it is not sharp since you will be pressing it against your lips. Also make sure that it has a nice shape that feels good to your mouth. The shofar is not blown from the center of the mouth (like a trombone), but from the right side.
The shofar should naturally curl upward when you have it in blowing position. Generally speaking, a bigger shofar is easier to blow with less strain on your lips. It will probably produce a deeper sound as well. But some people like the higher pitch, so get what works for you.
Buyers should get the feel of a shofar, with its various sizes, shapes and colors.Those really big shofars on the market are made from kudu horns. While they are valid according to many halachic authorities, they are not ideal (and invalid, according to some).
You want to get a shofar from a ram’s horn, which serves to recall how G‑d provided Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead of his son Isaac.
Q: Does the color matter?
They should even try out the sound of a shofar that interests them.A: No. It is simply a result of the color of the ram. Black, brown, white or any combination is equally kosher.
Q: How much do you think I should be paying?
A: A decent shofar may cost you between $45 and $100, with larger ones costing more. If you want to invest in a shofar you will use for the rest of your life, it is probably best to disregard the price tag if you can, and concentrate on finding one that you can blow easily again and again.
Q: Do you mind if I try out a shofar right here in the store?
A: By all means! We understand that you cannot be expected to purchase a shofar without first giving it a “test drive.” So feel free to toot away. Try different shofars and find one that feels right for you.
Even if a shofar produces an initial blast that feels right, try to blow a full sequence of 30 blasts, and see how that works. Note that there is a minimum length for the blasts, with the long tekia lasting as long as the shevarim (three blasts), terua (nine staccato blasts) or shevarim-terua that it frames, and you may not always pause for breaths.
Can you get the whole thing out with ease? If yes, you’ve probably found your shofar. If not, keep on digging.
A selection of shofars in Gurevitch’s store.Q: Any final thoughts before I complete my purchase?
A: Even if you have a great shofar and are confident that you can produce the proper tones, don’t miss out on praying with the community in a synagogue. First of all, this will avail you to the spiritual advantages of communal prayer. Secondly, there are many laws surrounding the proper sequencing and pace of the shofar blasts.
If you do need to blow for someone who cannot get to synagogue, make sure to study the laws and practice blowing, so that you are up to the task.
Oh, and let me wish you and your readers a shanah tovah—a happy, healthy and sweet new year!
© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.-------
Rosh Hashanah
What Would We Do Without Rosh Hashanah? by Yossy Goldman
Rosh Hashanah is more than just a holiday; it is Judgment Day. That’s why the traditional greeting at this time is not “happy holiday,”or even“good yom tov”or “chag sameach,” but rather “shanah tovah” or, in Yiddish, “ah gut yohr” (“good year”). The heavenly court will be deciding our destiny and determining our fate for the new year, so our wish forWhat if there were no season dedicated to self-appraisal and assessment? each other is that these days of reckoning go well, and that we each be blessed with only good things for the new year.And this is precisely what makes our New Year observances distinctively different from those of so many others around the world. For Jews, New Year’s Day is joyous but sombre. No late night partying for us. No drunken revelry as the clock strikes midnight. Actually, I’ve often wondered whether New Year’s Eve partygoers are just having a harmless, fun night out, or if there is some kind of subconscious drowning of sorrows in drink as they mourn the passage of another year and all its unfulfilled dreams.
And I’ve also often wondered what we Jews would do without Rosh Hashanah. This is the season of cheshbon hanefesh (spiritual stocktaking), when we take inventory of our most personal, intimate moments. We reflect on the year gone by, our successes and our shortcomings. We consider and reconsider our relationships with G‑d and with other people. We try to pinpoint our failings so that we may correct them for an improved year to come. We make amends with those we may have hurt in the year gone by. We put an end to the petty grudges and faribels (grievances) of life, and look forward to a better, happier, more serene and peaceful future.
But what if we didn’t have Rosh Hashanah? What if there were no season dedicated to self-appraisal and assessment? Would we create it on our own? And if not, would we ever emerge from the rut we work ourselves into over a long, hard year? I imagine that we would just continue along the same tedious treadmill of life until something drastic arrived out of the blue to jolt us from our lethargy.
Without Rosh Hashanah, would we ever stop to consider whether the way we are living is the way we really want to live? Would we ever pause and become introspective enough to rethink life’s game plan? More than likely, we would just keep running the rat race and, as some wise person once observed, “In the rat race, even if you win you’re still a rat!”
Rosh Hashanah is a time when we are compelled to sit up and take notice, to put the brakes on the mediocre merry-go-round and shout, “Stop the world, I want to get off!” These Days of Awe compel us to think about life, about ourselves, aboutWould we ever stop to consider if we're really living the way we want to live? our families, relationships and our way of life. And if necessary, to do a re-think. It gives us the chance for at least an annual “compass reading” to establish our sense of direction so that, if necessary, we can alter our course and reroute ourselves. How does the voice inside our GPS put it? “Recalculating.” Most of us do need to recalculate from time to time.
So if we didn’t have this once-a-year challenge and opportunity for personal introspection, what are the chances we would actually sit down and do it of our own volition? Probably very small indeed. Well, thank G‑d we do have Rosh Hashanah. And the time for stocktaking is now. Or, as the legendary Hillel put it inEthics of the Fathers, “If not now, when then?”
In our chaotic, often mad, world we ought to appreciate and embrace this wonderful opportunity. Honestly and truly, what would we do without Rosh Hashanah?
I wish my readers, our community—and indeed the world—a shanah tovah. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, safe, secure and spiritually rewarding new year.
Rabbi Yossy Goldman was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1976 he was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, as a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to serve the Jewish community of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is Senior Rabbi of the Sydenham Shul since 1986, president of the South African Rabbinical Association, and a frequent contributor to Chabad.org. His book From Where I Stand: Life Messages from the Weekly Torah Reading was recently published by Ktav, and is available at Jewish bookshops or online.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
How Heartbreak Helps Us Heal on Rosh Hashanah by Karen Wolfers-Rapaport
Remember the profound and pivotal moments in your life?Remember when you felt deeply in love, when you felt extreme rapture, when you felt unending loss? These were the moments when words became frivolous and limited. These were the momentsThe shofar is the key to a shattered heartwhen perhaps all you could do was cry.
On Rosh Hashanah, G‑d chooses to help us express what is too deep to be expressed by words. He chooses the shofar for its ability to pierce the essence of this noble day, as it cries out to G‑d.
In fact, the Talmud defines the teruah sound of the shofar as being like the sobbing of Sisera’s mother.1 And one reason why we blow the shofar 100 times is that it corresponds to her 100 cries for her son.2 Sisera, a formidable enemy army commander, was defeated in battle by the Jewish nation. His mother sobbed over his demise, as any mother would.
Why does the cry of the shofar recall the mother of Sisera, our foe? After all, isn’t there something else to focus on during one of the holiest days of the year?
One possible answer is that there is nothing more genuine than a mother crying over the death of her child. This is a true broken heart.
This type of cry is stripped of ego and fear. It’s unadulterated. It’s raw. And this is the cry we must hear when the shofar is blown.
“In the king’s palace,” said the Baal Shem Tov, “there are many gates and doors, leading to many halls and chambers. The palace-keepers have great rings holding many keys, each of which opens a different door. But there is one key that fits all the locks, a master key that opens all the doors. That master key is a broken heart.”
The shofar’s sound breaks our heart.
Breaking anything is hard, especially the heart. But the rewards are great for such work—the gates to G‑d are open.
Think of our enemy’s mother. We are meant to memorialize even her on Rosh Hashanah, because of her broken heart.
What does your broken heart look like?
Perhaps, if we focus on what we had to lament in the past year—the lost opportunities, the suppressed parts of our best selves, the fear and anxiety that interfered with our personal progress, the barriers that prohibited our soul from shining in the way it was meant to shine—we can tap into what we are meant to break when the shofar is blown.
The wail of the shofar can encourage us to use the “master key” and beOnce something is repaired, it becomes stronger unyieldingly honest with ourselves. This key can help us ask ourselves some difficult questions about this past year and what we want to do with the next.
The shofar is the key to a shattered heart. But this is just the beginning! The shattering of the heart can become a stepping stone for its repair. Emptying the negative and sabotaging contents of the heart allows it to be filled with a more positive, life-affirming center!
Often, once something is repaired, it becomes stronger, more vital and even more effective than it had been before. It becomes like new.
This Rosh Hashanah, when we hear the eternal cry of the shofar, let this master key unlock our hearts, opening us up to blessings from G‑d.
Karen Wolfers-Rapaport is a psychotherapist specializing in Narrative Therapy. She holds a BA from UCLA, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Boston College. She received her training from Tufts University. In addition to her therapeutic work and freelance writing, Karen works with families from Israel’s Prime Minister’s office and Ministry of Defense, teaching them English in preparation for their diplomatic posts abroad. A proud mother, she is blessed to live in Israel.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 33b.
2.Aruch, quoted in Tosfot on Rosh Hashanah 33b.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Rosh Hashanah
Everything Else You need to Know About Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah
October 2-4, 2016
Quick Links: Holiday Times | Find a Service | Holiday E‑Cards | Tishrei in Ten | Sukkot / Simchat Torah © Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.-------
VIDEO
What G-d Wants from YouA Rosh Hashanah Message
By Chana Weisberg
Watch (2:11)
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8 Tips for a Fabulous Rosh HashanahWhy this month is special and what to do about it
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A Rosh Hashanah MeditationOnce, after Rosh Hashanah prayers, the Alter Rebbe asked his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, “With what meditation did you pray this Rosh Hoshanah?” He replied, “With the verse, ‘All mankind shall prostrate themselves before You’.” Then the Mitteler Rebbe asked his father, “With what meditation did you pray?” The Alter Rebbe responded, “I prayed with my lectern.”
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Essay
Do Chabad Teachings Say Anything About the Mind-Body Problem? by Eli Rubin and Max Ariel Abugov
Introduction: Philosophical QuestionsAs human beings we are constantly confronted by the mind-body problem. On the one hand we have physical bodies, complete with arms, legs, a heart and a brain. On the other hand we have mental states, we think, we become emotional, we desire things, we understand things, we enjoy sunsets and the scent of flowers. This led the 17th century René Descartes to a conclusion that schisms the mind from the body. He postulated that there is a mental substance, res cogitans, and a physical substance, res extensa. He understood G‑d to be a third substance that is neither mental nor physical, and which chooses to make these created substances exist.1
From a philosophical point of view Descartes’ position, known as dualism, is deeply problematic. If mind and body exist independently of each other, if the mental and the physical are in fact two completely different substances, how do they interact with one another? How does the brain, a physical lump of grey meat, apprehend ethereal mental concepts?How does the brain, a physical lump of grey meat, apprehend ethereal mental concepts?2
The question of how the mind, or the soul, and the body, relate to each other has concerned philosophers from ancient times till today. But Descartes’ dualism has often been rejected, usually in favour of monistic theories positing that mental and physical phenomena actually consist of the same substance. There isphysicalism, claiming that all is matter. There is idealism, claiming all is mind. There is neutral monism, which suggests that all is neither one nor the other, but a third, unified substance that is the combination of both.3
Today, many people assume that everything is physical, that there is no mental state independent of the physical brain. Accordingly, there is no mind and no soul, and hence no mind-body problem. But rather than solving the mind-body problem, this simply replaces it with a problem of a different name. A leading contemporary philosopher thinking about this new conundrum is David Chalmers, and he calls it the “hard” problem of consciousness: Chalmers wants to understand how and why we have subjective experiences.4
A computer, for example, processes large quantities of information—apparently without having any mental awareness or subjective experience of those processes. But when humans process information something happens besides the physical, electronic or chemical changes happening in the body and in the brain: We experience these processes subjectively, there is a feeling of “what it is like.” Philosophers call these subjective experiences qualia.5
Chalmers argues:
It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.6
This line of thinking has led Chalmers away from physicalism and persuaded him to consider the view that all physical substance—including rocks and electrons—fundamentally possesses some kind of mental quality.7 Today this line of thinking is seen as innovative and controversial, but in truth it is one of the most ancient and persistent ideas in the history of philosophy. Similar theories can be found both among early Greek thinkers, and in the Jewish philosophical, kabbalistic and midrashic traditions. Philosophers refer to this as panpsychism, which means that everything (pan) has a mind or a soul (psyche).
It is important to note, however, that not all panpsychic theories are the same. As with other complex philosophical questions, we should realize that different thinkers often fit similar ideas into vastly different systems of thought, and we should always be weary of false equivalences and conflations.8
Chabad: A Parallel Conceptual Universe
As a counterpoint to the prevalent assumption that everything is physical, the Chabad view is that everything is divine.9
The Chabad intellectual tradition might be described as a conceptual universe that runs parallel to the Western one. It engages with many of the questions raised in the western philosophical tradition to which Descartes, Chalmers and their interlocutors belong, but brings a different set of concepts, assumptions and goals, and a different terminology to the table. This is true of the mind-body problem and the “hard” problem of consciousness, The Chabad intellectual tradition might be described as a conceptual universe that runs parallel to the Western one…and it is true of many other philosophical quandaries as well.10
In Chabad thought these questions are made all the more problematic because we are not simply talking about the interface of the mind—or the soul—and the body, but also about the interface of G‑d and the world. As the Talmudic sages put it, “just as the soul fills the body, so G‑d fills the world.”11 This is taken to a whole new level of difficulty when we consider that G‑d is infinite and the world seems to be composed of finite matter. How can the finitude of creation possibly be filled with infinite divinity?
The crucial point for the present discussion is that in Chabad thought these paradoxes are all resolved by what can be described as a panentheistic false-dualism: Chabad does not subscribe to a monistic idealism (“everything is ideas”) according to which our experience of the physical is some kind of mirage. The physical is at least as real as the spiritual. But both physicality and spirituality are refractions of singular divinity. From this perspective, the designation of the physical realm as a “world of falsehood” (עלמא דשיקרא) should not be understood as a denial of the reality of its existence. The falsehood lies in the impression that the utter singularity of all-encompassing divinity is compromised by the dual modes of divine manifestation.
