The Crown Heights Jewish Community Council is launching a new Small Home Repair Initiative to help Crown Heights residents with small but important jobs around the house.

The program will provide labor at no cost for eligible minor repairs, with priority given to seniors, individuals with disabilities, and residents who may have difficulty taking care of these jobs themselves.

Examples may include installing handrails or grab bars, changing light fixtures, hanging shelves, repairing or tightening household fixtures, and other minor home maintenance.

“Sometimes a small repair can make a big difference, especially for a senior or someone with a disability,” said Shmuly Rosenstein, Acting Chairman of CHJCC. “We want CHJCC to provide practical help that makes people’s homes safer and more comfortable.”

The initiative is for Crown Heights residents only and is limited to small repairs. It does not include renovations, construction projects, or work requiring a licensed contractor. The program is available for a limited period of time and is subject to capacity and availability.

How It Works

Please email your name, phone number, a description of the repairs needed, and clear pictures of the work that needs to be done.

CHJCC will review the request and, if the project can be accommodated, will advise what materials or supplies are needed.

CHJCC provides the labor at no cost; residents are responsible for purchasing and supplying all necessary materials. Once the materials have arrived, CHJCC will coordinate an available time to complete the work.

Please do not email for general information and please do not call. Email only if you have a small repair request and are ready to provide all relevant information and pictures so that we can review the request.

Requests should be sent by email only to:
[email protected]

Chaim V’Chessed: Foreign Passport Rule Extended and Branch Closures This Week

Foreign Passport Travel Rule Extended Again

Good news for Israelis who hold dual citizenship: the Population and Immigration Authority has extended the temporary arrangement allowing Israeli citizens to enter and leave Israel using a valid foreign passport through December 31, 2026.

For decades, Israeli citizens – including those who hold an additional citizenship – were generally required to use an Israeli passport when entering and leaving Israel.

The temporary exception was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, when passport offices in Israel and Israeli missions abroad were operating with limited capacity or were closed altogether. Many Israelis found themselves unable to obtain or renew Israeli passports, creating significant difficulties for international travel.

The temporary arrangement has since been extended repeatedly. It had most recently been extended through September 30, 2026, and the Population and Immigration Authority has now extended it again, this time through the end of 2026.

This means that Israeli citizens who have a valid foreign passport may continue using that passport to exit and enter Israel through December 31, 2026, subject to the applicable requirements.

Important Reminder Regarding ETA-IL

Foreign visitors from visa-exempt countries traveling to Israel are required to obtain an ETA-IL (Electronic Travel Authorization) before traveling to Israel. Since January 1, 2025, visa-exempt travelers are required to have an approved ETA-IL before boarding their flight.

Israeli citizens are technically exempt from the ETA-IL requirement. However, Chaim V’Chessed strongly recommends that Israeli citizens who are traveling to Israel using their foreign passport obtain an ETA-IL before their trip, unless they will be traveling with their Israeli passport.

This can help avoid confusion or difficulties at airline check-in when traveling on a foreign passport.

Important: There are numerous imposter sites which charge inflated prices for this inexpensive travel document. Apply only through the official Israeli government website, available here. The ETA-IL costs NIS 25, and applicants should allow up to 72 hours for a response.

Widespread Interior Ministry Branch Closures This Week

At the same time, anyone who needs to visit an Interior Ministry/Population Authority branch should be aware of significant closures taking place this week.

Most Population Authority branches throughout the country will be closed through Thursday, August 27. Some branches may provide limited service by appointment only.

This means that individuals who were hoping to visit a branch this week for passports, identity cards, visas, status matters, or other Population Authority services should not assume that their local branch is operating normally.

In addition, many Population Authority branches will also be closed on Tuesday, September 1.

We strongly recommend checking the status of your specific branch before traveling there, particularly if you have an urgent need or an upcoming appointment. See here for information on specific branches.

Netanyahu Reveals that Iran Tried to Assassinate One of His Children

israelnationalnews

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed this evening (Monday) that Iran has attempted to assassinate one of his children. The information was previously prohibited from being published.

In a conversation with Channel 14 News, Netanyahu said, “There is something here that is unbelievable. Iran targeted one of my children. Iran tried to murder one of my children.”

When asked whether this was intelligence information that was presented to him, Netanyahu did not elaborate and repeated his words: “Iran tried to assassinate one of my children.” According to him, security for his children is not a luxury: “It is something without which this attempt will simply succeed.”

Read More at israelnationalnews

Shmuli Cunin (Los Angeles, CA) to Musi Krichevsky (Russia) L’Chaim: Tonight, Monday, 8:00pm at Lubavitcher Yeshiva Crown Street

Shmuli Marozov (Cleveland, OH) to Richa Marasow (Paris, France) L’Chaim: Thursday, August 27th, details to follow

A special evening of support for Vaad Talmidei Hatmimim Haolami was held in Kfar Chabad, bringing together dozens of members of Anash who share a concern for the future generation of Lubavitch.

The event was hosted at the home of Yossi Rivkin, owner of COL and co-owner of COLlive. It marked the first gathering of its kind in Israel dedicated to strengthening the Vaad’s large-scale Tishrei operation.

Each year, thousands of bochurim travel to spend the month of Tishrei with the Rebbe at 770. Behind the familiar scenes of a packed 770, full sedorim, farbrengens and tefillos stands a major logistical operation that enables the bochurim to devote themselves to the ruchniyus of Tishrei.

Under the leadership of Rabbi Tzvi Altein, the Vaad arranges accommodations, dining facilities, thousands of meals each day, transportation, staffing and ongoing maintenance throughout the month.

The evening was emceed by Rabbi Binyamin Wilhelm, who introduced the speakers and guided the program.

Enabling a Bochur to Be Fully Immersed in Tishrei

Rabbi Altein presented the full scope of the Vaad’s work and outlined the substantial expenses involved in caring for thousands of Temimim from their arrival until after Simchas Torah.

He described the extensive infrastructure prepared ahead of Tishrei, including sleeping accommodations, dining facilities, thousands of daily meals, transportation, staff and ongoing maintenance.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Altein presents the scope and expenses of the Vaad’s Tishrei operation

Behind every bed and every meal is one central purpose: allowing a bochur to be fully immersed in Tishrei with the Rebbe, participating in the davening, learning and farbrengens, and absorbing the Chassidishe atmosphere of Beis Chayeinu.

Participants at the gathering in Kfar Chabad

An Impact That Lasts a Lifetime

Rabbi Shneur Ashkenazi addressed the gathering about the zechus and responsibility of caring for the Temimim who come to spend Tishrei with the Rebbe.

He spoke about how the influence of Tishrei does not end when a bochur returns to yeshiva. The chayus in davening, the strengthened hiskashrus to the Rebbe and the Chassidishe atmosphere he absorbs can remain with him for years, influencing the home he will build and the shlichus he may undertake.

Rabbi Shneur Ashkenazi addresses the gathering

Supporting a bochur during Tishrei is therefore not merely assistance for one month. It is an investment in the next generation of Lubavitch and in the Chassidishe homes that will be established in the years ahead.

Rabbi Chaim Shaul Brook joined the gathering live from New York and spoke about the central role of the Vaad in the Tishrei experience at 770.

Rabbi Chaim Shaul Brook joins the gathering live from New York

Rabbi Brook emphasized the importance of maintaining a strong and organized framework that accepts responsibility for thousands of Temimim. By caring for their physical needs, the Vaad enables the bochurim to focus on the ruchniyus of the precious days of Tishrei.

Caring for the Bochurim Arriving From Israel

For Crown Heights residents, the Vaad’s work is especially familiar. Every Tishrei, the neighborhood welcomes thousands of young guests, many of them arriving from Eretz Yisroel.

The Vaad’s extensive operation helps ensure that the bochurim have a place to sleep, regular meals and the structure necessary to make proper use of their time in Beis Chayeinu.

Members of Anash supporting the Vaad’s Tishrei operation

The event highlighted a meaningful point: although the Vaad’s work is carried out in Crown Heights, many of the bochurim benefiting from it are the sons of families in Eretz Yisroel.

The Vaad’s staff members accept responsibility for these bochurim throughout the month, giving their parents the reassurance that an organized Chassidishe framework is caring for both their physical and spiritual needs.

A Chassidishe Framework That Must Be Strengthened

The gathering emphasized the importance of maintaining and strengthening the Vaad as a large, organized institution serving the Temimim during the most significant month of the year.

Such an operation cannot be taken for granted. It requires months of preparation, substantial resources and the constant work of staff members and volunteers who accept responsibility for hosting thousands of bochurim.

Yossi Rivkin addresses the gathering

The Vaad is not simply an organization providing beds and meals. It gives the bochurim an established Chassidishe framework in keeping with the chinuch they receive in Tomchei Temimim, allowing them to focus on the true purpose of their journey to 770.

More Than a Fundraising Event

The significance of the evening was not limited to the funds that would be raised. It also created greater awareness among Anash in Israel of the tremendous operation taking place each year in Crown Heights.

For many years, much of this work has been carried out behind the scenes, even though a significant portion of the Temimim hosted by the Vaad come from Israel.

Donors and supporters who participated in the Kfar Chabad gathering

The gathering gave participants an opportunity to hear directly from those involved, understand the scale of the responsibility and meet the people who make the operation possible.

Participants left with a renewed recognition that strengthening the Vaad is a shared responsibility for anyone who cares about the chinuch, hiskashrus and Chassidishe future of the Temimim.

Supporting the Vaad’s hachnosas orchim operation is not only about providing a bed or a meal. It is a partnership in Tishrei with the Rebbe and in building the next generation of Lubavitch.

Photos: Meir Dahan/COL

As the new school year begins, most bochurim are heading back to Yeshiva. But for some families, there is still uncertainty. Maybe your son has not yet found the right Yeshiva. Maybe the options you explored didn’t feel like the right fit. Or perhaps school is beginning and you’re already wondering whether your son will thrive in the environment he is entering.

HaMesivta is still accepting applications for the new school year.

Located in Crown Heights, HaMesivta was created for good bochurim who want to learn, grow, and succeed, but may need something different from the traditional large Yeshiva setting. Some bochurim simply do better with a smaller class, a shorter day, more individual attention, and an environment where they are known and understood.

At HaMesivta, every bochur matters. Small class sizes allow the Rebbeim to really get to know each student—his strengths, his struggles, what motivates him, and what he needs in order to succeed. Rather than expecting every student to fit into one system, the program is designed to meet each bochur where he is and help him move forward from there.

The atmosphere is warm, loving, and caring, with a focus on helping each bochur experience success, build confidence, and develop positive relationships with his Rebbeim, learning, and Yiddishkeit. For Crown Heights families, HaMesivta offers a local option where a bochur can remain close to home while benefiting from a smaller, more personal Yeshiva environment. Sometimes a bochur doesn’t need to be pushed harder—he needs a place that understands him, where he can breathe, succeed, and begin to enjoy learning again.

If your son still does not have the right place for this year—or if you are beginning the year with doubts about whether his current setting will work—it is not too late. HaMesivta is here, and we are still accepting applications.

For more information or to discuss whether HaMesivta may be the right fit for your son, contact:

Rabbi Moshe Lieblich
347-234-8928
[email protected]
HaMesivta.com

Stump The Rabbi: Was the Rebbe Against Accepting Reparations from Germany After the Holocaust? Rabbi Yosef Katzman answers.

To ask a question and for more answers visit:

https://stumptherabbi.org/

Chabad Singer Haviv Haim Ben Aryeh Releases New Single

Haviv Haim Ben Aryeh has released his newest single “Shirat HaPitgamim” Of Chabad.

The National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE) is celebrating a remarkable milestone: 100 children who attended public school during the 2025–2026 school year have gone on to enroll in yeshiva or Jewish day schools for the 2026–2027 school year.

For many Jewish children, going to public school can sometimes feel isolating. They may be the only Jewish child in their classroom, have difficulty explaining why their family celebrates different holidays, or simply wonder why they are different from their classmates. At a time when antisemitism and anti-Jewish hostility have increasingly entered school environments, that sense of isolation can be even more painful.

Under the leadership of Rabbi Sholem Ber Hecht and the NCFJE’s Executive Committee, the Released Time Program provides a powerful connection. Every Wednesday, Jewish children leave their public school for one hour and enter a Jewish environment where they learn Torah, daven, and experience the joy and pride of being Jewish.

“Released Time gives Jewish children a place where they can be Jewish without feeling different,” said Rabbi Shimon Hecht, a member of the Executive Committee. “That one hour gives a child the confidence, connection, and love for Judaism that can ultimately change the direction of their life.”

Recently, Released Time received a letter from Mrs. Hana, sharing how her children’s experience with the program changed the course of their life.

“My children attended public school in the early 2020’s and initially struggled to understand why our family lived differently,” Mrs. Hana wrote. “After participating in Released Time, my nine-year-old son, Avraham, came home with an unexpected request: ‘Please sign me up, and my sister too, for yeshiva next year.’”

“I will never forget that moment,” Mrs. Hana continued. “I cried for two days, thanking Hashem for Released Time and for answering my prayers.”

She described how Released Time helped her children understand the beauty of Torah, Shabbat, kosher, prayer, and their Jewish identity. Today, Avraham has graduated from elementary school and is moving on to yeshiva high school, while his two sisters continue their Jewish elementary education.

“Thank you for helping our children discover the beauty of being Jewish,” she wrote. “The impact you have made on our family will stay with us forever.”

Over the summer months, Released Time invests its time and resources into helping families make the transition from public school to Jewish education. And, B’ezras Hashem, with the support of many friends, partners, and foundations, 100 children are now calling yeshiva their home.

The success of these transfers demonstrates that Released Time is far more than a weekly Jewish education program. It is a bridge that takes a Jewish child from feeling alone in a public school to finding a Jewish community, a Jewish education, and a lifelong connection to their heritage.

As Released Time celebrates this milestone, it is also gearing up for another incredible year of programming and education, beginning with a teachers’ conference on Labor Day. The conference will welcome the rabbinical teachers from 770 and prepare them for the upcoming school year, ensuring they are equipped and inspired to provide another year of meaningful Jewish education to thousands of children.

As the Shluchim Office enters its 40th year, a brand new initiative, Party Planned is launched for Shluchos: a collection of five fully planned and tried and tested events, prepared from A to Z.

The upcoming Kinus Hashluchim will mark 40 years since the Rebbe called for the establishment of the Shluchim Office. In an effort to continue growing and expanding the Rebbe’s vision by providing Shluchim and Shluchos with practical tools and resources for their Shlichus, the Shluchim Office is proud to introduce this new resource for Shluchos.

Developed by Mrs. Mirel Heber, Shlucha to Delray Beach, Florida, each Party Planned event was originally created, run, and successfully hosted in her own community. These are not simply event ideas or untested concepts but programs that have been put into practice and proven to engage and inspire. Now, these events are being shared with Shluchos around the world, removing the stress and countless hours of having to plan events from scratch.

Every Party Planned event includes a comprehensive guide with everything needed to bring the program to life, including detailed shopping links, editable flyers and graphics, decor and design instructions, games and activities, learning materials and speeches, menus and recipes, social media tips, and photos from the original event.

With events designed for year round programming, Party Planned offers a variety of themes and experiences, from Menorahs & Martinis to Shabbat in an Hour.

Shluchos are invited to explore the new resource at PartyPlanned.org. For questions or additional information, please contact the project manager Frayde Trachtman, at [email protected].

Party Planned is a project of the Shluchim Office.

Tiny Gold Ring Discovered During Archeological Excavation in Israel

Could a tiny gold ring discovered in the City of David have meant much more to its owner than simply being a beautiful piece of jewelry?

A tiny gold ring set with a red stone (most likely garnet) believed to have belonged to a young girl, was discovered during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University at the Givati Parking Lot in the City of David.

The ring, just 1.2 cm in diameter, was found beneath the floor of a large Hellenistic-period building, alongside three bronze earrings. Another gold ring and other gold jewelry were also discovered in and around the building, dating to the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE.

The fact that these valuable, intact pieces of jewelry were found beneath the floors, in different locations throughout the building, raised a question: Why had they been placed there?

A new study by Dr. Marion Zindel, Efrat Botzer, Riki Zlot-Har-Tov, Prof. Yuval Gadot, and Dr. Yiftah Shalev, published in Issue 121 of the scientific journal Atikot, examined the circumstances surrounding the burial of the jewelry.

The study suggests that the jewelry was not buried together, but found at different points throughout the building, likely as the result of several separate acts of deposition. According to the researchers, the repetition of the same practice strengthens the possibility that this was a custom rather than a one-time event.

The way the jewelry was distributed also does not resemble a hoard hidden in a time of danger. In a hoard, we would expect to find a concentration of valuables intended to be retrieved later. Here, however, a single piece or a small number of pieces of jewelry were found beneath the floors in different locations.

The jewelry was discovered in a large, high-quality residential building that the researchers attribute to a wealthy family, likely part of Jerusalem’s elite. The gold jewelry and the valuable materials from which it was made point to the residents’ high economic status.

Fascinating discovery!

Photo: Eliyahu Yanai, Reut Wilf and Asaf Perry from the City of David, Emil Aljem and Clara Amit from the Israel Antiquities Authority

Oholei Torah Beis Medrash Opens New Shnas Halimudim With 540 Talmidim and Expanded Faculty

Oholei Torah Beis Medrash has opened the new Shnas Halimudim with remarkable continued growth, welcoming 540 talmidim across its two divisions, an increase of more than 15 percent over last year. The bochurim come from 247 cities, 29 states, and 18 countries, and 35 different Yeshivos, reflecting the remarkable reach of Oholei Torah and its place as a destination for bochurim from communities around the world.

As enrollment continues to grow, Oholei Torah has continued to invest in strengthening the team of mechanchim who learn with, guide, and support the bochurim throughout their years in Beis Medrash, providing hundreds of bochurim with an environment dedicated to growth in Nigleh, Chassidus, and Chassidishe hanhogo.

Under the leadership of Menahel Rabbi Nissi Deitsch, Shiur Aleph and Beis opened its doors for its second year in the Michelashvili Beis Medrash, building upon a strong first year with an exceptional team of mechanchim dedicated to the learning and growth of every talmid.

The Nigleh faculty includes Maggidei Shiur Rabbi Shmuel Bluming, Rabbi Levi Y. Broner, Rabbi Mendel Broner, Rabbi Lipman Heller, and Rabbi Shmuel Klyne, providing the bochurim with a strong and comprehensive program of learning.

The bochurim are guided in their Chassidishe growth by Mashpiim Rabbi Moishe Teitlebaum, Rabbi Levi Matusof, and Rabbi Fitche Pevzner, while Rabbi Yossi Rubashkin serves as Mashgiach, providing guidance and individual attention throughout the day.

