The Markel family is getting up from Shiva tomorrow morning.

Less than a week ago, the Crown Heights community and the worldwide Anash family of Chassidim suffered a terrible loss with the passing of Mrs. Henna Markel A”H.

A young mother of 45 has been taken from her precious children and her dear husband.

A campaign for $300,000 was launched during the Lavaya to raise necessary funds to support Rabbi Moishe Markel and his children during this unthinkable pain.

Over 1800 Yidden have shown up to give the Markel family a global embrace of care and friendship.

The campaign has just passed the 80% mark. Thank you to everyone who has given to bring it to this point!

The Markel family is getting up from Shiva tomorrow morning.

If you have not joined yet, please open your heart during the Chodesh Horachamim and give generously in support of the beloved Markel family.

Click here to support the family.

May Henna’s Neshomo have an Aliya and may she be a gutte better for her husband, her children and all of Klal Yisroel.

Thank you for caring for the Markels at this time of loss and pain.

With blessing for a Ksiva Vchasima Tova, Lshono Tova Umesuka.

Markel Family Fund Oversight Committee

150 community members and supporters gathered at Flying Cloud Ranch in Petaluma, California, to celebrate a decade of Chabad in Petaluma and look ahead to the next chapter.

One hundred and fifty community members and supporters gathered on Sunday, August 23, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Chabad Jewish Center of Petaluma.

Rabbi Dovid and Devorah Bush arrived in Petaluma in the fall of 2015 with a vision of building vibrant Jewish life in California’s North Bay. Beginning with programs in private homes, community spaces, and coffee shops, the community steadily grew, eventually moving into its current space in downtown Petaluma.

Today, Chabad of Petaluma has become a hub of Jewish life, with Shabbos and holiday celebrations, Torah classes, Camp Aleph, youth and family programs, and programming for teens and seniors. Its annual public Chanukah celebration has grown into one of the area’s most visible Jewish events, with thousands of chocolate gelt coins dropped this past year from a hot-air balloon.

The outdoor gala featured an elegant dinner, live Klezmer music, and a gratitude and awards ceremony honoring community members who have played an important role in Chabad’s growth. Rabbi Yosef Langer, the Bay Area’s “Rally Rabbi,” sounded the shofar, while Jewish pop artist Yitzchok Moully joined the celebration and led guests in creating “Overflowing Blessings,” a collaborative art piece depicting a cup overflowing with vibrant color.

The City of Petaluma formally proclaimed August 23 “Chabad of Petaluma Day,” with additional proclamations and resolutions from Governor Gavin Newsom and other state and federal officials recognizing the anniversary.

The Bushes also expressed their gratitude to Rabbi Mendel and Altie Wolvovsky, Shluchim to Sonoma County, who warmly welcomed them to Sonoma County and have been a source of friendship, guidance, and support throughout the past decade.

“It meant so much to see so many people come together to celebrate this milestone and the wonderful community we’ve built together,” Rabbi Bush said. “We’re truly grateful to everyone who has been part of this journey.”

The anniversary was not only an opportunity to look back, but to look ahead—to the continued growth of Jewish life in Petaluma and the next chapter of the shlichus.

“Ten years ago, this was all a dream,” Rabbi Bush said. “Now it’s time to dream again.”

By COLlive reporter

Agudas Chassidei Chabad International is urging the public to exercise greater care in the use of photos and videos of the Rebbe, particularly in advertisements, fundraising campaigns, personal materials and graphic designs.

The letter, issued during the month of Elul and addressed to “Anash, Temimim and their families,” comes amid the rapidly expanding use of images and video across digital platforms and social media.

It acknowledges that throughout the years, photos and videos of the Rebbe have played an important role in strengthening hiskashrus and inspiring Chassidim. The letter cites the Rebbe’s well-known instruction regarding looking at a photo of the Frierdiker Rebbe at a moment of spiritual weakness, and remembering that the Rebbe, “as a true shepherd of the Jewish people,” is also looking at the person at that moment.

At the same time, Agudas Chassidei Chabad says the widespread availability of photos and clips has led in some cases to their use in ways that are inappropriate or disconnected from their sacred purpose.

The letter also makes what appears to be a reference to AI-generated imagery, warning of “the possibility that exists today to create and falsify new images out of nothing, G-d forbid.”

While it does not explicitly mention artificial intelligence or AI-generated images by name, the wording appears to address the growing ability to create fabricated or manipulated images of the Rebbe using modern technology.

Agudas Chassidei Chabad specifically cautioned against using the Rebbe’s image merely as an attention-grabbing element in advertisements, campaigns and promotional materials.

Fundraising appeals are singled out in particular. The letter says that even when the cause itself is worthy, incorporating a photo of the Rebbe simply to strengthen the campaign or attract attention can constitute a lack of proper respect.

The same concern applies to entirely personal uses, including private invitations, personal advertisements, profiles and materials in which the Rebbe’s photo is included primarily as a graphic element.

“Even when speaking about matters of holiness and the loftiest and most important purposes,” the letter states, proper respect must be maintained. “How much more so when the publication of the picture or video has no connection to matters of the Rebbe, but rather serves completely private needs.”

The letter urges those preparing advertisements or other materials to consider whether a particular use is consistent with the honor due to the Rebbe, and whether it genuinely strengthens hiskashrus or is merely intended to promote an advertisement or campaign.

“If the publication was made to strengthen the advertisement, and the Rebbe’s picture was added for that purpose, even regarding matters of holiness, there is an element of the opposite of honor,” the letter says.

Along with the letter, Agudas Chassidei Chabad published a collection of answers and directives from the Rebbe illustrating the sensitivity with which images of the Rebbeim were to be treated.

Among them is a response concerning a proposal to print a postage stamp featuring a picture of the Alter Rebbe. The Rebbe rejected the idea, noting that stamps ultimately pass through many hands and are canceled by being stamped directly over the image.

Another sharply worded response concerned a certificate of appreciation that placed a picture of the Frierdiker Rebbe together with photographs of women connected to an institution. The Rebbe questioned how anyone could authorize such an arrangement, instructed that the page be immediately eliminated, and criticized the notion that considerations of “publicity” could justify it.

Another cited response involves a fundraising appeal connected with a “Levi Yitzchok Library.” The Rebbe crossed out the name and wrote that an institution bearing his father’s name should not be turned into “a vehicle for soliciting money.”

The compilation also quotes an instruction that photographs of Gedolei Yisroel should not be placed on toys and similar objects.

In another case, the Rebbe expressed surprise upon seeing a receipt issued by a Chabad institution bearing the Rebbe’s picture, noting that such a practice had not been seen in Chabad institutions and warning that someone seeing it could mistakenly conclude that the Rebbe himself was soliciting the donation.

A year of growth in learning, Chassidishkeit and Mivtzoim culminates in a celebration of the achievements of the Bochurim and the dedicated Hanhala and Talmidim Hashluchim.

Another year has come to a close at Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim S. Paulo, and 5786 has proven to be a year of tremendous growth and accomplishment.

Year after year, the yeshiva continues to grow, both in its number of Bochurim and, more importantly, in the quality of its learning, Chassidishkeit and involvement in the Rebbe’s Shlichus.

Behind this growth stands a dedicated Hanhala, working together with one goal: to provide every Bochur with a strong environment in which he can grow in Torah, Avodah and התקשרות to the Rebbe.

Leading the yeshiva is the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Shamai Ende, who oversees the Torah learning and academic direction of the yeshiva, ensuring that the Bochurim receive a strong and serious Torah education.

Working alongside him is the Director, Rabbi Mendi Koncepolski, who carries the responsibility for the physical and financial needs of the yeshiva. His work behind the scenes ensures that the many needs of the yeshiva are taken care of and that the institution has the infrastructure necessary to continue growing.

The day-to-day operation of the yeshiva is coordinated by the Menahel, Rabbi Daniel Treger, who is constantly involved with the Bochurim and staff, coordinating the many aspects of the yeshiva and helping ensure that the daily schedule and programs run smoothly.

The spiritual atmosphere of the yeshiva is further strengthened by the Mashpia, Rabbi Zalman Zajac, who dedicates himself to the personal and spiritual development of the Bochurim. Through Farbrengens, personal guidance and constant attention to the needs of the Bochurim, he helps create an atmosphere in which Chassidishkeit is not simply something learned, but something lived.

Together with the rest of the Hanhala, these individuals form a team whose combined efforts have helped make 5786 such a successful year.

A major part of the success of the year has been the work of the Talmidim Hashluchim.

The Talmidim Hashluchim, older Bochurim who come to strengthen the yeshiva and assist the younger Bochurim, play a unique role. They are not only there to help with the programs of the yeshiva; they become role models, learning partners and mentors for the younger Bochurim.

Throughout the year, the Talmidim Hashluchim invested tremendous effort in creating a stronger atmosphere of learning and Chassidishkeit. They learned with Bochurim individually and in groups, encouraged them to take on new goals and helped make the many programs of the yeshiva into something exciting and meaningful.

One of the highlights of their work this year was Mivtza Alef Beis.

The goal of Mivtza Alef Beis was ambitious: the Bochurim would learn the first two volumes of Likutei Sichos in Yiddish.

Learning Likutei Sichos in the original language gives Bochurim an opportunity to experience the Rebbe’s Sichos in a particularly direct way, while simultaneously strengthening their Yiddish and their connection to the Rebbe’s Torah.

The Talmidim Hashluchim worked throughout the year to encourage the Bochurim to keep up with the learning and make steady progress.

To add excitement and motivation, the Mivtza included monthly raffles, giving the Bochurim an additional incentive to remain consistent with their learning.

The results were remarkable.

What began as a learning project became a year-long movement of learning, with Bochurim taking on the challenge together and encouraging one another along the way.

The success of Mivtza Alef Beis demonstrated once again the unique power of a yeshiva when learning becomes something that the entire group is involved in together.

Mivtza Alef Beis was only one of many initiatives throughout the year.

The Talmidim Hashluchim organized and encouraged additional Mivtzoim, creating opportunities for the Bochurim to turn their learning and Chassidishkeit into action.

The area of Mivtzoim was also greatly strengthened throughout the year. The Bochurim were encouraged to leave the walls of the yeshiva on fridays and bring the Rebbe’s message to the wider Jewish community.

For a yeshiva in Brazil, this has a special significance. The Bochurim are not only developing themselves as Chassidim; they are learning to become Shluchim who can influence others and bring Yiddishkeit and Chassidishkeit to Jews throughout the country.

After a year of hard work, learning and growth, the Zman came to a close with a special event celebrating the achievements of the Bochurim.

The event served as a fitting conclusion to a year in which so much had been accomplished. The success of Mivtza Alef Beis, the strengthening of Mivtzoim and the many accomplishments of the Bochurim throughout the year were celebrated together.

But perhaps the greatest accomplishment was not any single program or Mivtza.

It was the growth of the Bochurim themselves.

Every day of learning, every Farbrengen, every Mivtza, every Seder and every opportunity to help another Jew contributed to the development of a stronger and more committed group of Bochurim.

As 5786 comes to an end, the atmosphere at Tomchei Tmimim São Paulo is not one of simply looking back.

It is looking forward.

The continued growth of the yeshiva is a testament to the dedication of its Hanhala, the hard work of the Talmidim Hashluchim and, above all, the efforts of the Bochurim themselves.

With a strong foundation of Torah learning, Chassidishkeit, Farbrengens, Mivtzoim and a deep commitment to the Rebbe’s Shlichus, Tomchei Tmimim São Paulo is continuing to build a generation of Bochurim who will carry the Rebbe’s message forward wherever they may be.

5786 was a year of tremendous Hatzlacha.

And if the growth of recent years is any indication, the future of Tomchei Tmimim S. Paulo is brighter than ever.

By Zalman Myer-Smith

As our children return to school and we prepare for Elul and Tishrei, there is a sense of excitement and renewal. Unfortunately, there is also a security reality that Jewish institutions cannot afford to ignore.

I have written “Back to Shul, Back to School” security articles for many years. The fundamentals remain the same: good locks, working cameras, trained security personnel, emergency plans, medical preparedness and strong relationships with law enforcement.

What has changed is the threat environment.

Antisemitism remains at extremely high levels. Jewish institutions face everything from harassment and vandalism to protests, arson, vehicle attacks, active assailants and terrorism. A threat may also begin online or with an individual who develops a fixation on a particular institution.

Chabad has an additional challenge: our buildings are meant to be open and welcoming. Security has to protect that mission without changing who we are.

The answer is not fear. It is preparation.

Go Back to the 4Ds

I continue to recommend a simple security model:

Deter. Detect. Delay. Defend.

Deter: Cameras, lighting, controlled entrances, signage, security personnel and trained volunteers make it clear that your location is not an easy target.

Detect: Cameras are important, but people often identify a threat first. Staff, teachers, volunteers and regular congregants should know what suspicious behavior looks like and how to report it.

Delay: Locked doors, gates, vestibules and other physical-security measures buy valuable time—time to call 911, initiate a lockdown and move people to safety.

Defend: Every institution needs a plan for what happens if the other layers fail. Who calls 911? Who initiates the lockdown? Who communicates with classrooms? Who meets responding officers? Who knows where the trauma kits and AED are?

These responsibilities must be decided before an emergency—not during one.

Start With the Basics

Institutions sometimes spend tens of thousands of dollars on sophisticated security equipment while ignoring a door that does not close properly.

Walk your property. Check whether exterior doors lock correctly, whether doors are being propped open, whether cameras are recording and whether exterior lighting is working. Determine whether someone could enter the building without being noticed.

Schools should pay particular attention to arrival and dismissal. The movement of hundreds of children, parents, buses and vehicles creates confusion and often weakens normal access-control procedures.

An attacker chooses when to act. He is unlikely to choose the moment when your security is strongest.

Security also begins outside the building. Look at parking lots, playgrounds, carpool areas and the places where people gather before and after davening. Consider whether a vehicle could easily enter a crowded pedestrian area.

Whenever possible, keep the problem outside.

Security Is a System, Not a Person

Professional security officers and law enforcement provide an important layer of protection. However, one officer standing at the front entrance does not make a building secure.

What happens when that officer is occupied with a visitor? Who is watching the other entrances? What happens during dismissal or when the officer takes a break?

Security must be a system, not a person.

Properly trained volunteer security teams can add another layer of protection, but they need clearly defined responsibilities, appropriate training and supervision.

Several congregants owning firearms is not, by itself, a security plan.

Medical Preparedness Matters

Not every emergency involves an attacker.

Every institution should have an AED, trauma kits and Stop the Bleed supplies. Just as importantly, people must know where that equipment is and how to use it.

Check expiration dates regularly and make sure emergency equipment remains accessible whenever the building is occupied. Seconds matter in a medical emergency just as they do during a security incident.

Don’t Wait for a Grant

Federal and state security grants have allowed thousands of Jewish institutions to improve their security. Organizations should continue pursuing every appropriate funding opportunity.
But do not wait for a grant to address a problem that needs to be fixed today.

Many worthwhile improvements cost little or nothing: locking a door, controlling keys, correcting a bad procedure, trimming vegetation that blocks a camera, updating emergency contacts, training staff or inviting local law enforcement to walk the property.

Fix what you can now while planning and seeking funding for larger projects.

What Can You Do in the Next 36 Hours?

Before Rosh Hashanah, set aside one hour and walk your entire property with fresh eyes.

Check every exterior door. Confirm that cameras are recording. Test alarms and radios. Look for places where someone could enter unnoticed. Inspect trauma kits and AEDs. Review lockdown procedures, update emergency contacts and speak with your local law enforcement agency.

Then ask yourself honestly: If something happened here tomorrow, are we prepared—or are we simply assuming it will not happen to us?

Prepared, Not Paranoid

Security should never make a Chabad House feel like a fortress.

We cannot allow antisemitism to make us afraid to go to shul, send our children to Jewish schools or identify proudly as Jews.

The Rebbe sent Shluchim around the world to illuminate their communities. Security protects that mission; it does not replace it.

We secure our schools so our children can learn. We protect our shuls so Jews can daven. We protect our Chabad Houses so every Jew continues to have a place where they are welcome.

As we prepare during Elul, check the mezuzos and take stock spiritually. At the same time, take an hour to check your physical security.

We cannot eliminate every threat. But we can Deter. Detect. Delay. Defend.

We can remain prepared, vigilant and proud—without being afraid.

Hashem is the ultimate Protector and, while like most things we must do our part, He should continue to protect us from those who wish to do harm.

Wishing a happy, healthy, sweet and safe New Year.

Zalman Myer-Smith is the Director of Security for Chabad of Florida and Lubavitch Educational Center in Miami. He has worked in Jewish communal security for more than three decades. He can be reached at [email protected].