The unavoidable reality of the physical universe is emphasized in an oft cited discourse by the fourth rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn (“Maharash,” 1834-1888):
The existence of the world, and all that is created, is a reality… For if we say it is only that it so appears to us, if so what is the meaning of the verse “In the beginning of G‑d’s creation” (Genesis 1:1)? Did not no creation occur at all, but rather it was made to appear to us as if it was so? Therefore we must say that the world does exist as a substantive reality (yesh ve-davar)…12
In the same breath, R. Shmuel also emphasizes that the physical reality of creation is not something other than G‑d:
In truth there is no physical existence other than divinity, for in truth the capacity for concealment is also divinity like the capacity for revelation… All the physical things that are created are themselves literally divinity.13
Even more radical than the equation of physicality with divinity is a phrase oft repeated by the seventh rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of righteous memory, which emphasizes that physical existence is ultimately a deeper expression of divine reality and truth than spirituality: “The created being is itself [an unmediated manifestation of] the true being [of G‑d]…” For the most part, however, this truth remains concealed by the very facade of otherness and duality that most gives it expression. It is only “through the work in this world to remove the concealments and veils…” that “it will be revealed in the created being that it itself is [an unmediated manifestation of] the true being.”14 As will be further explained below, it is precisely in the most abject sphere of cosmic being—or more precisely, in the transformation of the abject into the exalted—that the greatest expression of divine transcendence is found.
***
Hasidic Panpsychism
There are many relevant texts that could be cited as examples of the different ways in which Chabad teachings approach the problem, its solution, and various resulting implications. Already in the first generation of Chabad we find that panpsychism was an issue of particular interest and controversy. One early chassidic work, titled “Testament of the Baal Shem Tov” records the following “major principle:” “In everything that exists in the world there are holy sparks, there is nothing empty of the sparks, even wood and stones, and even all the actions that a person executes…”15 Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi similarly cites the Lurianic teaching that “even in the literally inanimate—like stones, dust and water—there is a soul and spiritual life… which enlivens and creates the inanimate, All reality is divine thought thinking itself.that it may emerge as an existence from nothing…”16
In a direct attack on this concept, Rabbi Eliyahu—the famed gaon of Vilna— wrote that the chassidim “proclaim of every stick and every stone, ‘These are your gods, Israel!’” By borrowing a phrase from the biblical episode of the golden calf, he equated chassidism with Judaism’s worst example of public idolatry.17 The Gaon apparently sought to uphold a dualistic schism between the spiritual and the physical, between G‑d and the world. Elsewhere, he explicitly argued that G‑d transcends the world, and that it is only divine knowledge and superintendence that extends into the created realm.18
The Gaon’s attack was countered by R. Schneur Zalman with a sharp argument proving that divine superintendence could not be accounted for without resort to a form of divine panpsychism. Following the Maimonidean principle that divine knowledge is self-knowledge—G‑d being the knower, the subject of knowledge, and the knowledge itself19—R. Schneur Zalman concludes that G‑d’s knowledge of the world entails that the world itself is not in any way separate from G‑d. Implicitly referring to those who shared the Gaon’s position, he wrote:
Since they believe that G‑d knows all created beings in this lowly world and superintends them, they are compelled to accept that His knowledge of them does not add to Him any plurality or novelty, for He knows all through knowing His self. It as if His being and essence and knowledge are all one.20
Aristotle famously described G‑d as “thought thinking itself.” But the Maimonidean view, as interpreted by R. Schneur Zalman, is that all reality is divine thought thinking itself. In technical philosophical terminology the complexity of the Chabad position might be captured with the designation “theological panpsychic false-dualism.” But even as we speak of panpsychism we must also recall that “G‑d’s thoughts are not as our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8). G‑d’s thoughts extend beyond the realm of ideas to animate and encompass physical reality as well.21 We must also recall that G‑d ultimately transcends the category of thought altogether.22 However central the principle of divine panpsychism is to the Chabad system of thought, it must always be considered in terms of what Elliot Wolfson has designated “the logic inherent” to Chabad thought: “a way of thinking that begets an annihilation of thinking.”23
The Mitzvah: Fusing Body and Soul
From the Chabad perspective there is no “hard” problem of consciousness. Consciousness is not an anomalous product of the physical universe. Rather, the physical universe is an anomalous product of divine consciousness. The “hard” problem of Chabad thought is: How does the finite universe exist without compromising the infinite singularity of G‑d?24
Rather than an outright rejection of dualism, Chabad teachings constantly affirm that G‑d at once fills the finite realm immanently (memale kol almin) and infinitely transcends it (sovev kol almin). Yet G‑d’s essential being (atzmuto u-mahuto) is neither finite nor infinite. Nor can G‑d’s essential being simply be reduced to that which encompasses those poles. G‑d is instead understood to transcend all definable categories and limitations, and can therefore be equally manifest in the finite and the physical as in the infinite and the spiritual. The result of this false-duality is the impression that the finite world is something other than the infinite G‑d. The limbs of the person’s body that are performing the mitzvah… become a literal vehicle for the supernal will.But the truth is that G‑d is the immanent core of all reality.25
Moving from the cosmic to the microcosmic, a similar model of false dualism—or more precisely, false multiplicity—is applied to the relationship between the soul and the body. In the second chapter of Likutei Amarim—Tanya, R. Schneur Zalman describes a hierarchy of souls, but emphasizes that “all of them, from the beginning of all levels to the end of all levels… are drawn from the supernal mind [of G‑d].” The difference between one soul and another is only in the degree to which they openly reveal G‑dliness in their own lives and actions, and in the world around them. But all souls are fundamentally bound up in the circle of divine consciousness. Here too, R. Schneur Zalman cites Maimonides’ principle that G‑d is the knower, the subject of knowledge, and knowledge itself.
The divine quality of the soul extends to the physical body as well, but it only becomes overtly revealed therein through the performance of mitzvot, divinely mandated commandments. In Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapter twenty-three, R. Schneur Zalman explains that when a person performs a commandment “the lowest faculty of their divine soul (levush ha-hitzon shel nefesh ha-elokit), which is its capacity for action, is vested in the animation of that mitzvah performance… Therefore, also the limbs of the person’s body that are performing the mitzvah… become a literal vehicle for the supernal will [of G‑d]. By way of example, the hand that distributes charity to the poor… the feet that walk in the cause of a mitzvah, and likewise the mouth that speaks words of Torah, and the brain that thinks of Torah matters, fear of heaven, and the greatness of G‑d.” Body and soul function as one, yet mirror the false-duality of the cosmic singularity.These limbs and organs, R. Schneur Zalman explains, are themselves “sanctified” because they have become transparent to their divine core.26
The divine nature of the body can only be openly revealed through mitzvah observance and Torah study. But in truth, the Baal Shem Tov taught, even the body’s most mundane cravings are identical with the cravings of the soul. “Hungry as well as thirsty, their soul enwraps itself within them” (Psalms, 107:5). In its original context this is a poetic image describing wanderers lost in the desert, whose souls contract as their hunger and thirst intensifies. But the Baal Shem Tov decontextualized the verse and reinterpreted it to mean that the divine soul is enwrapped within the hunger and thirst of the physical body. Externally the body’s cravings seem mundane, even crass, but in truth they stem from the soul’s craving to raise up the divine sparks that are concealed throughout all reality. Not only is the body not the enemy of the soul, on the contrary, the body and the soul are actually in sync. They function as one, yet mirror the false-duality of the cosmic singularity.27 The soul’s mission on earth, accordingly, is to make the body—and all aspects of earthly life—transparent to the divine core of all reality.28
Yehidah: The Singular Substance of Everything
The above passages allude to another oft discussed theme in Chabad teachings. Drawing on earlier rabbinic sources, each individual soul is understood to have five general levels.29 The lowest,nefesh, corresponds to the soul’s capacity for action, which is channeled through the body to have transformative impact in the physical world. The highest is referred to as yehidah, meaning singularity, because it is utterly bound up with the singular essence of G‑d. The yehidah transcends the false dualism that distinguishes between the physical and the spiritual, and therefore cannot even be associated with the loftiest of spiritual soul faculties. Yet it is precisely the transcendence of the yehidah that is the immanent core of all levels of soul expression, including the lowest, Once the essence is revealed it illuminates all faculties of the soul and all aspects of reality.which animates the actions of the body.
Though the yehidah is discussed in many Chabad teachings, its significance is most fully articulated and emphasized in a treatise by the seventh rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of righteous memory. In this treatise, On the Essence of Chassidus, the essential core of divine being and the essential core of the soul are described in precisely the same terms. In both cases, the disclosure of the essence is synonymous with the dissolution of the false opposition between spirituality and physicality, light and darkness, good and evil:
All [spiritual] revelations, even the very loftiest, are bound in the category of light and revelation… Consequently, the existence of evil… is in opposition to them, and it is therefore not in their power to transform it to good (only to battle with it till it is effaced). Only the essence of G‑d… which is uncontained by any form and which can have nothing in opposition to it… has the power to transform it to good.30
The essential transcendence of G‑d, in other words, is such that spirituality and physicality alike—and even good and evil—are equally inadequate to give it expression. It is axiomatic that the physical realm conceals the all-encompassing presence of G‑d. But here it emerges that the same is true of the spiritual realm, of spiritual experience and activity as well. The only way in which the essence can be tangibly disclosed is in the overcoming of binaries, through transforming evil into good, through infusing physical reality with the spirit of divinity.
Paradoxically, Chabad’s radical conception of divine transcendence leads us to find the greatest expression of that transcendence in the most abject sphere of cosmic being, or more precisely, in the transformation of the abject into the exalted. The same applies on the microcosmic plane—the essential potency of the soul is only expressed in transformative activities that overcome the divide between body and soul, revealing the G‑dly core even of physical existence. But once the essence is revealed it illuminates all faculties of the soul and all aspects of reality:
Only when the [soul] faculties come to refine a physical object beyond the individual self… (using it for the sake of heaven)—specifically then is the yehidah revealed in them.31
In the final paragraph of his treatise on yehidah—which he also associates with the essence of chassidic teaching itself—the Rebbe cites the messianic vision articulated by R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi in Tanya, chapters thirty-six and thirty-seven:
The physicality of the body and the world will be purified… as it is written ‘all flesh [shall see] together etc.’ ‘all dwellers of your universe’… This ultimate wholeness of the messianic era… is dependent on our actions and work throughout the era of exile…32
In philosophical language we might say that the ultimate goal of all human endeavor is to overcome the false sense of dualism that leads us to the mind-body problem in the first place.33 We achieve this through Torah study and mitzvah observance, through serving G‑d in all aspects of earthly life, and through transforming evil into good.34 We are not simply bodies, nor are we minds, nor do we merely combine the two. Ultimately, there is but one single substance, uncompromised by the mind-body duality. The multiple dimensions of existence are real. Yet they are all refractions of the singular substance of G‑d.
Eli Rubin studied Chassidic literature and Jewish Law at the Rabbinical College of America and at Yeshivot in the UK, the US and Australia. He has been a research writer and editor at Chabad.org since 2011, focusing on the social and intellectual history of Chabad Chassidism. Through his writing, research, and editorial work he has successfully participated in a range of scholarly interchanges and collaborative endeavors.
Max Ariel Abugov recently graduated with a B.A. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked at the Boundaries of Anxiety and Depression Lab. He also attended Yeshivas Kol Yakov Yehudah Hadar Hatorah in Crown Heights, where he developed a deep appreciation of Chassidus. He is passionate about the interdisciplinary study of psychology, philosophy, and religion.
FOOTNOTES
1.See Justin Skirry, “René Descartes: The Mind-Body Distinction” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, viewable here.
2.See Howard Robinson, "Dualism", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Spring 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here. A classical Jewish reference to the mind-body problem, often referenced in Chabad teachings, is the remark of Rabbi Moshe Isserles (“Rema,” 1520-1572), in his gloss to Shulkhan Arukh,Orakh Hayim 6:1. Rema suggests that the liturgical formulation praising G‑d as “the one who acts wondrously” (ha-maphlia la’asot) can be understood as an allusion to the fact that G‑d “preserves the spirit of man within him, binding something spiritual to something physical, all through Him being the healer of all flesh, for then man is healthy and his soul is preserved within him.” (Emphasis added.)
3.See Leopold Stubenberg, "Neutral Monism", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here.
4.See also Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is almost Certainly False(Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2012), 45-46: “On a purely materialist understanding of biology, consciousness would have to be regarded as a tremendous and inexplicable brute fact about the world. If it is to be explained in any sense naturalistically, through the understanding of organic life, something fundamental must be changed in our conception of the natural order that gave rise to life.”
5.See Michael Tye, "Qualia" inThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here.
6.David J. Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness” in the Journal of Consciousness Studies2(3): 200-19, 1995, viewablehere.
7.See David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory(Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 1996), 299: “I hope to have said enough to show that we at least ought to take the possibility of some sort of panpsychism seriously: there seem to be no knockdown arguments against the view, and there are various positive reasons why one might embrace it.” See also the relevant discussions of panpsychism in Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford, 2012), 57-58 and 61-63.
8.For an overview of some important proponents of various forms of panpsychism throughout the history of western philosophy, see William Seager and Sean Allen-Hermanson, "Panpsychism" in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), viewable here. For a classical rabbinic example of panpsychism that is often cited in Chabad literature, seeBereishit Rabbah, 10:6: “There isn’t a single blade of grass that does not have an angel in heaven that smites it and tells it to grow…” For more direct examples from kabbalistic and chassidic teachings—including the particulars of Chabad’s panpsychic conception, which is rooted in a Maimonidean axiom—see below.
9.See Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, Sefer Hasichos 5690 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1995), 86, (ער איז אַלץ, אַלץ איז ער) and further sources cited there, n. 10. Also notable are the words of Rabbi DovBer Schneuri (“the Mitteler Rebbe”), son and successor of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad (“the Alter Rebbe”): “The central object of my father’s teachings, was to fix the simple singularity of G‑d—that is, the essence of the infinite—in the mind and heart of each individual according to what they can conceive, each according to their ability…” ( Introduction toImrei Binah.) The singular existence of G‑d is a topic that is dealt with in great richness and depth throughout the Chabad corpus, but its locus classicus is the second section ofLikutei Amarim—Tanya,Shaar Hayikhud Ve-ha-emunah. For a more succinct treatment see the first section of Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapters 20-21.
10.For more on the relationship between Chabad teachings and the western tradition of philosophy, touching on the work of William James, Isaiah Berlin, Hilary Putnam et al, see Eli Rubin, Can You Square the Circle of Faith? How to preserve an open mind and a unified core of cohesive meaning.
11.Midrash Tehillim, 103a
12.Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch, “Mi Komokhah” in Likutei Torah—Torat Shmuel, Sefer 5629 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1992), 161-162.