The team of Meishivim includes Rabbi Zelig Klyne, Rabbi Mendy Havlin, and Rabbi Nissim Polter, giving the bochurim additional opportunities to review, clarify, and deepen their learning.

The dedicated staff continues to build Shiur Aleph and Beis into a strong environment where bochurim can develop in their learning, Chassidishe growth, and personal avodah.

Shiur Daled, under the leadership of Menahel Rabbi Elchonon Lesches, continues to flourish in the Raitport Beis Medrash, with the Hanhala and faculty expanding further this year to meet the needs of its growing body of talmidim. As part of this expansion, the new position of Sgan Menahel was added, with Rabbi Dovid Frankel joining the Hanhala in this role and working alongside Rabbi Lesches in overseeing the division and its talmidim.

Three new Mashgichim, Rabbi Mendel Korf, Rabbi Yisroel Korf, and Rabbi Chaim Piekarski, have joined the dedicated team for both Chassidus and Niglah. Each will oversee and care for a group of approximately 150 talmidim, ensuring they receive individual attention, guidance, and support. 

Newly appointed Maggidei Shiur Rabbi Yehoshua Blasenstein and Rabbi Meir Shur join Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Shlomo Kaplan and Maggidei Shiur Rabbi Avrohom Shneersohn, Rabbi Avrohom Chaim Stern, Rabbi Dov Popack, Rabbi Fishel Oster, Rabbi Avrohom Gerlitzky, Rabbi Shlomo Hurwitz, and Rabbi Mendel Wolvovsky, further strengthening the Nigleh faculty and expanding the breadth of learning available to the bochurim. 

The dedicated team of Mashpiim continues to inspire and guide the bochurim in their growth in Chassidus and Chassidishe hanhogo. Two newly hired Mashpiim Rabbi Aharon Rappaport and Rabbi Binyomin Vichetsky join Rabbi Nachman Shapiro, Rabbi Schneur Zalman Vilenkin, Rabbi Shalom Charitonow, Rabbi Mendel Mochkin, Rabbi Yekusiel Feldman, Rabbi Shmuel Shur, and Rabbi Sholom Korf.

The team of Meishivim has expanded as well, with newly hired Meishiv Rabbi Shmuel Morosow joining Rabbi Nochum Chaikin, Rabbi Mendy Silberberg, and Rabbi Yosef Schmukler as Meishivim for Nigleh, together with Rabbi Mendel Eidelman as Meishiv for Chassidus Erev, providing the bochurim with additional opportunities for guidance and assistance in their learning.

Beyond expanding the existing faculty, several new positions have been created this year to further enhance the Beis Medrash program and provide additional layers of learning, guidance, and personal support for the bochurim.

Rabbi Berry Zirkind has joined as Meishiv and Limmud Halacha Coordinator, a new position dedicated to strengthening the opportunities for bochurim to receive guidance in their afternoon learning while developing a strong foundation in practical Halacha.

Rabbi Yossel Gerlitzky has joined in the newly created role of Talmid Liaison and Advocate, serving as an additional resource for talmidim and helping ensure that each bochur receives the individual support and attention he needs.

Further strengthening the learning environment, Rabbi Levi Lebovitz has joined as Head of Kollel, overseeing a group of Kollel Yungeleit who have joined the Beis Medrash to strengthen the one-one-one learning and atmosphere for the bochurim.

The unprecedented size and geographic reach of the Beis Medrash has also required significant expansion beyond the walls of the Zal. Of the 540 talmidim, 93 percent of the student body, totaling 504 bochurim, reside in the Yeshiva’s dormitories. To accommodate the growing need for housing, Oholei Torah has expanded its dormitory capacity with two additional dorm locations on the adjacent blocks, ensuring suitable accommodations for the hundreds of bochurim who have come from across the country and around the world to learn in Oholei Torah.

Beyond providing housing, the Yeshiva continues to strengthen the support and care provided to bochurim throughout their daily lives. R’ Mottel Bronchtain serves as Menahel Gashmi of the dormitory, with R’ Shmuel Edelman and R’ Avremi Pevzner serving as Dorm Counselors and overseeing a team of bochurim Dorm Counselors who provide guidance and support to their fellow talmidim.

As another part of the expanded support structure, the new position of Medical and Talmid Health Liaison has been created, with Rabbi Sholly Weiser serving in this role to help coordinate and address the health needs of the talmidim.

Together, the expanded team of mechanchim and support staff reflects Oholei Torah’s commitment to ensuring that its continued growth is matched by the personal attention and care each talmid needs, both in the Zal and beyond.

Menahel K’lali Rabbi Yehoshua Lustig and Rosh Moissed Rabbi Mendel Blau, together with the Board of Directors, have devoted considerable time and attention to ensuring that both divisions of the Beis Medrash are thoughtfully prepared to accommodate this continued growth, in close collaboration with their respective Hanhala.

Behind the opening of the new Shnas Halimudim was an extensive effort to ensure that the facilities, dormitories, classrooms, and countless logistical details were ready to welcome 540 talmidim. R’ Hersh Meilech Rosenfeld, together with R’ Schneur Zalman Oster, Shaina Rosenfeld, and the entire Operations team, worked tirelessly in the weeks leading up to the opening, coordinating and overseeing the many preparations necessary to have both divisions and the expanded dormitory facilities fully ready for the arrival of the bochurim. Their tremendous work behind the scenes played an integral role in enabling the year to begin smoothly and successfully. 

“We have invested significantly in raising the overall standards of the Beis Medrash and developing it into a truly vibrant makom Torah,” said Rabbi Mendel Blau, Rosh Moissed. “Our goal is to help every bochur succeed and solidify his path in Torah, avodah, and hiskashrus.”

“The upcoming campus at 402 Eastern Parkway holds tremendous promise for the coming years and will enable the Beis Medrash to continue growing and expanding,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Lustig, Menahel K’lali. “At the same time, we did not wait for the new facility to begin advancing our vision. We have already initiated key elements of the plan, including the new Kollel program and more, strengthening the Beis Medrash today as we prepare for its future.” 

With the new Shnas Halimudim now underway, the entire Oholei Torah Beis Medrash looks forward to a year of continued learning, growth, and hatzlacha, as the talmidim and staff work together to reach new heights in Nigleh, Chassidus, and personal avodah.

Photos by: Shalom Ross

By Mendy Lipsker

For years, I regularly shared positive thoughts and words of encouragement with others. Sometimes it was a short quote. Sometimes it was an idea about Emunah and Bitachon. I never really knew who might read it at exactly the moment they needed it.

Over the years, rabbis and shluchim would tell me that they had used one of my thoughts or quotes in a sermon or shared it with their communities. And many times, someone would message me and say: “Mendy, this is exactly what I needed to hear today.” Those messages always meant a lot to me.

I just never imagined that one day, I would be the person who needed those words.

Earlier this year, I suffered a stroke.

And then came the next morning.

There is something very different about waking up the morning after a stroke. You open your eyes, and you’re still the same person. You have the same family. The same responsibilities. The same business ideas. The same dreams. The same music you want to play. The same things you wanted to accomplish yesterday.

But life is suddenly not the same.

Your mind wants to get up and continue exactly where you left off, but your body isn’t cooperating the way it did before. Things you never thought twice about suddenly require tremendous effort.

And there are questions nobody can answer. How much will come back? How long will it take? What will I be able to do again? What will tomorrow look like?

And yet, you still have to get up. You have to find the strength for that morning. And then you have to find it again the next morning.

Suddenly, all those years of sharing messages about positivity, Emunah and Bitachon became something completely different. I wasn’t sending someone else an encouraging quote anymore.

Now I had to live it.

When Emunah and Bitachon Become Real

In recent years, Emunah and Bitachon have become an especially strong pillar of strength in our community. We learn about them. We speak about them. We share stories about them. We encourage one another with them.

But there is a difference between speaking about Bitachon when everything is going according to plan and relying on it when you genuinely don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

Hashem gave me an extraordinary gift during my recovery. I have not had one depressed day.

That doesn’t mean every day has been easy. There have been difficult days. There has been pain, frustration, exhaustion and uncertainty. There have been moments when I knew exactly what I wanted my body to do, and it simply wouldn’t cooperate.

But I never stopped believing that tomorrow could be better than today.

For years, I tried to give other people encouragement. Perhaps without realizing it, I was also building something inside myself that I would one day need.

Positivity was no longer something to post. Emunah was no longer something to talk about. Bitachon was no longer just something to learn.

Now I had to live them.

When Ordinary People Become Extraordinary

And then I discovered something else. I discovered people.

Family, friends, rabbis, shluchim, business associates, neighbors and members of the community showed a level of caring that even my family and I sometimes couldn’t believe. People came to visit. People called. People checked in again and again. People offered help without being asked.

Some people didn’t have anything profound to say. They simply showed up. And sometimes, showing up is the most profound thing a person can do.

We often hear that difficult times show you who your friends are. My experience taught me something a little different. Difficult times can show you just how much goodness has been surrounding you all along.

These people didn’t suddenly become caring because I had a stroke. That goodness was already inside them. My situation simply gave them an opportunity to reveal it.

And watching that happen changed the way I look at people, and the way I look at life. Because it made me wonder: Why do we sometimes have to almost lose something before we realize how precious it is? Why wait until walking becomes difficult to appreciate walking? Why wait until you need somebody to discover how valuable friendship is? Why wait for a crisis to tell someone, “I appreciate you. Thank you for being part of my life.”

Recovery has taught me that some of life’s greatest blessings are the things we once considered ordinary.

Maybe they were never ordinary at all.

Rabbi Shmuel Yeshayahu, a Chabad Shliach in Vancouver, Canada, and business executive and engineer Daniel Friedmann have released a new book aimed at helping readers discover a sense of purpose and translate it into practical action.

Their new book, Your Calling: Moving Forward from Here and Now, addresses a question Rabbi Yeshayahu says he has encountered repeatedly through years of working with young adults: How does a person find genuine meaning and direction in life?

“During my years on Shlichus, and especially through my many encounters with young people, I see an enormous search for meaning,” Rabbi Yeshayahu said. “The younger generation wants to know not only what career to pursue or how to succeed, but why they are here, what their unique role is, and how they can leave a real impact on the world.”

Rabbi Yeshayahu, who was born in Israel and received rabbinic ordination from the Rabbinate of Israel, has served in Vancouver since 2000, providing mentoring, counseling, classes and Jewish programming, particularly for unaffiliated young adults.

He says that while today’s young people possess remarkable talent, creativity and openness, they are also navigating pressures that previous generations did not experience in the same way.

“Social media encourages constant comparison, while an enormous flood of information, opinions and expectations reaches them every day,” he said. “Instead of creating clarity, that abundance can often lead to confusion, loneliness and the feeling that a person is not good enough or does not know where they belong.”

Through his work, Rabbi Yeshayahu said he has seen how a clear sense of purpose can sometimes matter more than talent alone.

“I meet very talented young people who struggle to move forward because they lack a clear sense of purpose,” he said. “On the other hand, I see people who may not be the most talented person in the room, but because they know what they are living for and where they want to go, they accomplish far beyond what others expected of them.”

“Meaning gives a person direction, resilience and the strength to deal with difficulties,” he added. “When a person is connected to their mission, an obstacle does not necessarily become a reason to stop. It can become part of the journey.”

That idea became the foundation for Your Calling, which Rabbi Yeshayahu co-authored with Friedmann, a longtime student and study partner.

Friedmann brings decades of experience in business, engineering and technology to the project. He currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Sanctuary AI, a company developing general-purpose artificial intelligence for robots. Until 2024, he served as CEO and Chairman of Carbon Engineering, and previously spent 20 years as President and CEO of MDA, a global communications and information company.

He is also a longtime student of religion and a Readers’ Favorite International Book Award winner whose writing combines his business and scientific background with Biblical insights on leadership and purpose.

“I study with my writing partner, Daniel Friedmann, several times a week,” Rabbi Yeshayahu said. “Daniel is someone deeply driven by meaning and mission, and because of his experience in business, science and leadership, he is also connected to the challenges of the broader world.”

The two concluded that there was a need to make Torah wisdom about meaning and purpose accessible even to readers without a background in Judaism.

“The book is intended for Jews at every level of connection and knowledge, but also for non-Jews, so that they too can benefit from the wisdom of Torah and discover through it a life of genuine happiness, meaning and responsibility,” Rabbi Yeshayahu said.

Rather than focusing solely on the philosophical question of what gives life meaning, the authors say the book concentrates heavily on the practical question of how a person can find it.

“This is not only a book of ideas and inspiration,” Rabbi Yeshayahu said. “It offers practical tools for identifying the talents, circumstances, challenges and opportunities that can reveal each person’s unique mission.”

The book focuses on developing resilience and emotional intelligence, navigating uncertainty and major life transitions, making intentional decisions, and learning to move forward without waiting for a complete roadmap.

“There is no need to wait until the entire path becomes clear,” Rabbi Yeshayahu said, citing one of the book’s central ideas: “Even if you cannot yet see how everything fits together or ends, your step matters.”

For Friedmann, the starting point is precisely where a person finds himself now.

“Use what you have already been given and take the first step,” Friedmann said. “From action comes clarity, and from clarity, purpose is revealed.”

“Imperfection is not a flaw. It is a calling,” he added. “It is an open invitation for each of us to step in and make things better. Every person has a mission that only they can fulfill, consisting of two parts: improving ourselves and improving the world.”

Your Calling: Moving Forward from Here and Now is the second book Rabbi Yeshayahu and Friedmann have authored together. Their previous book focused on applying Torah wisdom to the world of business.

The book is available on Amazon.com and bookstores.

I’ve Had a Very Difficult Year… What More Can I Do to Create Vessels for G-d’s Blessings in My Life? If the King Is in the Field During Elul, Where Does That Leave Us the Rest of the Year? Since G-d Does All the Mitzvos He Commands Us to Do, How Does He Perform the Mitzva of Teshuva? Can We Bless Someone for a Happy New Year Over the Phone? Are We Allowed to Pray for Others Without Their Knowledge and Consent?

MyLife: Chassidus Applied Episode 605 with Rabbi Simon Jacobson

Sunday, August 23, 2026 / 10 Elul 5786 – 8:00-9:00PM ET

Podcast YouTube Chassidusapplied.com

The topics in this week’s 605th episode of the highly acclaimed MyLife: Chassidus Applied series, with Rabbi Simon Jacobson, will include.

What should our focus be during these days of Elul?

· What makes Elul unique?

· Is Elul initiated from below (Ani L’Dodi) or from above (the king in the field)? (follow-up)

· How do we create vessels for G-d’s blessings this time of the year?

· If the king is in the field during Elul, where does that leave us the rest of the year?

· Is G-d more present during this time of the year?

· I’ve had a very difficult year… What more can I do to ensure that the thirteen attributes of compassion manifest in my life?

· Since G-d does all the mitzvos he commands us to do, how does He perform the mitzva of teshuva?

· Can we say that this is like tzaddikim doing teshuva?

· How can we say that G-d “regrets” anything?

· Why does a Baal Teshuva reach higher than a Tzaddik?

· Why are there no Shoftim maamorim in Likkutei Torah?

· Can we bless someone with a happy new year over the phone? Should they answer amen?

· What is the power of answering amen?

· Is the blessing valid and does it work even without answering amen?

Ki Tavo

· What lessons do we learn from living with the times, with this week’s Torah parsha?

· What is the significance of “Tavo” and the mitzva of the first fruit offering (bikurim)

· What do we know about the stones upon which the Torah was inscribed?

· How do we possibly explain the hidden blessing in child cannibalism?!

13 Elul

· Why did the Rebbe tell us to celebrate and be extra joyous on the Frierdiker rebbes wedding anniversary?

G-d leading our footsteps when we travel on vacation (follow-up)

· Are we allowed to pray for others without their knowledge and consent?

MyLife: Chassidus Applied is a weekly video webcast candidly answering questions from the public about all life matters and challenges, covering the entire spectrum of human experience. This hour-long dose of insights, broadcast live every Sunday night 8-9PM ET, is meant to provide people with inspired guidance and direction, empowering them to deal with any issue they may face.

In what has become a staple in so many people’s lives, MyLife: Chassidus Applied has provoked a significant reaction from the community, with thousands of people viewing each live broadcast and hundreds of questions pouring in week after week. At the root of every question and personal challenge tackled by the series is the overarching question: Does Judaism have the answers to my personal dilemmas?

MyLife demonstrates how Chassidus provides us with a comprehensive blueprint of the human psyche as a microcosm of the cosmos, and offers us all the guidance we need to live the healthiest possible life and build nurturing homes and families, bringing up the healthiest possible children, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. MyLife is brought to you by the Meaningful Life Center as a public service, free of charge.

Questions may be submitted anonymously at chassidusapplied.com/ask.

Live Video

Also at: chassidusapplied.com/mlc-tv

Podcast: https://anchor.fm/mylife-chassidus-applied

By COLlive reporter

Members of Park East Synagogue and Chabad of the Upper East Side in New York City gathered for a cocktails get-together celebrating the start of a new chapter for the two prominent Jewish communities on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Last week’s event followed the recent announcement of a major collaboration between the two institutions, which will bring much of Chabad of the Upper East Side’s programming into Park East Synagogue’s historic building on East 67th Street. The partnership is set to formally launch around Rosh Hashanah.

“Last night, we celebrated the coming together of two vibrant Jewish communities, welcoming Chabad of the Upper East Side to Park East Synagogue to create something even greater,” Park East Synagogue wrote following the gathering.

The evening gave members of both communities an opportunity to meet and socialize as they prepare for expanded joint programming in the coming year.

Under the new arrangement, Rabbi Arthur Schneier will continue as Senior Rabbi of Park East Synagogue, with Rabbi Ben Tzion Krasnianski, longtime director of Chabad of the Upper East Side, joining as associate rabbi. Rabbi Yosef “Yaya” Wilhelm, director of Chabad Young Professionals Upper East Side, will serve as assistant rabbi.

The collaboration will bring programs including Chabad Young Professionals, Friendship Circle, Chabad Young Families, and the Upper East Side Kollel and Adult Education Center into Park East’s building. Chabad’s mikvah and preschool will remain at the Schneerson Center for Jewish Life on East 77th Street.

Park East Synagogue, founded in 1890 as Congregation Zichron Ephraim, is one of Manhattan’s oldest Orthodox congregations. Chabad of the Upper East Side was established by Rabbi Ben Tzion and Chanie Krasnianski in 1991 and has since developed into a network of some 10 branches and programs serving different segments of the neighborhood’s Jewish population.

“As we build what comes next, together, with more life, more connection, more learning, and more opportunities to gather, we’re excited for all that’s ahead,” Park East said.