There are tears that come from pain. And then there are tears that come from something even deeper: the overwhelming feeling of finally being seen, understood, and remembered.

These are the tears Aleph sees every day.

They are the tears of a Jewish man sitting behind prison walls as Rosh Hashanah approaches, surrounded by concrete and far from everything that once made Yom Tov feel like home. Then an Aleph volunteer arrives carrying a shofar. One piercing blast cuts through the silence of the prison walls, carrying with it memories of family, shul, and a life that suddenly feels impossibly far away. For a man who thought the world had forgotten him, that sound says something words cannot: you are still a Yid. You are still part of us. The volunteer sees the tears fall and stays beside him, making sure he knows he has not been forgotten.

They are the tears Aleph case managers see in the eyes of a young child too young to understand why his father is suddenly gone. His friends ask why his daddy never comes. He wonders when Tatty is coming home. He does not understand court dates or sentences. He only understands the empty chair, the missed goodnight, the Bar Mitzvah his father may not be there to celebrate.
And they are the quiet tears that slip from the closed eyes of a young Jewish Marine lighting Shabbos candles for the first time while stationed far from home. In that moment, those flames tell her something she desperately needs to feel: you belong. Your people are with you.

These are the stories no one hears.

But Aleph does.

Aleph sees the prisoner who needs a shofar behind the walls. The service member stationed in Japan who needs a lulav and esrog for Sukkos. The wife who cannot afford airfare to visit her husband incarcerated states away. The child who needs a new briefcase and school supplies. The boy approaching his Bar Mitzvah without the father who was supposed to stand proudly beside him.
Aleph steps into these stories with Yom Tov supplies, kosher food, prison visits, family advocacy, airfare, financial assistance, and a hand to hold through the darkest moments.
Aleph stays with them until they are home.

But until they are home, who will tell their story?

That is where you come in.

Today, on Chai Elul, Aleph has launched a three-day campaign to stand with the individuals whose voices too often go unheard. Your support helps Aleph make sure they are seen, remembered, and never forgotten. It brings a shofar to a Jew behind bars, Shabbos to a service member thousands of miles away, dignity to a struggling child, and hope to a family waiting for someone they love to come home.

Tell their story. Stand beside them. Help change how their story unfolds.
DONATE NOW.

I feel helpless, because no mother should ever have to stand by and feel unable to save her child. 😢

My name is Chaya. And my son is Chaim Rafael — my whole world. 💔

Chaim Rafael was born with HLHS (Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome), one of the most complex congenital heart conditions.

It means the left side of his heart didn’t develop properly, and from his very first days, his life has been a fight.

He has already been through a long series of treatments and surgeries in Israel.

So many procedures. So many hospital rooms. So many nights I didn’t sleep. 😢

People tell me, “Be strong.”

But I’m a mother… and I’m scared.

Because now the doctors told us clearly: Chaim Rafael needs another critical stage of treatment — and it must be done abroad. 💔

We were offered treatment in three different places: Vienna, Germany, and Boston.

And in all three places, the costs are extremely high.

And the truth is crushing: I don’t even have the ability to pay the deposit required to secure his treatment. 💔

That is why we are raising $300,000 — to cover the deposit, medical costs, specialist evaluations, travel, lodging near the hospital for an extended stay, medications, and the follow-up care he will need to recover.

Every day I look at my son and I try to smile for him… 😢

But inside, I’m terrified that time will run out. 💔

I’m begging you — please don’t let us face this alone. 😢

If you can donate, please donate. 💔

If you can’t donate right now, please share. 😢

Because for my son… every day matters. 💔

And every donation brings Chaim Rafael closer to the treatment that can keep him alive. 😢

Donate today

TorahVR, the innovative educational platform that has already brought more than 50 interactive Jewish experiences to 200 Jewish schools, shuls, and institutions worldwide, has officially launched its newest product: a groundbreaking series of biblical tours spanning the length and breadth of Eretz Yisroel.

Designed to bring Tanach and Mishnaic stories into vivid focus, the series invites students to step into the exact geographical locations where pivotal biblical events unfolded. Rather than just reading about ancient stories on a page, students can now explore these narratives in high fidelity, bringing the lesson to life.

Some of the locations being released in the next few months include:

Ancient Chevron: Explore the Me’oras Hamachpela, and stand precisely where Avraham likely purchased the land for 400 Shekel. Visit the Kever of Yishai and Rus, and dip in Avraham’s spring. See where Dovid Hamelech was crowned as king and where Yehudah met Tamar, the ancestors of Moshiach. The tour also includes the historic Beis Shneerson in Chevron, originally purchased by the Mitteler Rebbe and where his daughter, Rebbetzin Menucha Rochel Slonim, lived with her family.

Susya: Visit the ancient town of Susya, one of the best preserved towns in ancient Israel, stand on its shul’s mosaic floor and in front of its beautiful Bima, and witness the ancient process of oil making, a popular export from Susya almost 2,000 years ago.

Yerushalayim & Ir Dovid Hamelech: Transport straight to the Kosel, navigate the ancient alleys of the Old City of Yerushalayim, and explore Ir Dovid Hamelech, the seat of the Davidic royalty for centuries.

Pilgrimage & Battles: Trace the paths walked by the Maccabees and follow the exact routes the Yidden traveled when ascending to the Beis Hamikdash for Aliya LaRegel.

Tzfas & Meron: Tour the holy city of Tzfas, home to the Ari Hakadosh and the great Kabbalists whose teachings formed foundational pillars of Chabad Chassidus, before ending at the kever of Rashbi in Meron.

Masada: Ascend the majestic cliffside fortress overlooking the Judean Desert. Explore King Herod’s palace ruins, stand inside one of the world’s oldest shul’s, inspect authentic 2,000-year-old mikvaos, and relive the story of Jewish resilience during the final days of the Second Beis Hamikdash era.

Nehar HaYarden: Journey down the Yarden River where Yehoshua led Bnei Yisroel across the miraculously split waters to enter Eretz Yisroel for the very first time. Experience the legendary crossing point near Yericho, where Eliyahu HaNavi later ascended to Heaven in a chariot of fire and Elisha performed his famous miracles.

Golan Heights – Traverse the historic northern frontier, known in the Torah as the biblical Bashan allocated to Shevet Menashe. Explore the ancient cliffside fortress of Gamla, visit second-temple synagogues, and gaze across strategic heights rich with Talmudic history.

Rosh Hanikra – Journey to the dramatic northernmost coastal border of Eretz Yisroel, where brilliant white chalk cliffs meet the roaring Mediterranean Sea. Navigate through subterranean sea grottoes while learning the practical and halachic significance of Gvulos HaAretz (the borders of the Holy Land).

Ancient Village of Katzrin – Step back 1,500 years into a fully restored Talmudic village in the heart of the Golan. Walk through a grand Beis Midrash, explore authentic stone homes, and witness how oil was pressed and life was lived during the era of the Tannaim and Amoraim.

By combining immersive 360-degree technology with authentic Torah sources, TorahVR bridges the gap between past and present. Educators are seeing that the visual immersion deepens students’ connection to Yiddishkeit, turning abstract textual study into a tangible, memorable journey through our shared history.

The new “Biblical Israel Series” is available now for institutions using TorahVR worldwide.

More information is available at www.TorahVR.com

TONIGHT! EARLY BIRD DEADLINE!

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Buy it by midnight tonight – and get a FREE bonus prize ticket to cover all your Yom Tov expenses PLUS!

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Your donation could save the life of someone you know!!!

Mrs. Dena Schusterman, co-founder of Chabad Intown in Atlanta, is a writer, a mother of eight, and a preschool director and teacher. Her memoir, Stories Carry, will be published in September 2026. This article originally appeared in Tablet Magazine:

In the weeks leading up to camp, the Amazon orders always reach a fever pitch. I have been asked to buy everything from fake nails and bedside fans to Polaroid cameras. But this year’s request reached a new level.

“Mommy, can I order a Moshiach flag?” followed quickly by, “Don’t worry, I won’t ask for anything else.” If you don’t know what that is, it is the yellow flag, poster, or bumper sticker found in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights and throughout Israel, with a red crown and the Hebrew word Moshiach emblazoned across it.

To an outsider, the flag stands for the belief that the Rebbe Menachem Schneerson was sent to redeem the Jewish people. But that didn’t explain why my daughter wanted to buy one and take it to camp. In any case, I knew it was supposed to be part of her shtick, the way some girls come to camp with tutu skirts, glitter face paint, hair chalk, or wacky socks; mine would come with a flag. So I said yes. Where I drew the line, however, was when she asked if she could whip it out at her eighth-grade graduation. That was an immediate no.

We are shluchim, Chabad emissaries in Atlanta, Georgia, and my daughter goes to a Jewish school that is plain Orthodox, not Chabad. For the past year, she has used Moshiach as her own little rebellion. As a pint-size intellectual, she spends her days poking at her teachers.

“Why can’t you believe the Rebbe is Moshiach? Isn’t there supposed to be a Moshiach in every generation?” Her classmates were happy for the diversion; they were in eighth grade.

She delighted in challenging what she saw as her teachers’ black-and-white thinking—and you’ve got to love a teenager who thinks in color. She was facing a teacher whom all her older siblings had before her, a woman known for coming down hard on the legalistic side of Judaism. The teacher wanted to talk about modest sleeve lengths, and my child wanted to bring in some of the Soul, and she did it the only way she knew how. Who better than the Rebbe—alive, vibrant, and urgent in her imagination—to do this through?

Her father and I have had our share of conversations with her about the Rebbe and Moshiach. We’ve said our view comes from what Maimonides calls b’chezkas Moshiach, which means we believe that someone, somewhere, holds the potential to be the redeemer; however, we hold the question of who lightly. We’re open to any possibility. Just come already!

For her school’s graduation art project, students were assigned cinder blocks on a wall to paint and leave behind as part of a class installation in the basement gym. My daughter painted hers as the yellow flag. Of course she did. Credit to the teachers for letting her.

When it came time to go to camp, I left said child in New York with her cousins. She was excited to go to camp—she had been before—yet, as with many kids, a familiar knot of nerves tightened in her stomach. The difficult thing she had to do was get herself on the bus for camp the next morning. She assured me she was going to be fine. Ninety-three texts later, between 12:00 and 12:15 a.m., while I peacefully slept in Atlanta, she informed us that under no circumstances was she going to camp. The texts ranged from logical arguments to emotional declarations to the occasional all-caps plea. Whatever alchemy we did as parents, however we maneuvered the situation—this was not our first rodeo, as she is our youngest of eight, and we have been here before—she got on that bus. By herself (surrounded by hundreds of girls, no doubt). Not to mention the two hours I spent on the phone with her while she bought herself an iced coffee and a bagel and loaded her bags. Her last words to me were: “One week. You said one week. I’ll see you then.”

And then I saw the pictures.

A few days into camp, my daughter was glowing like the sun. Yes, the camp T-shirts were yellow. The bunks are painted yellow. The whole energy of the place has a certain brightness to it. But there was an addition to her yellowness in every single picture: She had draped herself in the yellow Moshiach flag. I’d known this mutiny had been ripening for at least a year. I just hadn’t given it much thought.

I was thrilled to see her happy. The flag part? I mean, I let her order the thing on Amazon. Seeing the pictures, I couldn’t help but notice the arc: miserable, then happy. I knew the flag wasn’t what made her happy, but somehow it was part of the joy.

And that was what made me stop and think. To understand why, you have to understand what that yellow flag meant to my generation.

In the 1990s, when the yellow flag was becoming—depending on who you asked—either the ubiquitous or the fringe symbol of Chabad, I would have rather polished my mother’s entire silver collection than been seen with one. I was not one of those people who believed the Rebbe couldn’t pass away. I just hoped he wouldn’t. I was not one of those people who didn’t believe he could be Moshiach. I hoped he was. Moshiach was never simply a doctrine in my childhood. It’s the thing people said after another war, another terrorist attack, another funeral: “Nu. It’s time.” It was less theology than a visceral desire for the world to be better. “We Want Moshiach Now” was our pop song; we sang it at the top of our lungs, feeling its urgency. Our grandparents had been through horrific things; we needed Hashem to give us better.

I grew up in Los Angeles, but at that edge of morning on that dreadful day when we heard that the Rebbe had passed away, I was in New York, on Eastern Parkway. I was sitting in my friend’s car, to the left of 770, the Rebbe’s headquarters, while she was trying to convince me to go out with her brother. We had just come back from the hospital, where we had sat in the waiting room and recited Psalms for the Rebbe’s recovery. We hadn’t gone to sleep yet when my friend’s pager went off. She looked at it and we confirmed the worst. I knew the Rebbe was sick. I knew he was old. But this was not the ending we had prayed for, nor had we ever imagined it in our idealistic teenage brains.

No one braced us for having the ground completely vanish beneath us. I felt the sickening vertigo of an endless free fall. From somewhere inside this abyss, my mother told me I needed to rip my clothing, just like any other mourner. And so we did. My father took a knife and made the initial cut in my linen vest. I took over, pulling the fabric apart with a harsh, stuttering rip until a tear about three inches long formed. I moved in a daze, lost in a tradition I had never practiced, while the rending of a garment broke me, as it does.

Afterward, we sat in my friend’s house, a few doors down from 770 Eastern Parkway, wrapped in a mummy-like silence. It was my first real experience with death. I had lost grandparents before, but they had passed away in New York while I remained safely insulated in California; I had been too young for the grief to reach me. But this was different. At almost 19, the shield of childhood was gone. My friend and I had just been discussing my future and dating for marriage. Now, time had simply stopped.

We never went to sleep that night, but eventually, we poured into the street, where thousands had gathered for the funeral. The casket was to pass 770 before heading to Montefiore Cemetery. It was my first funeral, and I was deeply sad, deeply confused. Standing on the grassy median of Eastern Parkway—the heavy July foliage overhead providing our only shield from the scorching sun—I looked across the pavement. I looked past the black sea of men in hats and jackets. Past the hearse carrying the Rebbe’s casket.

And there they were.

With the world slipping out of focus, I wanted to tell myself I was imagining it. But I wasn’t. Through the sweat and tears stinging my eyes, I saw them: people dancing. People waving yellow flags. Even though the entire moment felt untethered from reality, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that what I was witnessing was fundamentally wrong. I had grown up with parents and grandparents (who were Holocaust survivors and survivors of Stalin’s rule). They believed deeply in miracles, in the power of the Rebbe, in the possibility of redemption. They carried plenty of magic inside them. But they were also practical. Grounded. They did not confuse hope with denial.

To me, that yellow flag became the ultimate symbol of discord—a jarring disconnect from the world I knew. Years later, when we moved to Atlanta, Georgia, as shluchim, we understood with absolute clarity that we could not be associated with the Meshichistim. The people who waved the flag. The people in denial. Even if our head shliach hadn’t made this clear, we already knew it in our bones: We would be dead on arrival. Trying to build an in-town community, to teach and inspire, while carrying the weight of that flag was a fool’s errand. Imagine investing your life in introducing people to Judaism, only to spend the first 20 minutes explaining what you don’t believe. I had been raised to define Judaism by what it is, not by what it isn’t. Yet somehow that flag kept forcing me to introduce myself through a controversy that wasn’t mine.

But you cannot always outrun a symbol.

We met a Jewish family at the park, welcomed them into our home for a Shabbat meal, and felt a connection—only for them to decline our Hebrew School. They confessed they feared we were tied to those same extreme ideas about the Rebbe and Moshiach. For years, that yellow flag represented a conversation I never wanted to have. Why should I have to defend something I believed to be so out of bounds, so fringe, and so far from reality? More than that, why did I have to defend myself against it? It was exhausting to watch so much of what I knew to be good, beautiful, and true be completely eclipsed by the shadow of that flag.

Fast-forward from the largely calm aughts to the aftermath of Oct. 7. I found myself at the March for Israel in Washington, standing among thousands of Jews and our allies. We were surrounded by Israeli flags, overwhelmed by a sense of fierce love and camaraderie. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something familiar. Chabad boys were out in force, whipping out tefillin and wrapping the arms of men for the mitzvah. And somewhere in the crowd, I saw them. The yellow flags.

My immediate thought was a weary roll of the eyes: of course. I figured it was just the fringe Chabad teenagers who’d always done this—waved the flag, made the same point. I kept walking along the less-crowded periphery of the gathering when suddenly, those kids with the flags crossed directly into my path. To my utter surprise, they were not who I expected. There were girls in pants. Boys with longer hair and tiny knitted kippot. One girl had every fingernail painted blue and white. She twirled the yellow flag overhead with those impossibly long nails, laughing with her friends. These weren’t the Chabad teenagers I had assumed them to be. They looked Modern Orthodox. Maybe some weren’t Orthodox at all. They simply looked like Jewish teenagers.