13.Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn of Lubavitch (“the Rebbe Maharash”), Ibid., 163. See also Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, Torat Shalom(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1970), 198: “All is encompassed in G‑d’s essence, accordingly no other being exists at all. Yet, this implies that nothing was created, which is impossible to say, since creation is itself the divine name elokim. It is a divine name and therefore true. That is, elokim exists, and accordingly there is concealment (that is, there is otherly existence, which is the concealment). However the concealment is encompassed in the essence, because the divine name elokim—which is the divine power that contracts—is also of the essence…”
14.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (“the Rebbe”), “Ve-hit’halakhti”, in Torat Menachem—3—Shnat 5711, 115. The word manifestation is inserted into my translation of this passage to emphasize that it is not to be taken as a reductive description of divine being, but rather as an apotheosistic description of physical being: In contrast to the revelation of G‑d via the medium of spirituality, physicality is a direct manifestation of divine being. While this idea was most emphasized by the seventh rebbe it has a long history in Chabad thought. For a discussion of the concealing and concrete dimension of reality as the more unmediated embodiment of divine being in the thought of the third rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek (1789-1866), see Eli Rubin, Covert Luminosity: The reshimu, the kav, and the concretization of creativity.
15.Tzavaat ha-Rivash #141. Page 71 in the Kehot Publication Society, 1998 edition.
16.Likutei Amarim—Tanya,Shaar Hayikhud Ve-ha-emunah, Chapter 1.
17.See Mordecai Wilenski,Hasidim and Mitnaggedim, vol. 1 (Bialik: Jerusalem, 1990), 188-189.
18.Aderet Eliyahu to Isaiah 6:3; Supplementary notes in Be’ur ha-Gra to Sifra di-Tzeni’uta,Sod ha-Tzimtzum, p. 75 [38a in Hebrew pagination]. For a more detailed discussion of these sources see Eli Rubin,Immanent Transcendence Chassidim, mitnagdim, and the debate about tzimtzum.
19.Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesodei ha-Torah 2:10.
20.Shaar ha-Yichud veha-Emunah, ch. 7, pp. 165–166 [83a–b in the Hebrew pagination].
21.See Likutei Amarim—Tanya, end of Chapter 48: “His thought and knowledge, with which He knows all the creations, encompasses each one of them from top to bottom, and its interior and innermost being, all literal actuality…” On the distinctions and similarities between thought and speech as applied to the concept of divine creation see Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapters 20 and 21, see also the relevant discussion of those chapters in Eli Rubin, “Speech, Externalization, and Divine Singularity,” in 'The Pen Shall Be Your Friend': Intertextuality, Intersociality, and the Cosmos - Examples of the Tzemach Tzedek’s Way in the Development of Chabad Chassidic Thought.
22.See Shaar Ha-yikhud Ve-ha-emunah, note to chapter 9, p 173 [87a in Hebrew pagination]: “After the infinite light is vested in the receptacles of chabad, then it is possible to say what Maimonides writes ‘He is the knower, the subject of knowledge, and the knowledge itself, and in knowledge of himself etc.’ …But without the tsimtsum and investment mentioned above it is not possible at all to say ‘He is the knower, and He is the subject of knowledge etc.’ For he is not in the category of knowing and knowledge at all, but entirely transcendent without limit beyond the category of wisdom, to the extent that wisdom [even divine wisdom] is considered in comparison to Him as [the realm of] physical action.”
23.Elliot R. Wolfson, “Nequddat ha-Reshimu - The Trace of Transcendence and the Transcendence of Trace: The Paradox of Simsum in the RaShaB’s Hemshekh Ayin Beit,” in Kabbalah 30 (2013), p. 94. The idea that the ultimate goal of Chabad thought is to go beyond the entire category of thought altogether is given explicit expression by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn inLikutei Dibburim Vol. 1(Yiddish Edition, Kehot Publication Society 2009), 305 [153a in Hebrew pagination]. Commenting on the biblical prophecy that in the messianic era divinity will be revealed so that “all flesh shall see,” he argues that this signifies a fundamental shift in the way we apprehend divinity: “We will see, and the seer will be the body… In the present era, the soul allows the body to understand an intellectual concept. This means that the soul is the communicator [of divine revelation] and the body the recipient. But when the messiah will come the body itself will apprehend; it will see divinity with the sight of its physical eyes literally; and it will be the communicator [of divine revelation] while the soul will receive [that revelation] from the body.” Our current mode of apprehending G‑d is conceptual and spiritual, and therefore chiefly mediated by the soul. But in the messianic era we will apprehend G‑d somatically and physically, and the soul will receive this more essential form of revelation through the mediation of the body. This passage is particularly relevant given the present discussion centering on the relationship between body and soul, and the relationship between singular divinity and physical reality.
24.See the closing passage ofShaar Ha-yikhud Ve-ha-emunah, chapter 3.
25.See for example, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi,Maamarei Admur Hazaken 5569 (Kehot Publication Society: New york, 2005), 262: “Such is the immense exaltedness of the essence of the infinite… just as He is not grasped and limited in the physicality of the created realms (b”ya) so He is not grasped in the spirituality of the realm of emanation (olam ha-atsilut), for before Him are literally equal spirituality and physicality, [the realms of] emanation and action, as it is written “as dark, as light” (Psalms 139:12), and up and down are equal…”; Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, “Patach Eliyahu 5715” in Sefer Ha-maamarim Melukat Vol. 2(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2002), 106: “The binding of nature and that which transcends nature is through the revelation of the [divine] essence, which transcends both of them.” See further sources discussed and cited below.
26.See also Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, Likutei Dibburim vol. 1 (Yiddish Edition, Kehot Publication Society 2009), 310 [155b in Hebrew pagination]: “The hidden power [namely, the essence of divine being] that is in the physical is only revealed when the physical is used for the purpose for which the creator created it.” This concept will be further elaborated below.
27.Keter Shem Tov (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2004), section 194, in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, also discussed and elucidated by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Likutei Sichot vol. 19 (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2006), 295-297.
28.See also Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Veshavti Be-shalom 5738 in Sefer Ha-maamarim Melukot Vol. 2(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2002), 17-38.
29.See Bereishit Rabba, 10:9 and Devarim Rabbah, 2:37. See also Zohar Vol. 1, 81a and 206a; Zohar Vo. 3, 152a.
30.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, “Inyannah Shel Torat Ha-chassidut” in Sefer Ha-erchim Habad vol. 1(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1970) section 19, p. 5771. The present translations are all my own, for a full English translation of this treatise see On the Essence of Chassidus (Kehot Publication Society: New York, 1986), viewable here.
31.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Ibid., section 20, p. 5772-5773.
32.Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, Ibid., section 21, p. 5773; Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi Likutei Amarim—Tanya, chapters 36 and 37. In a footnote to the main body of the text inInyannah Shel Torat Ha-chassidus, the Rebbe takes the opportunity to further underscore Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s inclusion of the non-Jewish nations in his vision of universal transformation. The latter writes that “from the overwhelming revelation to the Jewish people the darkness of the nations will also be reached (יגי' חשך האומות ג"כ).” Drawing on a text from Rabbi DovBer Schneuri (“the Mitteler Rebbe”) the Rebbe suggests that this can be read to mean “the darkness of the nations will also be transformed,” adding that this is “similar to what was explained above that [through the revelation of the yehidah] bad itself is turned to good.” This remark is particularly significant as it complicates the assumption that Chabad discussions of the soul and its relationship to G‑d, and discussions of the yehidah in particular, apply uniquely to Jews. In this definitive treatise, which consciously lays bare the essence of Chabad chassidic teaching through the central motif of the yehidah, the Rebbe concludes with a statement implying that this transformative vision must ultimately overcome the distinctions between Jew and non-Jew as well. For an important and illuminating discussion of the highly complex discourse in Chabad texts on this issue, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Apocalyptic Crossing: Beyond the (Non)Jewish Other” in Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (Columbia University Press: New York, 2009), pages 224-264. See also Jonathan Garb,Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 2015), 200 n. 12; Wojciech Tworek,Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi(Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College London, September 2014), 126-136. Here it is also worth citing a related passage by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, Kedushat Levi Ha-Shalom, Vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1958), 413-414, as recently discussed by Shaul Magid, “Jewish Ethics Through A Hasidic Lens”, inHasidism Incarnate (Stanford University Press, 2015), 62-66, and by Eli Rubin, 'The Pen Shall Be Your Friend' Intertextuality, Intersociality, and the Cosmos - Examples of the Tzemach Tzedek’s Way in the Development of Chabad Chassidic Thought.
33.For more on the overcoming, or overturning, of the mind body duality in the messianic era, see Likutei Dibburim Vol. 1 (Yiddish Edition, Kehot Publication Society 2009), 305 [153a in Hebrew pagination], and the relevant discussion above, n. 23.
34.For an extended exposition on why the sanctification of the mundane, and the transformation of evil into good through a fundamental process of return to G‑d (teshuvah), provides the ultimate expression of the transcendent essence, see Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Veshavti Be-shalom 5738 in Sefer Ha-maamarim Melukot Vol. 2(Kehot Publication Society: New York, 2002), 17-38.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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PARSHAH
PARSHAH
Relevance of TorahIs the Torah an ancient book for a vanishing people, or is it alive and well in you? by Lazer Gurkow
Redundant
In this week’s Parshah, the Torah provides the coordinates for its location in the cosmos:
It is not in the heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us” … Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us.”1
At first blush it appears superfluous to inform us that the book that is in our hands is not in the heavens. It makes as little sense as myWhat is the Torah to you? asking you to run around the corner to ascertain that I am not there. If you are reading this passage, and you are on Earth, you know that the Torah is on Earth too, not in heaven; and it is in your country, not across the ocean.
However, on reflection, these verses yield a powerful message. Rather than a set of coordinates, they transmit a teaching that informs our entire approach to the Torah.
Relevance
What is the Torah to you? Is it an interesting book and a good read, or is it the word of G‑d that binds you? When you attend a Torah class and learn the Jewish dietary laws, do you walk away thinking about the changes you need to implement in your diet, or do you come home to tell your spouse and friends about the interesting habits of others? Does the Torah have relevance to you?
In all seriousness, the question boils down to this: Is the Torah an ancient book for a vanishing people, or is it alive and well in you? If the Torah is not alive in you, whose task is it to keep it alive? If not yours, whose? And if it’s not yours, why not?
These verses appear toward the end of the Torah because it is G‑d’s challenge to us. Now that we have completed reading the lion’s share of the Torah, G‑d is telling us: I want you to know that I never meant for it to be irrelevant and abstract. It is not in the heavens for heavenly, pious and holy people who devote their lives to scholarship and charity. Neither is it across the ocean for distant tribes from other parts of the world.
The verses continue: “Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.”2
The Torah is meant for you. Just like Uncle Sam, the Torah wants you. You can’t duck this responsibility, and you can’t shirk this privilege. It is not an anthropological study of how people lived years ago in distant places. It is about you.3
I once met a Jewish couple in an apartment building where I had koshered someone’s kitchen. When I told them that a new Jewish family was about to move in to their building they rejoiced. When I mentioned that I had just koshered the new family’s kitchen they said, “Aaah, that kind of Jew.” After a brief pause they recovered and said, “That’s all right, we welcome all kinds to our building.”
This is the vital mistake that G‑d wants us to avoid when we read the Torah. The laws of kosher are not for the other kind of Jew. They are for you and me and every Jew on the planet. The Torah belongs to you. When G‑d issued His commandments, He was talking to you too. When he said that Jews must keep Shabbat and Passover and Rosh Hashanah, He included you. The kosher Jew is not a different kind of Jew. He is your kind. You too are a kosher Jew. Even if you don’t know it yet.
Bonding
The Torah and the Jew are like a father and mother. Both parents make a critical contribution to the conception and birth of a child, and the child can be ushered into the world only if the parents collaborate to create new life.
The Torah is a container filled with intensely sacred Divinity. When we study the Torah and implement its teachings, we are suffused with its holiness and Divine energy. We become holy creatures, as it were. But if we study the Torah as an academic curiosity, and don’t see ourselves and our role within it, the holiness of the Torah remains aloof, trapped in the Torah and unable to permeate us or the world at large.
A student without Torah cannot channel holiness into the world. And the Torah without its students also cannot channel holiness into the world. It is only when the two mate that our person and our world become holy. This bonding means that we become relevant and important to each other. It is not enough that we learn about each other and remain distant. Just as the conception of a child comes about through intimacy, the holiness that the Torah is designed to usher into the world comes about through connecting with the Torah and making it relevant.
Learning about Torah from a distance, as a book that has no relevance for me, won’t generate the spark that the Torah is designed toA student without Torah cannot channel holiness into the world generate. It is only when we learn to take it seriously, as providing instructions for daily life, that the Torah becomes a channel of Divine blessing in our lives.
To bond with the Torah is to give it relevance in our daily lives. Whether it is by taking on the observance of its laws on a personal level, or by working to maintain a higher level of consciousness even as we go about our daily tasks, the challenge is the same. It is to recognize that when I study the Torah, G‑d is talking to me. Not to my neighbor and not to my friend, but to me. He wants me to take Him seriously. Seriously enough to implement change in my life.4
G‑d Reciprocates
When we implement change in the way we approach the Torah, G‑d implements change in the way He treats us, and we merit a year of blessing and abundance, plenty and joy. When we see the Torah as a relevant document, our concerns become relevant to G‑d, and He ensures that blessings flow to us from heaven.
G‑d treats us the way we treat Him. If we build a hiding place for Him in heaven, He will hide there. If we usher Him down to Earth, He will descend and join us.
FOOTNOTES
1.Deuteronomy 30: 12-13.
2.Deuteronomy 30: 14.
3.Me’or Einayim, ad loc.
4.Ibid.
-------Nitzavim In DepthA condensation of the weekly Torah portion alongside select commentaries culled from the Midrash, Talmud, Chassidic masters, and the broad corpus of Jewish scholarship.
Parshat Nitzavim In-Depth
Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20
Parshah Summary
This week’s Torah reading consists—as does the whole of the book of Deuteronomy—of Moses’ parting words to the children of Israel on the eve of their entry into the Promised Land:
But together with the dire warning comes the promise:
Moses also warns of the consequences of Israel’s failure to remain faithful to their covenant with G‑d: thedevastation of the land and the people’s banishment from it into galut (exile).You stand upright this day, all of you, before the L‑rd your G‑d: your heads, your tribes, your elders, your officers and all the men of Israel; your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water—to have you enter into the covenant of the L‑rd your G‑d, and into His oath, which the L‑rd your G‑d makes with you this day. In order that He may establish you today for a people to Himself, and that He may be a G‑d to you, as He has spoken to you, and as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.Not with you alone do I make this covenant and this oath; but with those who stand here with us this day before the L‑rd our G‑d, and also with those who are not here with us this day.