Park East Synagogue is now turning its focus to the upcoming High Holiday season. On Motzoei Shabbos, September 5, the synagogue will host a Selichot program featuring renowned Cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot, together with Maestro Yossi Schwartz and the Park East Synagogue Choir. Rabbi Schneier will deliver a State of World Jewry address at 10:00 p.m., followed by the Selichot service at 10:30 p.m.

The Birthday That Became a Fight for Shugi’s Life

It was supposed to be a birthday filled with joy. Instead, a little girl’s birthday became the beginning of a desperate fight for her life.

Avishag Esther, lovingly known as Shugi, is only a year and a half old. She was supposed to be celebrating her birthday surrounded by her family, balloons, a birthday cake, and the simple joy that every child deserves.

Her mother had prepared for a beautiful day of simchah.

But before the celebration could even begin, everything changed.

Shugi suddenly began crying  not an ordinary cry, but a cry that immediately alarmed her mother. She continued crying until she vomited, and in that terrifying moment, her mother realized that something was seriously wrong.

The balloons remained at home.

Shugi was rushed to the hospital.

Her birthday dress was replaced with hospital clothes.

The candles were replaced with medical tests.

And the tears of excitement were replaced with tears of fear.

While her father is away serving in the reserves, her mother remains at her little daughter’s side, facing a nightmare no parent ever imagines having to endure.

Shugi is only a year and a half old.

She should be learning new words, playing with her toys, running into her mother’s arms, and discovering the beautiful world around her.

Instead, this precious little girl is now fighting for her life.

Her parents are doing everything possible to obtain the care she needs. But the urgent medical expenses and the tremendous burden this crisis has placed upon the family are far beyond what they can manage alone.

A birthday should be a day of simchah.

It should never become a fight for survival.

Today, Shugi’s family is turning to the tzibbur for help.

Help Shugi come home.

Help her return to the childhood that was suddenly taken from her.

Give her the chance to grow, to laugh, to play, and to live the life every child deserves.

Shugi’s life has only just begun.

With your help, we can give her the zechus to continue it.

Please open your heart and help this precious little girl get through this difficult nisayon.

Every contribution can make a difference and help her family provide the care she so desperately needs.

Click here to donate

The campaign is administered by Alovia Kids, a registered nonprofit organization.

EIN: 32-0792540

For inquiries: [email protected]

WhatsApp: +1 754-313-2056

We’re pleased to share a new episode of “Lemaan Yishmeu,” the weekly halacha podcast with Rabbi Yosef Yeshaya Braun, Mara D’asra, and member of the Crown Heights Beis Din, brought to you by AskTheRav.com in partnership with the Lemaan Yilmedu Halacha Institute.

Each week, Rabbi Braun explores fascinating halachic questions across a wide range of practical topics — real inquiries that have reached his desk, along with his clear and insightful responses.

You can listen to the podcast on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 24Six, Amazon Music and Pocket Casts

The podcast is also available at https://asktherav.com/podcast/#ep20, where you can see extensive marei mekomos for the answers.

In this week’s episode, the topics discussed by Rabbi Braun include:

Public birthday parties and ayin hora

• Is there a concern of ayin hora in making large public gatherings for a seventieth or eightieth birthday?
• Since the Korban Todah was brought with forty challos specifically so that a crowd would be invited, is publicizing Hashem’s kindness in fact the entire point of a seudas hoda’ah?
• Does such a seuda carry its own protection, since the kiddush shem shamayim offsets the merits that are otherwise deducted when a miracle is done for a person?
• What could we learn from the Rebbe’s conduct in this regard?

Tevilas keilim for electric appliances

• Must electric appliances be toiveled even when the label warns that immersion will ruin them, and what practical steps make it workable?
• If the appliance would be ruined or the water cannot reach inside, is one exempt because a mitzvah one cannot perform does not apply, or must one simply not use the utensil?
• Having a Jewish professional reassemble it renders it Jewish-made. What about an amateur doing so?
• How much weight do the various arguments for leniency carry (mechubar lekarka, plugging it in as “finishing” it, beis hastarim, not being a kli seudah, and merely being the non-Jew’s “store merchandise”), given that tevilas keilim is deoraysa?

Tevilah for a Keurig machine

• Is a Keurig different from other electric appliances, being a pump rather than a kli, and one that will certainly be ruined by immersion?
• If it’s not merely a matter of damage but genuinely impossible for the water to reach the area requiring immersion, could it be that the chiyuv of tevilah never applied at all?
• May one rely on giving it as a gift to a non-Jew and borrowing it back, even though it will stay in the Jew’s hands indefinitely?
• Since the Taz required toiveling a borrowed kli specifically because one is able to, does that imply the requirement falls away where immersion is impossible, as poskim held with very large vessels?

A shiur in shul on Shabbos afternoon

• Shabbos afternoon commemorates the passing of Yosef Hatzaddik, Moshe Rabbeinu, and Dovid Hamelech (the reason for Tzidkascha). If so, may one make a fixed shiur in shul between Mincha and Maariv?
• Does the minhag of beis hamedrash batel begin close to dark, or only close to shkiya (and not afterward, as the Ketzos Hashulchan seems to imply), and not if beginning earlier?
• Does the concern apply to Chassidus, Pirkei Avos, and agaddah, or only to formal nigleh classes?
• May one rely on the Mishnah Berurah (quoted by the Rebbe) that nowadays we do not stop such gatherings, since people would otherwise sit in shul and waste their time?

Havdalah made without a kos

• Someone who mistakenly made Havdalah without wine in the Nine Days, must he make Havdalah again once he has a kos?
• When the Mishnah Berurah rules that one without wine shouldn’t rely on making a wine-less Havdalah, does that only mean l’chatchila, implying that b’dieved he was yotzei?
• Did the Maharam miRotenburg, who allows Havdalah without a kos, mean that one is yotzei, or only that there is a second part of the mitzvah still to be fulfilled when a kos becomes available?
• If someone made Havdalah on what turned out to be vinegar, must he repeat it, or would that be a bracha l’vatalah?

Solving one person’s safek at the rabbim’s expense

• Why does Tosafos prefer that one person be left with a safek kares passively (b’sheiv v’al ta’aseh) rather than have the majority bring their korban improperly?
• How does this principle apply today, when a heter meant for hefsed merubeh, sha’as hadchak or tzorech mitzvah is turned into a standard arrangement for everyone?

Calabar, Nigeria: 10th Tanya Printed in Nigeria, Completing Nine-Year Mission

Nine years after Shluchim set out to print the Tanya across Nigeria, the one edition they were unable to complete has finally been printed in Calabar.

In 2017, Rabbi Israel and Haya Uzan, Shluchim in Abuja, asked bochurim Mendel Raskin, Mendy Sternbach and Heschel Yarmush, who had come to Nigeria for Tishrei to assist Jews across the country with their Yom Tov needs, to print Tanyas in cities where Jews were living.

Eight editions were reserved from Kehos for cities across Nigeria. Traveling with printers, generators and mashke in armored vehicles with security, the bochurim succeeded in printing seven.

Calabar was the exception. By the time they returned for Chanukah, the Jews who had been there had left, and the printing was postponed.

Recently, a ma’ane of the Rebbe concerning printing Tanya in Nigeria was published, in which the Rebbe writes: “באם יש שם עכ״פ יהודי אחד” — if there is at least one Jew there.

Rabbi Mendy and Mazal Sternbach, Shluchim in Lagos, together with Rabbi Israel and Haya Uzan, looked into Calabar and found that there was indeed one Jew living there, Yossi Dueni.

Nine years after it was first planned, Tanya edition 6,936 was printed in Calabar, becoming the 10th Tanya printed in Nigeria.

The printing took place on the birthday of Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, in whose memory it was printed, recognizing his years of personal involvement in developing Yiddishkeit and supporting the Shluchim families in Nigeria.

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A fellow Shliach needs our help — urgently.

Chabad of Sheepshead Bay has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to purchase the property adjacent to the Chabad House, currently belonging to a church, and transform it into a permanent home for Torah, tefillah and Yiddishkeit.

The 8,000-square-foot corner property will finally give our growing community the space it desperately needs.

Today, our current space can no longer meet the needs of our growing community. We need room to welcome more families, expand our programs, and build the facilities our community needs to grow and thrive. There are hundreds of children waiting to get into our Hebrew school and preschool.

This property changes all of that.

It will allow us to build a beautiful shul welcoming hundreds more people, establish a much-needed Mikvah, create a social hall, build proper Hebrew School and preschool facilities, and open our doors to hundreds of additional Jewish families.

But first, we have to close.

The purchase price is $1.9 million. After tremendous effort, $800,000 has already been raised, and Chabad has secured a $500,000 mortgage.

$600,000 is still missing — and everything is on the line.

DONATE NOW — Help Us Reach the Closing Table

The closing is scheduled for Chai Elul, Monday, August 31, the auspicious birthday of both the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe.

If C”VS we fail, we could lose the property and the $190,000 deposit already committed to the purchase.

The choice is stark:

Either we secure this property — or the church retains it.

Either it becomes a makom of kedusha — or the opportunity is lost, and it could instead be acquired by another religious institution, including a mosque R”L.

Either we raise the final $600,000 — or we risk losing the property and our $190,000 deposit.

DONATE NOW — Help Secure Our New Home

For one Shliach and one community, $600,000 in such a short time can feel impossible. But together, it is possible.

And the zechus is tremendous. Every donor becomes a partner in the Mikvah, the children who will learn here, the simchas that will be celebrated here, the tefillos that will be davened here, and the hundreds of families who will walk through these doors.

The campaign has received the endorsement of:

Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov — Mayanot, Jerusalem
Rabbi Moshe Pinson — Bais Shmuel Chabad, Crown Heights
Rabbi Sholom Moshe Paltiel — Chabad of Port Washington
Rabbi Yisroel Spalter — Chabad of Weston, Florida
Rabbi Gadi Blizinsky — Chevra Shas, Crown Heights
Rabbi Alex Kaller — Chabad Russian Center of S. Florida
Rabbi Shlomo Z. Cohen — Chabad of Sheepshead Bay

The deadline: Chai Elul — Monday, August 31.
The amount needed: $600,000.
The deposit at risk: $190,000.

This is a property we cannot afford to lose — and an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.

Please help a fellow Shliach and help us build a home that will serve thousands of Yidden for generations.

DONATE NOW — Help Raise the Final $600,000

Together, B’ezras Hashem, we can get this done.

For 500 children in Crown Heights, back-to-school means more than a new backpack – it means the excitement of picking out something that’s truly theirs.

CSSY’s annual Back-to-School Campaign gives families private appointments where children can choose from ten backpacks, along with the supplies and colors they want. It’s a simple experience that brings pride and excitement to starting the school year.

“Back-to-school should be an exciting time for every child. No child should have to walk into the classroom feeling different because their family couldn’t afford the supplies they need. We want each child to come in smiling, proud of the backpack and supplies they chose themselves, and ready to begin the year with confidence. For a child, that feeling of ‘this is mine, and I picked it’ can mean so much more than we realize.”— Rabbi Benjy Stock, Director of CSSYSpecial thanks to Little Toes, Judaica World, and Boutique for offering CSSY families back-to-school discounts and supporting our community.

The campaign is made possible by our generous donors, including the many people who purchased school supplies from our Amazon Wish List, and is dedicated in loving memory of Shneur Zalman Ben Rendel Alenick, remembered for his kindness and care for others.

Help put a smile on a child’s face.

Support the campaign: www.CSSY.org/school
Request a backpack: www.CSSY.org/applications

Support the campaign: www.CSSY.org/school
Request a backpack: www.CSSY.org/applications

Hundreds of Jewish Children Across Ukraine Receive New Backpacks As Chabad Gears Up For The New School Year

Ahead of the 2026–2027 academic year, the Jewish Relief Network Ukraine (JRNU) has once again launched its annual “Together to School” initiative, providing new school backpacks to hundreds of Jewish children from families facing financial hardship across Ukraine. The primary beneficiaries are children entering first grade, while older students with particularly urgent needs are also included.

Timed ahead of the traditional “First Bell’ on September 1, the initiative helps needy families meet some of the practical expenses of sending children back to the classroom while giving young students the excitement and confidence of beginning the year with their own new school supplies.

The annual campaign is part of a broader, long-standing effort to support vulnerable Jewish children and their families. Beyond backpacks, JRNU and its partner programs provide families in need with assistance ranging from food packages, clothing, and basic necessities to medical care, emotional support, and other individualized services throughout the year.

“A new backpack may seem like a small thing, but for a child in need it can represent a fresh beginning and the feeling that someone cares and is thinking about them,” says Rabbi Simcha Levenhartz of JRNU.

“Our goal goes far beyond preparing children for the first day of school. Together with our network of support and communities, we look at the needs of the entire family and provide ongoing support so that every Jewish child has the opportunity to learn, grow, and build a healthy and independent future.”

Chaim Eliezer Filler (Montreal, Canada) to Ahuva Zilpah Fisch (Los Angeles, CA) L’Chaim: Tonight, Sunday, 5:00pm – 8:00pm at 442 North Gardner Street Apt. #2

Yisroel Arkush (Lauderhill, FL) to Matti Zaklikovsky (Monroe, NJ) L’Chaim: Tonight, Sunday, 8:00pm at Albany Manor

A Wave of Renewal Marks the Opening of the School Year at the Main Yeshiva Ketana in Moscow

The month of Elul, bringing with it a breeze of renewal and the sounds of Torah, is deeply felt across the pastoral grounds of the educational campus in the ‘Istra’ neighborhood in the suburbs of Moscow. After the Bein HaZmanim break, and following a dedicated period of material and spiritual preparation, the doors of the “Tomchei Temimim” Yeshiva for young students opened, and the study hall came to life with the return of the Temimim to their studies.

In an uplifting atmosphere of a new beginning, the excited students and parents were welcomed by the Rosh Yeshiva, the Gaon and Chassid Rabbi Moshe Lerman, alongside the campus director Rabbi Yosef Moshe Weisberg and the yeshiva director Rabbi Chaim Moshe Weber. It is evident that the current year is marked by a significant step forward: the educational and physical systems have been upgraded and are now operating in a more monitored, professional, and vibrant manner than ever before.

The refreshing tidings of the new school year are reflected both in the renovations to expand the facilities—accommodating additional students who deeply desire to join this high-quality yeshiva—and in the direct pedagogical investment. Substantial effort has been invested this year in delivering the shiurim (classes) to the highest grade, a step that broadens and deepens the personal connection with the students, preparing them for their studies next year in Yeshiva Gedolah. Simultaneously, the yeshiva’s teaching staff is growing and expanding with the addition of a new faculty member, Rabbi Yosef Edrei, son-in-law of the orphanage director, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gol. Rabbi Edrei will serve as a Ram and Mashpia for the Shiur Aleph students, providing them with guidance and Chassidic warmth during their first steps within the yeshiva.

The uplifting atmosphere and evident investment inspire a spirit of tremendous enthusiasm. The yeshiva, established by the Chief Rabbi of Russia, the Gaon Rabbi Berel Lazar shlita, continues to solidify its status as a beacon of pure Chassidic education, alongside the other existing yeshivas in Moscow. With a profound sense of responsibility and gratitude for the excellent conditions, the Temimim began the new zman in the tent of Torah. They are ready to diligently pursue their studies and grow in Torah and Chassidus through immense dedication, learning from early morning until late at night with great vitality and joy.

Photo: Alexander Pratkov

The impact of the new 12 Pesukim pull-out pen is being felt in camps, schools, and children’s programs worldwide, where shluchim and mechanchim have been using it as a simple but powerful tool to help make the Pesukim more personal, relatable, and alive.

Part of the broader effort marking 50 years of the Rebbe’s initiative of the 12 Pesukim, the pen has already made an impact far and wide for thousands of children. The pen was created to do more than simply display the words. Alongside each Pasuk is a short, relatable one-line message, developed from the Rebbe’s Sichos, helping children understand how the message of the Pasuk speaks to their own lives.

That has made the pen especially effective. In camps, staff have used it to reinforce the incorporation of the Pesukim into camp life and give children something meaningful to continue with after the activity is over. In schools, teachers have found that it helps keep the 12 Pesukim present throughout the day, giving students a natural reminder of what they learned and another opportunity to connect to the message.

Children have found themselves naturally engaged with the pen and coming back to it again and again. The pull-out feature, together with the colorful design, makes it something they enjoy using, showing to friends, and keeping close by. Rather than being another giveaway that gets forgotten, it becomes something children cherish while continuing to bring them back to the 12 Pesukim and their messages.

The pen has also been used together with the newly designed 12 Pesukim booklet, with the two serving as natural companions. The booklet gives children a fuller resource to learn and review, while the pen keeps the Pesukim and their messages close at hand throughout the day.

For educators and shluchim, the response has shown that bringing the 12 Pesukim to life is something practical and doable.

To order the 12 Pesukim pull-out pens, email [email protected] or click here: https://www.tzivoshashem.org/12pulloutpen/

As the yeshiva continues to grow and expand in all areas, Mesivta Lubavitch Thornhill (Ohr Temimim Toronto) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rabbi Zusya Kreitenberg as the Shiur Gimmel Maggid Shiur.

Rabbi Kreitenberg brings a strong ability to connect with bochurim, along with a commitment to high-level learning, and will be joining the Mesivta’s team of dedicated mechanchim.

“Our goal is to cultivate a lifelong love of learning and a genuine hiskashrus to the Rebbe,” said Rabbi Zaltzman, Founder & Dean.

“Our focus is to support each bochur’s drive to reach his maximum potential in all areas,” said Rabbi Posner, Menahel.

“I feel the great zchus to have joined the Rebbe’s team of warm, caring mechanchim and look forward to developing a warm connection with each talmid.”

The Mesivta welcomes Rabbi Kreitenberg and his family and wishes them much hatzlachah in their makom hashlichus.

Today, 10 Elul 5786, marks the 35th yahrzeit of Yankel Rosenbaum HYD, murdered in Crown Heights in 1991 – 10 Elul 5751.

Thirty five years ago, an angry mob shouting, “Kill the Jews!, chased a Lubavitcher bochur through the streets of Crown Heights. At President and Brooklyn, Yankel was surrounded and violently stabbed and beaten.

Yankel’s only sibling, Norman Rosenbaum obm, flew to New York from Australia over 250 times in his never-ending quest for justice on behalf of his brother. Norman never gave up and was in Crown Heights on the 25th anniversary of Yankel’s killing and held a memorial on the corner of President Street and Brooklyn. Sadly, Norman passed away in 2020.

On Yankel’s 35th Yahrzeit, let’s remember his story. Let’s continue Norman’s commitment to seeking justice and keeping Yankel’s memory alive.
All are encouraged to learn and add in Mitzvos in the merit of his neshama.