Looking at them, I realized that whatever they thought about the Rebbe—and I had no idea what that was—they clearly weren’t carrying the history I had attached to that flag. They were wrapping themselves in a symbol and wearing it with the same unabashed Jewish pride as the Israeli flags draped over everyone else’s shoulders. In that massive display of Jewish unity, which was decades removed from the 1990s and the bitter theological wars of my early shlichus, I found myself feeling something I never expected: I was cautiously charmed.

Later, scrolling through social media, I saw those same yellow flags being waved by Jewish students at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the face of antisemitic encampments. As I kept seeing the flag in the hands of random Jewish teenagers, I felt my own certainty loosen a little. The flag hadn’t changed, but a new generation had picked it up and transformed it into something else.

For this new crop of flag wavers, the yellow flag was an in-your-face expression of raw Jewish pride despite everything—and perhaps because of everything. Stenciled across the front was the word Moshiach, written in bright red. Moshiach is not a flat translation of “Messiah.” It carries the weight of an entire peoplehood and centuries of Jewish longing. It is our specific brand of hope. Our resilience. The dream of a world finally repaired. It isn’t a concept borrowed from an outside world; it belongs entirely to our own story. After all, we have been waiting for Moshiach for thousands of years.

*

We have been disappointed by false versions of redemption before, but this was different. This was a teenager in my friend’s daughter’s class at a Modern Orthodox school in L.A., wrapped in a yellow flag, saying, I am Jewish. I am proud. I believe there is something better coming. And then, there was my daughter in the photo, that same yellow flag wrapped like a tallis across her shoulders, standing onstage as the color-war captain of the winning team at camp, effervescence splashing onto my screen.

I didn’t conduct a formal study of the kids in Washington, and I haven’t even been able to ask my own daughter; she’s still at camp with restricted phone access, blissfully unaware of my overthinking. But looking at those photos, I know what I see. I realized my daughter loved a symbol I had spent my adult life avoiding.

Sure, there was an element of mischief. But looking at those pictures, I no longer saw a teenager trying to get a rise out of her teachers. I saw a girl who had found a way to wear her Judaism with joy.

Teenagers have a funny way of doing this. They take the things adults have spent decades complicating and ask simple questions. They look past the arguments, the egos, the history, and sometimes even the lunacy. They see what is underneath. My daughter saw something I couldn’t see because she wasn’t carrying the same pain. She inherited the symbol. She did not inherit my baggage. I spent 30 years crossing the street whenever I saw that flag. (Not literally—but emotionally.) My daughter packed it instead of face glitter.

Maybe that is the ultimate gift each generation gives to the one that follows. Younger people hold what we carried, and they look at it with fresh, untraumatized eyes. And sometimes, they remind us why we bothered to carry it in the first place. I have often wondered what parts of the Chasidic milieu my children would inherit from me. The melodies? The recipes? The stories? I never imagined they would inherit the controversies, too—and make their own meaning out of them. But I find myself wondering whether that, too, is part of redemption: not forgetting the past, but refusing to let it have the final word.

Over a hundred young anash families turned out on Sunday, 17 Elul, to celebrate the completion of a Sefer Torah dedicated by the Nigri and Berkes families to the memory of Chaia Mushka (Berkes) Stiefelmann z”l, a young shlucha and mother in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who tragically passed away at age twenty-eight in 2016. Participants escorted the Sefer Torah with much fanfare from Carroll Street to its home at 94 Beis Moshe, where joyous hakafos and a seudas mitzvah were conducted.

Chaia Mushka Stiefelmann grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where her father, Rabbi Avraham Meir Berkes serves as rov. She moved to Sao Paulo with her husband, Rabbi Avrohom Stiefelmann, where they served as shluchim at the Knesset Israel shul and directed teens programming. The Sefer Torah is a beautiful tribute to someone who spent her life sharing and teaching Torah.

The Hachnosas Sefer Torah was a milestone first for the young anash community of 94 Beis Moshe, who were welcoming their community’s first dedicated Sefer Torah. And with an ongoing fundraising campaign to secure a permanent address for their shul in Crown Heights, the celebration was a visible demonstration of the community’s vitality, and a statement that these families are putting down roots.

Mid-way through the procession, the Sefer Torah’s parade stopped at the property 94 Beis Moshe has purchased to serve as their future home at 546 E New York Ave. There, they danced; before the celebration concluded at the shul’s current space one block down.

To help secure a permanent home for 94 Beis Moshe, serving the young anash community of Crown Heights, visit the campaign.

The Komarna Rebbe of Manhattan, Rabbi Yehoshua Safrin, a distinguished link to the prewar Komarna dynasty and a longtime supporter of Torah institutions, including Chabad mosdos in Crown Heights, passed away over Shabbos. He was 91.

According to Yeshiva World News (YWN), Rabbi Safrin was one of the last surviving talmidim of Rabbi Reuven Grozovsky at Bais Medrash Elyon and represented a living connection to the generation that helped establish and rebuild Torah life in America before and after the Holocaust.

Rabbi Safrin was the son of the Komarna Rebbe, Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Safrin, a noted talmid chacham and mekubal who served as the Komarna Rebbe in New York and later in Yerushalayim.

Rabbi Chaim Yaakov was renowned for his mastery of both Nigleh and Nistar and played an important role in rebuilding the Komarna dynasty following the devastation of the Holocaust.

The Safrin family arrived in the United States in 1938, after Rabbi Chaim Yaakov recognized the growing danger facing European Jewry. His Chassidim subsequently established Bnei Yaakov Anshei Komarno for him on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, YWN reported.

It was in that environment that Rabbi Yehoshua grew up, immersed in the distinctive Komarna mesorah of Torah, avodah and Toras Hanistar.

The Komarna dynasty traces its roots to Rabbi Alexander Sender Safrin and his son, Rabbi Yitzchok Eizik Yehuda Yechiel Safrin of Komarna, known as the “Heichal Habracha,” one of the prominent Chassidic and Kabbalistic figures of the 19th century.

Rabbi Yehoshua was a son-in-law of Reb Moshe Menachem Rosler.

Alongside carrying on his family’s Komarna mesorah, Rabbi Safrin worked extensively to preserve and disseminate the Torah writings of his father. According to YWN, he helped publish manuscripts left by Rabbi Chaim Yaakov, including volumes of “Pri Chaim” and “Poras Yosef,” ensuring that his father’s Torah would remain accessible to future generations.

Rabbi Safrin was also a generous supporter of Torah and Jewish institutions. He maintained a close connection with Chabad mosdos in Crown Heights and supported institutions including Bais Rivkah and the Crown Heights Kollel.

In Eretz Yisroel, Rabbi Safrin devoted significant resources to preserving his father’s legacy, including the renovation and restoration of the historic Komarna Bais Medrash on Rechov Malchei Yisrael in Yerushalayim’s Geulah neighborhood.

Those who knew Rabbi Safrin remembered him as a Yid of an earlier generation, known for his warmth, ready smile and ability to offer an encouraging word to those around him.

The levaya took place Sunday at 11:00 a.m. at Shomrei Hadas Chapels, 3803 14th Avenue in Boro Park.

Following the New York levaya, the aron is expected to be flown to Eretz Yisroel for kevurah. The family will be sitting shiva in Manhattan.

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes.

What is Chai Elul’s Personal Message to Us? Why Was This Day Kept Secret for Many Years? Why Did the Baal Shem Tov Sign His Name “Yisroel From Okup” When He Was Born in Tlust?  What Do We Know About the Thirty-Six Hidden Tzaddikim? Does the “King in the Field” Mean That Elul Impacts Us Even if We Don’t Improve Our Behavior? How Do We Justify Tragedies in This Month of Compassion? Are Our Prayers Being Answered?

  MyLife: Chassidus Applied Episode 606 with Rabbi Simon Jacobson
Sunday, August 30, 2026 / 17 Elul 5786 – 8:00-9:00PM ET

Podcast         YouTube         Chassidusapplied.com

The topics in this week’s 606th episode of the highly acclaimed MyLife: Chassidus Applied series, with Rabbi Simon Jacobson, will include:

What is Chai Elul’s Personal Message to Us?

• Who revealed to us that this day is the birthday of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe?
• Why was it kept secret for many years?
• What is the meaning of the statement that Chai Elul infuses chayus into the entire month of Elul?
• What is the source that the last twelve days of this month correspond to the twelve months of the year? And what is the connection with Chai Elul?
• Why did the Baal Shem Tov sign his name “Yisroel from Okup” when he was born in Tlust?
• What is the story about the Baal Shem Tov’s previous reincarnation?
• What is the significance of the Alter Rebbe being a neshama chadasha? Why does such a neshama need 24 months of gestation?
• Who was Achiya HaShiloni, the teacher of the Baal Shem Tov, and what is their connection?
• What do we know about the thirty-six hidden tzaddikim?
• What were the two last things the Baal Shem Tov heard from his father, and how did that shape him and the philosophy of Chassidus?
• Why was the Baal Shem Tov not arrested for spreading Chassidus like the Alter Rebbe?
• What is the connection with the establishment of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim?
• Do we know why the cornerstone of 770’s expansion was laid on the 17th of Elul?
• Why do they say that if you don’t believe Baal Shem Tov stories you are an apikores and if you do believe them, you are a fool?
• Did the Baal Shem Tov banish demons from this earth?

13 Elul

• Why did the Frierdiker Rebbe get married on a Friday, as was customary then, but today we don’t usually have weddings on a Friday?

Elul

• Does the “king in the field” mean that Elul impacts us even if we don’t improve our behavior?
• And does this power exist all year round?
• How do we reconcile the explanation of ani l’dodi v’dodi li with the Frierdiker Rebbe’s interpretation that it refers to businesspeople and scholars?
• How do we justify tragedies in this month of compassion?
• Why are our prayers not being answered?

Thank you

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

$36 doesn’t sound like much.

It might be a book. A few coffees. A small purchase that is quickly forgotten.

But there are certain things that cannot be measured by their price.

What happens when hundreds of people each contribute a small amount toward the same goal?

A shiur can happen. A farbrengen can happen. A yungerman can travel to another community. A Yid who has never had the opportunity to learn Chassidus can suddenly have that opportunity and their soul is ignited. The Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya that the unity with Hashem that happens when we perform a Mitzvah is eternal, “Lolam Vaed”.

That’s the idea behind Keren Meir.

This year’s Keren Meir Annual Raffle is underway.

A $36 ticket gives you a chance to win two round-trip tickets to Eretz Yisroel and a luxury weekend at the Waldorf Astoria Yerushalayim — while helping continue this important work.

Learn more and participate → KerenMeir.net

For five days this summer, the usual routines of work, errands, and daily responsibilities were replaced with full days of Torah learning and meaningful conversations.

Dozens of participants from across North America, including Kentucky, Maryland, California, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and New York, gathered at the Jewish Discovery Center in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, for the JNet Torah Experience. The five-day program gave adults the opportunity to step away from their everyday lives and devote themselves completely to Torah study.

Since its launch 2006, JNet has connected tens of thousands of Jews around the world with volunteer chavrusas for weekly Torah study over the phone or Zoom. Over time, many participants expressed a desire for something more. They wanted the chance to experience what it is like to spend several days living in an environment centered entirely around Torah. The JNet Torah Experience was created to meet that need by combining serious learning, inspiring teachers, comfortable accommodations, and the friendships that naturally develop when people learn and live together.

“It’s one thing to study Torah over the phone or on a screen, but what people need now more than ever is to see it come to life, to be fully immersed in it alongside a like-minded community,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, Chairman of JNet at Merkos 302. “Many of our JNet participants are the only Jews in their towns, so this experience of knowing they aren’t alone, of feeling part of a vibrant collective, is critical to strengthening their Jewish identity back home.”

The program followed the schedule of a yeshiva for adults. Each day included shiurim in Chassidus, Gemara, Halacha, Chumash, Jewish philosophy, and practical Judaism. Classes were designed for participants of every background, from complete beginners to experienced learners.

Rabbi Mendel Raichik of Gaithersburg, MD and Mrs. Chaya Teldon, Head Shlucha of Long Island, directed the men’s and women’s programs respectively, and invested months of planning into developing a learning curriculum that would be engaging, challenging, and accessible for participants at every level. From selecting the topics and organizing the schedule to personally teaching throughout the week, they worked tirelessly to ensure that every participant could grow in Torah learning and leave with a deeper connection to Judaism.

The learning was enriched by guest lecturers Rabbi Yitzchak Hanoka, Senior Rabbinic Coordinator overseeing the Tri-State area for OK Kosher Certification, Rabbi Yossi Serebryanski, Sofer, Rabbi Leibel Itkin, Shliach to Scranton, PA, Rabbi Yosef Rapaport, Education Director of The Jewish Discovery Center, and Rabbi Tuvia Teldon, Head Shliach of Long Island. Each brought his own style, personality, and area of expertise, exposing participants to a wide range of Torah perspectives. Their classes sparked thoughtful discussions and gave participants the opportunity to learn from experienced educators with diverse backgrounds and approaches.

Mrs. Mattie Hecht, Mendy and Breina Blesofsky, Sholom Bronstein, and Mendel Majeski served as chabura leaders, offering personal guidance and one on one learning throughout the week. They took the time to answer questions, review material, and help participants process what they were learning, making the experience more personal and meaningful.

Rabbi Benny and Chani Rapaport, the local Shluchim in Clarks Summit, warmly welcomed everyone and helped create the warm, inviting atmosphere that participants appreciated from the moment they arrived.

The learning did not end when the classes were over. Discussions continued during meals, while walking around the grounds, and late into the evening. Torah became part of every conversation and every interaction.

The peaceful setting made that possible. The Jewish Discovery Center sits on a beautiful 20-acre property with comfortable accommodations, a heated pool, inviting lounges, and a spacious dining room. Every physical need was taken care of so participants could focus completely on learning, reflection, and personal growth.

Shabbos was the highlight of the week. Inspiring davening, delicious meals, singing, and farbrengens brought everyone together and strengthened the sense of community that had developed throughout the program.

Participants left inspired by the experience.

“Learning this maamar with Rabbi Raichik first thing each morning was a highlight for me, an inspiring start to the day,” said Robert A. of Manhattan, New York.

James G. of Louisville, Kentucky, who had never studied Torah in such depth before, said the experience “helps to see the logic in how Gemara, Talmud, and Halacha are built.”
Others spoke about the atmosphere.

“It’s a beautiful location. It’s very relaxing. It’s a great atmosphere for learning,” said Paul N. of Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Barbara W. of Long Island praised the women’s program, saying, “Morah Chaya is wonderful. She leads with joy and understanding.”

For Brad S. of Olney, Maryland, the relationships were just as meaningful as the learning. “The camaraderie, that’s what I enjoyed most. You all get together, you talk, you share, and then there’s the enlightenment of the learning.”

Candice S. of Newtown, Pennsylvania, summed up the week simply: “The experience has really been very, very wonderful. I’m learning a great deal and bringing it all back home.”
Many participants returned home determined to continue building on what they had learned. Some began new chavrusa partnerships through JNet, while others are already asking when the next Torah Experience will take place.

JNet Director Rabbi Mendel Groner added, “Seeing participants connect so deeply with their heritage and with one another confirms our mission. When you provide the right environment for study, the soul awakens. We are energized by the commitment these participants have shown and look forward to expanding this program in the coming year.”

With the enthusiastic response to this year’s program, JNet is already planning future Torah Experiences as it continues its mission, rooted in the Rebbe’s vision, of bringing authentic Torah learning to Jews wherever they are.

Despite intensified Russian attacks across Ukraine, Chabad’s Jewish Relief Network Ukraine (JRNU) is moving ahead with a massive Rosh Hashana aid operation that will bring holiday food packages to tens of thousands of Jews across the war-torn country.

At the center of the operation is an unlikely scene in the Kyiv region: a honey production facility continuing to operate in an industrial area where logistics centers and large warehouses have sustained heavy damage in recent weeks.

Despite the surrounding attacks, the facility selected to produce pure honey for the Rosh Hashana packages has remained standing, and workers are continuing production under difficult conditions, with the sound of machinery at times accompanied by air raid sirens.

“We are operating under complex conditions, but the sweet tradition of Rosh Hashana will not be stopped,” JRNU officials said.

As communities across Ukraine prepare for the upcoming month of Tishrei, local Rabbonim and Shluchim are working around the clock to ensure that Jews can observe the Yomim Tovim properly despite the ongoing war and the dangers that have become part of daily life.