But together with the dire warning comes the promise:
It shall come to pass, when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, that you will take them to heart, among all the nations into which G‑d your G‑d has driven you.You will return to the L‑rd your G‑d and obey His voice, according to all that I command you this day—you and your children—with all your heart and with all your soul.Then the L‑rd your G‑d will return your captivity, and have compassion upon you, and will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom the L‑rd your G‑d has scattered you.If your outcasts are at the utmost parts of heaven, from there will the L‑rd your G‑d gather you, and from there will He fetch you.The L‑rd your G‑d will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will do you good, and multiply you more than your fathers.The L‑rd your G‑d will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, to love the L‑rd your G‑d with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live . . .
Practicality and Choice
Two more fundamental principles of Judaism are stated in the Parshah of Nitzavim: The practicality and accessibility of Torah—and the principle of free choice—For this mitzvah which I command you this day, it is not hidden from you, neither is it far off.It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?”Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who shall cross the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?”Rather, the thing is very near to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it.
See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil . . .I call heaven and earth to witness this day: Life and death I have set before you, blessing and curse. You shall choose life, so that you may live, you and your seed.
From Our Sages
You stand upright this day, all of you, before the L‑rd your G‑d: your heads, your tribes, your elders, your officers and all the men of Israel; your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water (Deuteronomy 29:9–10)
The Talmud (Pesachim 50a) tells the story of Rav Yosef the son of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, who fell ill and was at the brink of death when his father’s prayers brought him back to life. When he came to, his father asked him: “My son, what did you see (in heaven)?” Rav Yosef replied: “I saw an upside-down world. Those who are on top here are on the bottom there; and those who are here regarded as lowly are exalted in heaven.”That the leader or the sage is superior to the wood-hewer or the water-carrier is only from our earthbound perspective, which sees a “hierarchy” of roles. But when “you all stand before G‑d,” there is no higher and lower—what seems “low” here is no less lofty and significant in G‑d’s eyes.
(Alshich)
Like the various organs and limbs of a body, each of which complements, serves and fulfills all the others, so too the Jewish people: the simple “wood-hewer” or “water-carrier” contributes something to each and every one of his fellow Jews, including the most exalted “head.”
(Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi)
Our sages have said: “All Israel are guarantors for each other” (Talmud, Shevuot 39a). But a person cannot serve as a guarantor unless he is more resourceful in some way than the one he is guaranteeing. For example, a poor man obviously would not be accepted as a guarantor for a rich man’s loan. So if the Talmud says that all Jews serve as guarantors to each other, this means that in every Jew there is a quality in which he or she is superior to all others.
(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)
“This day” is a reference to Rosh Hashanah, the day on which we all stand in judgment before G‑d. (The Torah reading of Nitzavim is always read on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah.)
(Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov)
It is written (Psalms 79:1): “A song by Asaf: Alien nations have entered Your estate, they have defiled Your Holy Temple, they have laid Jerusalem in ruins . . .”
Should not the verse have said “A weeping by Asaf,” “a wail by Asaf,” “a lament by Asaf”? Why does it say “A song by Asaf”?
But this is analogous to a king who built a nuptial home for his son, and had it beautifully plastered, inlaid and decorated. Then this son strayed off to an evil life. So the king came to the nuptial canopy, tore down the tapestries and broke the rails. Upon which the prince’s tutor took a flute and began to play. Those who saw him asked: “The king is overturning the nuptial canopy of his son, and you sit and sing?” Said he to them: “I am singing because the king overturned his son’s nuptial canopy, and did not vent his wrath upon his son.”
So, too, was asked of Asaf: “G‑d destroyed the Temple and the Sanctuary, and you sit and sing?” Replied he: “I am singing because G‑d vented His wrath upon wood and stone, and did not vent his wrath upon Israel.”
(Eichah Rabbah 4:15)
The Melech HaMoshiach (“anointed king”) is destined to arise and restore the kingdom of David to its glory of old, to its original sovereignty. He will build the Holy Temple and gather the dispersed of Israel. In his times, all laws (of the Torah) will be reinstated as before; the sacrifices will be offered, the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year instituted, as outlined in the Torah.
Whoever does not believe in him, or does not anticipate his coming, denies not only the other prophets, but also the Torah and Moses. For the Torah testifies about him: “G‑d shall return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and He will return and gather you from all the nations amongst whom the L‑rd your G‑d has scattered you. If your outcasts shall be at the ends of the heavens, from there will the L‑rd your G‑d gather you, from there He will take you. . . . G‑d will bring you . . .” These explicit words of the Torah encapsulate all that has been said [regarding Moshiach] by the prophets . . .
(Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 11:1)
The events prophesied in this chapter are still destined to be fulfilled, as they had not yet been realized in the days of the the First Temple, nor in the days of the Second Temple; it is the sum of our comfort and our hope, and the cure for all our troubles.
(Abarbanel)
The Hebrew word used here for “he will return” is notveheishiv—which means “he will bring back”—butveshav, which literally means “he will come back.” Our sages learned from this that the Divine Presence resides among Israel, as it were, in all the misery of their exile, and when the Jews are redeemed, G‑d speaks of it as His own redemption— He Himself returns along with Israel’s exiles.
Another interpretation: The day on which Israel’s exiles will be gathered is so monumental and difficult, that it is as though G‑d Himself must literally take each individual Jew with His very hands out of his place. Thus the verse says “You will be gathered up, one by one, O children of Israel” (Isaiah 27:12). We find this also regarding the exiles from the other nations, as the verse says, “I shall return the exiles of Egypt” (Ezekiel 29:14).
(Rashi)
It a kindness that G‑d did to Israel, that He scattered them amongst the nations. . . . Does a person then sow a measure of grain, if not to harvest many measures? So too, the people of Israel were exiled amongst the nations only so that converts be added to them . . .
(Talmud, Pesachim 87b)
The “converts” of which the Talmud speaks refer not only to the non-Jews who joined the community of Israel in the course of their exile, but also to the “sparks of holiness” contained within the physical creation, which are redeemed and elevated when a Jew utilizes the resources he or she comes in contact with, in every part of the world, towards a good and G‑dly purpose.
(The Chassidic Masters)
From the time of the creation of the universe, man had the choice to be righteous or wicked. So it was for the entire duration of the Torah, in order that there be merit for us in choosing good and punishment for desiring evil. But in the days of Moshiach choosing good will be in our nature, and the heart will not lust for that which is not proper for it, and will have no desire for it at all. This is the “circumcision” spoken of here, as lust is a “foreskin” blocking the heart, and the “circumcision of the heart” is the removal of lust. In those times man will return to what he was before Adam’s sin, when he naturally did what is proper to do, and there were no conflicts and contradictions in his will . . .
This is the meaning of what our sages said, interpreting the verse (Ecclesiastes 12:1) “There shall come days of which you shall say: I have no desire in them”—“These are the days of Moshiach, in which there is neither merit nor guilt” (Talmud, Shabbat 151b). For in the days of Moshiach there will be no desire [of evil], annd thus no merit or guilt—since merit and guilt are both the products of a free will.
(Nachmanides)
moreIf it were in heaven, you would be required to climb up there and learn it.
(Talmud, Eruvin 55a)
[An oven] that was cut into parts and sand was placed between the parts, Rabbi Eliezer maintained that it is pure (i.e., not susceptible to ritual impurity). The other sages said that it is susceptible to ritual impurity . . .On that day Rabbi Eliezer brought them all sorts of proofs, but they were rejected. Said he to them: “If the law is as I say, may the carob tree prove it.” The carob tree was uprooted from its place a distance of 100 cubits. Others say, 400 cubits. Said they to him: “One cannot prove anything from a carob tree.”
Said [Rabbi Eliezer] to them: “If the law is as I say, may the aqueduct prove it.” The water in the aqueduct began to flow backwards. Said they to him: “One cannot prove anything from an aqueduct.”
Said he to them: “If the law is as I say, the may walls of the house of study prove it.” The walls of the house of study began to fall in. Rabbi Joshua rebuked them, “If Torah scholars are debating a point of Jewish law, what are your qualifications to intervene?” The walls did not fall, in deference to Rabbi Joshua, nor did they straighten up, in deference to Rabbi Eliezer. They still stand there at a slant.
Said he said to them: “If the law is as I say, may it be proven from heaven!” There then issued a heavenly voice which proclaimed: “What do you want of Rabbi Eliezer—the law is as he says . . .”
Rabbi Joshua stood on his feet and said: “The Torah is not in heaven!” . . . We take no notice of heavenly voices, since You, G‑d, have already, at Sinai, written in the Torah to “follow the majority” (Exodus 23:2).
Rabbi Nathan subsequently met Elijah the prophet and asked him: “What did G‑d do at that moment?” [Elijah] replied: “He smiled and said: ‘My children have triumphed over Me, My children have triumphed over Me.’”
(Talmud, Bava Metzia 59a–b)
moreFreedom of choice has been granted to every man: if he desires to turn toward a good path and be righteous, the ability to do so is in his hands; and if he desires to turn toward an evil path and be wicked, the ability to do so is in his hands . . .
This concept is a fundamental principle and a pillar of the Torah and its commandments. As it is written [Deuteronomy 30:15]: “See, I have set before you life [and good, and death and evil]” and “See, I set before you today [a blessing and a curse].” . . . For were G‑d to decree that a person be righteous or wicked, of if there were to exist something in the very essence of a person’s nature which would compel him toward a specific path, a specific conviction, a specific character trait or a specific deed . . . how could G‑d command us through the prophets “do this” and “do not do this” . . . ? What place would the entire Torah have? And by what measure of justice would G‑d punish the wicked and reward the righteous . . . ?
(Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 5:1–3)
more and moreHow is it fitting to love G‑d?
A person should love G‑d with such great and powerful intensity that his soul is bound in this love and is constantly pursuing it, as one, for example, who is smitten with lovesickness—as one who is so obsessed with a carnal love that his mind is never free of desire for that woman. . . . Even more so is the love of G‑d in the hearts of those who love Him . . .
This is what King Solomon meant when he said by way of metaphor, “For I am sick with love.” Indeed, the entire Song of Songs is a metaphor for this concept . . .
(Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 10:3)
It was a hot July day during the summer of 1866. The children of Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch, five-year-old Sholom DovBer and his brother Zalman Aharon, had just come home from cheder and were playing in the garden which adjoined their home.
In the garden stood a trellis overgrown with vines and greenery which offered protection from the heat of the sun. It was set up as a study, with a place for books, etc., and the rebbe would sit there on the hot summer days.
The children were debating the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. Zalman Aharon, the elder by a year and four months, argued that the Jews are a “wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy 4:6) who could, and do, study lots of Torah, both its revealed part and its mystical secrets, and pray with devotion andd’veikut (“attachment” to G‑d).
Said the young Sholom DovBer: “But this is true only of those Jews who learn and pray. What of Jews who are unable to study and who do not pray with d’veikut? What is their specialness over a non-Jew?”
Zalman Aharon did not know what to reply.
The children’s sister Devorah Leah ran to tell their father of their argument. Rabbi Shmuel called them to the trellis, and sent the young Sholom DovBer to summon Bentzion, a servant in the rebbe’s home.
Bentzion was a simple Jew who read Hebrew with many mispronunciations and barely understood the easy words of the prayers. Every day he would recite the entire book of Psalms, pray with the congregation, and make sure to be present in the synagogue whenEin Yaakov was studied.
When the servant arrived, the rebbe asked him: “Bentzion, did you eat?”
Bentzion: “Yes.”
The Rebbe: “Did you eat well?”
Bentzion: “What’s well? Thank G‑d, I was sated.”
The Rebbe: “And why do you eat?”
Bentzion: “So that I may live.”
The Rebbe: “But why live?”
Bentzion: “To be a Jew and do what G‑d wants.” The servant sighed.
The Rebbe: “You may go. Send me Ivan the coachman.”
Ivan was a gentile who had grown up among Jews from early childhood and spoke a perfect Yiddish.
When the coachman arrived, the rebbe asked him: “Did you eat today?”
“Yes.”
“Did you eat well?”
“Yes.”
“And why do you eat?”
“So that I may live.”
“But why live?”
“To take a swig of vodka and have a bite to eat,” replied the coachman.
“You may go,” said the rebbe.
(From the writings of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn)
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Women
Confessions At Coleman by Sara Hecht
I recently received the message below from a woman I met on two of my visits to sing at Coleman Federal Correctional Institution in Sumterville, Fla. Her words moved me deeply and brought me back in time to my first musical performance at a women’s prison.“I just wanted to tell you how wonderful the concert at Coleman was…you touched our souls that day...I hope you will continue to keep the ladies in your prayers and visit them and sing for them as you can. G‑d bless you.”
I grew up studying the Tanya, the magnum opus of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad Chassidic movement. He speaks of the battle of body and soul, the agendas of each, and how they learn to work together to fulfill a mission in this world. I always loved the Tanya; Rabbi Shneur Zalman’s metaphors movedI feel the jarring vibration of soul against body my mind. But today his words are no longer metaphors to me; they live inside of me, in the daily grind, in the grit and substance that make up the mundane and meaning of my every day.
Sometimes it actually hurts, the discordance of soul and body—their stark differences, the temperature of their movements, the directions they each want to take. And when I feel their separateness, when I feel the jarring vibration of soul against body, that’s when I know something isn’t right. After all, we’re here to teach body and soul to work in tandem. So when they’re not—when I bruise from the clash of their disharmony—I know that something is missing, that my soul is hungry. Hungry for substance to fill the spaces around its growing distance, so that it can once again lean into my body and drive it to accomplish like only soul knows how.
That’s when I start to pray. What I pray for in those moments is a simple chance to feed someone else’s soul. To feed someone else’s soul, and be nourished by the meal we share. I’m hungry to give, I tell Him. This soul knocking against my body is saying, “Get me out of here or give me a reason to stay. The walls of this body are too hard, hardened by a pop culture world; this body’s got no give, until it's softened by giving.”
And while I know the feeling of a seemingly unanswered prayer, I don’t at all believe in that premise. Because the prayer to activate my soul has never gone unanswered, and I wonder, perhaps, if it is because those prayers are powered by what prayer is really all about: a begging to be closer to where we come from.
Indeed, the answer came to me gift-wrapped by G‑d Himself. A dear friend, Rivkie Lipskier—who co-directs the Chabad Jewish Student Center at University of Central Florida, and gives Torah classes to Jewish female inmates at Coleman FCI via the Aleph Institute—asked me to come and sing for women in prison.
It came gentle and gift-wrapped, but when I opened that box, it knocked the wind out of me. It took my breath away and showed me that when my heart is bursting, when my lungs are expanding and gasping for air, that’s not mere biological function; that’s a piece of the Divine leaping around inside of me.
To look into the eyes of every woman in that room, to hear my soul say to each one, without words, that we are connected, that we are one, that notwithstanding the apparent walls of this prison nothing separates us one from another nor us from our Creator, that takes your breath away.