After four weeks of learning, discussion and connection, Think Again, the worldwide women’s Moshiach learning initiative, is wrapping up its summer course with a grand raffle celebrating the women who took part.

What began as an idea to make the Rebbe’s sichos on Moshiach and Geulah accessible and practical grew into 174 groups with more than 1,300 women participating around the world.

From Crown Heights homes,apartment buildings and bungalow colonies to groups in Baltimore, Morristown, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Detroit, New Jersey, London, Calgary, Sydney, France and beyond, women gathered each week to learn together.

There were groups of longtime friends, young Shluchos, teachers, bungalow colony neighbors and women who had never learned together before. Some met around dining room tables, others joined by Zoom, and many groups found that the hour of learning quickly became something more, an opportunity to discuss, farbreng and explore what it actually means to live with Moshiach.

“It was nice to have women learning together that otherwise wouldn’t have,” shared one participant.

Another described what she loved most as “learning together with the women of my colony,” while another said the program “brought a connection between all of us learning together.”

In Crown Heights, the program took on a particularly grassroots feel, with groups forming in buildings and on blocks throughout the neighborhood. One participant said “it was very bonding to learn with the women of our building, and with such an important topic to learn about.”

But the goal of Think Again was not simply to create more shiurim. The four-week curriculum was designed to take fundamental ideas from the Rebbe’s sichos and make them understandable, relevant and applicable to everyday life.

For many participants, that was exactly what happened.

“The classes were so well prepared and presented and made it so accessible to learn the Rebbe’s view on Moshiach and understand it in a very practical, ‘human’ way,” said Mushka Minsky.

Malkie Raskin, who taught a Zoom group, described an impact that continued long after the class ended.

“This course made significant changes in the way I think about Moshiach,” she said. “Each week the classes were practical and meaningful. I now feel a stronger responsibility towards participating in actively creating a Moshiach reality throughout my day.”

For another participant, the course changed the way she understood ideas she had encountered before.

“I learned a few of the sichos before, but the way I learned them this time was so practical and so beautiful, the messages really stuck…I actually taught the second sicha to my group and it literally changed the way I look at my life.”

Another participant described Think Again as “taking the huge concept of Moshiach and really making it feel so tangible and real.”

The interactive format was a major part of that experience. Each week included original sources, practical examples, questions and discussion prompts intended not only to teach the sicha, but to get women thinking and talking.

One participant described the classes as “a real farbrengen,” with “so much discussion and hashing out of the topic.”

Another wrote, “The discussion prompts were super engaging and felt so practical. It was such a nice way to learn in a group setting.”

For Chanie Gourarie of Chabad Toms River, one aspect stood out in particular: “It was great to finally learn about Moshiach from the Rebbe’s Sichos!!”

Chaya Nizard, who taught a French N’shei Chabad group, said the program gave her the opportunity to learn the subjects in depth while making them easier to teach. More importantly, she saw what happened among the women themselves.

“Women loved having that opportunity to learn, sit together and discuss these important subjects,” she said.

Across the groups, organizers heard the same request repeatedly: Please do this again.

“Looking forward to continued learning!” wrote one participant.

“Please make more!” wrote another.

A Raffle to Celebrate 1,300+ Women

To celebrate the women who made Think Again what it was, all participants are now invited to enter the Think Again Grand Raffle by submitting a short feedback form.
https://form.jotform.com/262316193223047
The raffle prizes include a Doona X, a family photoshoot with Rivky Nisilevitz Photography, and $750 of jewelry from Diamond Deals NY.

The drawing will take place Wednesday, August 26 / י״ג אלול.

The feedback collected will also help shape what comes next, as Think Again looks toward creating additional opportunities for women to learn the Rebbe’s Torah in a way that is accessible, engaging and deeply relevant to their lives.

Four weeks may have been the original plan.
For hundreds of women around the world, it seems to have been just the beginning.
Help us keep these programs going. Donate here:
https://thinkagain.womenseventch.com/donate
Follow us on Instagram.

A project of N’shei Chabad Brought to you by The One Hour Farbrengen
Thank you to our sponsors: Rivky Nisilevitz Photography and Diamond Deals NY

 A Teacher’s Answer to “Wait, When’s Yud Shvat Again?”- A Calendar You Can See a Full Year At Once

Anyone who’s spent time in a Crown Heights classroom knows the drill: the wall calendar shows one month, someone asks about a date two months out, and everyone starts doing math in their head. Rabbi Sruli Mochkin, a teacher at Lubavitch Hebrew Academy, got tired of that math.

“You can’t really plan a year if you can only see one month of it at a time,” he said. “I wanted the whole year up on the wall at once, every English date, every Hebrew date, so I could actually plan around everything instead of getting caught off guard.”

So he built The Big Jewish Calendar: one giant wall calendar with the entire school year on a single page, English and Hebrew dates side by side. It’s not an app. It’s a real calendar you hang up and write on.

It comes dry-erase, with color-coded stickers included, so it can be personalized right on the wall. One color for birthdays, another for off days, another for whatever else needs tracking, all visible across the whole year instead of one month at a time.

Rabbi Mochkin built it for his own classroom first. Since then, other teachers looking for the same kind of full-year view have started asking about it too. It’s now available for schools to order in bulk for their staff, with a discount for larger orders.

“Once the whole year is actually in front of you, planning stops feeling like a scramble,” he said.

The Big Jewish Calendar is available now at https://bigjewishcalendar.com

Chabad of Palm Coast Closes on New Jewish Center, Marking Major Milestone After a Decade of Growth

by CrownHeights.info

A major milestone for the Jewish community of Palm Coast was celebrated this week as Chabad of Palm Coast officially closed on its new permanent home.

The purchase marks the culmination of a decade of building and strengthening Jewish life in Palm Coast, where Rabbi Levi and Tzivie Ezagui have worked to establish a vibrant Chabad presence and serve the growing local Jewish community.

“Ten years ago, we began with a dream. Today, we have a home,” the Chabad of Palm Coast announced.

The Chabad leadership expressed tremendous gratitude to Hashem, to the Rebbe for his constant brachos and guidance, and to the many individuals who helped make the purchase possible.

While the closing on the building at 1 Yacht Club Drive represents a significant achievement, the Shluchim emphasized that it is only the beginning of the next chapter.

The newly acquired property will now undergo renovations and improvements as it is transformed into a warm and welcoming Jewish center designed to serve the Palm Coast community for generations to come.

The anticipated move-in date is early 2027, when the new center hopes to open the doors of its new home to the community.

“With tremendous gratitude,” Rabbi Levi and Tzivie Ezagui said, “we look forward to sharing the journey with you as our new Chabad Jewish Center takes shape.”

Community members who would like to learn more about the project and participate in helping make the new Jewish center a reality can visit ChabadPalmCoast.com/thefuture.

The new center is expected to provide Chabad of Palm Coast with a permanent home from which to expand its programming and strengthen Jewish life throughout the growing community.

Trump’s 50% Tariffs on $20B in Canadian Goods Take Effect After Last-Minute Talks Collapsed

New York Post

A hefty new tariff on a wide range of products from Canada took effect early Saturday after last-minute negotiations to avert the duties collapsed.

“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the US offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters.

“New demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” he added.

Rabbi Sholom Ber Schapiro, Director of the Nissan Mindel Publications (NMP), presents “Historic Treasures.”

Each program shares ‘treasures’ from the archives of Rabbi Schapiro’s father-in-law, Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel OBM, a prolific writer who served as a personal secretary of the 6th and 7th Chabad Rebbes.

The program uncovers fascinating stories, rare artifacts and precious documents from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

VIDEO:

By COLlive reporter

New York State Senator Bill Weber presented the Empire Award this week to Mendy Setton and Shaya Setton, the brothers behind The Diner and the popular Pies n’ Fries restaurants in Rockland County.

The Empire Award is presented by New York State senators to recognize businesses that have distinguished themselves through entrepreneurship, economic activity and contributions to their communities. Weber has previously presented the honor to several Rockland County businesses.

The Setton brothers own The Diner, a kosher American-style restaurant in Pomona that opened earlier this year in the former Mount Ivy All American Diner on Route 202.

Designed around the feel of a classic American diner, the restaurant serves traditional comfort-food favorites in a restored retro setting. The project was developed by the team behind Pies n’ Fries, with Chef Isaac Bernstein involved in developing the menu and recipes.

The approximately 135-seat restaurant, which also offers outdoor seating, was conceived as a family-friendly dining destination offering the experience of a traditional American diner for the area’s kosher community.

The Setton brothers also own Pies n’ Fries, which operates two locations in Rockland County and has become a familiar name in the local kosher dining scene.

“We are deeply honored to receive this recognition,” the brothers said following the presentation. “This belongs to our incredible team and every single guest who walks through our doors. We love this community, and we are excited to keep serving you for years to come.”

The award recognizes the brothers’ growing presence in Rockland County’s restaurant industry and their continued investment in businesses serving the local community.

By COLlive reporter

Ahead of his upcoming Elul concert, star singer Yaakov Shwekey has released a new song invoking one of the Alter Rebbe’s best-known teachings about the month of Elul: the mashal of “the King in the Field.”

The new single, titled “Elul,” was released on August 15, just weeks before The Elul Experience, which will bring Shwekey and Mordechai Ben David together on Wednesday, September 2, at the Ritz Theatre in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The concert will also feature the Mendy Hershkowitz Band and Shira Choir.

In introducing the song, Shwekey highlighted the special closeness to Hashem associated with Elul.

“Elul is a time to quiet the noise, open our hearts, and find our way back to Hashem,” he wrote. “Let’s take advantage of this special time when the king is in the field, Hashem is right here with us, eagerly waiting for us with open arms.”

The phrase draws directly on the Alter Rebbe’s famous mashal in Likkutei Torah, Parshas Re’eh.

The Alter Rebbe describes a king who, before entering the city, is met by the people in the field. At that point, anyone who wishes can approach him, and the king receives everyone pleasantly and with a smiling countenance.

So too during Elul, the Alter Rebbe explains, the King is “in the field.” Unlike the awe associated with the royal palace, Elul represents a time when Hashem makes Himself especially accessible even while a person is still in the “field” of everyday life.

The mashal also emphasizes that this closeness calls for a response from the individual. While the King has made Himself accessible, it is the people who must approach Him, an idea connected with the Elul theme of “Ani L’Dodi V’Dodi Li,” “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.”

Shwekey cited those words as well in introducing the release, describing Elul as a month when turning toward Hashem brings a person closer to Him.

The song was composed and written by Yitzy Waldner, with music production by Maor Shooshan and arrangement and orchestration by David Ihilevich.

The release comes ahead of The Elul Experience, an evening organizers say is designed around the music, emotion and message of Elul as the Yomim Noraim approach.

VIDEO:

Get your tickets now: https://buytickets.at/apex/2331010/r/col

There are some places you go to for the 8 weeks of summer.

And then, there’s Camp Emunah.

A place where somehow for a few weeks, you forget about the outside world.

There’s something about Camp Emunah that is almost impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

As head counselors, we had the privilege to see all the behind the scenes, the late nights, the crazy ideas and the hours upon hours of planning that somehow all came together.

300+ Chabad girls, all from different backgrounds, coming together for one purpose. For an opportunity to learn, grow and become the best version of herself in every area. A summer filled with Torah, Chassidus, incredible energy, music, laughter and SO much more.

In 1953, when Rabbi and Rebbetzin JJ Hecht obm founded Camp Emunah, the Rebbe spoke to the staff that were heading out that summer and said Camp Emunah is “שלוחות מהשם ממש.”

This summer, we are proud to say that we really felt those words. Looking at each child for who they are and not for anything else.

By being in Camp Emunah, we are carrying something that the Rebbe personally entrusted us with, and that is felt throughout the whole day.

From the moment the girls wash Negel Vasser in the morning, up until Rebbe time at night, the girls are learning and growing while at the same time having the happiest and most memorable summer. It didn’t feel like we were simply staff running a summer camp. It felt like we were Shluchim, entrusted with the responsibility of carrying on what the Rebbe wanted Camp Emunah to be.

Camp Emunah doesn’t just create memories,
it creates a feeling.

As one camper so beautifully put it, “Camp Emunah is the place where my Neshama thrives.”

And maybe that’s exactly what makes Emunah so different. It’s a place where a girl doesn’t just have fun or make memories. She feels connected. She feels inspired. She feels like she can be her truest self. Her Neshama has room to breathe, to grow, and to thrive.

A feeling that you remember once you’re sitting at home after camp and suddenly realize…

Wait. It’s over?

Because honestly, it still doesn’t feel like it is.

We still expect to walk into the dining room and hear the music blasting.
We still expect everyone to start dancing.
To hear another announcement.
Another surprise.
Another night where nobody wants to go to bed.
Another morning where the whole camp wakes up and somehow has more energy than seems humanly possible.

Camp may have ended.
But somehow, it didn’t.

Because when you spend a summer in a place where you can feel so much joy, so much connection, so much Yiddishkeit, and so much love, you don’t really leave it.

You take it with you.

And we can proudly say “You can take a girl out of Emunah, but you can NEVER take Emunah out of a girl.”

Thank you Camp Emunah.

Love your 2nd Month Head Counselors
Emunah, Reesa and Tzippy

The Painters Helping Hand

by Dovid Zaklikowski for Hasidic Archives

In the mid-1920s, Rabbi Yosef Katzanelson arrived in the United States. It was shortly before the United States largely shuttered its borders to immigrants from Eastern Europe. In the preceding decades, hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing pogroms and antisemitism, or simply looking for a better life, had moved to the United States.

Many Americans resented the Jewish immigrants, accusing them of taking away their jobs and making the streets filthy and bring sicknesses to its borders.

Rabbi Katzanelson, an alumnus of Tomchei Tmimim in the town of Lubavitch, was hired as a rabbi in his hometown of Babruysk, Russia, in 1921. He was not only beloved at the Lubavitch-Minsker Study Hall, where he served as rabbi, but his Torah knowledge and humility earned him the respect of the local rabbis.

His return to the city was fraught with the aftermath of World War I, during which the city had been captured by Poland. With an uncertain future, like many Jews at the time, he wanted to head to the United States. Hearing that it was easier to obtain papers for the United States with a visa for a religious position, he learned how to be a shochet.

In New York, where he changed his family name to Nelson, he became the beadle of the Tiferes Israel Congregation and a shochet on Slaughterhouse Row, along the East River in Manhattan. In the mid-1940s, the area was cleared to become the home of the United Nations, and the slaughterhouse shuttered.

At the time, it was difficult for a kosher poultry shochet to find a new job, and he looked for a position outside New York. He received offers from Maryland and Illinois; however, his wife did not want to move away from where their son was studying at the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth.

To support his family, he painted homes and became lovingly known as Mr. Nelson. He was good at his job, and his services were in great demand.

He was once hired to paint the hallways of 346 Brooklyn Avenue, where Rabbi Mendel and Rebbetzin Moussia Schneerson resided. At the end of the day, balancing two buckets of paint on a stick as he walked out of the building, he felt someone holding the second bucket steady.

Seeing Rabbi Mendel, then known as the Ramash, assisting him, he was taken aback. Out of respect for the son-in-law of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he would not continue walking.

However, the future Rebbe would not let go. After what seemed to Mr. Nelson like a long time, the Ramash asked him, “Why do you care if I fulfill the mitzvah of ‘And you shall surely help him’ (Shemos 23:5)?”

Find Hasidic Archive’s, latest book Yards of Kindness here.

ExPlaned

Why has nobody successfully hijacked an El Al aircraft since 1968, despite El Al being one of the most targeted airlines in aviation history?

This documentary explores how Israel’s national airline transformed from a repainted military transport into what has been described as a security agency with wings.

We examine El Al’s layered security system, including armed sky marshals, reinforced cockpit doors, psychological passenger screening, decompression testing for suspicious luggage, and the C-MUSIC laser defense system carried beneath some Israeli aircraft.

The story also covers the 1968 El Al hijacking, the Dawson’s Field hijackings, the Anne-Marie Murphy suitcase bombing plot, El Al Flight 1862 over Amsterdam, Operation Solomon, the airline’s Sabbath shutdown, and its remarkable financial recovery.

In 2024, El Al reported a record profit of $541 million while continuing to operate under extraordinary security, geographic, religious, and geopolitical constraints.

Was El Al’s extreme security model the reason it survived, or did its unique role as Israel’s national lifeline make survival unavoidable?

Watch the full El Al aviation history documentary and decide.

Chabad History With Rabbi Dalfin – Boruch Sholom Kahan, R’ Zalman Schneerson and Coming to The Rebbe

Rabbi Chaim Dalfin, author and Chasidic historian shares interesting facts, many revealed for the first time. The purpose of his program is to inspire all but especially the youth. Watch another installment here on CrownHeights.info.

Visit Rabbi Dalfin’s website: Click Here

Photos: Tzvi Levenhartz/COLlive

Good Shabbos from the staff of COLlive.com!

Sholom Zachars in Crown Heights this week:

R’ Sadya Engel –
820 Maple St [Between Schenectady and Utica Aves]

R’ Dovid Perlow – 716 Montgomery St [Between Kingston and Albany Aves]

R’ Chaim Pil – Bais Shimon, 876 Eastern Pkwy [Between Albany and Troy Aves]

R” Menachem Parshan –
610 Maple St Apt 2b [Between Kingston and Albany Aves]

R’ Zalman Stein – Rubashkin’s House, 1349 President St [Between Kingston and Brooklyn Aves]

R’ Mendy Steinmetz – 1373 Carroll St [Corner of Kingston Ave]

Mendy Stern (Chicago, IL) to Goldie Leiberman (Lauderhill, FL)

Yosef Goldberg (Crown Heights) to Shaina Rosenfeld (Crown Heights) L’Chaim: Wednesday, Sep. 2nd, 8:00pm at Ulam Chana

Lubavitch Youth Organization Launches New Website In Honor of Chai Elul

The Lubavitch Youth Organization (LYO), which recently marked its 70th anniversary since the Rebbe personally established LYO, has launched a new website providing a comprehensive overview of the mosdos, programs and activities it sponsors throughout the year.

For decades, LYO has been the main address for hafatzas hamayonos emanating from Crown Heights. That dedication to carrying out the Rebbe’s directives continues with full strength.

The new website features a complete listing of more than 200 Shluchim and the Chabad Houses serving the five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester, including contact information.

It also highlights more than 30 diverse activities of LYO, based at 305 Kingston Ave. These include the renowned Levi Yitzchak Library, Crown Heights tours, the world’s largest Menorah in Central Park, annual Tahaluchas for Shabbos and Yom Tov, and many other programs.

The site also includes a listing of all 50 college campuses served by Tzach, with both full-time and part-time Shluchim.