JRNU, which coordinates large-scale humanitarian assistance for Jewish communities throughout Ukraine, made a strategic decision to produce many of the basic food and holiday items inside Ukraine itself, using local facilities specially prepared for kosher production.

The honey facility in the Kyiv region is one example. The plant was prepared for kosher production under the supervision of Rabbi Yehoshua Vyshetsky of the UkrKosher kashrus organization.

In addition to honey production, special shechita operations for meat and poultry have also been arranged in Ukraine during the war, providing products under mehudar kashrus standards for the upcoming distribution.

The main stage of the Rosh Hashana operation is scheduled to begin next week, when a fleet of large aid trucks will depart distribution centers carrying pallets of food to dozens of Jewish communities throughout the country.

The shipments will be delivered to Jewish community centers in cities across Ukraine. From there, local distribution networks will bring the packages directly to community members’ homes in an organized and dignified manner.

The extensive packages will include poultry, fresh meat and jars of locally produced honey, along with dairy products, canned foods and spreads. Special honey cakes are being brought from Israel by air, while holiday cookies are being produced in the heavily affected city of Zaporizhzhia.

The packages will also contain Ukrainian-language materials explaining the significance and customs of the Tishrei Yomim Tovim, as well as a specially produced Jewish calendar featuring Jewish content and photographs from community life.

Jewish communities across Ukraine are also preparing for what organizers expect could be record attendance at shuls and holiday programs this year.

“We are preparing for an unprecedented number of people to come for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur davening,” said Rabbi Simcha Levenhartz, a Shliach in Kyiv who is coordinating the distribution operation.

“After such a long and exhausting period of war and uncertainty, people are looking more than ever for togetherness and tradition,” he said. “We are all looking ahead and will daven together that the coming new year will finally be a peaceful, calm and sweet year.”

During a private audience with the Rebbe in 1960, a young Moshe Feller heard an unexpected suggestion: he should gather his articles about his Merkos Shlichus travels through Central America and publish them as a book.

That book has now been published by Kehot Publication Society.

We Travel to Educate: Dispatches from the Early Chabad-Lubavitch Summer Visitation Program brings together Rabbi Moshe Feller’s vivid firsthand accounts of his pioneering journeys through Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico in 1959 and 1960.

The story behind the book began in 1960, the two-hundredth year since the passing of the Baal Shem Tov. With the Rebbe placing special emphasis on spreading awareness of the Baal Shem Tov and his teachings, Feller wrote an article for the then-fledgling Jewish Press titled “The Rebbe and the Baal Shem Tov.”

Before submitting it, he brought the article to the Rebbe to verify its accuracy. The Rebbe approved it—and edited it in his own handwriting.

Its publication gave Feller another idea. During his summer travels for Merkos Shlichus, he and his companions had encountered a remarkable array of Jewish communities, personalities, and human-interest stories. Perhaps those experiences, too, could be shared with a wider audience.

The Rebbe approved the idea, as did The Jewish Press. Thus began a regular column under the title “We Travel to Educate.” Over approximately two years, some seventy-five installments appeared.
It was during this period that the Rebbe suggested to Feller: “Es volt geven a gleiche zach oib du volst machen fun deine maamorim a choveres”—it would be appropriate for you to make a compilation of your articles.

As Feller writes in his introduction to the new volume, “The Rebbe’s suggestion from years ago is now a reality.”

The stories take the reader back to an era long before Chabad Houses and permanent shluchim became familiar sights around the world. Feller and his companions were senior rabbinical students, traveling in pairs during their summer vacation under the auspices of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.

In 1959, Feller traveled with Shraga Faivish Vogel; in 1960, with Asher Zeilingold. Their route took them through Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico.

What they encountered provides a fascinating snapshot of Jewish life in Central America at the time: vibrant communities and rich traditions alongside Jews living far from centers of Torah life; colorful personalities and unexpected encounters; challenges, humor, setbacks, and successes.

They had come to strengthen Jewish knowledge and observance. But Feller also understood that what they were seeing was a story worth preserving.

The dispatches have an immediacy that later recollections could not reproduce. Written while these pioneering activities were still new, they capture both the adventure of the road and the emerging vision behind it: Jews would be sought out wherever they lived, and distance would not be allowed to become an obstacle to Jewish connection.

One passage captures what sustained the young travelers themselves. During a difficult night on the road, close to 3:00 a.m., Feller imagined the Rebbe’s office on Eastern Parkway, its lights still burning. He knew that while he and his companions were trying to locate one another on a map, the Rebbe was thinking about the young men he had sent out.

“It was reassuring to realize that just as our thoughts were with the Rebbe, his thoughts were with us,” Feller wrote, “and it was safe to assume that he, too, was ‘locating his boys on the map.’”

The articles made an impression back home as well. Years later, after Feller and his wife had established the permanent Chabad-Lubavitch presence in Minnesota, the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana, told him that she had been an avid reader of his articles and missed them.

“I used to write, but now I do,” Feller responded.

“Aza shrayben iz tu’en,” Rebbetzin Chana replied—“Such writing is doing.”

The volume contains opening words by Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, who places Feller’s journeys within the beginnings of the Rebbe’s far-reaching vision of shlichus. There is a special symmetry to his contribution: years earlier, Krinsky himself had been among the young Merkos Shlichus students who encountered Moshe Feller in Minneapolis, helping set in motion Feller’s own journey to Lubavitch and, ultimately, to a lifetime of shlichus.

The new Kehot edition preserves the original text of Feller’s Jewish Press articles, with minor editorial adjustments for clarity and consistency.

We Travel to Educate: Dispatches from the Early Chabad-Lubavitch Summer Visitation Program, by Rabbi Moshe Feller, is published by Kehot Publication Society.
Order here.

An Australian delegation traveled to Israel for a special visit in support of IDF soldiers, learning firsthand about the work of the Ezer LaChayal organization before rolling up their sleeves to pack supplies for soldiers serving on the front lines.

After an approximately 24-hour journey from Australia to Israel, a delegation of young Chabad Chassidim from Tzach Da Minyan Shule, led by Shliach Rabbi Moshe Kahn of Tzach Melbourne, Australia, arrived for a special mission to strengthen IDF soldiers in partnership with Ezer LaChayal in Kfar Chabad.

The delegation began its visit at the Ezer LaChayal command center in Kfar Chabad, where members received an up-close look at the scope of the organization’s operations and the assistance it provides to soldiers and families of reservists.

They were introduced to the organization’s advanced logistical and technological system, which enables soldiers to submit secure digital requests throughout the year. The system allows Ezer LaChayal to manage requests received from the field in real time, from the initial submission through the delivery of needed equipment.

The delegation also learned about Ezer LaChayal’s mobile emergency command center, which operates at military staging areas on the front lines and provides immediate assistance based on requests from soldiers received through the organization’s Kfar Chabad headquarters.

Members of the delegation said they were deeply impressed by the scope of the operation and the dedication of its volunteers.

For nearly three years, Ezer LaChayal volunteers have worked continuously to boost the morale of IDF soldiers and strengthen them both materially and spiritually. The organization has provided soldiers with essential equipment valued at millions of shekels, in an effort described as a major Kiddush Hashem.

The delegation later gathered for a Chassidic farbrengen at Gutmans Shul, attended by Lt. Col. B.H., commander of the logistics unit in the IDF Cyber Directorate.

The commander came especially to express his appreciation for the organization’s steadfast support of IDF soldiers and to explain the importance of its work to soldiers serving on the front lines across the various sectors.

During the farbrengen, Rabbi Kahn spoke about the special merit of those who defend the Jewish people and the privilege and responsibility to stand alongside them and strengthen them in every way possible, including through the Rebbe’s Mivtzoim.

Putting the principle of “Hamaaseh Hu Ha’ikar” — action is the main thing — into practice, the delegation members concluded their visit by rolling up their sleeves and joining the work at the command center.

They personally packed dozens of boxes containing material and spiritual supplies for IDF soldiers as part of the organization’s efforts ahead of the month of Elul and Rosh Hashana.

After traveling thousands of miles and spending nearly a full day in the air, the delegation concluded its visit at the heart of the operation — not only seeing and learning about the work being done, but taking an active role in the mission of strengthening IDF soldiers.

By COLlive reporter

A new opportunity for children, teens and adults to explore their creativity and develop their artistic skills is coming to Crown Heights this fall, with professional art classes being offered by local artist Chana Leah Tiechtel.

The idea came from noticing a gap in the after-school options available to children and teens who are drawn to art. While there are many activities for children to choose from, there aren’t always as many opportunities for those who want to develop their artistic abilities in a more structured setting.

“I wanted to create a class that goes beyond the typical,” Tiechtel explained. “Something where students can actually learn different techniques and build their abilities while still having fun.”

Tiechtel, who grew up in Crown Heights, says art has always been something that came naturally to her and developed over the years. She specializes in painting, portraits, illustration and other mediums, and has been teaching art classes and hosting paint nights for different age groups outside the community.

After speaking with parents and receiving requests for classes closer to home, she realized there was a need for quality art classes right here in Crown Heights.

The classes will focus on hands-on instruction, practical techniques and individual attention. Classes will be kept small so students have the opportunity to receive personal guidance while developing their own skills and artistic style.

“I also wanted the classes to be small enough that each student gets individual attention and has the space to develop their own skills,” she said.

Classes will be offered for girls in 3rd through 12th grade, boys in 1st through 6th grade, as well as post-seminary students and adults. An advanced class will also be available for students with previous experience who want to take their artwork to the next level.

For Tiechtel, the goal isn’t only about learning how to draw or paint. She hopes the classes can also provide a chance to step away from the usual routine and spend some time doing something creative.

“I wanted to create a place where people can come after school or work, put everything else aside for a little while, and enjoy a breather,” she said. “Somewhere they can be creative, learn new skills, and just have fun creating without any pressure.”

Registration is now open for the coming year, with limited spots available. Classes will take place after school hours.

For more information or to register, contact Chana Leah Tiechtel at 646-334-8679 or on Instagram at @ChanaLeahArt.

Nshei Ubnos Chabad will gather for a Chai Elul Farbrengen celebrating the Birthdays of the two great Luminaries, the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe who changed the world with the light of Chassidus and paved the way for Moshiach.

Join Nshei ubnos Chabad to celebrate
Monday Chai Elul
Aug. 31st
At the Rubashkin Residence
8:30 pm

Wishing you
כתיבה וחתימה טובה לשנה טובה ומתוקה

May we celebrate in Yerushalayim in the Bais Hamikdash Hashlishi in the geula haamitis vhashleima
Moshiach now.

“MAYA’S HERE!” Shayna cried excitedly, the widest smile imaginable appearing on her face. “Hi, Maya!” said Sarah.

“We missed you, Maya!” Michelle exclaimed.

Maya couldn’t help but smile.

She had a long day at work and a traffic-filled, rainy drive home. She was just about ready to curl up on her couch with a book. But it was Wednesday at 6 PM, and she knew what that meant; she was leading her weekly sketching program for Friendship Circle Online.

It’s funny, because there was nothing she wanted to do more than get cozy and be alone. But as soon as she logged on, she remembered why she loved it so much.
“How was work today?” Sarah asked.

“A little long, but good,” Maya answered.

“How’s your dog?”

“Can we say hi to your sister?”

By now, Maya’s smile had almost turned into a giggle. Who knew that her crew for one hour a week over Zoom would be more interested in her life and well-being than almost anyone else?
“Ready to have fun sketching?” Maya asked the group.

And the hour of fun and connection began.

Chatting, talking, jokes, and, of course, sketching took up the next forty-five minutes. FCO friends got to hear about each other’s day, follow up on what they had spoken about during the program before this one, and create beautiful drawings.

Maya watched as each member came alive, shared about their day, and gained confidence in themselves as artists as they learned to draw a lifelike apple.

Suddenly, the group was talking about their apple-picking trips, their favorite apple desserts, and their excitement for Rosh Hashanah coming up.
At 6:50, it was time to wrap up with a question.

“What was your favorite part of your day?” Maya asked each member individually. “Seeing you,” said Jennifer.

“Going to work,” said Nick.

“Being with my friends on Zoom,” said Kyle.

Once everyone answered, Maya led the group in a “5… 4… 3… 2… 1…” and the whole group yelled, “SEE YA!” before Maya pressed “End Zoom.”
Friendship Circle Online is a virtual community for teens and adults with special needs to connect, belong, build meaningful friendships, and explore a variety of different interests; all from wherever they are.

I’ve been like Maya before.

So I know how it feels.

Friendship Circle Online is a place where you are celebrated; a place where everyone is always excited to see you.

For Maya, it’s as a volunteer. But for Sheriden, Jennifer, Nick, Kyle, Shayna, Michelle, and the whole gang; this is their happy place. This is where they are celebrated. This is where they are greeted with excitement and genuine care.

The 2026/27 Year-Round Program begins on Tuesday! This year, we’re stepping it up with over 25 weekly programs, new and improved systems, new faces among both members and staff, and participant leadership roles designed to build confidence and courage.

If you know a teen or adult with special needs who would like to join the circle, or if you’re looking for a meaningful volunteer opportunity, please reach out to
[email protected].

Who knew such real, magical moments could happen on Zoom?

An evening of music, inspiration and celebration brought some 3,000 children, family members and volunteers together at Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem for a major event organized by the “LeHachayot” organization in support of children with disabilities and their families.

Held in the main hall of Jerusalem’s International Convention Center, the gathering combined uplifting musical performances with moments of deep emotion, encouragement and Achdus.

One of the most moving moments of the evening came when the lights were dimmed and a video of the Lubavitcher Rebbe speaking about children with special needs was shown on the large screens.

Families watched as the Rebbe spoke about the unique strength and purpose of these children and referred to their elevated Neshamos. The words brought many in the audience to tears and offered a message of strength, Emunah and hope to parents and families.

The event was attended by the Rishon LeZion and Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Yosef, who addressed the crowd and expressed his admiration for the work of LeHachayot.

Rabbi Yosef offered words of encouragement to the parents who devote themselves each day to caring for their children, as well as to the hundreds of volunteers who assist and support the families throughout the year.

The musical portion of the evening was headlined by Jewish music star Yaakov Shwekey, who performed a full concert featuring many of his popular songs.

During the performance, Shwekey made his way into the audience, where he danced together with the children, creating emotional scenes of celebration throughout the packed hall.

Singer Motti Wizel also performed, leading a stirring selection of songs ahead of the upcoming Yomim Noraim. The medley brought an atmosphere of Tefillah and reflection to the gathering, with many participants visibly moved.

Singer and entertainer Shuki Salomon brought another burst of energy to the evening, getting thousands of attendees on their feet and leading large circles of dancing throughout the hall.

A particularly emotional moment came when Rabbi Mendy Lebel, a Chabad Shliach and director of LeHachayot, addressed the gathering.

Standing on stage surrounded by hundreds of children and volunteers, Rabbi Lebel became emotional as he spoke about the families the organization assists throughout the year.

“These children are the light of the world,” he said.

Rabbi Lebel thanked the parents for allowing LeHachayot and its volunteers the privilege of accompanying and assisting their families, while paying tribute to the volunteers who devote themselves to the children throughout the year.

The evening concluded with spirited singing and dancing, as children and parents left Binyanei HaUma following an event organizers described as a powerful display of Ahavas Yisroel and a source of renewed strength, hope and Emunah ahead of the new year.

A MESSAGE FROM THE TEHILLIM SHLIACH

Rosh Hashanah Special

(Almata) Almaty, Kazakhstan

Bli Neder, I will be reciting the entire Sefer Tehillim:
Erev Rosh Hashanah at the Ohel of the Rebbe’s father, Horav Hatzadik haKadosh V’Hamkubal Rebbe Levi Yitzchok Schneerson (R’ Levik).

First night Rosh Hashanah I will recite the entire Sefer Tehillim twice. That is a Brocha for Parnosa and children.

In addition, at least 8 more times over Rosh Hashanah.

Total of 11 times Tehillim

PLUS, ANY OTHER TEHILLIM I WOULD RECITE ON ROSH HASHANAH FOR ALL YOUR YESHUA’S, FOR SHIDDUCHIM, HEALTH, PARNASSA, HAPPINESS, SHALOM BAYIS, FOR CHILDREN, AND ALL THE BROCHAS YOU NEED
Bez”H when I go to Reb Levik I’ll give this over I have helped secure the fund and arranged the repair of over 400 kevarim. This includes Kivrei Tzaddikim, as well as putting up new matzeivos when there are no matzeivos there.