To be so close to my audience—not only in spirit, but also in space—that I can hand them tissues to dry the tears we’re waiting for Him to dry, that takes your breath away.
To draw no stage curtains save the ones that veil our hearts and minds, and to bare our emotions to each other with a vulnerability we rarely dare to show, that takes your breath away.
To have no sound system bar the acoustics of my soul to sing, and yet to feel like my voice has never reverberated better in all my life, that takes your breath away.
There is something about the Infinite that makes you want to come back for more. More, and more and more. They wanted more; I wanted more. I wanted to live that experience again. I wanted us to feel our souls wildly alive in our bodies; I wanted to tell another human in prison that we were all living this life in unison, that we were all battling a battle, that we were all waiting to go home.
So I called the Aleph Institute to arrange more visits for me to sing at U.S. correctional facilities. Across the state of Florida, from Miami to Coleman; from Ocala to Tallahassee and Quincy; and later to Danbury, Conn., and I wanted to feel our souls wildly alive in our bodiesChowchilla, Calif., wherever I went, I met women waiting to go home. But in each place, as we connected over the source of our souls, we realized how at home we truly were.
At Central California Women’s Facility—the largest female prison in the world—women of every race, faith and ethnic group were in the audience, and somehow everyone found a piece of themselves in the music. Together, we learned that even as we grieve and regret, longing to go home in space, our indomitable soul that mirrors the Divine always knows how to be at home in spirit.
And I learned that even living in the free world can feel like incarceration, and that sometimes it takes a visit to a soul in prison to get a full-blown taste of home.
Sara Hecht is a freelance writer, composer and singer from Australia. To book Sara for a musical performance, visit sarahecht.com.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
Unravelling the Mystery of My Father's Hebrew Name by Jolie Greiff
I was due to give birth in less than a week, and I still didn’t know the exact name to give our about-to-be-born son. I was starting to panic. Then a late-Friday-afternoon phone call from a Chabad rabbi thousands of miles away turned my anxiety to joy.Here’s the story.
My father went by the Jewish name Kushel Kalman. That’s the name I’d heard growing up, and on my ketubah, my Jewish marriage certificate,I was starting to panic I am written in as the daughter of Kushel Kalman.
After my father passed away, my mother wanted to order his grave marker. She called my father’s uncle to check on the exact Hebrew name and spelling since Uncle Clarence and my father shared the same name. They were named for the same family member, Uncle Clarence’s grandfather, my father’s great-grandfather. Their English name was Clarence Calvin Lewis.
Family legend held that the original Clarence Calvin was a wonderful man. He was a butcher and lived a long life. Beloved by generations of family members, there were 10 descendants named after him from the Lewis and Mendelsohn families.
Uncle Clarence, only eight years my father’s senior, was still alive after my father died. He was the “religious” one in the family, sure to know the right name. He told my mother that the actual name was “Kushniel,” and he’d heard it read one time during the reading of the haftorah, the additional reading after the Torah service.
My father’s grave marker was inscribed Kushniel Kalman.
When I was expecting, I found out that our baby was a boy. Of course, we wanted to name him for my father. My husband checked the Concordance, which lists in alphabetical order the words and phrases found in the Bible. Kushniel was not listed. I spoke to our wonderful rabbi, Rabbi Reuven Aberman. I told him that my father went by “Kushel,” but it seemed the proper name of his ancestor was “Kushniel.”
Rabbi Aberman told us that it was unlikely that Kushniel was the real name. And Kushel was clearly a nickname. He thought the real name might be Yekutiel, one of Moses’ names. He suggested we do more research.
I spoke to our friend Zelda, a Yiddish professor. She called a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who was an expert in Jewish names. He told her Kushniel was an Edomite name from the Second Temple period. No one named Kushniel was ever recorded to have divorced.
Rabbi Aberman was skeptical and said to check further. He asked if I knew where my father’s ancestor was buried. Uncle Clarence told me that his grandfather was buried in Reading,There must have been Hebrew on the grave marker. We needed to find out. Pa. Rabbi Aberman suggested that we ask a family member to check the tombstone.
Uncle Clarence had retired to Florida, so I wrote to my father’s brother, my Uncle Meyer, and asked if he would please check for me. A few weeks later, I received a letter telling me that Uncle Meyer and his wife, my Aunt Grace, went to the old cemetery, and they found the right grave! The name was written (hold your breath here) “Cusniel Kalman.”
Rabbi Aberman said that there must have been Hebrew on the grave marker, too. We needed to find that out.
Uncle Meyer and Aunt Grace were in their 70s. I didn’t feel I could trouble them to go back to the cemetery. My due date was rapidly approaching, so my friend Yehudis Wisnefsky suggested that we call Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, one of the Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in Philadelphia. He referred me to Rabbi Yosef Lipsker in nearby Reading.
I called, and asked if the good rabbi might be able to please call the cemetery and ask to check their records. He laughed. “I can see you’ve never been to that old cemetery! There isn’t anyone there to call.” But he offered to go to there himself.
Indeed, he and his brother-in-law went to the cemetery, and they, too, found the stone with “Cusniel Kalman” engraved on it, along with a date from 1903. They realized that there must be Hebrew on the back of the stone, but the nearby bushes were so overgrown that the back was completely covered. That’s why Uncle Meyer and Aunt Grace had not seen Hebrew writing—there was none on the side they saw. The two rabbis used a machete to hack away at the bushes. Finally, the Hebrew side was revealed. Inscribed were accolades of a G‑d-fearing and pious Jew who died at a ripe old age. His name was written as יקוסיאל קלמן—Yekusiel Kalman. It was misspelled, with the Hebrew letter samech instead of tet. Whoever engraved the stone must have written the name phonetically, and had not checked on the proper spelling. (Yekusiel is the Ashkenazic pronunciation of the Hebrew name Yekutiel.) And the Hebrew date and the secular date did not coincide.
Rabbi Lipsker’s brother-in-law called late Friday afternoon and gave me all the information. He told me that he and Rabbi Lipsker both prayed at the gravesite, recited psalms and told Yekusiel Kalman that, G‑d willing, he would have a great-great-grandson carrying his name. My husband and I practically jumped for joy! We felt overwhelming gratitude toward both Rabbi Lipsker and his brother-in-law.
At our son’s brit milah (circumcision), he was inducted into the covenant of Abraham our father, with the proper name of my wonderful father and his esteemed great-grandfather. We were so happy and thankful!
After my mother passed away, my sisters and I ordered a grave marker for her and a new one with the proper name for our father as well. When going through our parents’ house, we found our parents’ ketubah, with my father’s name, of course, listed as Yekutiel Kalman.
When my son was 9 years old and my daughter 6, we were living in Los Angeles. We knew that the following summer, our family would be moving back to Israel. So we went for a trip to Reading, to visit with Uncle Meyer and Aunt Grace. For Shabbat, we went to the Lipskers. How wonderful to meetWe visited the old cemetery the man who had helped us so many years before!
We also visited the old cemetery and saw where the original Yekusiel Kalman was buried. And we went to the newer cemetery and visited the graves of my grandparents, and Uncle Clarence, whose stone read: “Yekutiel Kalman.”
The translation of Yekutiel is “to hope in G‑d.” It’s a wonderful name for our son, especially appropriate as we were married for six-and-a-half years before he was born, but we never gave up hoping that G‑d would bless us with a child.
Our son turns 19 next week. He has grown into a wonderful young man. Our thankfulness to G‑d only increases.
Jolie Greiff is a journalist and a mother. She lives with her husband and two children in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Women
3 Benefits of Being a Ba’al Teshuvah by Lieba Rudolph
“Wait, I think that’s the doctor!” Zev exclaimed as we hurried out of the car to say hello. I had never seen the doctor before, but I had heard all about him. He came to shul on Shabbat a few weeks ago for a bar mitzvah. Zev told me how much he enjoyed their conversation,I had to learn everything from scratch largely because the doctor was so interested in our Jewish journey. That doesn’t happen very often.Our meeting on the street was unplanned; we all had other places to go. Somehow, though, once we started talking, the doctor wasn’t rushing to leave anymore. He picked up the conversation where he and Zev left off: He still couldn’t believe that we, and so many other people in shul, weren’t born as observant Jews.
“You should carry an old picture of yourself,” I teased Zev as I confirmed that he was once a golfer with a 5 handicap. (Not that I know what that means—I can’t get past why you would want to play a game that requires you to have a handicap.) We introduced the doctor to the generally accepted term for people like us: ba’alei teshuvah. I told him that it literally translates as, “masters of return.” (“Halevai,” I quickly added with a smile. That’s the Jewish way of saying, “If only.”) I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but I did want to reassure him that if he came to shul, he would be in the company of many beginners who had just begun a little earlier.
Encounters like these thrill me. Because finally, after a very long time, I appreciate that there are many real benefits to being a ba’alat teshuvah. Here are three of them:
I learned a lot in my secular education. Even if I did forget most of what I learned in school, there’s still a lot that comes to mind regularly: about Edmund G. Ross or fruit flies or (my favorite) the Milgram experiment. And while I’m not certain how my 500-word English essays helped my writing, I can surely credit my SAT preps for introducing me to words like cistern and harbinger. I may always struggle with Hebrew because I learned it as an adult, but I can sing along in French to much of “La Marseillaise”—that comes in handy once in a while, too. And because I was educated in America, I learned that “1492” was the year Columbus sailed there. When I learned that 1492 was also the year the Jews were expelled from Spain, I had no trouble remembering the date. But most of all, I know I need to somehow find a way to use my knowledge, my education and my past to bring greater holiness into our world. Learning how to write those 500-word essays probably helped me articulate Torah thoughts more than I realize.
I appreciate my observance because I worked so hard for it. Nothing about Jewish observance was “second nature” to me. I had to learn everything from scratch—and I was already married with two children. I don’t know where the perseverance came from; I’m just grateful that my husband and I both had it. I couldn’t wait for the day, though, when I might be mistaken for an “FFB,” someone who was “frum from birth.” (Frum is the Yiddish way of saying “observant.”) I wondered if I would ever be comfortable in my Jewish skin. Now I realize that discomfort is the hallmark of a ba’al teshuvah,andI celebrate that quality. It’s great for getting me to improve myself.
I can relate to the mindset of people who aren’t observant. I understand what it’s like to grow up with nebulous notions about G‑d and Judaism. Which is why I also understand how people might resist hearing about Moshiach. But as a ba’alat teshuvah, especially through Chabad, I also understand that redemption is an essential Jewish concept that will transform the world, and that learning Torah and doingI appreciate my observance mitzvahs can bring this time sooner. (As a woman, I appreciate how Moshiach’s arrival is likened to giving birth—to an almost 6,000-year-old baby, no less—with all the pain and focus that are necessary to complete the job.) I can even elucidate some of the harbingers of redemption (think global anxiety and circus politics) to anyone who’s interested in doing more to bring the redemption.
And when I say anyone, I mean any one. Because humankind’s good deeds are cumulative, and one more good deed is all it’s going to take. I’m not sure what that one good deed will be and when it will transform the world, but we’ll all know Moshiach when he comes. One thing’s for sure—the word ba’al teshuvah will take on a whole new meaning.
Lieba Rudolph lives in Pittsburgh, PA, and writes a weekly blog about Jewish spirituality.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Your Questions
Rosh Hashanah Is on the Wrong Day! The past of your life starts now by Tzvi Freeman
Hello Ask-The-Rabbi Rabbi,Rosh Hashanah is on the wrong day. And that means there’s a serious mistake in the prayer book.
Every Rosh Hashanah, we say, “Today is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day.” So let me tell you something about the Jewish calendar: Rosh Hashanah is not “Happy Birthday, World!” It's the anniversary of the sixth day of creation. The Jewish calendar places creation at the 25th day of Elul, five days earlier!1
So what's up with this “beginning of Your works” and “remembrance of the first day?”—Rush H. Shawna
Hello Rush!
That's what happens when you hyper-complicate everything. Think straight and simple and everything works.
“Today is the beginning of Your works” doesn't meanIt’s not an anniversary. It means what it says: the beginning. As in “time starts now.” an anniversary. It means what it says: the beginning. As in “time starts now.”
“A remembrance of the first day” doesn't mean an anniversary celebration. It means a replay. As in “system reboot.”
And it's on the sixth day because the first time the world began, it began on the sixth day.
Okay, that part is not so simple. It might even sound nuts. But a lot of reality sounds nuts.
So let me explain:
The world didn’t really begin until the prototype human being became conscious and did its thing—which was on the sixth day. At that point, retroactively, the world had begun five days earlier—on the first day.
And that replays every year, on Rosh Hashanah. Every Rosh Hashanah, the world begins again, retroactively, from the first day.
Who Discovered the World?
So what did Human 1.0 do on its first day?Here's how the Zohar tells the story.2 Zohar—right? Not to be taken at face value. Everything here has deep, metaphorical meaning. So think deep:
When Adam first stood on his feet, all the animals saw him and were in awe. They followed after him like servants following their king.
But then he said to them, as it says in Psalms,3 “Come, let us all bow down and thank G‑d, our maker.”
And they responded (also as in Psalms4), “G‑d is king!”
Meaning, the first Adam made three discoveries and one great accomplishment:
He discovered there was a world.
He discovered he didn't make this world.
He discovered there was something greater than him that did.
And he got the whole world to go along with his discoveries.
Now, you have to recognize, this was an enormous change in the world’s status. Because now it had a background. And nothing really exists until it has a background.
Take water. What makes water water? Only the fact that there are places where there is no water.
As one clever person put it, “We don't know who discovered water, but it certainly wasn't the fish.”
The fish have no background. They know of nothing but water. Therefore, fish do not know that water exists. Until they are flapping around without it. But that doesn’t last too long.
To put it another way: You can't recognize that something is until you can imagine it not being.You can't recognize the existence of a thing until you can experience or at least imagine its absence.
So if you would have asked one of those animals that was worshipping Adam, “How long has this world been around?” (let’s assume for now that there were some intelligent ones amongst them)—you would get nothing more than a blank stare. Because not only is there no concept yet of a beginning, there’s not even a concept of a world.
World As Art
But we know that we are inside a world. Which means that we have something inside us that somehow can conceive of not-world. It's called human intelligence.When we engage that intelligence, the world resonates with our discovery. Because, in truth, every creature has a sense of wonder.
And that's when the world becomes a world.
What's so great about becoming a world? Because now it has meaning. It says something. It sings the wonders of its Creator. Every creature, every detail of it.
It becomes art.
If this change in status had been entirely Adam’s idea, it would not have affected the past. It would have been an epic event, a new dawn—leaving the old world behind in the dimness of twilight.