The impressive website demonstrates how, over the past 70 years, LYO has grown into one of the largest Chabad mosdos based in Crown Heights.

In addition, a dedicated history and audio/video section will, be’ezras Hashem, feature hundreds of photographs and recordings from LYO events spanning the past 70 years. An announcement will be made when this section is ready for viewing.

When you have the opportunity, please visit ChabadLYO.org to see the full scope and breadth of what Lubavitch Youth Organization is accomplishing today.

For more information, contact LYO at [email protected] or 718-953-1000, or visit us at 305 Kingston Ave., Brooklyn, NY.

Judge Freier Puts the Brakes on Crown Heights Bike Lane Project

A New York Supreme Court judge has temporarily halted the remaining construction of Crown Heights’ controversial protected bike lane project, following a lawsuit challenging the city’s procedures for moving forward with the project.

New York Supreme Court Justice Rachel Freier granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) from proceeding with additional portions of the project on Kingston and Brooklyn Avenues and several surrounding streets. The order remains in effect until the case returns to court, with the next hearing scheduled for September 16, when the court will consider the matter further.

The lawsuit was brought by Crown Heights resident Yosef Wolf from the Chabad community against the City of New York, the Department of Transportation, and DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn. Wolf argues that DOT began implementing the project without completing the formal notifications, consultations, and certifications required by city law before a major transportation project can proceed.

The order came after construction had already begun. DOT had completed the protected bike lane on Kingston Avenue between East New York Avenue and Winthrop Street and was preparing to continue the project on Brooklyn Avenue and other locations. That includes the planned protected lane on Brooklyn Avenue, remaining Kingston Avenue work, pedestrian islands, curb extensions, planters and concrete barriers, a protected loop around the Wingate campus, and additional bike lanes planned for Rutland Road and Fenimore Street.

The city argued that extensive community outreach had already taken place. DOT says it presented the project to elected officials, FDNY, NYPD and other city agencies, as well as Community Board 9 and Crown Heights organizations including Shomrim, Hatzalah, the Crown Heights JCC and Jewish Future Alliance.

Wolf’s lawsuit, however, argues that community outreach alone was not enough and that DOT failed to complete the formal legal procedures required before construction began. His filing claims that Councilmember Rita Joseph had not been notified that DOT was beginning implementation and that Councilmember Crystal Hudson was also not properly notified. The lawsuit further alleges that DOT failed to provide required certifications documenting consultations with FDNY, NYPD, Small Business Services, and the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.

The court filings also show that DOT had already modified the original project following community opposition. The initial plan extended farther north toward Empire Boulevard, while the current version begins at East New York Avenue. DOT also reduced the projected loss of parking spaces and made other design changes.

Parents are concerned about the children’s safety, while the lawsuit centers on the city’s legal procedures, many Crown Heights residents have also raised concerns about the safety of protected bike lanes, particularly for children boarding buses on their way to Yeshiva.

Crown Heights resident Boruch Sholom, who is not involved in the lawsuit, said he supports bike lanes generally but has concerns about protected lanes. “I’m a cyclist, and I use bike lanes, but protected bike lanes are dangerous, especially for children boarding buses.” Sholom said that if the goal is safety, the safety of everyone—including children getting on and off buses—must be taken into account.

The case is also notable for being heard by New York Supreme Court Justice Rachel Freier, whose background and familiarity with the Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish community are well known. For many Crown Heights residents, having a judge who understands the community’s way of life and the practical concerns facing its families provides a meaningful sense of reassurance. Justice Freier’s temporary restraining order, however, is based on the legal issues raised before the court, and the case will now proceed through the judicial process.  

Wolf is seeking not only to stop the remaining construction but ultimately to overturn DOT’s decision to implement the project and require the city to restore portions of the streets that have already been altered. For now, Judge Freier’s order puts the remaining construction on hold, giving the court an opportunity to examine the legal questions surrounding the project before the city moves forward.

Little Leah spotted her counselor across the lawn. Instead of running into her arms, she ran the other way, squealing because she knew her counselor would chase her.

“She does that every single day,” her counselor, Perel, said. “It’s not a game to her. It’s her way of checking: Will you still come after me?”

And every day, the answer was yes.

That is Yeka.

This summer, that same spirit played out again and again in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine. Twenty-six English-speaking girls from around the world spent fourteen days with their Yeka sisters. They triple-wrapped tubs of marshmallow fluff because they already knew what the girls in Ukraine go wild for, then shlepped seventy-pound suitcases across four countries, picked up enough Russian on Duolingo to say “bike” and “duck,” and somehow fit in lollipops, Rebbe stories, snacks and prizes. After three days of travel, they arrived with enough love to fill far more than their luggage allowance.

Some of these campers have been coming for years, and something about this place gets them to let their guard down in a way nothing back home does. A girl who is generally non-expressive tells her counselor things she has never been able to say out loud because here, she finally feels safe.

Girls boarded the train carrying shopping bags, small overnight bags and whatever life has handed them: homes marked by war, orphanages with little room for individuality, families that never gave them the tenderness a child deserves.

Then they arrived at Yeka: the mountains, the late-night laughter, the fiercely competitive Capture the Flag games, the lip-sync battles, and the feeling that somehow, for a little while, everything is okay.

This summer, 120 girls and staff representing fifteen cities across Ukraine gathered under the theme Всегда на связи, “Always Connected.” It was supported by Chabad’s Jewish Relief Network Ukraine (JRNU). Throughout the session, they explored staying connected to Hashem, to the Jewish people, to the Rebbe, to one another, and ultimately to Geulah.

Yeka Girls director Mrs. Menucha Hanoka put it simply: “Every year I think we’ve seen it all, and every year these girls show us something new about what it means to hold on to who you are. This isn’t a vacation we’re running. It’s a home we’re building, one summer at a time.”

For Rabbi Shlomo Terishkevitch, the camp’s on-site Ukrainian director, “Always Connected” wasn’t just this year’s theme. It’s the whole reason Yeka works.

“Any camp can teach a girl a song or take her rafting,” he said. “What makes Yeka different is that every staff member knows which girl went quiet at lunch and which one needs her own personal daily schedule because too much structure can be overwhelming for her.”

None of it happened by accident. These twenty-six counselors spent months fundraising thousands of dollars to make these fourteen days possible.

And that connection doesn’t wait for summer. Every weeknight, year-round, girls scattered across Europe and Israel join their counselors on a Rebbe Time Zoom call to share their lives, sing together and end with Shema before saying good night to their Yeka family.

But there was another phrase that needed no theme and no curriculum: “I love you.”

At Yeka, you learn to say it in Russian before you learn to say, “Hello, what’s your name?” And it’s said with meaning.

You see it during the rest hour, when Milana, a girl who struggles socially, decided completely out of nowhere to grab the mic and start singing. The counselors who were filtering out of the dining room could have kept going to their rooms to rest. Instead, chairs were pulled into rows, phones came out, flashlights flicked on, and suddenly the room was a concert hall.

“I didn’t even know she could sing until that day,” said her counselor Esty Thaler. “None of us did. She just decided she was ready, and the second she started, sixteen counselors turned into her audience like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

Nobody planned it. They just saw a girl having her moment and decided to make it bigger.

That same instinct showed up everywhere. A younger camper shared a Torah thought at lunch, and the whole dining room erupted around her, chanting, “Dana is a Chossid!” For the rest of the day, she was a celebrity.

Ten girls chose Jewish names this summer, and within days those names were being called across the dining room, on the field and in the bunkrooms. They weren’t just names anymore. They were theirs.

Twelve girls lit Shabbos candles for the first time in their lives. One camper quietly ended a relationship that had been pulling her away from Yiddishkeit.

And while all of this was happening, the reality these girls came from was still there. They were rafting the Carpathian rivers, racing through a Color Run and getting soaked at foam parties, while some of their hometowns were being bombed.

A mother called camp to say that, for the first time in months, her teenage daughter Yulia was sleeping at night rather than crying at the sound of explosions outside.

Vika came to camp carrying the recent loss of her father. One day, she was sitting alone, overwhelmed by grief. Within moments, the entire office staff was dancing around her. No meeting, no discussion.

“Someone just looked up and said, ‘Vika’s having a hard moment,’ and that was it. We were all up,” said staff member Mina Jaffe. “Nobody assigns that. You just move.”

Because nobody stays alone for very long at Yeka.

Alina arrived at an orphanage only weeks before camp. At Yeka, she began to discover what it felt like to have people who kept showing up. A counselor gave away her Shabbos dress. Another handed over her bathing suit.

“Nobody told us to,” said head counselor Yaffa Lebovic. “You just look at a girl who has nothing extra and realize you have two.”

Some breakthroughs were dramatic. Most were not. Sometimes it was nothing more than a girl laughing so hard that, for a few minutes, she forgot what life was like outside the gates.

And maybe that’s one of the remarkable things about Yeka. Some of these girls wait all year for their turn at camp because, for them, Yeka is a haven. Here, they just get to be girls: loud, silly, loved, dancing until they can’t anymore.

Even more, they leave carrying some of that feeling with them.

Anya, a longtime camper, is moving to Israel next year for high school. When people asked if she was nervous about starting over in a new country, she wasn’t.

“I already have family there,” she said. “My Yeka staff will take care of me.”

Maybe there really is something in the kasha at Yeka.

You can’t put it into a curriculum. It’s twelve years of relationships, girls who know what it feels like to be loved here, counselors who instinctively step in, and campers arriving with circumstances that make every moment matter. Somehow, every summer, all of it comes together again.

And maybe that’s what Yeka is: a place where a little girl can run away from her counselor, knowing without a doubt that someone will lovingly come after her.

*

What isn’t mentioned here is that an entire second Yeka Girls camp took place in Israel this summer. We now have two full camps to cover, and we are still far from our fundraising goal.

We are grateful for our sponsors, and Yeka relies heavily on people like you to make these camps possible. Every donation helps us get closer to the finish line.

Support Yeka Girls: yekagirls.com/summer

Follow along on Instagram: @campyekagirls

Weekly Story: Rabbi Donald Trump – We Are One Family

by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon 

Last year I attended Renewal’s Shabbaton, and the keynote speaker was Rabbi Donald Trump, a Rov in the Five Towns.

I am sharing a poignant thought he delivered, not only in speech but in action by donating one of his kidneys, to another Jew, whom he had never met or spoken to before. 

As always, your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated and most welcomed. 

Before one is accepted or allowed to donate a kidney (or another organ), their doctor has to verify that they are in good health, and the operation would not cause a negative impact on them. This is of course after they medically verified that they are a good or even excellent match for the recipient.

He related, when I had that appointment with my nephrologist (kidney specialist), I said, “Doctor can I ask you something?”

“’Yes, you can and should ask whatever is concerning you,’ my doctor replied.

“Doctor, you are signing a paper affirming that I am healthy and able to donate one of my kidneys. You mentioned how altruistic and remarkable it is to donate an organ to someone who I have never met. My question is, would you yourself consider donating one of your kidneys?

“’If it is a family member, [such as] my parents, siblings, children and my spouse, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment. But if it is not a family member, rather a stranger, then I would do so only after I am sixty, after I achieved whatever I was able to.’

“I replied, doctor we basically agree on everything yoi just said. [So the question is, why at my relative young age, I am going ahead and will shortly be donating one of my two kidneys? The answer is that] we just define family differently. To you family means your immediate relatives, your parents, siblings, children and spouse. To me it means the Jewish community at large.”

I chose to post this story for two reasons: A. We are in midst of the month of Elul, when we are trying to come closer to Hashem, and a father desires to see his children getting along with each other and when the children give him this happiness, he in turn blesses them and fulfills all of their hearts desires.

Additionally, just as I and an additional fifteen hundred individuals were assisted through Renewals auspices, so too there are hundreds more of our brothers and sisters who are hoping and praying for a kidney match.

My benefit is unmeasurable,  (and indirectly everyone who enjoys this weekly story or my books are benefitting to a much lesser degree) from Renewal facilitating my transplant, So I turn to each one of you with the request to please join me in assisting Renewal help others as well. Sadly to say there are hundreds of our brothers and sisters, including members of Anash and those who are members in Chabad shuls and schools that are on the waiting list to receive a transplant.

To participate, in whatever amount you can, and help another Jew gain a new lease on life, please click on this link https://www.dryveup.com/renewal/2640

This Yud Aleph Elul, is a major milestone for me, as it is three years since with Hashem’s miraculous ways, Renewal was able to find me an almost perfect match. 

The first Hakaras Hatov goes to the Eibishter, who created such a possibility and created another Jew, who was a better match than one of my own nephews. Before, while and after the operation, I promised to add something in my avodah, and that is the reason I began adding A Taste of Chassidus three years ago. 

Additionally, just as my donor, gave a kidney without knowing who it was for and without any renumeration, I learned that I too should be willing to help others without expecting anything in return, and therefore as you remember I requested that you please participate in helping Chasdei Avrohom Eliezer, enable parents to send their children to camp. Boruch Hashem, due to your and others generosity we were able to raise over 130.000 dollars and help over 230 families.

I am eternally indebted to my donor Reb Aryeh Kolton, who with the encouragement of his wife Mrs. Aliza and their children granted me one of his kidneys, which allows me to live a regular and hopefully a productive life.

So please participate in this life saving and changing request at  https://www.dryveup.com/renewal/2640

This was supposed to be posted last week. But due to technical difficulties I didn’t send it out, so I am posting it this week.

We all know the parable of The King Is In the Field, however, generally speaking, most of us don’t know the background on how this Moshol (parable) formed. Two weeks ago, I mentioned in a footnote that the Moshol was already said by the Baal Shem Tov, and after studying it, the following is my understanding about the background to the Moshol.

The Baal Shem Tov explained, the Talmud’s reconciliation between the following two pesukim. 

In one possuk it is stated Hashem is close to all who call out to Him in truth, this means that He always hears our prayers. While another possuk states, Seek Hashem when He is accessible and call out to Him when He is close, which is clearly stating that there are only specific times that our prayers will be accepted.

On this the Talmud responds, when a congregation is praying, their prayers are always accepted, however, if an individual prays by themself, then it has to be an auspicious time for it to be accepted.

The Talmud then inquires, “And when is this auspicious time,?” and the response is, during the ten days of repentance. 

On this the Baal Shem clarifies, why does Hashem accept an individual’s prayers during these days and not during the rest of the year?

So he says, these days are compared to when a king is traveling, while the majority days of the year are compared to when a king is in his palace. 

When a king is in his palace, he will not leave the palace to eat a meal or sleep in someone’s house or an establishment as exquisite as they may be. However, when he is traveling, he will eat and sleep in a house or establishment, as long as it is clean and decent. The same thing is concerning one’s prayers: essentially there are conditions or criteria that must be met in order that the prayers should be accepted, and one of the primary ones is that it be said with a minyan. However, during the ten days of repentance even an individual’s prayers are accepted. 

Seemingly, this explanation of the Baal Shem Tov means to say that because the king is not in his royal dwelling place, he has to lower his standards and expectations. 

This assumption becomes stronger when we continue with the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching as he states this is the reason why in the time of exile, Hashem grants proper people the power of Ruach Hakodesh even though if they were living in the time of the Beis Hamikdash they wouldn’t have been deemed worthy of being among the select few who had Ruach Hakodesh.

On this the Alter Rebbe asks, why does Hashem accept an individual’s prayers these days? [After all these days are the days of judgement and this individual is not raising his level of respect and awe to make the effort and pray with a minyan as is prescribed in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law).

But the Alter Rebbe explains that the answer is that during these days Hashem’s thirteen attributes of mercy (compassion) are revealed. So while during most of the year, an individual’s prayers are not accepted, but during these special and auspicious days, when His thirteen attributes of mercy are revealed and active, they are accepted.

But the Alter Rebbe explains that the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy are around and available to be activated  In the Month of Elul. How Do We Know That?

The Alter Rebbe begins the maamar with the words of אני לדודי ודודי לי, and he quotes from our sages that the opening letter of these four words spell the word Elul. Yet our sages also state that the first two words refer to the month of Elul, while the latter two refer to the Ten Days of Repentance. In other words, that means that the concept of the Thirteen attributes of mercy, which is the theme of the ten days of repentance, is an integral part of the month of Elul. The Alter Rebbe emphasizes this by pointing out that the final letter of all four words is a Yud, which has numerical equivalent value of 10, and four times ten is forty, referencing the one unit of forty days from Rosh Chodesh Elul through Yom Kippur. 

So the Alter Rebbe asks, being that the revelation of the thirteen attributes of mercy is so special that we don’t say tachnun on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, why do we say tachanun during the month of Elul?

Explaining the answer of the Baal Shem Tov the Alter Rebbe clarifies, that we don’t say tachanun on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur because then the thirteen attributes are revealed (as we clearly see the King in His glory, as he is sitting in his palace). However, during the month of Elul, they are available but not revealed. Therefore, he says the King is in the field in regular clothing; Yes he is the king and is available and accessible for all, but he is not presenting himself in the clothing and glory of a king.

According to this explanation, it is not that the king lowers his standard because he is not in the palace, but rather he is so exalted that there are no limitations of who, where and when. He can and actually conducts his royal functions in every circumstance, even when one might not recognize that he is the king. So there is no difference where he is.

In simple chassidic terminology, the lower level of Hashem’s glory is mimaleh kol almin, which means that Hashem’s presence is measured according to each world. In other words there is a higher and lower and everything has its rightful place. So in that world, prayers are accepted when they are said in a Minyan, but not when the person says it by himself. However, the higher level is Soivev kol Almin, that Hashem surrounds all worlds equally, and there is no higher and lower. In that circumstance even an individual’s prayers are accepted. 

A Taste of Chassidus 

 כי תצא למלחמה  Likkutei Torah Devorim p.34C

While the simple translation of these words is telling us how we are to conduct ourselves when we go to war [and capture enemies], that is the way it is portrayed in this physical world. However, as Chassidus teaches us, everything in the physical derives from the spiritual, and in this maamar the Alter Rebbe explains the spiritual war that we are being guided to conduct. And being that the Torah is eternal, this is a daily battle.

Yaakov Avinu said to his son Yosef, I am giving you the city of Shechem which I took [from them] with my sword and bow. In other words, Yaakov was saying I went to war [and captured it]. But Targum Onkelos translates those words to mean, which I took with my supplication and prayer. So we see that Tefillah (prayer) is a form of battle. 

Here too the Alter Rebbe explains that these words are speaking about the spiritual war that we are to wage every day against our Yetzer Hora, and that is done every day when we daven.

So we have to understand, what is the nature of this battle? And being that davening is in place of [bringing] sacrifices, it must mean that the korbonos also epitomized, the concept of this battle, so what is it?