(On a side note if you would like to donate to any of my projects please let me know)

The Tehillim Shliach is Ben Akhar Ben of R’, Michel of Z’Lotchov

For my fee please call me

The Tehillim Shliach would recite the entire Sefer Tehillim anywhere worldwide

We wish you a happy and sweet year
Levi Piekarski
516-474-5846
[email protected]

One of the first acts of the Rebbe at the beginning of his Nesius in 5712 (1952) was establishing Agudas Nshei U’Bnos Chabad, empowering women with the mission to bring Moshiach.

When the Rebbe instructed Rabbi Weinberg to organize Nshei Chabad, the Rebbe explained: It is written in the Kisvei Arizal that the women of the generation of the Midbar were outstanding. They did not take part in the sin of the Eigel. Hashem promised them that their souls would come down again in this world in the final generation preceding the Geulah.

“We are the last generation of Golus, the first generation of Geulah,” the Rebbe said.

At that time the Rebbe also said: “If you want to accomplish with the men, accomplish with the women – the husbands will listen to their wives.

“The Rebbe started with a small group of women who would illuminate their homes with Torah and Mitzvos and reach out to every Jewish woman in the world, to transform her home into a Bais Hamikdash and reveal the light of Moshiach.

The movement grew. The Rebbe made Nshei international, made the women Shluchos, empowering us and entrusting us with the mission to bring Moshiach. We are the Rebbe’s army, preparing the world to welcome Moshiach.

The Pushka of 770
In 5752, when the Rebbe announced the campaign for the building of 770, a delegation of Nshei Chabad women passed by on the Dollar Line and presented the Rebbe with a gift – a silver Tzedaka Pushka in the shape of 770, containing $5,000 for the building of 770, with a blessing that the Rebbe will lead us to the true and complete Geulah.

The Rebbe answered “Amen” and said: “Good news – Tzedaka will hasten the Geulah!”

The Rebbe then gave two dollar bills to each woman in the group, saying in Yiddish: “Tzuheilen di Geulah – It will hasten the Geulah.”

Living With Moshiach
Mindy Halberstam a”h, to whom this year’s campaign is dedicated, embodied this mission. She lived with Moshiach and dedicated her life to Mivtzoyim, to outreach, and to inspiring all Jewish women.

She was part of that first Moshiach Committee who presented the gift to the Rebbe on the Dollar Line and was zoche to hear his holy words, “Tzedaka will hasten the Geulah.

“Today, Nshei U’Bnos Chabad continues that shlichus with inspiring farbrengens and year-round outreach – bringing Shabbos candles, honey for Rosh Hashana, Matzah for Pesach, and light to every Jewish home.

From its modest inception to its global outreach, Nshei U’Bnos Chabad is fulfilling the Rebbe’s vision and will hasten the Geulah.

Please partner with us and give generously and together we will welcome moshiach now

The New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division has denied a request by three individuals associated with the Gabboim of 770 Eastern Parkway for permission to pursue a further appeal in the long-running legal battle over control of the main shul at Lubavitch World Headquarters.

In a decision issued Friday, August 28, 2026, the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, denied a motion filed by Zalman Lipskier, Avrohom Holtzberg and Sholom Ber Kievman seeking leave to appeal a January 2024 ruling of the Appellate Term.

The four-judge panel, consisting of Justices Francesca E. Connolly, Linda Christopher, Helen Voutsinas and Laurence L. Love, issued a brief order stating simply that “the motion is denied.”

The decision is the latest development in litigation that has stretched for more than two decades over the premises at 770 Eastern Parkway and adjoining properties.

Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the central organizations of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, are the respective owners of 770 Eastern Parkway and 784-788 Eastern Parkway, which contain the shared main shul. Merkos also owns 302-304 Kingston Avenue, where an office used by the Gabboim has been part of the litigation.

On the opposing side are Congregation Lubavitch, Inc. (CLI), 770 Gabboim Zalman Lipskier and Avrohom Holtzberg, and former 770 shamash Sholom Ber Kievman.

As previously reported on COLlive, the dispute centers on control and possession of the main shul. The Gabboim and CLI have maintained that the shul belongs to the Crown Heights community and that the Gabboim are its legitimate managers and decision-makers, while Aguch and Merkos have sought to enforce their rights as the owners of the properties.

Following a nonjury trial, the New York City Civil Court ruled that Aguch and Merkos were entitled to judgments of possession. Final judgments were entered on January 6, 2022, and the Gabboim and CLI appealed.

In January 2024, the Appellate Term issued a lengthy decision that modified portions of those judgments. The court dismissed the possession claims against CLI relating to 770 and 784-788 on res judicata grounds, finding that CLI had already been ejected from those properties in earlier litigation. It also vacated judgments against two purported unincorporated associations on procedural grounds.

However, the court left the judgments of possession in place against Lipskier, Holtzberg and Kievman. It rejected their remaining arguments and concluded that they had not established rights to the properties greater than those of Aguch and Merkos. The judgment concerning the Gabboim office at 302-304 Kingston Avenue was also affirmed.

The Appellate Term specifically noted that the property litigation did not determine whether the Gabboim could continue serving in their religious positions in the shul, saying that question was not before the court.

Following the January 2024 decision, the appellants asked the Appellate Term to reargue the appeals or, alternatively, grant permission to appeal to the Appellate Division. That request was denied in June 2024.

Lipskier, Holtzberg and Kievman subsequently sought leave directly from the Appellate Division to appeal the January 2024 ruling.

Friday’s decision denies that request. The court provided no additional reasoning for its decision.

A man was arrested early Friday morning after slashing a victim with a sharp object in Crown Heights.

The incident began at approximately 2:30 AM near Eastern Parkway and Albany Ave, when Crown Heights Shmira received multiple calls for a man harassing a bochur, blocking his path and chasing after him.

When bystanders intervened, the perpetrator physically harassed and threatened them before he suddenly slashed one of them with the sharp edge of a cut soda can. Thankfully, the victim was not seriously injured.

The perpetrator bolted when Shmira members arrived, but a pursuit by members and NYPD officers ended with his arrest near President St and Albany Ave.

Please be aware of your surroundings. In case of an emergency, call 911 and Shmira 24/7 at 718-221-0303.

****

Shmira is looking for responsible and qualified individuals who are ready to join and give back to the community. If you believe you are ready to join, please fill out the sign-up form at http://www.chshmira.org/join-us/

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 Rochel Duchman, Certified Dating Coach

The recent article about how shidduchim have come to feel like a market put words to something many singles, parents, and shadchanim have been feeling for a long time. A resume can organize information, but it cannot communicate the fullness of a person. A database can store profiles, but it cannot replace the reassurance of hearing someone say, sincerely, “I know this person. I see what is special about them, and I believe this idea is worth exploring.”

That observation deserves to be heard with care. The article is not an attack on shadchanim or on the tools our community uses. On the contrary, it recognizes how much we ask of shadchanim and how difficult it is for any one person to know a rapidly growing, geographically dispersed community. Resumes, databases, WhatsApp groups, and other systems can all be useful. The challenge is to make sure those tools serve relationships rather than substitute for them.

The deepest pain described in the article is not simply the absence of a date. It is the feeling of not being known, remembered, or carried by a network. That can be painful even for singles who do have a naturally connected circle or network.

There is no single program that can rebuild that sense of community, and no organization can solve the shidduch challenge on its own. The response must remain broad and shared: parents who advocate thoughtfully, friends who make introductions and follow up, families who invite singles for Shabbos, rabbanim and mashpi’im who stay involved, and shadchanim who continue their extraordinary work. Chabad Shidduch Advocates hopes to contribute one additional piece to that larger effort.

In June 2025, I founded Chabad Shidduch Advocates with a simple goal: to make sure every single woman feels seen, heard, and actively advocated for throughout the shidduch process. We began with a group of 10 dedicated advocates, each taking 10–20 girls under her wing and getting to know them personally—their personalities, values, needs, and what they are truly looking for in a match. Our team meets weekly to collaborate, brainstorm match ideas, and work together to help our girls get on dates. Twice a month, we also meet with shadchanim to expand our network, learn about suitable single men, and identify new potential matches. What started as a small, committed group has grown into a collaborative effort built around personal relationships, teamwork, and the belief that every single deserves someone actively thinking about and advocating for them.

Our approach is intentionally high-touch. Each advocate works with a limited group of singles so there is time to listen, learn, and build a genuine relationship. The goal is to understand more than the details on a resume: the person’s character, values, strengths, aspirations, and the kind of home they hope to build. An advocate can then speak about the individual with warmth and context, help think through possibilities, and remain involved as ideas develop.

The advocates meet weekly to share insights and brainstorm match ideas together. This team model allows one person’s relationship with a single to be supported by the networks and perspectives of others. Advocates currently serve communities across the United States and Canada, and the group is also developing a team of married male advocates who can build similarly personal relationships with bochurim who may find that approach more comfortable or accessible.

This work is meant to support, not replace, shadchanim. We welcome collaboration with shadchanim, parents, teachers, friends, and community members who know eligible men and women. A shadchan may have the right idea; a parent or friend may hold important context; an advocate may be able to help connect the dots, encourage follow-through, or make sure a person does not quietly disappear from view. Each role matters, and the strongest results come when those roles reinforce one another.

We do use an organized technology platform to manage information, protect confidentiality, and help the team track ideas and follow-up. But the platform is only a tool. The heart of the work is human: knowing the single, making the phone call, speaking with care, following up, and helping another person be seen as more than a profile.

The original article offers an important challenge to all of us: do not merely forward a resume; stand behind the person. Chabad Shidduch Advocates is one attempt to put that principle into practice, entirely free of charge. We do not see ourselves as the answer, but as one more part of a growing network supporting singles, parents, and shadchanim. If more of us take responsibility for truly knowing the people around us and carrying them together, perhaps fewer singles will feel like a PDF waiting in an inbox—and more will feel what every person deserves to feel: remembered, valued, and accompanied on the journey toward building a Jewish home.

If you would like to contact Chabad shidduch advocates, please visit our website or email us:

chabadshidduchadvocates.com or email us at: [email protected]

Yeshivas Lubavitch Tiferes Yisroel in Beit Shemesh opened the new zman this week with a number of significant changes to its learning structure, together with a sharpened articulation of the vision guiding the Yeshiva forward.

Among the most significant changes this year is the move away from traditional age-based shiurim in both Nigleh and Chassidus (Aleph and Beis).

Instead, bochurim have been placed in shiurim according to their individual level, ability and learning needs.

The change is designed to allow every bochur to be challenged appropriately, while giving particular attention to advanced bochurim who are ready to progress at a significantly higher level, with greater depth and at a faster pace.

Rather than asking every bochur of the same age to move at the same pace, the new structure allows each shiur to have clearer goals, a more focused curriculum and expectations appropriate to the bochurim learning within it.

At the heart of this structure is a simple principle:
Every bochur should be seen for who he is, challenged according to what he is capable of, and given the tools to grow.

A Yeshiva is there to educate the whole bochur.

That means understanding his strengths, his challenges, his personality, his level and his potential, and then building a path that allows him to grow in a real and lasting way.
The goal is growth.

Genuine growth.

In learning. In Chassidus. In davening. In Yiras Shomayim. In personal responsibility. In maturity. And ultimately in becoming an authentic Chossid.

This year, that vision is being expressed in a simple message:
YLTY Bet Shemesh. Real Growth.

The new level-based shiurim are one practical expression of that approach.

Individualization is not about asking less.

It is about being able to demand more, more precisely, and more individually.

A bochur who is capable of learning at an advanced level should be pushed to do so.

A bochur who needs stronger foundations should be given the structure necessary to build them properly.

And every bochur should know clearly what his next stage of growth looks like.

The opening of the new zman represents more than a scheduling or curricular change.

It represents a clearer expression of what YLTY seeks to accomplish with every bochur:
See the whole bochur. Recognize his potential. Challenge him appropriately. And watch genuine growth take place.

Each summer, Tzeirei Hashluchim Sweden welcomes over 100 children of Shluchim from around the world. The three-week girls’ camp was led by HCs Tzirel Goldberg and Rivka Namdar, followed by the boys’ camp, led by HCs Levi Schechte and Levi Namdar.

“Camp is a chinuch necessity,” said Rabbi Alexander Namdar, who directs the camp together with his wife, Leah. “For children growing up on Shlichus, especially in small communities, having this time surrounded by other young Shluchim and Shluchos is incredibly important.”

The six weeks are filled with singing and dancing, learning and farbrengens, trips, activities and friendship – all within a warm Chassidishe atmosphere.

Mussia Lazaroff of Texas, a girls’ camp counselor, said, “The care and concern for each and every girl attending camp is unlike anything I’ve seen before. In Tzeirei Hashluchos Sweden, it isn’t camp with Ruchnius on the side. Every moment of camp is Ruchnius; every moment involves the Rebbe. As a staff member, I left feeling way more connected to the Rebbe, with much more drive and fire to fulfill the Rebbe’s Inyonim.”

Mushka Feldman of Connecticut, a former camper and staff member, shared:

“There are camps where everyone becomes a friend, and there are camps where you become family. Tzeirei Hashluchos is both,” she said. “As a camper, it’s the most awaited part of the year, giving me the koach to continue my Shlichus throughout the year. As a staff member, it’s where I give back to the place that changed my life.”

Yocheved Wilhelm of Oslo, who attended from age six and later joined the staff, said:

“You can really see how every camper gets exactly what they need,” she said. “The care you get…You come home every year feeling like a completely new person. Most importantly, you become so incredibly emotionally connected to the Rebbe.”

Bina Stiefel of Slovakia, whose two sons attended this summer, shared their excitement upon returning home. One son won an entire set of Likkutei Sichos, donated by Mendel Galperin, l’ilui nishmas Menachem Mendel ben Osher ע״ה.

“B”H, the Likkutei Sichos – as well as Meir and Yehuda – have just arrived safely in Slovakia!” she said. “They B”H came home on such a high, and no doubt the chayus and energy they received over the past three weeks will keep them going until the next camp, be’ezras Hashem!”

Campers and staff came from 31 countries: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Nigeria, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and Ukraine.

The United States was represented by 10 states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Wisconsin.

This summer marked Tzeirei Hashluchim Sweden’s 52nd camp session, B”H.

The camps are a project of Chabad Sweden, directed by Rabbi Alexander and Leah Namdar, established in partnership with Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky ע״ה. The partnership continues with MyShliach of Merkos Suite 302, under Rabbis Mendel and Mendy Kotlarsky and Rabbi Mendy Shanowitz.

Leah Namdar says, “Our deepest thanks go to this year’s incredible staff and to every staff member throughout the years; to the dedicated parents who entrust us with their precious children; and to everyone who helps make these camps possible. May Hashem bentch each and every one of you with good health, good news and true nachas.”

By Dovid Zaklikowski for Hasidic Archives

Life was not easy for Shlomo Beilin, or, as he was known Shlomo der Geller. His wife suffered a nervous breakdown, his children became communists, and he eventually became blind.

Despite it all, he radiated joy and would break into dance even during the most difficult moments of his life.

Once, at a Chassidic gathering, he stood up and declared to those gathered: “Yetzer Hara, my beastly impulse, you are trying to depress me, but you will not be successful. I am thumbing my nose at you!”

The blind man then danced for hours with the gathered.

At the time, there were few published Chassidic writings, and people would copy them by hand. In his home, the blind Chassid had many such manuscripts. Many people asked to borrow them, but he always refused, telling them that they could sit in his home and study them, “But the volumes should not leave my house.”

One time, a young man asked him, “Why do you need the books in your home when you can’t even study from them?”

He told him that he was mistaken. “Every morning I go to the bookcase, I place my hands on the volumes, and I feel the self-sacrifice each Rebbe made to recite the discourses. This gives me strength to continue through my challenges.”

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

Photos: Tzvi Levenhartz/COLlive

This week is Parshas Ki Savo

Candle Lighting in Crown Heights: 7:16 PM
Shabbos ends: 8:15 PM

Good Shabbos from the staff of COLlive.com!

Sholom Zachars in Crown Heights this week:
R’ Moshe Cohen – 672 Empire blvd Apt 9D [Corner of Albany Ave]
R’ Shmuly Hurwitz – 507 Rutland Rd [Between Kingston and Brooklyn Aves]
R’ Levi Levin – 569 Montgomery St [Between Brooklyn and New York Aves]
R’ David Nachman Lokshin – 556 Crown St [Between Kingston and Albany Aves]
R’ SZ Barash – 1582 Carroll St [Between Troy and Schenectady Aves]
R’ Ben Shannon – 450 Sterling St up driveway in Shul [Between Brooklyn and New York Aves]

Crown Heights Shmira volunteers, working alongside the NYPD, have made more than two dozen arrests across Crown Heights over the summer in connection with burglaries, thefts, assaults and other incidents, while several investigations remain ongoing.