But that was not the case.
The world was originally meant to be a glorious work of art. It was only waiting for someone to recognize it for what it truly was. Because there is no art without an audience.Human consciousness is both the audience and the punchline to existence. Without some observer to applaud, and say, “This is magnificent! I'm in awe! What art! What an Artist!”
To get it.
You know those stories where a punchline at the end turns the meaning of every detail around, forcing you to go back and re-read the whole thing?
That’s what Adam provided. He made the previous five days of creation into a whole new story.
Waking Up
So we are Adam. And we go through that story of the Zohar every morning.Each one of us wakes up each morning believing that “I just am. Things just are. Why are there things? Because I am here.”
None of us can imagine a world without us. You and I, we each see ourself as the center of everything. We wake up to a world that worships us.
As in:
“Mommy, before I was born, were there birthday parties?”
“Yes dear.”
“And did they have birthday cakes?”
“Certainly.”
“And birthday gifts?”
“Of course!”
“What a waste!”
You laugh—but that's every one of us, the raw human being.
It's only once we engage our brains, we realize, “That's ridiculous. There's a world out there. There doesn't have to be a world, but there is. And it's not here because I'm here—because I didn't make it.”
“Which means I'm inside something greater than me. Something that grants me consciousness and life.”
“Which means I must have purpose, and my life has meaning.”
At which point the world begins to be. A whole world that was here before you were ever born also now comes to have been.And a whole world that was here before you were ever born also now comes to have been.
Because you discover what it was here for in the first place. It's here as a piece of glorious art, so that you will discover its Artist. It’s a whole new story.
The Big Morning
That's every morning. Which is why we have to meditate and pray every morning. Doesn't matter that you did it yesterday—today you have a new consciousness, you are a new person, and your world has to be rebooted once again.But Rosh Hashanah, when the shofar is blown, that's the Big Morning. It's a replay of the very first morning of the first human consciousness.
The Ari (great Kabbalist, 16th century) taught that every year, a new packet of time, energy, life and consciousness is allotted for that year alone. As Rosh Hashanah enters, that packet recedes back to its origin. Time itself is absorbed back into the nothingness. All that remains is just enough life to sustain basic system functions.
And then, as the shofar is blown, a new life enters. A new state of consciousness. A new energy. And even a new continuum of time.
Meaning that even the past is renewed.
The past of this coming Rosh Hashanah is not the present you experience now. That will have disappeared, and a new past will be created.
And as on the very first Rosh Hashanah, we are the ones to decide just how real this new creation will be.
That's the whole judgment thing of Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, the real judge is you.It’s our judgment—how we see ourselves. And how we see our world.
Is our world a world?
Do our lives have meaning?
Is there wonder?
Maamar Zeh HaYom 5742. See Maamar Zeh Hayom 5741 for a proper understanding of this maamar.
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, a senior editor at Chabad.org, also heads our Ask The Rabbi team. He is the author of Bringing Heaven Down to Earth. To subscribe to regular updates of Rabbi Freeman's writing, visit Freeman Files subscription. FaceBook @RabbiTzviFreeman Periscope @Tzvi_Freeman .
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.
FOOTNOTES
1.Our reader likely knows this from a comment of the Tosafot in Talmud Rosh Hashanah 8a. If he knew it from Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus 29, he would see that the source for the line in the High Holiday prayer book is right there. It’s found in a few other places, as well. There’s another opinion that the world was created on the 25th of the month of Adar. Some explain both are true, and the whole thing is much deeper than you can imagine. That’s for another time.
2.Zohar 1 221b. Ibid3 107b. Tikunei Zohar, tikun 496. The last line is from the version of the story in Pirke D’Rabbe Eliezer, chapter 11.
3.Psalms 95:6.
4.Psalms 93:1.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Your Questions
I Cannot Stop on Shabbat by Malkie Janowski
Question:By far the most difficult commandment for me to keep is Shabbat. I never seem to get everything done in time on Friday, and can't just leave it alone as I should. Can you help me?
Answer:
I think this is really a challenge for us 21st century Americans, accustomed as we are to thinking that we need to hold the reins, taking control of every aspect of our lives. The idea that we should just stop—really stop—and let the world and the stock market and business and politicians continue on without us is simply foreign. We just don't think that way.
Here's a tidbit about Shabbat that lots of people don't know. Shabbat belongs to a category of mitzvahs called eidut, the Hebrew word for “testimony.” In other words, when we keep Shabbat, we are giving testimony about something. What exactly are we testifying to? The answer is found in the words we say in the kiddush blessing as we welcome Shabbat: G‑d created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.
This testimony has a far more profound impact than simply imitating G‑d's behavior of “resting.” What our Shabbat observance affirms is our belief that not only did G‑d create the world many, many centuries ago, but that He remains its Creator, and continues creating and sustaining it at all times. And He can manage to do this without our help. On Shabbat, we step back, refrain from all creative activity, release our control of our piece of the world, and attest to the fact that G‑d is truly the only one in charge.
The fact that keeping Shabbat is hard for you means that you're really tuning in to what it's about. As you say, you can't seem to leave it alone. That's exactly it! When that struggle arises, grab ahold of that statement and make it a positive one. I will leave it alone and show G‑d that I trust He knows what He's doing, and that He's the One making it all happen. I can rest.
It's incredibly freeing.
Malkie Janowski is an accomplished educator who lives in Coral Springs, Florida. Mrs. Janowski is also a responder on Chabad.org's Ask the Rabbi team.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Story
The Returnee by Menachem Posner
The students of Rabbi Dov Ber, the great Maggid of Mezerich, prized the opportunity to serve their master. Thus, they developed a rotation, in which they each took a turn assisting their teacher.It happened during the turn of Meilech, who would one day gain renown as Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk:
“Meilech,” called the Maggid from his room. “Do you hear"Do you hear what they are saying in heaven? what they are saying right now in heaven? The mitzvah to love a fellow Jew means that one must love a complete sinner exactly as one would a pristine tzaddik (righteous person).
“A tzaddik is able to arouse latent abilities that are hidden deep in the soul of another, thus enabling even a sinner to return to G‑d,” continued the Maggid. “The Chevraya Kadisha (Holy Brotherhood, a term used for the elite disciples of the Maggid) has the ability to arouse a complete sinner to return to G‑d.”
The following morning, Rabbi Elimelech shared this wondrous teaching with his fellows, who understood that they had their work cut out for them. They immediately set out to understand the Maggid’s words, each one offering his interpretation. During the course of the conversation, they shared stories and teachings of the sages on the subject of teshuvah (repentance).
Suddenly, the door opened and a stranger walked in. He stood for a few minutes, listening to their conversation, before shouting: “What are you doing, sitting around in a synagogue talking about Torah study and repentance? What is Torah? What is teshuvah?”
He then continued to berate them and laugh at their sincere discussions.
The men rose to pray with great fervor and copious sobs. They then recited Psalms together, allowing the inspired words of King David to express their desire to help others come closer to G‑d.
Unmoved, the man continued to scoff, calling them “batlanim” (“loafers”). Undeterred, they continued to display only kindness, telling him how every Jewish soul is"What is Torah? What isteshuva? infinitely precious in the eyes of G‑d.
Slowly but surely, their words had the desired effect, and the man turned his life around, becoming a pious and G‑d-fearing Jew.
This story, which was told by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, was preserved by Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli who heard it from his brother, Rabbi Elimelech, and related it to the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. (Sefer Hasichot 5700, Hebrew Edition, pp. 119-120)
Rabbi Menachem Posner serves as staff editor for Chabad.org.
Artwork by Sefira Ross, a freelance designer and illustrator whose original creations grace many Chabad.org pages. Residing in Seattle, Washington, her days are spent between multitasking illustrations and being a mom.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Miriam’s Melt-in-Your-Mouth Rosh Hashanah Brisket by Miriam Szokovski
Somehow, brisket has become standard Rosh Hashanah fare across North America, so I would be remiss not to share my recipe as well as a few tips I’ve picked up along the way.
I’m no meat maven, but I’m learning, and the two most important things to consider when cooking brisket are:Let the meat shine. Often people drown brisket in all kinds of bottled sauces, but I suggest saving that for cheaper cuts. Use spices, herbs and milder liquids to enhance the flavor of the brisket.
Patience, patience, patience! Cook the meat on a low temperature for a long time. Don’t try to rush it, or you’ll end up with hard, dry, chewy meat—not the pleasant, melt-in-your-mouth texture you were hoping for.
Now, on to specifics. Cut the onions in rounds, and put them on the bottom of a baking dish. Mix the paprika, garlic powder, chives and salt in a small bowl. Pat the spice rub all over both sides of the meat, until it can hold no more. Now put the brisket on top of the onions and into the oven at 400° F for 1 hour, uncovered.
Take it out and turn the oven down to 250° F. Pour ½ cup balsamic vinegar and ⅓ cup honey over the meat. It may look like not a lot of liquid, but the meat and onions both let out lots of juices, and you end up with plenty (as you can see in the pictures). Cover the pan tightly with foil and return to the oven. Cook for another 4 hours, until meat is fork tender—meaning a fork goes in with almost no resistance. Approximately once an hour take it out and turn the meat, so both sides get equally moist. (If you’re busy, you can skip the turning; just make sure to turn it once, about halfway through.) Cooking time will vary, depending on the size and thickness of your brisket, so make sure to use the fork test.
Once it’s ready, refrigerate the meat overnight, then remove from the sauce and cut into thin slices, against the grain. Return slices to the sauce and reheat in the oven or over a low flame on the stovetop when ready to serve. Freezes well. Serve with the sauce and onions.
Ingredients:3 lb. first-cut brisket
2 tbsp. paprika
2 tbsp. garlic powder
2 tbsp. dried chives (optional)
1 tbsp. salt
2 large Spanish onions
½ cup balsamic vinegar
⅓ cup honey
Directions:
Slice the onions in rounds. Place them in the bottom of a baking dish.
Combine the paprika, garlic powder, chives and salt in a small bowl. Cover the brisket with the spice mixture. Pat it in gently until the meat can hold no more.
Place the meat on top of the onions and put it into the oven at 400° F for 1 hour.
Take the meat out, add the balsamic vinegar and honey, and cover the baking dish tightly. Lower the temperature to 250° F and cook for another 4 hours, until the meat is fork tender.
Refrigerate the meat until completely cold (preferably overnight), then cut in thin slices against the grain. Return the sliced meat to the sauce. Reheat in the oven, or over a low flame. Serve with the onions and sauce.
Yields: Approximately 40 thin slices.
Do you eat brisket on Rosh Hashanah? How do you cook it? Any special family recipes?Miriam Szokovski is the author of the historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Lifestyle
Rosh Hashanah Pavlova by Miriam Szokovski
In this Pavlova, three of the traditional Rosh Hashanah foods come together in a way that is sure to impress. The airy meringue shell is filled with honey-vanilla cream, topped with green apples and drizzled with pomegranate coulis.
Even better, there’s no need to hold the brisket! You can easily make this a non-dairy dessert.
Meringue Ingredients:3 egg whites (from large eggs)
1 cup + 2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. corn starch
1 t vanilla
½ t vinegar
Meringue Directions:
Beat egg whites until stiff.
Mix the corn starch into the sugar.
Pour the sugar into the egg whites a little bit at a time while mixing. When the mixture is thick and stiff (ie. You should be able to turn the bowl upside down without the mixture falling out), add the vanilla and vinegar. Mix just enough to combine.
Line a cookie sheet with baking paper, and heat oven to 250 F.
Spoon the mixture into a circle, about 1 inch thick. Then build it up around the sides to create a bowl shape with a nice well in the center.
Bake for 1 hour, then turn the oven off and leave the shell inside for several hours. Do not open the door until it is fully cooled.
Keep the base in a cool, dry place for up to 2 days, until you’re ready to use it. It should be crisp on the outside and sticky and marshmallowy on the inside.
Filling Ingredients:
1.5 cups heavy cream (dairy) OR 8 oz. Rich’s Whip (non-dairy) OR 1.5 cups coconut cream (non-dairy).
2 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp. honey
Filling Directions:
Beat heavy cream until soft peaks form, or beat Rich’s Whip or coconut cream until stiff.
Gently mix in the honey and vanilla.
Pomegranate Coulis Ingredients:
Seeds of 1 pomegranate
¼ cup water
2 tbsp. sugar
Juice of ½ a lemon
Pomegranate Coulis Directions:
Simmer all the ingredients for at least half an hour.
Blend.
Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve at least twice.
Refrigerate.
To Assemble:
Spoon cream into the shell.
Chop up 1-2 tart green apples and lay them gently on top of the cream.
Drizzle with pomegranate coulis.
Serve immediately.
Miriam Szokovski is the author of the historical novel Exiled Down Under, and a member of the Chabad.org editorial team. She shares her love of cooking, baking and food photography on Chabad.org’s food blog, Cook It Kosher.© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.-------
Jewish News
Shimon Peres, 93, Proclaimed Centrality of Judaism to Israel and the Jewish People by Menachem Posner
Shimon Peres, who served in a variety of political and defense positions before and after Israel’s founding, and who later in life became the nation’s ninth president and the world’s oldest head of state, passed away in Tel Aviv at the age of 93. Here Peres writes a letter in a new Torah in Belweder, Poland, accompanied by Rabbi Shalom DovBer Stambler, left, director of Chabad Lubavitch of Poland, and Rabbi Levi Stambler, director of the Jewish Community of Dneprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine.Shimon Peres, the often controversial Israeli leader who served in a variety of political and defense positions from before Israel’s founding, and who later in life became the nation’s ninth president and the world’s oldest head of state, passed away today in Tel Aviv following complications from a stroke. He was 93 years old.
An influential force in Israeli political life, Peres stood apart from many of his fellow secular Zionists who sought to jettison traditional Judaism from the fledgling state. Born to a noted rabbinic family in pre-war Poland, throughout his life Peres considered Torah, its mitzvahs and faith in G‑d to be the very foundations of the Jewish people. It was a conviction that was reinforced, expanded and deepened after meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—later in life.
Born Shimon Perski in 1923 in Visnieva, Poland, Peres proudly related that he was conceived only after his parents—Yitzchak Getzel, a wealthy timber merchant, and Sarah, a volunteer librarian—had sought a blessing for children from a Chassidic rebbe.
As a young boy, Shimon was deeply influenced by his maternal grandfather, Torah scholar Tzvi Hirsh Meltzer, who taught him Talmud daily and whose heartfelt prayers, he would relate, motivated him to pray with great devotion.