One goes to war / battle to fulfill or accomplish their goal and mission. And the mission and reason Hashem sent our Neshoma down into this world is to elevate every spark of holiness and return it back to its source. 

The reason they have to be returned is because,  at the beginning of Creation, these sparks were so powerful that they could not be contained in the world, without being concealed. However, through our avodah of Torah and Mitzvos, their unlimited G-dly essence is revealed even in this limited physical world.

Essentially this concept of connecting the spark as it is in this world to its source, is seen and brought out when we offer a korbon (sacrifice). 

Everything is created from a combination of the basic four elements of fire, wind, water, and dirt. However, each creation is mainly aligned with one of them.

Passion, desire, and vibrancy are connected or are derivatives of the element of fire. Heat is a symbol of fire, and being that every living mammal, fowl, and fish have a body temperature, that demonstrates that their source is the fire Above. It is our mission to not only reveal this connection but to elevate it back to its source, and we accomplish this  by placing the animal (after it is slaughtered) upon the alter, and a fire, which our sages describe comes in the form of a lion and burns it.

The lion is representing the lion that is on the right side of Hashem’s throne, and that lion nullified itself to Hashem, so the concept of bringing a korbon is telling and guiding the person to also nullify their passions and desires, that instead of obtaining and receiving physical pleasures, we should strive to obtain spiritual ones by devoting ourselves to serve Hashem. 

This is also the purpose of davening; Hashem sent the Neshoma into this world to refine and elevate the Nefesh Habehamis (animal soul). The spiritual source of the animal soul is the lion which is on the right side of Hashem’s throne. As it passed through the supernal worlds, it gave life to angels (and that is why in many pesukim angels are called fiery, for as we noted animals are created from the element of fire).

So in davening (specifically in Shacharis), we describe how all creations animals and angels are humbled and nullified to Hashem. Telling our nefesh habehamis, that your source or lifeline nullified itself to Hashem. It put aside any self-interest and passion aside, with the goal to serve Hashem with passion and vitality. Therefore, here on this world, we too should put aside our personal interests and desires, just to serve Hashem.

This is the reason why we place the blood (which represents one’s passion) and burn the fats (which represents one’s enjoyment) on the mizbeiach. It demonstrates that our personal self-interest and indigence or passions and desires should be put aside to serve Hashem with a passion. In other words elevating the passion or FIRE to its source. Just as in its source it is completely and totally devoted to Hashem, so too on this materialistic world it is devoted purely for and to fulfill Hashem’s will.

This also explains two other points:

Generally speaking, we say that davening (shemoneh Esreh) is in order to request things that we are lacking or in need of from Hashem. If that is the only reason why our sages instructed us to daven, why is there a guidance to daven daily, even on a day that the one davening isn’t aware of any need?

But as noted, an important aspect of davening is to refine and elevate those sparks that came down on this world, back to their source. This is a daily objective and battle.

It also explains a second aspect. Why are we  allowed to bring a korbon only in the Mishkan or Beis HaMikdash? This question is so more relevant if as we said that this is the mission and purpose of why Hashem forced our G-dly Neshoma to descend into this world!

But the explanation is, the only way one has the ability to to refine and elevate their sparks, is by being humble and nullify yourself in front of Hashem. That was accomplished in its truest sense in the Beis Hamikdash, and therefore a korbon which symbolizing I am giving up my passions and desires just to serve Him, has to be at a moment when I am standing and humbling myself to Hashem.

Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and the author of numerous books on the Rebbeiim and their chassidim. He is available to farbreng in your community and can be contacted at [email protected].

Weekly Dvar Torah: Don’t Defeat Your Enemy—Recruit Him

“When you go out to war against your enemies, and G-d will deliver him into your hand, and you will take his captives.”

This week’s Parsha, “Ki Seitzei”, begins with a war.

Chassidus reads these words much closer to home. This is the war every Jew enters from the moment the Neshama comes down into the body.

Every Jew has two souls. The G-dly soul, a part of G-d above, wants G-dliness, Torah, Mitzvos, holiness, and closeness to Hashem. The animal soul is interested in this world. It wants to eat, sleep, enjoy itself, and satisfy its desires.

So the battle begins.

Sometimes the Neshama wins. Sometimes the animal soul wins. That is why the Torah says, Ki Seitzei Lamilchamah—when you go out to war. Life is the battlefield.

But the Torah reassures us: Al Oyvecha—against, literally above, your enemy.

The animal soul may be loud and persistent, but it is not the real you. The essence of a Jew is the Neshama, the spark of G-d within him. You begin the battle already standing above the enemy.

And Hashem promises: Unesano Hashem Elokecha Beyadecha—G-d will deliver him into your hand.

But what does victory mean?

Normally, defeating an enemy means eliminating him. But that is not the Jewish objective.

We don’t want to destroy the animal soul.

We want to capture it.

We want yesterday’s enemy to become tomorrow’s ally.

This takes us directly to another seemingly unrelated law in our Parsha. The Torah speaks about a man with two wives, “one beloved and one despised.” Surprisingly, the firstborn belongs specifically to the despised wife, and the Torah insists that he retain all the rights of the firstborn.

These two wives represent the two souls.

The G-dly soul is beloved. It recognizes Hashem and longs to fulfill His will. The animal soul is the despised one. It sees the food, the money, the physical world, but not the G-dliness concealed within it.

And yet the firstborn belongs to the despised one.

Because there is something the animal soul can accomplish that the G-dly soul cannot.

Hashem deliberately created a physical world where His presence is concealed, and an animal soul that naturally feels at home in that world. Then He gave the G-dly soul a mission:

Don’t destroy the animal soul.

Transform it.

Take its passion for material pleasure and make it passionate about a Mitzvah. Take its stubbornness and make it stubborn for Yiddishkeit. Harness its energy to Torah, Tzedakah, helping another Jew, and serving Hashem.

The G-dly soul never had to be convinced that Hashem exists. It came from there. It remembers home.

But when the animal soul, living comfortably in a world that conceals Hashem, turns around and says, “I too want Hashem”—the enemy has changed sides.

And perhaps that explains why we read this Parsha during Elul.

Elul is the month of Teshuvah. But Teshuvah does not simply mean repentance. Teshuvah means return.

The Neshama came from G-d and was sent on a journey into a physical body and a material world. Throughout that journey, it yearns for home. Sometimes we hear that yearning; sometimes the animal soul drowns it out.

So Hashem gives us Elul.

Thirty days.

Remarkably, our Parsha also speaks about a captive who is given thirty days before entering her new life.

For thirty days we stop and think. The body begins to ask: Where does my life come from? Without the Neshama, what am I? What gives meaning to my eating, sleeping, working, earning, and living?

The animal soul begins to discover that the Neshama is its life.

That is Teshuvah: returning the Jew to his true self, and returning the animal soul, with all its enormous energy and passion, to the purpose for which Hashem created it.

Now we can understand Veshavisa Shivyo—“and you will capture his captives.”

The animal soul has been taking captives all year. Food that could have been elevated became merely pleasure. Money that could have become Tzedakah became an end in itself. Time and energy that could have been used for holiness went elsewhere.

Now we take them back.

We eat and use the energy for a Mitzvah. We earn and use the money for Tzedakah and a Jewish home. We take the physical world and reveal the G-dliness hiding within it.

And suddenly we discover that the ultimate purpose was never for two souls to fight forever.

The greatest victory is not when your enemy lies defeated at your feet.

The greatest victory is when yesterday’s enemy stands beside you, fighting on your side.

That is Elul.

We enter with two voices struggling inside us. We want to arrive at Rosh Hashanah with both voices saying the same thing:

Hashem is our King.

The Neshama says it because that is what it always wanted.

And the animal soul says it because it has finally discovered what it really wanted too.

This is a war we were born to win—not by destroying the enemy, but by transforming him.

And when the animal soul joins the Neshama in serving Hashem, the battle has fulfilled its purpose, the captive has come home, and the physical world becomes the dwelling place for G-d it was created to be.

That is the ultimate victory of Moshiach, when the entire world will recognize the G-dliness that was there all along.

Have a Victorious Shabbos,
Gut Shabbos

Rabbi Yosef Katzman

KOL ISHA: New Music Release For Back To School

Get ready to be moved by the powerful single “Little Moishy,” with its heartfelt lyrics and soothing melody.

As a poignant expression of a student’s emotional struggles, “Little Moishy” seeks to inspire compassion with a heartwarming message for teachers, students and mothers.

This song is a beautiful tribute to Shalom’s late beloved Rebbi, Rabbi Y. Wilansky a”h. A Rebbi who cared so much for each of his talmiddim, and taught every talmid with love and respect.

Performed by Rochel Gurkow and her son Shalom. Music credit to Yisroel Drihem, Izzy D JAY.

FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS.
KOL ISHA.

To listen click here: https://album.link/RochelGurkow

You can find Rochel Gurkow’s music on popular platforms like 24six, Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.

To book her for your next event, simply email [email protected].

A dramatic lifesaving effort at the central Chabad shul in Kiryat Malachi, Israel, came full circle last week when the man who survived a cardiac arrest unexpectedly appeared at the wedding of the son of the United Hatzalah volunteer who helped save his life.

About six weeks ago, Roni Nakash suddenly collapsed during davening at the shul in Nachlas Har Chabad after suffering cardiac arrest.

Among those present was Elnadiv Tam, a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT, who immediately began treating Nakash while reporting the emergency over his radio and calling for additional responders.

Tam began CPR and used a defibrillator as additional United Hatzalah volunteers rushed to the scene and joined the resuscitation efforts.

Their efforts succeeded in restoring Nakash’s heartbeat. He regained full consciousness before being transported to the hospital and was able to speak with the medical team at the scene.

According to the medical team, the quick identification of the cardiac arrest, immediate response and rapid use of the defibrillator were critical in saving Nakash’s life and preventing irreversible damage.

Six weeks later, Tam was celebrating his son’s wedding when an unexpected guest arrived at the simcha.

Nakash walked into the wedding healthy and on his feet, coming personally to thank the man who had helped save his life.

The two shared an emotional reunion, just weeks after Tam’s rapid response helped turn what could have been a tragedy into a remarkable recovery.

Fourth Chabad Center Opens on the Island of Corsica

by Leibel Kahan – Lubavitch.com

Astorefront on the main road in Calvi, on Corsica’s northwest coast, is now home to the island’s fourth Chabad center. Walk out of the town’s train station and it’s directly across the street — wide windows, no shutters, visible from the sidewalk. For a town of fewer than 6,000 permanent residents, it’s a conspicuous addition. For the Jews who’ve been coming to this Mediterranean resort town for decades, it’s the one thing that was missing.

Michel Madie was nine years old when his family arrived in Calvi in 1967 from Algeria. His parents — his father a descendant of Spanish Jews who fled the Inquisition, his mother a Berber Jew from the Algeria-Morocco border — had lost everything in the expulsion of 1962. They were on vacation when they were told not to go back. They never retrieved a single possession.

In Calvi, the family were some of the only Jews in town. Madie grew up with no synagogue, no community, no visible Jewish life at all. He left at 18 and has lived in Manhattan for the past two decades. His mother still lives in Calvi.

He was back for the inauguration. “I wouldn’t even consider such a thing as a possibility when I was a kid,” he said. “Entering the Chabad center — being seen from the street, from the main road of Calvi — it was incredibly emotional.”

Rabbi Levi and Mushky Pinson, who’ve directed Chabad of Corsica from the capital city of Ajaccio since 2016, opened the Calvi location this summer with an inauguration that drew some 50 people. The center joins existing operations in Ajaccio, Bastia, and Porto Vecchio, giving Chabad a presence in each of the island’s four main regions.

Jewish history on the island runs deep. Some historians trace the first Jewish presence to Roman times, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Jews from Egypt settled in southern Corsica around the ninth century, and Sephardic Jews and Marranos fleeing the Inquisition arrived in later waves. In the eighteenth century, Pasquale Paoli, the Corsican independence leader, granted Jews equal rights — ahead of most of Europe. During the First World War, several hundred Jews from Tiberias were resettled to the island by the Ottoman Empire after refusing to renounce their French citizenship, building the Beth Meir synagogue in the port city of Bastia. And during the Second World War, Corsican authorities refused to cooperate with Vichy, saving thousands of Jewish refugees. Over three-quarters of the island’s Jewish population survived.

Today, the permanent Jewish community is small — a few hundred people scattered across the island. But Corsica draws thousands of Jewish tourists each summer, mainly from mainland France, and Calvi’s Balagne region has become a popular destination for Jewish weddings. Rabbi Pinson estimates some several dozen Jews live in the Balagne year-round, though he expects to discover more.

The center offers a synagogue, kosher food on-site and for delivery, a small grocery corner, and a snack bar. A group of rabbinical students is running it for the summer. All kosher food is ordered from Paris and shipped through Marseille — the same route that supplies most of the island, where 90 percent of food arrives by cargo ship. Some of it reaches Calvi aboard the train that winds along the coast, dropped off steps from the Chabad house door.

For Madie, who grew up in that town as one of its only Jews, the location is the point. The Chabad house sits next to the post office, next to the bank, on a street no one in Calvi can avoid. Years ago, his parents held Shabbat dinner behind closed doors in a town where no one really knew they were Jewish. Sixty years later, the light from the Chabad house spills onto the main road of Calvi, and no one is closing the curtains.

Sabbath, the seventh and holiest day of the week; the cornerstone of Jewish faith and commitment to Divine authority. But many situations, especially during the vacation season, may place honoring the Sabbath and keeping it holy at risk. The Avner Institute presents the sophisticated knowledge of the Rebbe, based on years in engineering, of the challenges of overseas travel, particularly on an ocean liner, in maintaining a proper Day of Rest.

In loving memory of Hadassah Lebovic A”h

“Regarding the disgraceful Sabbath desecration”

By the Grace of G-d
21 Shevat 5718
Brooklyn, NY

Miss Marilyn Bell
c/o Diane Hotel
237 Madison Avenue
New York 16, New York

Blessing and Greeting:

I was pleased to receive your letter of January 30th, in which you write about your spending your vacation at home, after which you planned to return to your studies in New York. I am gratified to note that you do not content yourself with your own progress in Hebrew Studies, but that you are trying to use your good influence with your friends in that direction. This kind of benevolent effort expresses in the best possible way the commandment of “Love thy fellow-Jew,” which is the great principle of our Torah. For, if helping a fellow-Jew in material things is so great a mitzvah, how much more so helping one spiritually, in matters of Torah and mitzvoth, which are eternal.

Moreover, the mitzvah of Sabbath observance that you write about is one of the most fundamental ones, and as the Rabbis stated in the Talmud (Jerushalmi, Nedarim 319), the Sabbath equals in importance all the other mitzvoth combined. By the same token, Sabbath desecration is one of the gravest transgressions, so that Rabbis have ruled that he who publicly desecrates the Sabbath is regarded as if he were desecrating the entire Torah.

Absurd Claims

I mention this particularly in reference to your inquiry regarding the disgraceful Sabbath desecration which is perpetrated by the Jewish ocean liner. The claim that everything is done automatically during the 24 hours of the Sabbath is completely absurd, and I state it with the fullest authority, being an engineer myself, and having also studied marine mechanics. For one thing, certain machinery cannot be operated automatically, especially those in connection with the steering, radio communications, services, and similar ones.

Secondly, even those machines which can operate automatically are required by their very operation, as well as by international law, to be checked periodically every few hours, which involves direct Sabbath desecration a corresponding number of times during the 24-hour period of the Sabbath.

Thirdly, certain so-called automatic machines, including some of the boilers, require change of parts periodically, approximately every six hours, when the affected sections of these machines are stopped and restarted for the said purpose, diminishing or extinguishing the fire and then starting it again.

In addition to the above, there are so many other instances on a ship flying the high seas which involve Sabbath desecration, as anyone who is familiar with the technical aspects of modern shipping will know. For instance, the water which is supplied for drinking, and even the running water in the cabins, is derived from the seawater by a process of distillation, which, as you no doubt know, means the boiling and evaporating of the water and converting it back to distilled water by cooling. The water supply is not stored for days ahead, not even for 24 hours, because of the storage room that it would require, but is produced simply by a continuous process of distillation.

In other words, even if the entire crew consisted of non-Jews, the water could not be used by the passengers on the Jewish ships several hours after the Sabbath had begun, because the water supply from before Sabbath would have been exhausted, and the crew would be providing fresh water on the Sabbath, specifically for the Jewish passengers, the use of which Jewish law prohibits until several hours have elapsed after the termination of the Sabbath.

Other Issues

The same is true of the lighting system. This law would apply even if only a majority of the passengers were Jews; how much more so in the case of the Jewish ships which carry almost exclusively Jewish passengers, for it is on their behalf that the ship is operated and the machines are regulated, involving flagrant violation of the Sabbath. Only one who has no conception of how much machines are operated can be made to believe the absurd claim that an ocean liner can, for 24 hours, be operated automatically, without any Sabbath desecration.

Unfortunately, there have been Rabbis who have been misled, and have misled others, on this subject. In their ignorance of the technical aspects involved, and under the influence of misleading statements by technicians who, for reasons of their own, did not choose to disclose all the facts, the Rabbis have regretfully been misled into thinking, or even declaring openly, that no Sabbath desecration was here involved.

Automatic Operation?

You mention in your letter that one of your friends has spoken to a captain of a Jewish boat, who is said to have declared that his boat was operated automatically on the Sabbath. In this connection, I would like to enclose a copy of a questionnaire which I sent a year ago to an executive of the shipping company, who had claimed that the ships are navigated automatically during the Sabbath. This communication remains unanswered to this day, for obvious reasons, for I am sure there will not be found anyone who will state that any of the enumerated items can be worked automatically, if he has any regard for truth and does not wish to be caught in making false statements.

I would like to comment also on your reference regarding the kashruth of the food served on the said ships. You can easily see, and any Rabbi will confirm this, that when food is served by Jews who openly desecrate the Sabbath (as on the ships), the kashruth of such food is under a serious question mark. Moreover, even if a mashgiach (supervisor) is engaged to supervise the kashruth on these ships, it would not change the situation, since the mashgiach himself would be guilty of open Sabbath desecration, and his reliance on a mashgiach would thereby be “jeopardized.”

Whither the Protest?

The question has been asked: if the operation of the Jewish ships involves such a violation of the Jewish Law, why is there no storm of protest raised in the Holy Land to stop it? The answer will become self-evident from the following two instances:
For some ten years the supply and distribution of milk in the Holy Land have been in the hands of cooperatives and farms, many of which have been known to raise pigs and under very strong suspicion of tackling with the milk, which therefore made the milk trefah [non-kosher]. Yet, until late last summer, nothing was done about it, until finally Rabbi Nissim stepped in and banned such milk, inducing the guilty farmers to give up their pig breeding, since they did not want to lose the more lucrative milk business. No doubt you have read about it in the papers. Surely, no one would declare cow-milk mixed with pig-milk as kosher, yet for years this disgraceful thing went on unchallenged.
Fact #2 is connected with Sabbath violation, which had for a long time been practiced by the paper factory in Hadera. This too was only recently stopped by Rabbi Nissim, when he banned such paper from use by publishers of sacred literature. Again, the issue was not in doubt, for no one will say that the Torah permits a Jewish paper factory because it is in the Holy Land to operate on the Sabbath.