Among the most recent cases was the arrest Thursday morning of a suspect accused of breaking into a commercial van more than two weeks earlier and stealing several thousand dollars worth of equipment.

The theft occurred on August 11 at approximately 9:00 a.m., when the suspect allegedly broke the lock of a van parked near President Street and Albany Avenue and removed equipment valued at several thousand dollars.

Shmira members continued working on the case and, on August 27 at approximately 11:00 a.m., located the alleged perpetrator near Atlantic Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue. NYPD officers responded and placed him under arrest.

In another recent incident, a burglar who allegedly forced his way into a Crown Heights home in the middle of the night was caught while still inside the house.

Crown Heights Shmira received a call at approximately 3:00 a.m. last Thursday reporting that a suspect had forced his way into a home near Albany Avenue and Eastern Parkway. Members rushed to the location and found the suspect still inside. NYPD officers arrived moments later and took him into custody.

Meanwhile, Shmira is continuing to search for a suspect who allegedly assaulted a mother walking with her children in Crown Heights last Wednesday afternoon.

The unprovoked attack occurred at approximately 1:30 p.m. near Schenectady Avenue and St. Johns Place. Shmira members canvassed the surrounding area, but the suspect had already fled.

Shmira has since obtained an image of the suspect and is asking anyone who recognizes her or has information about the incident to call Crown Heights Shmira at 718-221-0303.

The incidents are among dozens that Shmira members have responded to during the summer months.

On August 26 at approximately 12:45 p.m., a suspect was arrested near East New York Avenue and Kingston Avenue for shoplifting. She was also wanted in connection with a previous package theft.

A day earlier, on August 25 at approximately 3:00 p.m., a suspect allegedly shoplifted from a store near Lefferts Avenue and Kingston Avenue and assaulted the manager while leaving. The suspect was tracked down near East 91st Street and East New York Avenue, arrested and charged with robbery.

On August 24 at approximately 5:00 p.m., a suspect entered a building near Lefferts Avenue and Albany Avenue and allegedly attempted to steal. Shmira members located him near Schenectady Avenue and Empire Boulevard. The suspect had open warrants and was wanted in connection with several other burglaries.

Earlier that day, at approximately 1:15 p.m., another suspect accused of shoplifting from a store near East New York Avenue and Kingston Avenue was apprehended near East New York Avenue and Albany Avenue.

An investigation remains open into an August 20 incident in which a suspect allegedly shoplifted from a store near Montgomery Street and Kingston Avenue at approximately 7:00 p.m. while carrying a knife. Shmira has identified the suspect and is searching for him.

On August 12 at approximately 7:30 p.m., a repeat offender wanted in connection with a previous burglary was apprehended near Clarkson Avenue and Albany Avenue.

Two days earlier, on August 10 at approximately 4:00 p.m., a package theft suspect was arrested near Schenectady Avenue and President Street.

Shortly after midnight on August 9, two suspects wearing ski masks allegedly attempted to steal a parked vehicle near President Street and Kingston Avenue before fleeing. The NYPD is investigating.

July Incidents

On July 26 at approximately 8:00 p.m., a suspect wanted in connection with a burglary near Brooklyn Avenue and Carroll Street was located near Eastern Parkway and Troy Avenue.

Earlier that day, at approximately 4:00 p.m., a suspect wanted for an assault with a weapon that left a victim injured, as well as an attempted burglary, was arrested near St. Johns Place and Troy Avenue.

A shoplifting suspect was apprehended near Lefferts Avenue and Kingston Avenue on July 19 at approximately 2:00 p.m. following a theft near Empire Boulevard and Brooklyn Avenue.

On July 16 at approximately 1:00 p.m., a suspect wanted for a package theft near Lincoln Place and Albany Avenue was arrested at the Utica Avenue subway station.

On July 12 at approximately midnight, a DWI driver allegedly crashed near Schenectady Avenue and President Street and fled the scene. He was later apprehended near Crown Street and Albany Avenue.

On July 1 at approximately 10:00 p.m., a suspect accused of stealing a package near Carroll Street and Albany Avenue was located near Union Street and Utica Avenue.

June Incidents

On June 26 at approximately 5:00 p.m., community members concerned about a suspicious man near Crown Street and Kingston Avenue contacted Shmira. Responding members investigated, and after the suspect was found to have open warrants, he was placed under arrest by the NYPD.

A package theft suspect was arrested near President Street and Albany Avenue on June 21 at approximately 7:00 p.m.

On June 17 at approximately 8:30 p.m., a repeat offender wanted for a burglary near Montgomery Street and Troy Avenue was located near Lenox Road and Albany Avenue.

A suspect was arrested for theft near Empire Boulevard and Brooklyn Avenue on June 15 at approximately 1:00 p.m.

In an incident early on June 14, a suspect allegedly chased victims with a sharp metal object near President Street and Kingston Avenue at approximately 2:00 a.m. The suspect was apprehended near East New York Avenue and Troy Avenue.

An elderly victim was assaulted near Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue on June 13 at approximately 8:00 p.m. and required transport to the hospital. Shmira assisted in identifying the suspect, and the NYPD took a report.

On June 12 at approximately 4:30 p.m., a suspect was arrested near Fulton Street and Throop Avenue in connection with an assault that occurred near Empire Boulevard and Kingston Avenue.

A suspect who allegedly trespassed and attempted to steal near Carroll Street and Schenectady Avenue on June 10 at approximately 4:30 a.m. was apprehended near Troy Avenue and East New York Avenue.

On June 9 at approximately 6:30 p.m., a victim was struck with a stick and had his yarmulke snatched near Sterling Place and Troy Avenue. The suspect fled, and Shmira and the NYPD are continuing to investigate.

A DWI driver who crashed was arrested near St. Johns Place and Albany Avenue on June 8 at approximately 9:00 p.m.

On Shabbos, June 6, at approximately 3:00 p.m., a suspect allegedly attempted to break into a home near New York Avenue and President Street. The suspect was still at the location when Shmira members and NYPD officers arrived and was arrested.

Two additional arrests took place on June 1. At approximately 10:45 a.m., a suspect was arrested for theft near Remsen Avenue and Rutland Road. Earlier, at approximately midnight, a suspect was arrested near St. Johns Place and Schenectady Avenue in connection with an assault that caused injuries.

Several cases remain under investigation. Anyone with information regarding the outstanding incidents is urged to contact Crown Heights Shmira at 718-221-0303.

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Benny Berghoff of Los Angeles, CA, a special neshama and beloved member of the Berghoff family, passed away Thursday night, 15 Elul, 5786.

He is survived by his mother Tova and siblings Moshe Berghoff – Brooklyn, NY, Shaina Shapiro – Los Angeles, Yocheved – New York, Aaron – Van Nuys, CA, Nechama Chernotsky – Northridge, CA, Yehudis Davidson – Los Angeles, Michal Silverstein – Van Nuys, CA, Yosef – Los Angeles.

He was predeceased by his father R’ Daniel Berghoff OB”M.

The Levaya will take place today in Los Angeles at Chabad Mt. Olive 7231 Slauson Ave at 2pm.

Shiva will be at 229 S. Clark Dr. Beverly Hills CA

Sunday-Wednesday:
11:00am-2:00pm
5:00pm-9:00pm

Davening Times Sunday-Wednesday:
Mincha 7:00pm
Maariv b’zman 7:48-7:44pm

Moshe will continue Shiva at 510 Crown St #3A, Crown Heights. Shachris Wed 9:30, Thurs 8:15. Mincha Wed 7:10, Maariv Wed 7:55.

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes – Binyamin Refoel Menachem Mendel ben R’ Daniel Baruch.

Yeshiva ‘Chayolei Beis Dovid’ in the picturesque Pocono Mountains, which empowers Chassidishe bochurim in a fully immersive vocational Yeshiva experience, is now beginning a new Zman with tremendous energy.

The Yeshiva opened the new Zman with a Chassidic farbrengen, together with the Yeshiva’s executive director, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hakohen Hendel.

Rabbi Shmuel Hakohen Hendel, an experienced educator and beloved by all the Bochurim for the past 4 years, continues to successfully lead the Yeshiva to even greater heights, working alongside the veteran educators.

The yeshiva is designed for bochurim who seek a Chassidishe atmosphere steeped in pure emunah, together with an atmosphere far less pressured than that of traditional yeshivos. Our spacious campus in Pennsylvania offers a comprehensive curriculum, including Nigleh, Chassidus, avodas hatefillah, and farbrengens, combined with hands-on vocational training across several trades.

What sets the Yeshiva apart is the dedicated staff members with the unwavering approach to nurturing young bochurim, especially those requiring guidance and individual attention in the spirit of vibrant Hiskashrus to our Rebbe the Nosi. With a few remaining spots available for serious bochurim aged 14-16, we invite you to join our vibrant community!

For more information, please contact Rabbi Shmuel Hakohen Hendel at: +1 (347) 770-2838
[email protected].

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of our thriving yeshiva family!

“Before I went to Israel,” said Aidan Hulnick of West Chester, PA, “I never imagined that I would be spending Tisha B’Av at the Western Wall.” He was one of dozens of teens who sat on the stones and said Eicha that night, most of them for the first time, midway through a 22-day CTeen Israel Journey.

CTeen ran two such trips this summer, separate twenty-day programs for boys and girls, bringing together Jewish teens from the United States, England, Canada, and beyond. The girls landed on July 1 and the boys on July 9. Between them the groups climbed the snake trail up Masada before dawn, hiked Nachal Amud and the Sataf, canoed the Jordan, packed food at Leket and Pantry Packers, volunteered in a hospital, walked through Chevron, and stood at the site of the Nova massacre.

“The Rebbe spoke about the idealism of young people, that when a teenager puts their mind to something, they give it their all,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, Chairman of CTeen International. “Many of these teens are the only Jewish kid in their grade. When we bring them to Israel for 22 days, we’re not giving them a vacation. We’re handing them the tools to be ambassadors of their heritage to their peers back home.”

The girls reached Sderot on their second day in the country. They toured the city, ate lunch at the Sderot Chabad house, and went on to the Nova site in the afternoon, where a survivor of the attack walked them through what had happened there. The boys made the same trip a week into their own program, and it was the part of the itinerary parents heard about first when their sons got home.

Parent Ruth Shneck from Manchester, UK said her son Raffi was extremely touched by the Nova survivor speaking, and by Yad Vashem, calling it an “important part of Jewish history to experience in person.” Raffi came away describing his newfound appreciation for Judaism as “something so strong that it is able to bounce back after so many atrocious acts against it.”

This year’s boys’ program was led by Rabbi Ben Bursk. A decade earlier, as a teenager in Manchester, England, Bursk experienced CTeen firsthand when his Shliach, Rabbi Sholom Cohen, encouraged him to join a CTeen summer trip, an experience that became an important part of his own journey in Yiddishkeit. Ten years later he returned in a very different role, leading a summer experience for the next generation. When Yosef Shusterman was asked for his three favorite moments of twenty days in Israel, the first thing he listed was late night story time with Rabbi Ben in the hotel hallway.

“Ten years ago, I was one of the teens on this trip,” Rabbi Bursk said. “Coming back now to lead it and seeing firsthand the impact these three weeks can have on a young person made the experience incredibly meaningful and truly brought things full circle for me.”

The trips also began well before anyone boarded a plane. As part of the RootOne initiative, participants completed 8 hours of pre-trip learning and were awarded with a $3,000 voucher to reduce the costs of the trip.

Both programs ran single gender, and the teens had opinions about it. The girls were the more unprompted and the more specific. “There is a sisterhood and I feel like everyone got closer because of it,” said Emily Levitt of Chicago, IL. Evie Weiss put it in terms of what the format took out of the room. “I loved it because it made us way closer than if it wasn’t an all girls trip,” she said. “I felt way more comfortable because there wasn’t as much judgment.”

What almost none of them anticipated was how the country itself would feel. Zayden Bavaro of New Haven, CT, found Judaism far warmer and more connected in Israel, and Benzi Ashkenazi of Syracuse, NY, described it as a living tradition that isn’t forced to be in hiding everywhere. On the girls side, Asenath Arshynova of Fairlawn, NJ, said the surprise was how little language mattered, and that she could connect deeply with Jews in Israel even when the two of them had no shared words.

Not all of it was heavy, and the teens were quick to say so. There was a floating water park on the Kineret, ziplining at Deer Land, laser tag, a trampoline park, jeep rides in the hills of Yerushalayim, pizza on Ben Yehuda after Havdala, and long afternoons haggling in the shuk. Alita Arnold thought the mix was the whole point, describing a trip that ran art, history, hiking, and learning about the past and future of Israel alongside simply having fun.

Parents describing the return home tended to reach for the same word.

“He came home a new kid,” said Jennifer Hulnick. “Wanting to participate in more Jewish activities, having Shabbat dinners as a regular part of our routine, and wanting to start going to synagogue more often. This was truly the catalyst to inspire him into engaging more with his Jewish identity.”

For Diana Rubenstein of Miami, FL it was the daily photos that did it, seeing her son Elad praying with the group at places she had only read about. Sabine Epelbaum of Wilmington, DE noticed the change in the routine instead: her daughter started praying regularly, and summed the summer up in four words her mother repeated back. “It was the best ever.”

The hachlatos teens carried home were concrete rather than sentimental, and tefillin came up more than anything else.

Shalom Bereznyak of the Bronx had committed to praying Mincha and Maariv after he was called to the Torah on the first Shabbos of the trip and intends to keep it. Melanie Mintz plans to keep Shabbos two weeks in a row, light candles, say Shema, and say Modeh Ani. Others are taking it further than a personal resolution.

Adam Peretz of Studio City, CA came home planning to open a Jewish club at his school and bring what he saw back to his local Chabad, and Yitzi Rich, already a leader at his chapter in Manchester UK, said he would carry on there and hold to the hachlatos he made. It’s the reason the trips exist in the first place.

Both programs ended the same way. A banquet, a drive to the airport, a flight out at five past midnight, and the words on the last line of the itinerary: next year in Yerushalayim.

Raphael Prout of S. Laurent in Montreal had a line for anyone thinking about going. “It’s not just a trip to understand Israel,” he said. “It’s a trip to understand yourself.”

RootOne is seeded through a generous grant by The Marcus Foundation and powered by The Jewish Education Project. Visit RootOne.org for more information.
Pre-registration for summer 2027 is open at cteensummer.com

Camp Gan Yisroel UK has concluded another highly successful summer, with over 150 campers and staff from around the world enjoying a summer filled with Chassidishkeit, friendship, personal growth and non-stop fun.

Directed by Rabbi Shmuli Brown, with Menahel Ruchni Rabbi Folly Dubov, the camp combined a strong ruchniyus program with an action-packed schedule. Campers learned Mishnayos, Tanya, Maamorim and more, while taking on personal hachlotos for their Aliyos on Shabbos and importantly, commitments to continue throughout the year.

Head Counselors Yudi Brown and Dovi Pink, led a committed team of counselors and staff who worked around the clock to ensure that each camper felt cared for, included and truly at home.

A major milestone this summer was the first ever separate Masmidim site. Due to the division’s growth, the Masmidim campers (ages 14-16) had their own dedicated campgrounds, with a Zal, dining room, classrooms, accommodation and outdoor grounds. Division Heads Shloimy Shtern and Avremi Matusof, together with their staff, created a powerful atmosphere of learning and Chassidishkeit. A special raffle for the opportunity to spend Tishrei by the Rebbe has already inspired a large group of campers to join the annual CGI UK Tishrei trip, led by Shloimy Shtern and Zushi Borenstein.

The Chassidisher atmosphere was felt throughout camp, from spirited davening and bentching to Shabbos meals filled with singing, farbrengens and inspiring stories.

At the same time, the boys enjoyed an action packed summer, including a major theme park, ice skating, bowling, mud trails, snow and aqua parks, go karting, water sports, BBQs, bonfires, sports activities and midnight runaways. The summer reached its peak with the much anticipated Color War, bringing tremendous Chayos and team spirit.

Behind the success of the summer was the extraordinary dedication and devotion of the counselors and entire staff, who gave of themselves day and night to ensure that every camper felt cared for, included and able to enjoy an unforgettable experience. Their commitment and personal investment in each boy helped create the unique atmosphere that defines CGI UK.

Rabbi Yechiel Wilhelm and Sara led the kitchen team, while Tzivia Brown, together with General Managers Davidi Ben Yoav, Yankel Weinbaum and Binyomin Kahanov, coordinated the extensive logistics and operations.

The summer concluded with a grand banquet, prize giving and emotional farewells accompanied by the traditional singing of “Goodbye Gan Yisroel.”