In 1934, his family migrated to British Mandate Palestine, settling in Tel Aviv. During an emotional farewell at the train station, Meltzer held his grandson tight. “My child, be a Jew!” he pleaded. In 1942, the rabbi was murdered by the Nazis, defiantly wearing his tallit as he marched ahead of his community to his death inside a burning synagogue.
Peres grew up quickly and his eloquent writing and speeches attracted the attention of Labor Zionist founder Berl Katznelson and Zionist Labor organizer David Ben-Gurion, who later became the modern State of Israel’s first prime minister. The two appointed him to the secretariat of Mapai, an Israeli Socialist party.
In 1945, Peres married Sonia Gellman, a mitzvah-observant Jew. The couple settled in Kibbutz Alumot and went on to have three children: Tzvia Valdan, a doctor of philology; Yoni Peres, a veterinarian; and Nehemiah Peres, an engineer, founder and managing partner of a venture capital fund.
Peres at Lubavitch World Headquarters; he sought the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s guidance over the years on numerous issues.Peres was recruited by the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces, and tasked with special assignments involving personnel, defensive acquisitions and military research. He was later appointed head of the naval service. After the 1948 War of Independence, he was appointed head of the Ministry of Defense delegation to the United States.
Upon his return to Israel in 1952, at age 29, he was appointed by Ben-Gurion as director general of the defense ministry. Among his accomplishments were strong ties with the French and German political and military establishments, as well as the creation of Israel’s nuclear program.
As a result of his sincere respect for traditional Judaism, Peres was sometimes dispatched by Ben-Gurion to work with rabbinic leaders on crucial matters like the deferment of military service foryeshivah students. Years later, Peres recalled to his close friend, journalist David Landau, that when he was discussing the matter “with the venerable rabbis, I felt like I was sitting with my grandfather.”
Peres at Lubavitch World Headquarters, waiting for his audience with the Rebbe.“I had reverence toward these people,” Peres said, “I didn’t sit with them to haggle.” Peres said he was impressed by their "very cogent [argument that] throughout the Diaspora period even the czars and other rulers had facilitated the existence of yeshivot. ‘Did I want all the yeshivot to be abroad?’ I thought this was a powerful argument.”
As a result, an agreement was reached in which full-time yeshivah students would enter the military at age 25 for a brief three-month induction, followed by reserve duty.
In 1959, he entered politics under the banner of Mapai. After he was elected to the Knesset, he was appointed by Ben-Gurion as deputy to the Minister of Defense, serving in this capacity for six years.
Peres went on to serve as a member of the Knesset for 48 years—the longest term of service in the history of the Israeli parliament. He served as a minister in 12 different cabinets and served twice as prime minister (1984-86, 1995-96). His portfolios include deputy minister of defense (1959-1965), minister of defense (1974-77, 1995-96), foreign minister (1986-88, 2001-02) and treasury minister (1988-1990).
Correspondence from the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memoryEncounters With the Rebbe
Like so many other leaders among Israel’s secular political, military, scientific, financial and educational establishment, Peres sought the advice and blessing of the Rebbe. He traveled twice to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn for face-to-face meetings with the Rebbe, and wrote numerous letters and sent in-person intermediaries to consult on sensitive matters that to this day remain classified.
During their first meeting, in 1966, some 15 months before the Six-Day War, the Rebbe alerted Peres to his view of the impending Egyptian threat and his opinion that it could be solved by focusing Israel’s efforts on Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser. Peres described the meeting, which lasted for more than an hour, as something he had waited for with significant anticipation.
After the war, Peres was among the generals and other notables pictured in tefillin, thus giving expression to what the Rebbe worked to become a national phenomenon—thanksgiving to G‑d in recognition of His miraculous deliverance during the war, as opposed to Israel’s becoming lost in euphoric and hubristic overconfidence in the wake of victory.
By the time he came to the Rebbe again in 1970 as Minister of Transportation and Communications in Golda Meir’s Labor Party government, the Rebbe had repeatedly and publicly expressed his opinion that post-Six-Day War attempts to offer militarily strategic areas of land in exchange for vague promises of peace was a dangerous, even suicidal, approach to peacemaking and would, G‑d forbid, only bring more bloodshed in its wake in Israel and spur terrorism in other parts of the world. Peres, as is known, favored a romantic approach, hoping that Israel’s overtures would somehow spur its declared enemies to act peacefully.
Reciting a blessing over the lulav and etrog in Israel during Sukkot.Yet Peres knew that despite the Rebbe’s grave and fundamental disagreement with his approach, he would always be available for strategic counsel related to Israel’s own well-being as well as to help assure the success of its missions for safekeeping Jews across the globe.
In an interview with JEM’s “My Encounter With the Rebbe,” Peres recalled that the Rebbe discussed with him issues pertaining to Jewish identity in Israel, including many specifics regarding the Russian émigrés who were beginning to arrive there from the Soviet Union, and a host of other subjects.
The Rebbe underscored to Peres the importance of educating Israel’s populace, especially the young, about Judaism and its age-old traditions, and ensuring that this infuses the very character of Israel. Addressing Peres’s opportunity and responsibility as communications minister, “the Rebbe told me that we need to apply modern communication—which then meant radio, telephone and television—as vehicles for Jewish education,” according to Peres.
Recalling that meeting, Peres said that the Rebbe “foresaw what the future bode with the same clarity with which he discerned the present. He understood very well our immediate security challenges, yet was also determined to meet the future, by investing in education.”
Along those lines, Peres said the Rebbe “engaged in both our present and our future with the same urgency, because they dare not be separated. He felt that any gap between them invites sure danger.”
He went on to say that the Rebbe was “unique in how he fused the spiritual and the practical.”
Inspecting a historic Torah scroll with Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar.The national Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, whose correspondent covered the Peres visit to Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, recorded in its Feb. 13, 1970 edition a far simpler reaction by Peres. Upon leaving the Rebbe’s wood-paneled study, the paper reported, Peres exclaimed: “He is the greatest human being I’ve ever met. His is true greatness!”
Characteristically, the Rebbe’s concern extended to the entire family. Following that meeting, the Rebbe wrote a letter to Sonia Peres, acknowledging the note she had sent with her husband, thanking her for her heartfelt good wishes, and providing her with the blessings she had requested for the couple and their children.
The Rebbe also replied in writing to Peres’ elderly father, describing his pleasure from meeting his son personally and discussing with him weighty matters of significant importance, and expressing his hope that their discussion would lead to concrete action.
In 1984, when Peres wrote to the Rebbe to inform him of the details of his ascension to the premiership in a power-sharing agreement with Yitzhak Shamir of the Likud Party, as well as to request the Rebbe’s blessing for success in his new position and for the new year, the Rebbe replied fairly succinctly, and then added a long postscript.
Donning tefillin in 1985The Rebbe reminded Peres that 1.) during their meeting nearly 15 years earlier, he had proudly told the Rebbe that he, Peres, was born after his parents had turned to a righteous person (a Chassidic rebbe) for a blessing; and 2.) that Peres had responded to the Rebbe’s concern about some very grave issues at the time, “Der Aibershter vet zicher helfen” (“the One Above will surely help”).
The Rebbe thus urged him to fulfill his role in a manner that would satisfy the rebbe who had blessed his parents, and in a manner that would elicit G‑d’s blessing now, which is surely the way of Torah—called the “Torah of Life”—and its mitzvahs.
Despite the chasm in their approach to Israel’s security, the Rebbe’s exhortations to Peres about Jewish education continued to influence him, and he implemented and supported numerous programs aimed at furthering Jewish education throughout the state. He also frequently helped Chabad in Israel in its work spreading Judaism to soldiers and many others.
It is perhaps as a result of his deep respect for the Rebbe that Peres remained particularly close to a number of Chabad Chassidim in Israel throughout the decades. One close friend was the longtime mayor of Kfar Chabad, Rabbi Shlomo Madanchik, who would visit the Peres home often, bearing a lulav andetrog on Sukkot, reading the full Megillah for him and his wife on Purim, handing out shmurah matzah for Passover and throughout the year, regularly updating the Peres family with information about the weekly Torah portion and the like.
Peres shakes the lulav with Rabbi Schneur Goodman of Ashdod, Israel, circa 1979.‘Without Sinai, What Meaning Does Life Have?’
In 1990, Peres spearheaded the left-led effort to take down the Shamir government in protest of Shamir’s refusal to negotiate with Palestinian representatives. Peres succeeded in convincing enough parliamentarians to support him in a no-confidence vote, and the Shamir government fell.
Efforts by Peres to form a new government, however, were stymied by two members of parliament from the Agudat Yisrael Party, who refused to attend the vote in which the proposed new Peres-led government would be approved.
They were largely seen as acting out of respect to the Rebbe’s well-known position about the mortal danger to Israel of territorial concession in exchange for promises of peace.
“To my sorrow,” he later reflected, “the Chabad movement did not support me politically, but I still treasure the Rebbe’s outstanding leadership and tremendous impact.”
On the third of Tammuz, in 1994, while Peres was serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister, the Rebbe passed away. Soon afterward he wrote a public, heartfelt letter focusing on the Rebbe’s intimate involvement in Jewish affairs all over the globe. Peres wrote, “In the places where danger lurked for Jewish people, his emissaries risked their lives to fulfill his secret missions to save Jews—in Soviet Russia, in Islamic lands and in many other lands. It is in his merit that the Jewish embers have been preserved in those places.”
Commenting on the Rebbe’s humility and genuine interest in every individual, he described the Rebbe as the embodiment of Hillel’s teaching to “love people and bring them close to Torah,” and “The legacy that he bequeathed was a love of Jews as they are, and the constant search to find that which united him and others.”
With Rabbi Lazar at the 2012 opening of the Russian Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in MoscowHis final term as prime minister began in November 1995, after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. But he was ousted only half a year later in the aftermath of the Oslo accords.
In 2007, at the age of 83, Peres was elected to serve as the ninth president of Israel.
In that role, he traveled to Jewish communities around the globe and experienced firsthand the manifold work of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries. But he took particular pleasure in seeing the rebirth of Judaism through its length and breadth, marveling at the manifestation of the Rebbe’s vision as well as the flourishing of the Rebbe’s decades-long clandestine work there.
“I see you, the shluchim of Chabad in many places around the world, among them remote, forsaken and hostile places,” he said in a 2013 message he videotaped and sent to the shluchim. “You aremitzvah messengers of the Rebbe—of his desire that the Jewish people continue and be sustained as a nation.”
By the time he retired in 2014, he was the oldest head of state in the world.
Just a few months ago, before he was felled by a stroke from which he never fully recovered, Peres reflected on the essence of the Jewish people, asserting that a nation defined only by memories of the Holocaust and the creation of a secular Zionist state cannot sustain itself.
“Without Sinai, what meaning does life have?” he asked rhetorically.
Shimon Peres was predeceased by his wife in 2011. In addition to his three children, he is survived by eight grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
Peres visiting the Chabad Yeshiva in Lod, IsraelIn Lod, Israel© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.-------
Jewish News
Independent Study Charts Chabad’s Transformative Long-Term Impact During and After College by Dovid Margolin
A groundbreaking study of Chabad-Lubavitch's impact on university campuses throughout the United States was released this week, the first time that independent researchers have systematically examined the movement's impact on students. The independent study was commissioned by the Hertog Foundation. (Photo: Dovid Birk)A groundbreaking study of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s impact on university campuses throughout the United States was released today, the first time that independent researchers have systematically examined Chabad’s transformative impact on students during and after college.
Commissioned and funded by the Hertog Foundation in New York, the study was conducted by noted social scientists Dr. Mark I. Rosen and Dr. Steven M. Cohen, along with Arielle Levites and Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz. Over a period of three years, they analyzed survey data from more than 2,400 alumni under the age of 30 and conducted extensive in-person interviews with students, parents, faculty, university officials, and local Chabad and Hillel leaders at 22 campus Chabad centers. The Hertog Study of Chabad on Campus gauges Chabad’s post-college impact according to 18 different measures of Jewish engagement, and details the means and methods that produce that engagement.
According to Cohen, research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford University, the study is a pivotal one: “In the context of American Jewry’s legitimate concern for its Jewish future, this is a vital study that’s coming at the right time.”
The study reveals that Chabad on campus is having a significant and lasting effect on the long-term Jewish engagement of students from all backgrounds.
The data indicates that “students’ involvement with Chabad on campus has a very strong impact on their Jewish lives after college,” states Rosen, associate professor and director of field-experience programs at the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University and the lead author of the study. “The impact is across the board, and is actually strongest for those who were raised Reform or unaffiliated.”
The study reported that those raised Reform who were active with Chabad had a 113 percent increase in their overall engagement compared to their counterparts who hadn’t been active with Chabad during college—2.13 times higher. For students raised with what they termed “no denomination,” Jewish engagement was 107 percent higher, and those raised Conservative measured 63 percent higher than students not active with Chabad.
Many Students From Unaffiliated Homes
Dr. Mark I. Rosen of Brandeis UniversityFrom USC and Arizona State to Harvard and Yale, campus Chabad centers have sprung up at nearly every American institution of higher education with Jewish students. The Chabad centers are directed by Chassidic couples who by appearance stand out among the college crowd—the rabbi sporting a beard, his spouse and co-director modestly dressed, both with young children in tow.
The study empirically confirms that the large numbers of young Jews attracted to Chabad centers on campus hail overwhelmingly from backgrounds very different than those of the emissaries who influence them. The study found that 88 percent of Chabad on campus attendees do not come from Orthodox homes, with a significant portion not affiliated at all. Those unaffiliated are described by the study as “usually the most difficult group for most Jewish organizations to attract and engage.”
“It’s counterintuitive that they would show up at all,” says Rosen.
Cohen, a seasoned researcher who has been studying the Jewish community for decades, points out that some within the broader Jewish community have been under the assumption that “to reach young Jews who are distant, you need other Jews who are distant to attract them.
“[But what] we’re seeing here is that you do not have to be assimilated to reach other assimilated Jews. In fact, Chabad shows that it’s actually better to be engaged and Jewishly learned to succeed.”
And though this population “is clearly hard to reach,” Cohen adds, once engaged with Chabad, “they travel far.”
Dr. Steven M. Cohen, director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at Stanford UniversityLong-Term Connection
So what actually draws students to check out Chabad at college?
The Hertog report reveals that the first encounter is often the result of a friend’s recommendation to join Chabad’s plentiful Friday-night Shabbat meals or convivial holiday programs, where they are warmly welcomed to what alumni described as a “homey” atmosphere. It’s also fun.
The social scene on Friday night was variously described by students as “cool, fun, hip, lively, vibrant, and exciting,” states the study.