Faulty Argument

Finally, I must forestall another “argument” in connection with the Jewish ships. Some interested parties refer to a book written by Rabbi Waldenberg, in which the legal aspects and conditions under which a Jewish ship could theoretically run its course on the Sabbath, are examined. This book is “cited” as purportedly giving approval to travel on the Jewish ships during the Sabbath. How misleading this is can easily be seen from the fact that none of the mitigating requirements mentioned in the book have actually been met in practice, and the conditions prevailing on these ships are precisely such as make the operation of the ships a definite violation of the Torah.

I want to mention here that last year, when a group of Jewish girls, who were planning to go to the Holy Land on one of these ships, on learning of the Sabbath desecration that it involved, changed their plans and went by air instead. I believe they belong to the Mizrachi and Poel Hamizrachi. These girls certainly deserve credit. Actually, would it not be ridiculous, were it not for the grave issue involved, for a person desirous to go to the Land which is regarded as Holy by non-Jews, that he should choose a way of transportation which involves the open violation of one of the Ten Commandments, namely, the Commandment of “Keep the Sabbath day Holy,” which as we noted above, equals in significance all the Commandments combined.

I trust that you surely know that the Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law] begins with the admonition: “Do not be influenced by scoffers” (cf. Tur and Rema, Orach Chaim, beginning of par. 1). I sincerely hope that this will be so in your case; and may G-d help you to save others from open desecration of the Sabbath, which, even when committed unwittingly, is one of the most serious offenses, especially as, insofar as the onlooker is concerned, the distinction between conscious or unwitting Sabbath desecration does not apply.

With prayerful wishes for your success in all your affairs, and in connection with the above in particular.

With blessing,

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By anonymous

I’ve been in shidduchim for a while now. If you’re reading this and feeling tired, overwhelmed, or like everyone has an opinion about your life – I see you. This is what I’ve learned.

1. Trust your gut.

People will try to push you in many different directions. One person says X, another says Y. Your aunt says one thing, your friend says another, the shadchan says something else entirely.

You know yourself best. Trust how you feel. Trust what you want. Believe in yourself. Confidence!

Hashem gave you a neshama, a sechel, and an intuition for a reason. If something feels off, it probably is. If something feels right even if it doesn’t look perfect on paper, listen to that too. You are the one who has to live this life, not them.

2. If someone doesn’t answer or respond, consider it a “no, not shayach.”

It’s either the family or the shadchan who isn’t getting back to you. It’s not mentchlich at all, but it’s not your fault.

Honestly, we’re not 12 years old, and it’s important to communicate either way, even if something isn’t shayach. A simple “not for us right now” is basic derech eretz.

Just know Hashem is leading you and don’t feel desperate. Their silence says everything about them, nothing about your worth.

3. What’s meant to happen will happen. Hashem runs the world.

Stop trying so hard to please everyone. Straighten your hair, or get your makeup done, do your colors, what to wear, lose weight, or whatever. Everyone can offer opinions, but Hashem is the One who runs this world, not people.

Connect to Hashem. Live and love YOUR life. Don’t go away for the summer or push off a vacation just in case something comes up. Don’t put your life on hold. The right one will find you while you are living, not while you are anxiously waiting by the phone.

4. Be very picky. This is your LIFE.

Make sure you’re not being pushed, and that if you’re getting engaged, it’s YOUR choice.

Too many divorces are happening, even in our circles, and often people say they were pushed into it, or they felt they had to say yes because of their age, pressure, or because everyone said it was a great shidduch.

Don’t get engaged because you’re tired. Don’t get engaged because you feel like you’re getting older. Get engaged because you actually want to build a life with this person.

5. Be honest! Don’t hide or not disclose the truth.

If you’ve been to therapy or are on medication and things are getting serious, you need to say so. Please don’t hide it until you’re married and ruin someone’s life. It’s wrong according to Halacha and just ethically wrong on all levels.

Everything should be discussed honestly. From Mental health, family history, hashkafos, expectations about work, kids, shlichus, money – discuss it all. Honesty now saves heartbreak later.

6. Don’t do things you’re uncomfortable with.

Some people push mixed events, which can be great if it works, but if it’s not your hashkafa, don’t feel the need or pressure to go.

If you don’t feel comfortable going to a certain place, dressing a certain way to please a shadchan, or being in a certain environment – don’t. You don’t need to compromise on your Yiddishkeit to find your zivug.

Hashem knows what you need, and Hashem is the One who will orchestrate the right one. Not a party, not a system, not a person. Hashem.

*

If you’re in this parsha too, you’re not alone. You will get married. Trust and believe in Hashem. Don’t compare your life to others. Live your best life because only you can.

May Hashem send the right shidduchim for everyone with clarity and ease.

By COLlive reporter

On Thursday, 94 Beis Moshe, which serves 270 young Anash families in Crown Heights, closed on a large property encompassing 546-552 E. New York Avenue. The site currently houses a 5,400-square-foot building.

The purchase was made possible through contributions and pledges from the shul’s 270 member families, all under the age of 35. To help make the project a reality, 94 Beis Moshe sold 552 E. New York Avenue to a local Anash homeowner, turning down significantly higher offers from outside developers who planned to build a micro-unit high-rise that would not serve the community.

Led by the shul’s rov and mashpia, Rabbi Meir Shur, 94 Beis Moshe has become a hub of shiurim, farbrengens and family events that Crown Heights families under 35 have come to rely on.

“We farbreng for two hours here every Shabbos,” Rabbi Shur says. “This building project itself was born at a Yud Alef Nissan farbrengen.”

The shul has also grown into a bustling center of Torah learning.

“There are all different types of shiurim happening in the shul,” says longtime member Noach Hurwitz. “Whether it’s halacha, gemara, chassidus, or history; there’s truly a tremendous amount of opportunity here.”

After Musaf each week, Rabbi Mordy Cadaner gives a shiur on Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. Sunday mornings feature Sunday Kollel, with a kids’ program, shiur and breakfast. Rabbi Shur gives a Chassidus shiur before the daily Shacharis minyan, while chavrusa learning and regular shiurim take place throughout the week under the banner of The New Beis Midrash.

The shul will celebrate its first Siyum Sefer Torah in the coming weeks.

The new building will provide much-needed space for a proper women’s section and a home for the shul’s growing roster of women’s programming.

“We’re so excited to grow our women’s community and expand our programs in this beautiful new space,” says member Leah Liberow. “We look forward to creating a place where women can connect, learn, inspire one another, and grow as a community.”

From monthly family rallies in parks and women’s events to gemachs and loans supporting families in need and meal trains for families welcoming newborn children, 94 Beis Moshe has become a community where young families feel they belong.

“I’m so happy to be part of a community that’s building something so special together,” says member Manya Sperlin.

“Securing a permanent home for the shul means we can put down roots here in Crown Heights,” says member Hershy Gutnick. “Having the shul has made it easier for ourselves and other young families in our position to picture a bright future here, and that deserves to be permanent.”

“It’s very important and special for me and my family to know that we’ll have a permanent place to daven, to learn, to celebrate our family’s milestones with friends and community,” says longtime member Mendel Jacobson.

“With the purchase of this building, we know that our community has a future here, a place to build on everything we’ve built until now.”

Bochurim Arrive at Lubavitch Yeshiva’s New Mesivta

Tomchei Tmimim Mesivta opened its doors this week for the first day of Yeshiva at its historic Ocean Parkway campus.

Close to 50 bochurim arrived for the inaugural Shiur Aleph.

The new zman began just days after the bochurim returned home from camp, allowing them to quickly transition back into Yeshiva life.

Joining the Crown Heights bochurim are bochurim from communities across the country, giving the Mesivta a real out-of-town feel.

The Hanhala spared no effort in preparing the campus and making sure every bochur felt welcomed and comfortable from the moment he arrived.

Jewish Man Saved From Cremation in the Nick of Time

by Tzali Reicher – chabad.org

Whenever Rabbi Yosef Dovid and Shternie Chanowitz walked into the care facility where Joel Schnee lived in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York, the elderly man’s face would light up.

Cerebral palsy and other health challenges had left him with limited speech, but not with any shortage of things to say. Schnee would eagerly await the Chanowitzes’ regular programs and visits, and stretch out his arm, ready to wrap tefillin when the rabbi came to greet him. He would proudly show the couple his eclectic collection of Jewish memorabilia, and the pride he took in his Jewish heritage was well known around the facility.

That’s why it was such a shock for the Chanowitzs to hear of the warm man’s passing aged 80 on July 30, several days after the fact, and then to hear that the facility had arranged for Schnee to be cremated within days, with seemingly no recourse or way for them to intervene.

They had to do something.

The Chanowitzes have directed Chabad-Lubavitch of Monticello since 2022, and care for the year-round community in an area known for swelling with transplants during the summer.

‘Have That Difficult Conversation’

The Chanowitzes have directed Chabad-Lubavitch of Monticello since 2022, continuing the work of his parents Rabbi Bentzion and Rochel Chanowitz, who served the community for almost three decades.

They serve a number of Catskill shtetls and individuals living in the mountains and valleys in between_._ In an area known for swelling with visitors in the summer, they care for the year-round community as well, including the large number of elderly Jews who live in assisted living facilities or spend their time in day programs.

“With so many seniors in a wide area, it’s easy to lose touch with people,” Rabbi Chanowitz says. “People move back with their families to the city, or enter care facilities. With no way to regularly communicate, it can be hard to keep up with where all our people are.”

Their focus on encouraging Jewish burial began in 2022, after they heard about an elderly Jewish woman who had wanted a Jewish burial, but was cremated before the Chanowitzes could identify the center she was living at at the time.

“We realized we had to connect with and regularly visit aged care facilities. We had to educate both the Jewish residents and the staff, who are often charged with making decisions after an elderly person with no close family passes, the importance of Jewish burial,” says Shternie Chanowitz.

Rabbi Yosef Dovid and Shternie Chanowitz

The importance of a proper burial in Jewish law and tradition cannot be underestimated. “For dust you are, and to dust you will return,” G‑d told Adam, the first human being. Chabad.org’s extensive section on Death and Mourning quotes King Solomon, who said: “And the earth returns to the land as it was, and the spirit returns to G‑d, who gave it.” The article explains that “the next stage in the continuing saga of a human life is that the body should return to the earth, the source of all physical life, and be reunited with it, just as the soul returns to its Divine root.”

Taking part in the proper burial of a Jewish person is considered a mitzvah of the highest order. Maimonides explains that even the High Priest, who was prohibited from attending his own family’s funerals, was required to take it upon himself to personally bury a met mitzvah, an abandoned Jewish body that had no one to attend to its proper burial.

Since 2022, the couple have made Jewish burial awareness a priority of their work. They work closely with Chessed Shel Emes and Last Kindness, organizations devoted to ensuring Jewish burial is accessible to every Jewish person, regardless of their financial abilities or family connections.

“Not every effort ends in success,” Rabbi Chanowitz says, “and cremation remains a primary trend we are working to counteract. The worst time to raise the subject is after a death has already occurred. It is important to have those hard conversations before, and discuss the Jewish view of death and the continuity of the soul, educating families and facilities well beforehand, so a plan is already in place when the moment comes.”

Shternie Chanowitz with Joel Schnee at a Passover program they organized at his care facility.

Less Than a Day

The time for Joel Schnee’s soul to return to its Maker occurred on Thursday, July 30, though the Chanowitzes were only made aware of it the next day. They were informed the facility had arranged a cremation, and despite the couple’s protestations, nothing could be done to change or reschedule the service, set for Tuesday, August 4.

Forced to wait over Shabbat and Sunday before they could speak to anyone, the Chanowitzes caught a lucky break: a nurse, moved by their efforts to ensure Schnee would get the Jewish burial he wanted, connected them with higher-level decision makers.

From the moment the clock struck 9 on Monday, Rabbi Chanowitz worked the phones.

He implored implacable managers to reconsider, highlighting the importance of a Jewish burial and the central role Judaism played in Schnee’s life. Ultimately moved, they connected him with the funeral director, saying if he would give the go-ahead for a Jewish burial service to proceed, they would approve it.

The funeral home handling the arrangements was reluctant.

“They told us the cremation arrangements were already made and there was nothing that could be done,” Rabbi Chanowitz said. “But when he saw how important it was to us, and how much it would have meant to Joel, they gave us their conditions to switch to Jewish burial.”

The funeral home said they wouldn’t cover the cost of the changeover and a Jewish interment. If Rabbi Chanowitz was willing to ensure the financials were taken care of, they’d approve it.

“I said, of course we’ll take care of it,” Rabbi Chanowitz recalled telling them, less than 24 hours before the cremation was set to proceed. “I spent the rest of the day working with Chessed Shel Emes. There were times we thought it wouldn’t all come together. Thank G‑d, it did.”

With the help of volunteers, who drove up from Monsey, N.Y., to bury someone they didn’t know, Rabbi Chanowitz and Chessed Shel Emes made sure tahara and shmira were performed, and oversaw his Jewish burial the next day at the Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery in Woodridge, N.Y., laid to rest amongst his own people.

“At the funeral, people from the facility approached us, sharing how moved they were by our efforts to fulfill Joel’s wishes of being buried as a Jew,” Shternie Chanowitz concludes. “They saw how we are really all one people. When one Jewish soul needed help ascending Heavenward, people and organizations that never knew Joel in life, came together in such a beautiful way to escort Joel on his final journey.”

With the help of dedicated volunteers and Chesed Shel Emes, Rabbi Chanowitz oversees the Jewish burial of Joel Schnee.

Here’s My Story: Empty Vessels Or Paper Plates?

Mrs. Mariashi Groner

Click here for a PDF version of this edition of Here’s My Story, or visit the My Encounter Blog.

When a young Chabad couple was thinking of getting married in the 1970s, they were able to receive the Rebbe’s guidance all the way through. If we were dating, we could write to the Rebbe to ask whether he thought we should continue; before agreeing to get married, announcing the engagement, and picking a date, we would write to the Rebbe to receive his blessing. We were very lucky.
When my husband Rabbi Yossi Groner and I got engaged, towards the end of 1978, we received an additional piece of advice from the Rebbe. Traditionally, a small engagement party — called a vort or a l’chaim — is held after the announcement, but in those days, they had begun to get out of control. Instead of just being an occasion to formalize the engagement and wish everyone mazel tov, these vorts had become semi-weddings, with people spending a lot of money on the food and fancy decor.

The Rebbe understood that the trend towards bigger engagement parties within the community was about “keeping up with the Joneses.” Each person wanted their vort to be nicer than the other one, which is not a very good reason to make a celebration, and it encouraged people to spend more money than they should. He was not happy with this situation, as he soon made clear.

My future father-in-law, Rabbi Leibel Groner, served as one of the Rebbe’s secretaries, and before he announced our engagement party in Crown Heights, he asked the Rebbe for a blessing that the vort be held in a manner befitting the occasion. In reply, the Rebbe lamented the social pressure that people in the community were experiencing “to waste money just to outdo their neighbor.” The Rebbe observed: “The emptier the neighbor, the deeper the temptation some people feel to show that they are just as empty — if not more so. They take on ever-deeper debt, filling that emptiness with empty extravagances.” In other words, a proper celebration of our engagement would mean going against the grain.

My in-laws understood this as a directive from the Rebbe to set an example for others in the community to take the vort down a few notches and not to overspend. As well-known members of the community, they still had to invite a lot of people, but the party was held in a Young Israel synagogue rather than a hall, and it was quite simple. There were no flowers and no caterer; my mother-in-law decided to cook everything by herself at home. In time, the message went out to others, and for a while people took things back to the old ways, making their engagement celebrations in private homes.

I think nowadays the pendulum has begun to swing back again, and so the Rebbe’s answer still rings true today.

For the wedding, my father, Rabbi Berel Shemtov, felt it was important to set a similar example by showing people that we could have a happy, traditional Russian chasidic wedding, rather than following the standards that everybody else had set. At first, I wasn’t too happy about having cheaper invitations or eating on paper plates. What bride would be excited about that? At the same time, to appease me, on the night before the wedding, my father went with my brothers to set every place setting and chair, to make sure that the room looked as good as it could, and the care he showed then made an impression on me. And in the end, it was a very lively, beautiful wedding.

The next year, in 1980, my husband and I moved out to North Carolina, to serve as Chabad emissaries — shluchim.
Now, as many shluchim will tell you, there are many difficulties that come with this job. Whether it’s the challenges of raising children far away from the support of your family and community, or the financial challenges in fundraising for your activities, it doesn’t matter what it is, but sometimes you just feel like it’s all closing in on you. Typically, when I felt like that way, the main person I would turn to was the Rebbe.

And so, ten years into our shlichut, in a moment of sheer frustration and despair, I wrote a letter to the Rebbe. It was Elul time, when the new school year was starting. After describing some of the challenges we were facing, I wanted to give the most honest account of how I felt. I ended my letter by saying, “I feel like I’m one big mess.”

The Rebbe replied with a brief note. On the letter I had sent to him, he wrote: “You have succeeded (together with your husband) in your holy work, entirely beyond all expectations, and you call this a —” the Rebbe then completed the sentence by drawing an arrow to the word I had written: “—‘mess’?!”

The month of Elul is famously depicted in a chasidic allegory as a time in which “the King is in the field,” meaning that G-d is more accessible in Elul than at any other time in the year. The period leading up to the High Holidays is a uniquely auspicious time, with wonderful spiritual opportunities. And so the Rebbe concluded: “However, the King is in the field. May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year, and may you always have good news to report.”

One interesting thing about this answer was the way the Rebbe added that parenthetical reference to my husband. I had written the letter on my own, without including Yossi, because I was being quite forthright, and he would not have written to the Rebbe that way. And yet, in my state of despair, it seemed that the Rebbe was trying to remind me: You have a husband, lady, so please remember that you are doing this together.

More than that, I took the Rebbe’s response as reminding me to stop focusing on the clouds so much, and to see the sun a little more. Of course, I could still pray to G-d and ask for help, but I also really needed to appreciate what we had already accomplished, to notice all of the good things that were happening, and to recognize that we were doing good work. I got the message loud and clear. I have learned these words from the Rebbe by heart, and over the decades, it is something that I tell myself over and over again.