While the summer may be over, the inspiration continues, with year round programs helping campers maintain the friendships, hachlotos and Chassidishkeit they experienced in Gan Yisroel UK.

Parents expressed tremendous appreciation for the genuine care shown to their children and the noticeable growth they saw in their sons throughout the summer.

Your year of contacts starts here.

Get up to 50% off a 1-year supply and up to $300 back.

ORDER HERE

Marriage. Israel. Both are romantically linked to effortless spirituality. But nothing is achieved, let alone assured, without human effort. The Avner Institute presents the Rebbe’s stern advice to families on finding suitable spouses for their children or planning an “amazing” trip to the Jewish homeland—all of which require focus, diligence, and wisdom.

In loving memory of Hadassah Lebovic A”h

“Special duty of the father”

By the Grace of G-d
4 Sivan 5713
Brooklyn 13, NY

Sholom u’Brocho:

I received your letter of 19th of Iyar and was pleased to read in it that you and your family are well.

With regard to a shidduch [match] for your daughter, in which case you are referring to a letter of mine in which I quoted a saying of our Sages to the effect that “It is the way of the man to seek a wife,” and you wonder if you can deduce from it that nothing should be done for a daughter’s shidduch.

Such an assumption would be wrong, for the implication of the above saying is to include the daughter herself (the would-be bride) but not her parents, and certainly not her father. On the contrary, the Talmud often speaks about the special duty of the father to seek a suitable match for his daughter. Therefore, you should certainly do what you can in this matter, and usually one gets the cooperation of a friend (professional shadchan [matchmaker] or not) to make suitable suggestions, which you should then carefully consider yourself, not relying entirely on somebody else’s opinion.

You refer in your letter to a suggestion with regard to a shidduch for your daughter. From the distance, it is difficult for me to express an opinion. I suggest that you consult your good friends, who may either know him, or, at any rate, learn to know him. Your preference for someone who is more active in the klal [community] need not be an obstacle in the case of a shidduch, especially, as this quality can be acquired under proper guidance. Needless to say, it is important to know your daughter’s opinion and to what extent a particular suggestion appeals to her heart.

As for the question of lack of money, there can be no doubt that this is no reason to handicap you, for when the time will come to do something about it, the Al-mighty will surely show a way how to take care of it. If it be necessary to incur debt, many a Jew would be happy to be in a similar position for the sake of a good shidduch for one’s daughter. When proper efforts are made to find a suitable shidduch, the Al-mighty will also show the proper signs as to the suitability.

With regard to your daughter and her husband and family, concerning whom you write about financial difficulties of the school and the arrears due to him, I think he should not give up the position, inasmuch as spiritually he is satisfied, and financially there are also prospects for improvement.

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“Palace of the King of kings”

By the Grace of G-d
19 Sivan 5713
Brooklyn 13, NY

This is to acknowledge your letter of May 13, enclosing contribution for the Yeshiva, for which receipt is enclosed herewith.

I am surprised that you do not mention anything about your affairs, material and spiritual, especially those which were the subject of our conversation during your visit. I trust everything is satisfactory, both materially and spiritually, which are inseparable in Jewish life, and that you will make good the omission next time.

With regard to your desire to visit Israel, it is surely unnecessary to enlarge upon the fact, which is also recognized by all the peoples of the world, that the Land of Israel is the Holy Land. This does not mean that it is so by virtue of the sanctuaries which stood there in the past, and are now in ruins, but it is holy today as well, holy because G-d made it so, and as we are told in Chumash [Pentateuch]: “It is the land upon which G-d’s eyes rest from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”

A visit to this Holy Land, where G-d’s presence is felt more than elsewhere, requires more preparation. It is like visiting a royal palace, where one’s appearance and expression of loyalty must be quite on a different plane, whatever one’s conduct was outside. The Holy Land is the palace of the King of kings, and a personal visit there requires appropriate preparation.

I hope you will not take offense at these remarks. I certainly wish you well, and I know that every Jew, including you and your family, can accomplish much preparation as a visit to the Holy Land indicates, and which is essential regardless.

With blessing,

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To receive to your inbox email: [email protected]

By a veteran mechanech, writing from three decades in the field

There’s an old story, probably apocryphal, that chemists like to tell. A man invents a better shoe polish. Same shine, but he’s stripped out the harsh solvents that made the old formula toxic. It’s safer, cleaner, better by every honest measure. He brings it to market and it fails. Not because it doesn’t work. Because the old polish’s sharp chemical smell had, over the years, become how people knew polish was “real.” Remove the harshness, and buyers didn’t smell quality anymore. They smelled weakness. He had made a better product by removing the very thing people had mistaken for its worth.

I’ve been thinking about that story a lot lately, because I think it’s the most honest thing anyone has ever said about how we run our mosdos and because it points the finger somewhere we’d rather it didn’t point. Not at the schools. At us.

Let me tell it through a few small scenes. These scenes are real – I lived them, over many years in chinuch. I’ve blurred the details not because they didn’t happen, but because the point isn’t to indict one school or one man. It’s to show you a pattern I’ve watched repeat, and to ask where it really comes from. If you recognize the shape, it’s because it’s everywhere.

Scene one. A yeshiva is dying. The founder wants to close the doors. A community figure steps in with real mesirus nefesh; no one should minimize it, and he takes on the mission of keeping it open. He raises money by stirring themes: the Rebbe would not let a yeshiva close. He holds the thing together through years when a lesser man would have let it fold. This is a genuine gift, and we should say so plainly: some people can build and sustain institutions through sheer will and narrative, and without them we would have far fewer mosdos. Keep this man in mind. He is not the villain of this story. There is no villain in this story. That’s the whole problem.

Scene two. The same institution, some years on, is stuck. The menahel who was hired to install a rigorous, prestigious standard has just quit – a month before zman because the boys who were recruited came in far below the standard he was hired to enforce. Think about that. The rigor didn’t fail on paper. It failed on contact with actual boys, who turned out to be boys and not the idealized talmidim the standard imagined. And who do they call, in desperation, to save the year? The mashpia everyone loves. The warm one. The one whose entire approach is to meet a boy where he is to teach in a way tailored to the boys in front of him rather than the boys the standard imagines. They reach, in crisis, for exactly the philosophy the failed standard had no room for because when the building is burning, the only thing that actually works is the man who can take the boys who exist and form them anyway.

He does. He saves the year, and more; he’s extraordinary. And here is where the parable begins to bite.

Scene three. For years, this mashpia is a quiet problem. He keeps making the tailored call. He says a particular group can’t realistically meet a new, demanding program and time proves him right. He resists expelling boys. He fights for the child with real struggles whom the system would rather shed. And for all of this, he is not thanked. He is managed. His approach is treated as friction – softness, a discipline problem, a man who can’t hold a standard. The institution wants his name, his reputation, the beloved-mashpia glow that fills seats and moves parents. It does not want his philosophy. It wants the smell of his catered, boy-by-boy approach on the brochure and the harshness of the standard in the classroom.

Scene four, and this is the one I can’t stop turning over. As Menahel, he goes to a respected rav with a real question: these boys are drowning in this masechta; should we switch to an easier one, better suited to them? A sincere question, brought in good faith, the way you’re supposed to bring things to a rav. And the rav answers: You’re right. But keep it quiet – so it doesn’t hurt the reputation.

You’re right. But keep it secret.

Sit with that, because it’s the confession at the center of everything. The wise man knew the tailored approach was correct. He knew the lighter tractate was the right chinuch for those boys. And in the same breath he instructed that the rightness be hidden so the institution could keep appearing to hold a standard it had privately, wisely, decided not to hold. Reality for the boys. Appearance for the world. The gap between them, sealed with a request for silence.

That is the fake harsh smell, sprayed back onto the safe polish. Do the thing that fits the boys, but let the institution keep emitting a signal of severity, because that’s what the market pays for.

And here is the part where we have to stop blaming the builder and the rav and look in the mirror.

Ask any parent you know: Who do you want teaching your son? Every one of them will describe the mashpia in these scenes the warm one, the one who sees the boy, the one who teaches to your child and not to an average, the one your son will still be calling in twenty years.

Ask that same parent: What school do you want your son to attend? And they will name the rigorous one, the prestigious one, the one with the standard and the reputation and the name that means something.

Same parent. Same child. Two questions that should have the same answer, and don’t.

We want our sons taught in a way tailored to them and credentialed by rigor. We want the beloved mashpia in the room and the demanding institution on the diploma. And because a school is built out of the choice parents make about schools, not the choice they make about teachers, the institution organizes itself around the second desire and grinds down the people who embody the first. Not against our wishes. In obedience to them. The mashpia everyone would choose as a teacher is expendable to every school, because schools are chosen with our fear and teachers are chosen with our love, and love does not build buildings.

This is the point at which we love to blame the institution. The mosad is cold, we say. The system is broken. The administrators care about money and image. And there’s just enough truth in it to be comfortable, because it puts the fault out there, in the building, in the men who run it, anywhere but here. But the institution didn’t invent our double standard. It inherited it from us. It is giving us, with painful precision, exactly what we asked for: the standard we demand when we choose a school, applied inevitably to other people’s struggling sons.

Because the harshness became the signal. The suffering, the demanding standard, the boys who couldn’t keep up quietly disappearing — we learned to read all of that as: this is a serious place. So a yeshiva that reaches its boys without breaking any of them reads to us as soft, exactly the way the safe polish read as weak. We are no longer buying the shine. We are buying the smell. And we have forgotten the smell was ever just a proxy for the shine, forgotten so completely that when someone finally offers us shine without the toxic fumes, we experience it as a lesser product.

This is why the builder wins and the mashpia loses, without either being a monster. The market that’s us, the parents, the community is optimizing for a signal, has confused the signal with the substance, and cannot perceive the better thing as better because our perception runs entirely through the proxy. The famous school got famous, in part, the honest way and, in part, by making some boys miserable and letting some go and we did not flinch, because the misery smelled like rigor, and rigor is what we came to buy.

I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to read this as a call to lower every standard, and it isn’t. Rigor is real. Some boys need to be pushed; excellence genuinely serves the ones who can rise to it; a mosad that demands nothing forms no one. The builder is not wrong that a school must be strong enough to survive, and support really does follow beauty that’s not vanity; it’s oxygen. All of that is true.

But two things follow that we don’t like to say.

First: the demand that a standard be maintained tells the administrator something about his job, about fundraising, about vision, about survival. It does not entitle him to reach into the mashpia’s chair and force the man he hired precisely for his tailored, boy-centered approach to betray it. If you believe a school needs a harder philosophy, hire someone who holds it honestly, up front. Don’t hire the beloved exponent of the opposite approach for the value of his name and then spend a decade forcing him to be someone else, and call the friction his failure.

Second, and this is the one that should trouble us most: the deepest, most fundable beauty a mosad has may be that tailored approach itself. Why is a school ever truly beloved? Not because it is cold and impressive. Because it transformed someone’s son caught him when he was falling, taught him as the individual he was, made him into something, earned a loyalty that lasts a lifetime and gives out of gratitude for decades. That is a donor base, a reputation, a beauty and it is manufactured by exactly the philosophy we treat as a liability. We keep fishing for prestige-money in the crowded pool where every mosad competes, while sitting on a quieter, deeper well of gratitude-money we never learn to draw from and burning, as friction, the very man who fills it.

The shoe-polish story usually ends badly. The better product doesn’t win. The man who removed the poison watches the market keep paying for the smell, and most people never learn the safe one was better; they just remember it didn’t smell right. I wish I could tell you our version ends differently. Often it doesn’t. The beloved teacher gets managed out, the institution grows strong and regal, and the community congratulates the builder who deserves real credit for building while quietly forgetting the man whose catered, one-boy-at-a-time devotion made the place worth building in the first place.

But there is one place the parable cracks open, and it’s the only hopeful thing I have. Sometimes the safe product finds its buyer after all the customers who were being poisoned, who were quietly grateful someone finally made it clean. In our world, those are the parents whose sons were being broken by the harshness, who would give anything for a mosad that teaches their child as an individual, without the fumes. That market exists. It is real. It is just quieter than the one setting the price, because the people in it are the ones the signal was hurting.

So here is the question this whole parable finally puts to us and it’s why the title of this piece is an instruction, not an accusation at anyone else. We can keep blaming the institutions. It’s easy, it’s partly fair, and it changes nothing, because the institutions are only ever a mirror. We already know who we’d want teaching our sons; we say it without hesitation. The only thing standing between that answer and the schools we actually build is our own unwillingness to want the same thing twice: to choose, for the institution, the tailored care we so obviously want for the child.

Stop blaming the institutions. Look in the mirror. The polish is already clean; it always was. We just have to be willing, finally, to stop paying for the smell.

Tomchei Tmimim Ocean Parkway opened its doors for the new school year, welcoming back talmidim who arrived with big smiles, high energy, and a real excitement to begin learning.

From catching up with old friends to greeting their rebbeim, the boys brought life and warmth back into the building. Classrooms quickly settled into learning and davening, setting a chassidishe Avir for the months ahead.

Wishing all of our talmidim, rebbeim, and families a successful year of growth and learning!

Colel Chabad has joined with the Wednesday Night Shiur and Farbrengen@699 to produce a special Chai Elul farbrengen for post-seminary and newly married women.

It will iyH take place this Sunday evening, August 30, at Ulam Chana, 556 Crown Street.

The farbrengen will feature Rabbi Sholom Duchman, with niggunim led by Simi Hecht, providing an evening of inspiration, chizuk, and meaningful connection for young women.

Doors will open at 7:00 p.m., with the farbrengen beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The event is also being made available via Zoom at wedshiur.org/farbrengen

Mrs. Chasya Mordokh, a longtime resident of South Beach, Florida, passed away on Thursday, 14 Elul, 5786.

She was 89.

She was a beloved teacher at Landow Yeshiva and mikva lady for 30 years.

She is survived by her husband Chaim Mordokh and daughter Shaindy Biston of Crown Heights along with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Levaya Sunday 1:45PM
Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery
113 Old Turnpike Rd.
Woodridge NY

Shiva information:
Location: Bais Levi Yitzchak
556 Crown Street (up the ramp)
Days and time:
Sunday 7pm-9pm
Monday-Thursday 11am-1pm
7pm-9pm
Friday 11am-1pm

Click here to assist with burial expenses.

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes.

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 Savoi

*Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of Hashem, and they will fear you*
28:10

Beautiful hints on the Talmud (Brochos 6a) *Rabbi Eliezer the Great says: This is a reference to the phylacteries of the head, upon which the name of God is written in fulfillment of the verse: “That the name of the Lord is called upon you.*

לקוטי לוי יצחק , הערות לזהר בראשית ע׳ סה ואילך

ילקוט לוי יצחק עה״ת חלק ד סימן קכא. קטו.

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

For more shiurim and podcasts visit: irguntorah.org

By COLlive reporter

London’s charedi community is facing mounting pressure to resolve a school admissions crisis after leading Rabbonim directed girls’ seminaries not to open for the new academic year until every student seeking a place has been accommodated.

According to VIN News, the directive was issued Monday evening by the Dayanim of the Kedassia/UOHC Beis Din in London, signed by Rabbi Chaim Menachem Gelitzky, Rabbi Yosef Yehuda Padwa, and Rabbi Yoel Stein, amid concerns that a number of girls still have not secured seminary placements.

Under the ruling, seminaries are being instructed to remain closed until arrangements have been made for all girls who are currently without an educational framework.

The Rabbonim described the step as necessary given the seriousness of the situation and the hardship facing students and their families as the beginning of the school year approaches.

The move comes approximately a month after London Rabbonim took similar action over unresolved placements in boys’ schools and Talmud Torahs.

In that case, Rabbonim in Golders Green called on schools not to begin the new year if more than 20 boys remained without placements. While acknowledging that keeping schools closed would interrupt the Torah learning of thousands of students, they said extraordinary measures were warranted to ensure that children were not left without schools.

The earlier decision sparked considerable discussion within the community and placed school administrations under pressure to address outstanding admissions cases.

One institution, Beis Medrash Elyon, responded at the time by pointing to serious financial challenges and what its administration described as inadequate charitable support from local donors. The institution’s leadership subsequently announced that it was resigning.

Despite the controversy surrounding the earlier directive, the Rabbonim have continued efforts to resolve the placement issue. The latest ruling expands that approach to girls’ seminaries, making their reopening dependent on finding solutions for those who remain without places.

VIN News reported that the decision has also attracted attention in charedi communities outside London, where school admissions and children left without placements have been recurring concerns.

Those supporting the Rabbonim’s approach maintain that no child should be left without a suitable educational setting because of admissions decisions and that the wider community and its institutions share responsibility for finding solutions.