But what keeps them coming back afterward is “personally connecting with the rabbi or rebbetzin in some fashion,” says Rosen, author of several books and numerous publications, including an important study of the campus Hillel organization.
The study finds that it is the “extraordinary level of concern” shown by the emissaries toward each individual that establishes the students’ “foundation for Jewish growth.”
That personal care, Rosen says, affects pivotal life decisions by students, such as dating and marrying Jewish.
Other ways in which the impact was measured include a belief in G‑d, post-college participation in Jewish learning, an emotional attachment to Israel and donating to Jewish causes.
The report reveals that first encounters with Chabad on campus are often the result of a friend’s recommendation, where they are warmly welcomed to what alumni describe as a “homey” atmosphere. And what is warmer than Havdalah? (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)Strong Roots, New Growth
Chabad-Lubavitch’s work on American college campuses stretches back to the 1940s and `50s, when the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, and his successor, the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—sent rabbinical students to campuses to serve as resources for Jewish students.
The Rebbe also spent many hours meeting personally with Hillel student groups and individual students, answering their existential questions and guiding them in their campus challenges, always urging them towards greater Jewish observance and pride. He also counseled Jewish organizations on creative ways to engage campus students Jewishly.
Chabad centers nationwide traditionally dedicated significant attention to student outreach. In the late 1960s, however, the movement also began establishing permanent student-focused centers near major American academic institutions across the United States.
The last decade-and-a-half has seen extraordinary growth in the number of Chabad centers and the percentage of Jewish students impacted nationwide. In 2000, Chabad had 30 student-dedicated centers nationwide; today, in large part due to significant pioneering investments made by philanthropist George Rohr and his family over the last 16 years, 198 U.S. campuses are served by student-dedicated Chabad Houses (of a total 235 permanent student centers worldwide), and Chabad is a regular presence on more than 400 universities around the globe. That number continues to grow, with several in the pipeline at any given time.
One eyewitness to the growth and evolution of Chabad on campus has been Rabbi Menachem Schmidt, co-director of Lubavitch House at the University of Pennsylvania and president of Chabad on Campus International, the umbrella organization for campus-based Chabad work. He and his wife, Chava, founded the campus Chabad House in 1980 and just recently celebrated extensive new renovations on the building.
“When we first came to Penn, people really didn’t know what to make of us,” says Schmidt. “Today, a student might come to Penn while his or her friends are at the University of Michigan, Stanford, or Miami, and they’ll all share their respective experiences at the Chabad Torah class or challah bake or ‘Shabbat 1000.’ That’s a big change from 36 years ago.
“But the foundational approach of what we do on campus hasn’t changed at all,” says the rabbi. “Making personal connections, forming friendships, being there in a student’s time of need and sharing the treasures of Judaism—all of which come directly from the Rebbe’s teachings and example—remain very much the same.”
Torah classes, one-on-one study, the Sinai Scholars program and other Jewish learning opportunities are available to students and led by Chabad. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)Creating a Welcoming Environment
The impetus to study Chabad’s effect on campus did not originate from the movement. That came from investor and philanthropist Roger Hertog, president of the Hertog Foundation and chairman of the Tikvah Fund.
Hertog says he long wondered about “the efficacy, the value of the impact on students coming to Chabad Houses.” Conversations with Chabad on campus leadership eventually led him to engaging researchers to systematically gather and evaluate data about its work on campus.
Almost four years later, Hertog notes that what surprises him most is that “Chabad is able to reach across lines and create a welcoming environment for young people, and then get them interested in learning more.”
“I think it will make the donors and all the people involved proud of what they’re doing,” says Hertog.
The researchers found that the higher the level of participation in Chabad, the higher the frequency of post-college Jewish learning for those raised with no affiliation, Reform and Conservative. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)George Rohr, who serves as chairman of the board of advisers of Chabad on Campus International, concurs.
“Over the years,” says Rohr, “many friends from across the denominational spectrum who have college-age children have asked me questions like ‘Why is my cool, independent, fun-loving, intellectually curious child at XYZ college so attracted by this couple who appear to be so different than him or her?’ This study answers those questions.”
Examining the factors that contribute to Chabad’s success, the authors delved deeply into the goals and modus operandi of the campus emissaries. They explored how emissaries encourage students to adopt Jewish practices, assessing whether they are in any way coercive; they examined Chabad’s approach to the public role of women, emissaries’ overall compatibility with college populations, their relationships with college administrations, their budgets and fundraising responsibilities, and their opinions on the role of Hillel on their campuses.
The researchers discovered what they describe as the emissaries’ “complete acceptance” of students, and how despite their “scrupulous and unwavering personal observance” they “do not consider students who do not follow these practices to be any less Jewish [than they are], and they do not impose these practices upon them.”
This and a series of traits and behaviors, including intellectual and spiritual depth, authenticity, modeling a strong personal example while demonstrating a flexible, personalized approach to each student converge to form a deeply resonant experience for the student—one that has a powerful and long-lasting impact on his or her life.
Putting up a sukkah on campus (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)“There are many external things—great food, warmly greeting people—that are practiced elsewhere, too,” explains Rosen. “But there’s a lot that Chabad does that is not easily replicated: The dedication, devotion and commitment of the rabbis and rebbetzins in both their work and personal lives. The way their entire family is involved. The Talmudic wisdom. The Chassidic teachings. The teachings of the Rebbe. Can you take a few ingredients and apply them? Sure. But can you bake a cake without all of the ingredients?”
Hertog says that he is particularly taken by the study’s portrayal of female Chabad emissaries, with whom students often forge deeper bonds even than with the rabbi. “Her role is unheralded in the Jewish world in how giving she is,” states Hertog. “Given all she does as a mother caring for her children, often cooking for very large numbers of people, and on top of that, to have students coming in at all hours of the day, every day, and to engage with them. That’s a pretty impressive finding.”
Rosen says that the biggest surprise for him was “how long so many students stay in touch with their campus Chabad representatives after college. Generally, few students stay in touch with their college faculty after they graduate. But 60 percent—that’s three out of five students—were in touch with the Chabad rabbi or his wife during the previous 12 months. You keep your rabbi and rebbetzin after college. That’s quite remarkable.”
“It’s gratifying that this landmark study confirms empirically what many of us have long known instinctively,” says Rohr. ”The reason behind Chabad’s success on campus is the utterly selfless dedication and hard work of every single emissary—both the husbands and the wives—and their unconditional love for each student. Their sincerity and self-sacrifice is incredibly compelling to students, and their warmth allows these students—whether or not they agree with the emissaries on a variety of subjects—to form lasting and rewarding relationships with them.”
Chabad emissaries see one of their most important roles as opening up their homes to Jewish students and modeling observant Jewish family life for them. Young children are active and involved in Chabad events. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)History and Continuity
Both Rosen and Cohen say the Hertog study is an important report to be read by people who care about the future of the American Jewish community and Jewish continuity. Professor Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., agrees, saying the findings point to a changed atmosphere on campus.
“Go back a generation ago to when Yitz Greenberg wrote about universities as the death knell of Judaism. You had Jewishly committed students who were going to college and leaving their Judaism behind,” explains Sarna, a leading Jewish historian and author of American Judaism: A History, and most recently, of Lincoln and the Jews. In this study, “we see today’s students coming to college uninterested in Jewish life and become turned on to it, rather than the reverse.”
Sarna believes that the effects of the life-long investment of the Chabad campus emissaries will be increasingly felt throughout the Jewish world.
Many students are introduced to tefillin and have the opportunity to don them, assisted by rabbis and oftentimes their own peers. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
Reciting prayers over candles before Shabbat (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)“Chabad rabbis are there to stay forever,” he says, “so they develop a history and continuity with the institution. They’re there for the long haul. With so many of the Chabad centers relatively new now, we’ll likely see a yet far larger Chabad impact 20 years from now.”
Echoing Sarna’s projections, Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of Chabad on Campus International, says: “This news bodes well for the Jewish future.”
All told, Chabad’s work both on campus and in communities around the world stems directly from what Hertog calls “the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s big idea.”
“The Rebbe had a big goal, a vision, to look and see something in every Jew, no matter how observant they are,” he says. “Sending [religious] young men and women [and their families] to cities or campuses not only around the United States but all over the world, that is a profoundly big idea. That you can bring Jewish people closer to Judaism and that each person has something to offer, that’s an idea that is alive today as it was when the Rebbe was alive, and will continue on.”
Male students tend to form close relationships with the rabbis, while female students develop strong bonds with their wives. The data shows that these relationships continue long after college is over. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
The data also suggests that those with moderate and high levels of participation in Chabad come closer to the mainstream Jewish community in the post-college years. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
Challah-making is a popular activity on campus, a skill that emissaries hope women take with them when they leave college and eventually start families of their own. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)
The likely impact of involvement with Chabad during college is pervasive, affecting a broad range of Jewish attitudes and behaviors. These include religious beliefs and practices, Jewish friendships and learning, communal involvement, dating and marriage, an emotional attachment to Israel and the importance of being Jewish. (Photo: Chabad on Campus International)© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.-------
Jewish News
It’s Official: There’s a Chabad House in Normal, Illinois by Menachem Posner, Chabad.edu
The Telsner children send a clear message: Home is now Illinois State University.Surrounded by an endless sea of golden cornfields, Normal, Ill. (and its sister city of Bloomington) has a zoo, a sports coliseum, state university, city hall, airport, and now, a brand-new Chabad House.
“I’m more than excited about this,” says Jacob Levin, a native of Northbrook, Ill., who also serves as vice president and secretary of the local Hillel House. “We’ve been talking about some of the services that Chabad can offer, and I’m really looking forward to being involved.”
Rabbi Chaim and Rochel Telsner are relocating with their three children to Normal, where they will serve the Jewish student population at Illinois State University (ISU), founded in 1857.
There are as many as 1,000 Jewish students at ISU; Levin estimates that about 5 percent of them are engaged in Hillel activities. The school has a total population of roughly 20,000 students.
The town took its unusual (or perhaps usual) name from the university, which was then called a “Normal School,” the standard term for teachers’ colleges.
Despite its less-than-exciting ring, Rabbi Telsner, who is originally from London, notes that he and his wife “really took to the vibe of the place, which is nice and colorful—just what you’d like to see in a college town.”
Normal (which sits 130 perfectly flat miles from Chicago) will now be the fourth city in Central and Southern Illinois to have a Chabad House, following Champaign (U of I), Peoria (Bradley University) and Carbondale (SIU).
Rabbi Chaim Telsner has info (and items) at the ready about programs on campus.‘Getting the Word Out’
The Telsners were previously CTeen directors in Rochel’s hometown of Skokie, Ill., and have extensive experience providing guidance and programing for young adults.
The Telsner family“We are very grateful to Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky [vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement], Chabad on Campus International and the Rohr Family Foundation for helping us make this new Chabad House a reality,” says Rabbi Meir Moscowitz, regional director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois. “My father, Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, of blessed memory, began with one Chabad House at Northwestern University in 1978, and things have been growing exponentially ever since.”
The Telsners plan to kick off the year with a barbecue dinner that will serve as a “welcome back” event for students and a general welcome for the new Chabad. The couple hopes to be fully open for business in time for Sukkot.
With a new crop of incoming freshman, the couple has their work cut out for them.
“Our first point of business will be to get to know the students,” says Rochel Telsner. “We have lots of ideas of programs and services, but first we’ll focus on making friends and getting the word out. Everything else will follow.”
The town of Normal, Ill., looking east on North Street, with its historic theater in front. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Watterson Towers, a high-rise student dormitory at ISU (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.
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Jewish News
A Grand Day for Angola Jews, Complete With a New Torah by Karen Schwartz
Rabbi Dovid Cohen of Montreal, Canada, puts the finishing touches on a Torah scroll for the Angolan Jewish community. A Hachnasat Sefer Torah celebration, or welcoming of a Torah scroll to its new home, was followed by dinner and live music. (Photo: Israel Bardugo)Chabad Lubavitch of Angola celebrated its grand opening on Sunday and welcomed a Torah written specifically for their community. About 150 people gathered midday for ribbon-cutting ceremonies for both the building and the synagogue, and also watched as mezuzahs were affixed to the new spaces and plaques were unveiled, dedicated to the founders.
Government officials, residents and guests attended, in addition to a number of philanthropists, including Jacob Karako, Ouriel Mansour, Elazar Benjamin and Haim Taib. Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, executive director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Central Africa, flew in from Kinshasa, Congo, for the festivities.
Chabad of Angola is directed by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Devorah Leah Chekly, who moved there with their young daughter a year-and-half-ago. The Cheklys, who speak French, Hebrew and English, have been reaching out to the estimated 300 Jewish families living full-time in Angola, in addition to visitors. Initially housed in a small apartment, the family will now move into the three-story villa and workspace.
“It’s bigger and can cater to more people,” says Bentolila. “And it makes it very clear that we’re here to stay.”
In the evening, the group reconvened at the Epic Sana Hotel in Luanda—the country’s capital and largest city—to put the finishing touches on a new Torah with the help of sofer (scribe) Rabbi Dovid Cohen of Montreal, Canada. The Hachnasat Sefer Torah celebration, or welcoming of a Torah scroll to its new home, was followed by dinner and live music.
Angola draws businesspeople from around the world—men and women who come for a week, a month or longer, sometimes with families in tow. Whether they are looking to pray, learn or simply connect, the social hall and synagogue will offer the room needed for spiritual activities, classes, holiday programs, life-cycle events, consultations with the rabbi and more.
“They’re doing a great job bringing people together,” says Bentolila of the young couple, who typically draw 50 to 60 people a week to Shabbat services and meals.
At the podium, Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, executive director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Central Africa, flew in from Kinshasa, Congo, for the festivities. (Photo: Israel Bardugo)
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Chekly, co-director of Chabad of Angola with his wife, Devorah Leah, welcomes the crowd at the grand opening of the new building and synagogue. (Photo: Israel Bardugo)Bentolila is marking a significant milestone of his own.
Twenty-five years ago, in 1991, he moved to Africa as an emissary of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to open Chabad-Lubavitch of Central Africa in the Congo as the headquarters for countries with small Jewish communities throughout Africa. “Our task,” he says (referring to the collective work of emissaries there, including his wife, Miriam), “is to bring light to all the Jews in our communities in Africa—to bring light and warmth to those Jews who for some reason come for work. Angola is part of our mission.”
He hopes to see the Chabad House there continue to thrive: “I’m looking forward to the day the new space becomes too small. Then we will need to expand even more.”
(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)
Chabad of Angola co-directors Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Devorah Leah Chekly, with their daughter (Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)(Photo: Israel Bardugo)© Copyright 2016, all rights reserved.-------
Chabad.org Magazine - Editor: Yanki Tauber
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