Mrs. Mariashi Groner is the long-time head of the Charlotte Jewish Day School. She and her husband, Rabbi Yossi Groner, have served as the Rebbe’s emissaries to North Carolina since 1980. She was interviewed in February 2015.

1,200 Jews of all backgrounds flocked to the Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida for JLI’s spectacular five-day program of thought-provoking lectures, workshops, and live experiences.

On Sunday, JLI wrapped up its 20th annual National Jewish Retreat, held over five learning-packed days on the spectacular grounds of the Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida. “The retreat was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life,” said Wendy T., a pediatrician from Phoenix, Arizona. “I learned so much, felt so much. My soul is full.”

On the opening day, last Wednesday, Rabbi Yosef Marlow kicked off the program with a talk called “Halachah in the Hot Seat.” Down the corridor, Rabbi Naftali Silberberg opened the Beis Midrash program with an in-depth shiur on Tanya, with Rabbi Mendel Krasnjanski delivering a talk boldly titled “Fanatics and False Messiahs” later in the afternoon. Rabbi Moshe Bryski closed the day’s talks at 4:20 with “G-d, Where Were You?”

That was the first day. On Thursday, Friday, and, after a rousing shared Shabbos of warmth and inspiration, again on Sunday, participants enjoyed a bevy of live events, workshops, and riveting talks.

There were lectures from Rabbis Manis Friedman, Yitzchak Schochet, Mordechai Dinerman, Yechiel Krisch, Simon Jacobson, Moshe Lieberman, and Dovid Eliezrie; from Rivkah Slonim, Henry Abramson, Yael Trusch, Adam Hasner, President of FAU, Judge Roy K. Altman, and many more. And there was live comedy with Elon Gold, a live concert, films, winetasting, and a spectacular live learning event “Libel” that brought to life a real-life gut-wrenching halachic dilemma Jews faced in 17th-century Poland.

For Ari M. from Philadelphia, the retreat was both a spiritual delight and a call to action. By his own account, he went home inspired to double his giving to tzedakah, to organize a Tanya shiur with a local shliach, to join the board of his local Jewish day school, and to start a weekly pre-Shabbos broadcast sharing Torah messages with friends and community.

“It was like seminary on steroids,” said Inna K, from Los Angeles. “I love being here.” Her takehome resolution: to organize Torah classes for her friends.

To pre-register for next year’s retreat at a discounted rate signup here at Jretreat.com.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms swept through Brooklyn on Thursday evening, causing widespread street flooding and sending water into lower levels of homes and businesses across the area.

In Crown Heights, photos and videos from 770 Eastern Parkway showed significant flooding inside the Main Shul, as heavy rainfall overwhelmed drainage around the busy synagogue.

The National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Warning for Brooklyn and Manhattan shortly before 5:40 p.m., with the warning remaining in effect until 7:45 p.m. Additional warnings were issued for other parts of New York City as the storms moved through the region.

New York City is also under a Flood Watch through 2:00 a.m. Friday. City officials warned that heavy rainfall could quickly flood streets, highways, underpasses, basements and other low-lying areas.

The storms are part of a larger system affecting the Tri-State Area, bringing periods of torrential rainfall and thunderstorms during the evening commute. Forecasters warned that rainfall rates could reach around 2 inches per hour in parts of the city.

NYC Emergency Management urged residents of basement apartments to be prepared to move to higher ground during periods of heavy rain, warning that basement flooding can occur rapidly and with little notice. Officials also cautioned New Yorkers not to walk or drive through flooded roadways.

The rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue through the evening before gradually moving out of the area overnight.

Weekly Letter: Advice to Benefit the World and Contribute to Peace

The Rebbe gives advice to one who is concerned about the state of the world in general and in this country in particular – advice to benefit the world and contribute to peace.

By the Grace of G-d

Rosh Chodesh Adar I, 5741

Brooklyn, N.Y.

E.M.

Forest Hills, N.Y. 11375

Blessing and Greeting:

I am in receipt of your letter.

I am gratified to note that you are concerned about the state of the world in general and in this country in particular.

As for your question “What should I do?” – of course this depends on the abilities and opportunities which G-d grants each individual and there is no indication in your letter to make it possible to give concrete advice or guidance. 

However, there is one thing which is applicable to every Jew in all situations, and it is obligatory on everyone to do what he or she can. It calls for some prefatory remarks:

There is surely no need to explain to you that the Creator of the world is also the Master of the world and that He has entrusted a great deal of its management to human beings. Therefore, it stands to reason that He would not have left such an important task entirely to the devices of human beings without providing definite guidelines as to what a person has to do to ensure not only his own well-being, but also the well-being of the world at large. These guidelines were given in the Torah, which is called Torah Or (the Torah is Light) because the Torah (meaning instruction) illuminates all things in their proper light and gives clear instructions. To be sure, the Torah is very extensive and profound and not every individual is able to become fully familiar with it. However, there have been persons who dedicated their entire life to the study of the Torah, generation after generation. These are the Torah authorities who have helped the Jewish masses to follow faithfully the way of the Torah and mitzvos, in accordance with the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish everyday living, which the said authorities have prepared and arranged in a way that made it accessible to every Jew. 

The Torah teaches us that by following its instructions in the everyday life, in accordance with the Shulchan Aruch, every Jew carries out the Divine Mission which is entrusted to him/her in this life on earth. This includes both the duty to strengthen and spread Yiddishkeit, Torah and mitzvos, within one’s family and community and also working for strengthening the moral fiber of the society in general in which one lives, by promoting the basic Divine Laws of morality, with all their ramifications which were given to the children of Noah (all mankind). 

It may, at first glance, seem strange that observing such mitzvos as Shabbos, Yom Tov and kashrus and so on, can benefit the world at large and contribute to peace, etc., but on reflection, it should not be surprising at all that the limited human reason cannot understand something which has to do with G-d’s Will and Wisdom, which are essentially beyond human understanding. Certainly, the average layman cannot be expected to understand as much as the above-mentioned Torah authorities in every generation, who dedicate their life to the study of Torah. But, as in the case of various human walks of life, where a layman must necessarily depend on experts, so much so that in case of health one sometimes entrusts one’s life into the hands of a doctor, how much more so would a layman be well advised to rely on the spiritual guidance of competent Rabbis and Torah authorities, as mentioned above.

In light of the above and since you write, “I am a proud Jew, educated in our catechisms,” etc., I trust you will do all you can to spread Yiddishkeit in your surroundings, and there are surely suitable women’s groups in your neighborhood, such as a branch of Chabad women, in whose activities you could participate, which you will surely also find personally gratifying. 

                                       With blessing,

P.S. Enclosed is a copy of my message to the Midwinter Convention of Neshei Chabad, which I trust you will make good use of.

More than sixty years ago, still as a bochur in 5722 (1962), Reb Meir Roness ע”ה dedicated himself to a simple but powerful mission: ensuring that every Yid seeking the teachings of Chassidus would have access to a teacher, a chavrusa, or the resources to learn.

His quiet dedication touched thousands of lives and inspired generations through his unwavering commitment to the Rebbe’s vision of Hafatzas HaMaayanos.

To continue that legacy, Keren Meir was established in 5775 in his memory. Since then, the organization has sponsored thousands of shiurim, chavrusos, and farbrengens, helping Yidden strengthen their connection to Torah, Chassidus, and the Rebbe.

This week, Keren Meir launched its annual campaign with a goal of $50,000 to help expand this vital work.

As part of the campaign, participants will also be entered into a raffle to win two round-trip tickets to Eretz Yisroel along with a luxurious weekend stay at the Waldorf Astoria Yerushalayim.

“Every contribution helps another shiur take place, another chavrusa begin, and another Yid discover the warmth and depth of Chassidus,” said Rabbi Yisroel Botnick, administrator of Keren Meir.

In merit of this Mitzvah may you, amongst all of Klal Yisroel, be benched with a Kesivah V’Chasimah Tovah, L’Shana Tova Umesukah with Moshiach NOW!!.

To participate in the campaign, visit KerenMeir.net.

Rabbi Heschel Greenberg has launched a new series of classes on the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah in response to the Rebbe’s call to learn at least one halacha in depth.

The Rebbe initiated a major effort to unite all Jews with the study of the entire encyclopedic work, Mishneh Torah, by learning three chapters a day and completing the entire work in less than a year. Alternatively, one can learn one chapter and complete the entire Mishneh Torah in close to three years. The Rebbe also gave a third option to study Maimonides’ companion work, Sefer Hamitzvos that parallel the Mishneh Torah.

In addition, the Rebbe requested that we learn one halacha in depth.

We recently began the 46nd cycle of Mishneh Torah which inspired Rabbi Greenberg to record brief classes on selected passages of the Mishneh Torah.

Rabbi Heschel Greenberg is a shliach of the Rebbe in Buffalo NY and the Director of the Jewish Discovery Center, and, for over 50 years, has taught thousands of classes on all aspects of Jewish knowledge.

Rabbi Greenberg has also authored dozens of works on diverse subjects including several volumes of commentary on the Mishneh Torah.

Many of Rabbi Greenberg’s classes can be accessed on his website rabbigreenberg.com.

In this short but razor-sharp installment we open Hilchos Tum’as Meis, Perek 15, Halacha 3 and watch Rambam turn the most insignificant scraps into powerful barriers. A window between two rooms is less than a tefach? Fill that gap with less than a kezayis of corpse flesh, less than a kezayis of nevelah, a bone smaller than a se’orah, a sheretz smaller than a lentil, or non-muchshar food smaller than a beitzah – and the tuma stops cold. Why? Because these items are both tahor (they cannot contract or transmit tuma) and insignificant in the owner’s eyes; therefore he has no intention of removing them. That combination of ritual purity plus practical permanence turns them into a valid chatzitzah.

As Elul is upon us, and the blasts of shofar awaken us, Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim Queens is Zoiche to be the first Tomchei Temimim to begin in the America.

To the smell of fresh paint, and new furniture, the Temimim arrive with Seforim and Meforshim on Masseches Psachim!

The new Zman began with a Hisorerus talk by the Menahel Rabbi Yosef HaCohen Hendel inspiring the Tmimim to diligently throw themselves into Torah and Avoda with the Chayus of this special Tekufa. Rabbi Menachem Mendel HaCohen Hendel of the Vaad introduced the chief Rabbi of Be’er Sheva and Av of Batei Hadin in Be’er Sheva Rabbi Avrohom Deri who inspired the Bochurim to Limud Hatorah with a Koch and Geshmak, with a fire and zest!

Rabbi Mendel Yusewitz of the Vaad Hapoel translated the Chidushei Torah and broke it down for the Bochurim, then Rabbi Deri shared the special Zechus his family is blessed with a special connection to the Rebbe and Tomchei Tmimim.

When the Rebbe’s Shliach to Morroco Rabbi Michoel Lipsker was planning to embark on the Shlichus, the Frierdiker Rebbe asked the leader of Moroccan jewry in Meknes Rabbi Boruch Yitzchok Tolidano to see that a yungerman help the shliach’s initiatives. Rabbi Deri’s grandfather Rabbi Yitzchok Tolidano was chosen. He actually took his dowry – expensive equipment to establish a printing press, and used it to fund the first Tomchei Temimim in Morroco “we feel it is in that Zechut that our grandfather bore so many Talmidei Chachamim – like the son-in-law of Rabbi Ovadia Yossef OBM.”

He inspired the Temimim with their Avoda as “Cheiylot Beit David” as the ultimate “Bnei Maron” bringing Moshiach Now!

As sheitel prices continue to climb, with some luxury wigs reportedly reaching $10,000 and even $16,000, a growing conversation is taking place in the Jewish community: Does a woman really need to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to get a high-quality sheitel?

The question has even reached the rabbinical world. A recent petition to the Beis Din Rabbonei Chabad in Israel called for an examination of sheitel pricing following a reported 48,000-shekel ($16,000) wig purchase.

But while the conversation about rising prices continues, women also have another option: shop differently.

That is the idea behind The Wig Vault, which is bringing a one-day sheitel sale to Crown Heights on August 26.

Quality Without the Luxury Price Tag

The Wig Vault specializes in high-quality wigs at significantly more accessible prices, with a focus on virgin hair, hand-tied lace tops, ready-to-wear lace tops and other premium options.

What makes the concept different is that the wigs feature top-name brands without the retail tags, allowing customers to purchase them at a fraction of the typical cost.

And affordable does not mean old inventory.

All of the wigs are brand-new inventory — not overstock, not used and not seconds. The goal is to offer women access to the quality they are looking for without the traditional markup.

ONE DAY ONLY — CROWN HEIGHTS

Wednesday, August 26

7:00 PM–10:00 PM

630 East New York Avenue, Crown Heights

94 Shul / Beis Moshe Shul — Basement Entrance

Sale Pricing:

Hand-Tied Lace Tops — $1,800
Ready-to-Wear Lace Tops — $1,800
Raw Lace Tops — $1,600
Skin Tops — $1,400
Bandfalls — $1,100
Virgin & Israeli Virgin Wigs — $2,000–$3,500

Cash only.

Zelle accepted for virgin wigs.

All sales are final — no returns or exchanges.

The event will also offer on-the-spot cuts, making it possible for customers to have their new wig customized during the sale.

A wig repair consultant will be on-site as well, providing an opportunity for women to ask questions and receive professional guidance about wig repairs and maintenance.

Questions? Call or text 219-314-0224.

For women who have been looking for a high-quality sheitel but have been discouraged by today’s prices, the event offers an opportunity to see what is available at a very different price point.

The premise is simple: you shouldn’t have to compromise on quality to save money — and you shouldn’t have to spend $10,000 to get a beautiful sheitel.

The Wig Vault — Crown Heights, August 26.One day only.

Insights from Toras Reb Levi Yitzchok, a weekly class based on the teachings of Harav Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, chief rabbi of the city of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, during the bloody Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent Communist oppression and father of the Rebbe.

The shiur is presented by Rabbi Dovid Dubov, Director of Chabad of Mercer County in Princeton, New Jersey, and author of Yalkut Levi Yitzchok, an anthology of commentaries collected from the works of Harav Levi Yitzchak, of blessed memory.

Organized by Irguntorah.org and aired on community news service COLlive.com.

*From the Rebbe’s Father זצ״ל*
Ki Taitzai

כי יקח איש אשה ובעלה וגו׳
*1If a man takes a wife and has marital relations with her…*
24:1

A woman is acquired by, i.e., becomes betrothed to, a man to be his wife in *three ways*, and she acquires herself, i.e., she terminates her marriage, in *two ways*

The mishna elaborates: She is acquired through money, through a document, and through sexual intercourse.

And a woman acquires herself through a bill of divorce or through the death of the husband.

Mishnah_Kiddushin.1.1

Question;

A) Why does the Mishna need to numerate first
*3* ways Kidushin, *2* ways to terminate?

B) Why are the accatualy *3 ways* for Kidushin, and *2* for terminating?

לקוטי לוי יצחק , אגרות קודש ע׳ רד

ילקוט לוי יצחק מכתבי החתונה מכתב ו׳

Get The Weekly Shiur On Whatsapp: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Gespf7sF2KKK0opfrv3SVO

For more shiurim and podcasts visit: irguntorah.org

A serious traffic accident occurred on Eastern Parkway earlier today, involving a yeshiva bochur from 770.

The incident occurred at approximately 1:00 p.m., when a vehicle turning from Eastern Parkway onto the service road toward 770 was involved in a collision.

The crash caused significant damage to the vehicles, and the bochur sustained injuries in the accident.

FDNY, EMS, NYPD, Hatzalah, and Shmira all responded to the scene. Two people sustained injuries and were transported to a nearby hospital for further treatment.

As the summer at CGI Detroit comes to an end, a recap of all the exciting things that happened throughout the summer.

From the davening, learning, and day to day activities, to Color War and the grand trip, everything until the busses left camp was action packed with fun and Toichen.

Photos by: Mendel Treitel
Video by: Meir Segal

“It’s a whole mindset change.”

That was how one participant described his experience at the 12th annual Gold Star Teachers’ Training Course, which recently concluded with 36 mechanchim participating both in person and online.

Organized by Igud Hamelamdim and held at Darchei Menachem, the course brought together teachers and aspiring teachers for intensive training in the practical realities of chinuch, including classroom management, setting expectations, understanding students, and creating a productive classroom environment.

Led by veteran mechanech and trainer Rabbi Michel Rotenberg, the Gold Star course combines practical skills with a fundamental shift in the way teachers view themselves and their classrooms.

“It’s not just the skills,” one participant explained. “It’s a whole mindset change.”
He described how the course changed his thinking from worrying about whether students would listen to understanding that a teacher can confidently establish a classroom with clear expectations and boundaries.

“I really liked changing the way I think,” he said.

Another participant saw the practical value almost immediately while working in a day camp. A child repeatedly approached him saying, “I’m bored.” Previously, he would spend several minutes trying to come up with an activity for the child. After learning a different approach in the course, he simply asked, “What do you suggest?”

It worked.

For him, the experience demonstrated that the training was not merely theoretical, but provided tools that could be used immediately in real-life situations.

Other participants expressed similar feedback, describing the course as highly valuable and saying that every teacher should have the opportunity to participate.
The impact was also noticed by principals.
One principal shared that he personally knows four Rebbis who participated in the Gold Star course, including two members of his own staff who are in their first year of teaching.

All four told him that the course was the best preparation they received for entering the teaching profession. The two first-year Rebbis on his staff, he added, are among the strongest first-year teachers he has seen.

“I would love to take credit for that,” the principal wrote, “but the truth is that so much of their success comes from the strong foundation, mindset, and practical classroom skills they gained from this course.”

He strongly recommended that schools have their staffs participate in the program.
For Rabbi Reuven Mizrachi, who was instrumental in organizing this year’s course, the program carries a special personal significance. Years ago, Rabbi Mizrachi himself participated in the Gold Star course, an experience that had a lasting impact on his approach to chinuch and helped shape him into the highly regarded teacher he is today.

Having experienced its impact firsthand, Rabbi Mizrachi was eager to help bring the same opportunity to a new generation of mechanchim.

Participants also received a complete set of materials, including a personalized binder with each teacher’s name on the cover and booklets accompanying the various components of the program.

For Igud Hamelamdim, under the direction of Rabbi Avrohom Bluming, the Gold Star course is part of a broader mission of strengthening chinuch by investing in the teachers who have the greatest day-to-day influence on children.

“Our goal is to reach the core of chinuch by giving our teachers and future teachers the tools they need, and the perspective they need, to have the greatest possible impact on their talmidim,” Rabbi Bluming explained.

After 12 years, the response from participants continues to demonstrate the value of that approach.

They left with practical tools and a new perspective on the classroom — with the ultimate test beginning when they walk into their classrooms and put what they learned into practice.

That is when the real impact of Gold Star begins.