The directive now puts the focus on London’s seminaries and communal leaders to resolve the remaining cases as quickly as possible, allowing the new school year to begin for all students.

Oholei Torah Preschool and Pre1A opened its doors this week with an atmosphere of joy and excitement as talmidim began a new year filled with discovery, growth, and Chassidishe chinuch.

Across both Preschool locations, at the main campus on Eastern Parkway and the East Flatbush site, bright classrooms, warm Morahs, and the lively energy of eager little boys set the tone for a wonderful year ahead.

With the leadership of Preschool Director Morah Rishi Bendet, together with Miss Mushky Sanowicz and Mrs. Sara Kievman, the dedicated Morahs and staff worked tirelessly to prepare both locations and create a smooth, warm, and welcoming start for every talmid.

With new briefcases in hand and big smiles on their faces, the boys settled into their classrooms, learned new routines, joined in song, and took pride in being part of Oholei Torah. These early experiences build a strong foundation for years of Torah, Yiras Shamayim, and simcha in learning.

Oholei Torah’s Pre1A talmidim also began their first day, excited to join the Cheder division and take this important next step in their Yeshiva journey. The boys enjoy their own dedicated floor, complete with two play areas, a lunchroom, and facilities designed especially for them, providing a quiet and comfortable environment separate from the older grades.

Under the leadership of Menahel Rabbi Berel Greenfeld, the boys began the year with enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. A special thank you goes to the dedicated Pre1A mechanchim for the tremendous preparation and care invested in welcoming each talmid and beginning the year on a strong and positive note.

By COLlive reporter

A major $36 million renovation and expansion of the Eastern Parkway Library is getting underway, bringing a more than 50% increase in public space, full accessibility, new children’s and teen areas, outdoor spaces and major infrastructure upgrades to the historic Crown Heights branch.

The project, expected to be completed in summer 2028, will transform the more than century-old Carnegie library while preserving its distinctive historic architecture. The library, located on Eastern Parkway and Schenectady Avenue, has been popular among neighborhood children and adults for decades.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Department of Design and Construction Commissioner Paul A. Ochoa and Brooklyn Public Library President and CEO Linda E. Johnson announced the start of construction this week.

The Eastern Parkway Library has served Crown Heights since 1914. The two-story Classical Revival building is known for its limestone façade, long arched windows and double-height reading rooms, with mezzanines overlooking the lower floor.

Under the renovation, the branch’s public space will expand by more than 50%. A large new glass façade will bring additional natural light into the building, while a new elevator and entrance ramp will make the library fully ADA-accessible.

The redesigned interior will include a main reading room, dedicated teen zone, two children’s zones, a STEAM room, community room and multipurpose room equipped with a projector. A classroom will also be created inside the library’s restored fireplace room.

Outdoor space will also receive a significant upgrade. The library’s courtyard will be renovated with outdoor seating, while a new third-floor reading terrace surrounded by greenery will offer patrons an additional space to read and gather.

The building’s mechanical systems will be modernized as part of the project, including new energy-efficient lighting and upgrades to the plumbing, HVAC and fire alarm systems. The renovated library is expected to achieve LEED Silver certification.

Artwork by New York-based artist Oasa DuVerney will also be installed throughout the library through the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program.

“This project is not only upgrading the interior of this unique, two-story building, but we are also making it fully ADA-compliant and expanding public space by more than 50%,” Ochoa said. “This is what the community asked for, and what we’ll be delivering.”

Johnson said the upgrades are intended to prepare the historic branch for decades of continued use.

“The renovation — which will bring more natural light into the branch, add modern technology and create inspiring spaces — will ensure that Eastern Parkway Library can serve the community for another 100 years,” she said.

Mayor Mamdani said the investment will provide Crown Heights residents with a more accessible, efficient and welcoming library while maintaining the character of the historic building.

“This $36 million investment will make Eastern Parkway Library fully accessible, more energy efficient and more welcoming, while honoring the architecture that has made this branch a beloved part of Crown Heights for more than a century,” Mamdani said.

Library services will continue during construction at a temporary pop-up location provided by Settlement Housing Fund. Furnishings are being donated by IKEA, with additional support for interim services provided by Amazon.

The temporary library is expected to open this fall and will allow patrons to check out books, attend programs and use technology while construction is underway.

Funding for the renovation is being provided by the Office of the Mayor, New York City Council, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and the New York State Assembly.

Shmuly Hurwitz and Shlomo Hecht continue their “Melodies of Elul” series with a new cover of “Slach Na,” originally sung by Shloimy Daskal.

The song is based on the words “סְלַח נָא, לַעֲו‍ֹן הָעָם הַזֶה, כְּגֹדֶל חַסְדֶּךָ” — “Please forgive the sin of this people, according to the greatness of Your kindness.”

These words spoken by Moshe Rabbeinu asking Hashem to forgive the Jewish people, were followed by Hashem’s response: “סָלַחְתִּי כִּדְבָרֶךָ” — “I have forgiven, according to your word.”

With a fresh arrangement and live musical feel, Shmuly Hurwitz and Shlomo Hecht bring their own take to this powerful song.

[

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A post shared by Shlomo Hecht (@shlomo_hecht_productions)

Sponsored by Maestro Hatters

A once-in-a-generation Tanya, a letter from the Rebbe with a brocha in his own hand, The Alter Rebbe’s commentary on the Zohar and the first printing of the Shulchan Aruch HaRav – four treasures on the auction block right now. The auction is Bez”h this Sunday.

Zaidy Auctions’ new sale is live. Four lots stand out.

Lot 90 – The “Master Edition” Tanya, Vilna 1900. The landmark edition that established the authoritative text of the Tanya used in every subsequent edition. Personally proofread by the Rebbe Rashab using manuscripts of the Alter Rebbe, this exceptional copy was printed on deluxe regal paper and retains a rare dark-blue original binding of a type the catalog states has never previously been documented.

View & Bid here: https://www.zaidy.com/auction/228-get-closer-en/lot-90-17/

Lot 91 – A 1952 Letter from the Rebbe, with a Brocha in His Own Hand. Guidance to a chassid regarding the timing of his journey to spend Yud Shevat with the Rebbe, concluding with an additional brocha personally handwritten by the Rebbe: “For success and chassidishe nachas from all your descendants.”

View & Bid here: https://www.zaidy.com/auction/228-get-closer-en/lot-91-17/

Lot 89 – The Alter Rebbe’s Commentary on the Zohar, First Edition. Biurei HaZohar, Kapust 1816 — the first Chassidic commentary on the Zohar ever published, containing the Alter Rebbe’s Friday-night drashos, recorded by his son, the Mitteler Rebbe. An extraordinary wide-margin copy.

View & Bid here: https://www.zaidy.com/auction/228-get-closer-en/lot-89-17/

Lot 87 – Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Laws of Shabbos, Kapust 1816, first edition. The “Chassidic Shulchan Aruch,” written by the Alter Rebbe at the Maggid’s directive – one of the most influential halachic works of the last two centuries.

View & Bid here: https://www.zaidy.com/auction/228-get-closer-en/lot-87-19/

The auction is Bez”h this Sunday, August 30 1:00pm ET. Full catalog:

https://www.zaidy.com/auction/228-get-closer-en/

As a new school year approaches and a new group of teachers prepares to enter the classroom for the very first time, the Menachem Education Foundation is continuing its commitment to ensure that first-year teachers don’t have to navigate the challenges of Chinuch alone.

MEF’s New Teacher Mentoring Program provides Chinuch mentoring and coaching for first-year Chabad Mechanchim and Mechanchos teaching both Limudei Kodesh and Limudei Chol in preschool through grade 12.

Chinuch lies at the center of our community’s success, and both the merit and responsibility of teaching are tremendous. Every child in our schools deserves a year of growth and high-quality learning. Yet building the skills to reach each student, manage a classroom, and grow into the role of a Mechanech or Mechaneches doesn’t happen overnight.

Through MEF’s network of experienced educators and Chinuch professionals, new teachers receive personalized guidance from mentors who understand the realities of the classroom and approach Chinuch in alignment with Chabad Hashkafos and the Rebbe’s teachings.

Last year, in honor of 50 years since the Rebbe launched Mivtzah Chinuch, MEF expanded this support by offering every first-year teacher who registered access to coaching, with 50 new teachers receiving a full 10-session Chinuch coaching package.

But the support went beyond the coaching sessions themselves. MEF sought to give new teachers the message that as they dedicate themselves to their students, the Chinuch community is behind them, supporting and investing in their success.

Mrs. Mushky Tuvel, Principal at Magen Israel in Long Island, NY, shared the impact this had on her school:

“We are so grateful to the Menachem Education Foundation for supporting our new teachers. As a principal, it fills me with such pride to know that our teachers are not only dedicated to their students but are also being cared for and uplifted as they begin their journey in our school.”

“Too often, teachers are left to struggle in their classrooms alone,” says Rabbi Zalman Shneur, Director of MEF. “We are giving every teacher the opportunity to have the support they need so that every single student in their classroom will have Hatzlacha.”

As another group of first-year teachers prepares to begin their Chinuch journey, MEF remains committed to building a culture in which new teachers enter the classroom with guidance, encouragement and a strong network behind them – giving them the tools to succeed and, ultimately, helping every child in their classroom thrive.

New teachers should sign up for their coaching by filling out this form. Registration closes on Chai Elul, August 31st.

The New Teacher Mentoring Program is one of the many initiatives of the Menachem Education Foundation dedicated to strengthening Chabad Chinuch. Additional programs include the annual Kinus Mechanchos Chabad, School Leadership Retreats and training, Kadima L’Chinuch Teacher Training Program, Chabad Curriculum Database, Project TOMiM Social-Emotional Learning Curriculum, and the Our Heritage school grant program. Access these resources and more online at mymef.org. 

The calls to Keren Yeshua rarely begin with a simple request for tuition assistance.

They begin with uncertainty.

“My husband was laid off. The school says my children may not be able to return.”

“My son needs special education. The tuition is $26,000, and we have five other children.”

“I know I need to speak to the school, but I’m embarrassed and don’t know where to begin.”

These are difficult moments. But they are also where Keren Yeshua gets to work.

Listen. Reassure. Brainstorm. Advocate. Negotiate. Find a way forward.

From Impossible to Possible
One father reached out after learning that his son’s special-education tuition would cost $26,000. With five other children, he simply could not see how he could make the numbers work.
Keren Yeshua helped him determine what he could realistically contribute, identify additional resources, and work with the school to bridge the gap.
What initially felt impossible began to look possible.

Another family faced a different crisis. The father, a Yeshiva Rebbe, had recently been laid off and was carrying a significant tuition obligation from the previous year while trying to figure out how he would pay for the coming year.

Keren Yeshua worked directly with the school and helped negotiate the family’s obligation down by more than 50%, while creating a manageable plan for the remaining balance.

And then came the moment that makes all the effort worthwhile:
The family knew their children could return.

The anxiety became relief.

The uncertainty became hope.

And the hope became joy.

A child puts on their uniform. Picks up their backpack. Walks through the school doors. Sees their friends.

They’re back.

That is what Keren Yeshua is about.

Not simply providing financial assistance, but standing alongside families—bringing compassion, advocacy, creativity, and resources to the table until, whenever possible, a solution is found.
One family at a time. One child at a time.

Baruch Hashem, many children who were once uncertain about their future are now happily enrolled in yeshiva.

But several families are still counting on us.

Please help Keren Yeshua reach its goal of ensuring that every child has a place in yeshiva.

Your support can turn another family’s uncertainty into relief—and another child’s waiting into a joyful walk through the school doors.

Backpacks are packed.

Our children are back.

KerenYeshua.orgZelle: [email protected]
Keren Yeshua Inc. | EIN: 93-3390390

Over six consecutive weeks this summer, Farbrengen Retreat was in the Poconos hosting a series of weekly Shabbatons, beginning with the first retreat on June 26, 11 Tammuz, and concluding with the sixth and final Shabbaton on July 24, 10 Av.

Each week, the boys departed Crown Heights on the Farbrengen Retreat bus on Erev Shabbos and made the trip to the Poconos. Once there, the schedule could vary from week to week, with time to settle in at the property before Shabbos began.

The size of the groups also varied between the Shabbatonim. Some weekends were more intimate, with as few as five boys attending, while others brought together approximately 15 boys for the weekend.

The weekends gave the boys plenty of time to enjoy the Poconos, including swimming at a local property featuring a large castle-like mansion. The Shabbatonim included time before and during Shabbos for learning Chassidus, singing niggunim and sitting together for intimate-circle time.

The timing of the Shabbos schedule also varied between the retreats. On one Shabbaton, for example, the group spent significant time learning and singing before eventually davening and making Kiddush at approximately midnight. Other Shabbatonim began the formal Shabbos schedule earlier.

Throughout the Shabbos day, the weekends included minyanim, farbrengens and meals, along with time spent exploring the surrounding Poconos landscape.

The relaxed schedule also continued into Motzaei Shabbos. One Shabbaton included a late-night swim followed by grilled wings at approximately 2 a.m.

Sunday was similarly unhurried, with time for the group to remain at the property, enjoy the surroundings and go on hikes before eventually making their way back to Crown Heights.

While each of the six Shabbatonim had its own schedule and pace, the weekends brought together learning, davening, meals, farbrengens, outdoor activities and time together in the Poconos.

The six-week series concluded on July 24, 10 Av.

Two new air conditioning units were installed Tuesday at 770 Eastern Parkway, replacing equipment that had served the Main Shul for decades.

The installation began early Tuesday morning, with a large crane arriving at the corner of Kingston Avenue and Union Street around 6:00 a.m. Crews then removed the old units and lifted the replacements into place.

According to the Gaboim of 770, the project carries a price tag of more than $250,000.

This week, new doors were installed at the main Shul of 770 as well.

The improvements were made ahead of Tishrei, when thousands of guests are expected to spend extended periods in 770 throughout the Yomim Tovim.

When there was concern that the new Carrier unit would not arrive in time for Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Shaya Gopin of Farmington Chabad, a longtime Connecticut friend of Carrier CEO David Gitlin, reached out to him on behalf of 770. Gitlin took a personal interest in the matter and helped ensure that the unit was expedited and delivered in time for installation ahead of Tishrei. The Gaboim expressed their gratitude to Gitlin for his personal assistance in helping ensure that 770 would be ready for the thousands of guests expected for the Yomim Tovim.

She is survived by her children, Rabbi Eliyahu Slavin of Crown Heights; Rabbi Velvel Slavin of Kfar Chabad, Israel; Mrs. Batya Goldberger of Crown Heights; and Rabbi Dovid Slavin of Sydney, Australia; as well as grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

She was predeceased by her husband, Rabbi Tzvi Hirshel Slavin, and their daughter, Mrs. Tzivia Zaklos OBM of Montreal, Canada.

The family will be sitting Shiva at 440 Crown Street in Crown Heights.

Shacharis: 7:15 AM and 9:30 AM
Mincha: 7:30 PM
Maariv: Bizman

Friday Mincha: 2:00 PM

The Jewish Children’s Museum welcomed local families to its third annual Kids’ Art Festival on Monday, for an afternoon of free crafts, sensory activities and active play in Crown Heights.

Held on the JCM Plaza at 792 Eastern Parkway, the annual summer community event drew children and families for three hours of hands-on activities and entertainment.

With Rosh Hashana approaching, this year’s festival featured a selection of holiday-themed art projects. Young artists designed colorful fans, decorated apple-shaped suncatchers with tissue paper, and created individual pomegranates that were combined into a collaborative community mural.

Children also enjoyed playdough and bubble play, along with a kids’ race track, jumping tires and other active and sensory activities.

Ices were available for children throughout the afternoon.

Now in its third year, the Kids’ Art Festival has become an annual summer tradition at the Jewish Children’s Museum, providing families in Crown Heights and the surrounding community with an afternoon of creativity and fun.

The free event was sponsored by the Jewish Children’s Museum.

By COLlive reporter
Photos: Shlomi Cohen

Rabbonim, Shluchim from around the world, public figures, business leaders and hundreds of residents of Savyon gathered Monday night for the wedding of the Schnur and Bistritzky families.

The wedding, held at the Avenue event hall in Airport City, celebrated the marriage of Chaya Bistritzky, daughter of Rabbi Shmuel Bistritzky, Shliach of Savyon, and the chosson, Shaya Schnur, son of Rabbi Gershon Schnur, Chabad Shliach in Ganei Tikva.

Among the prominent rabbonim attending were Rabbi Yitzchak Yehuda Yaroslavsky, senior Chabad Rov in Israel; former Chief Rabbis Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau; the Sassover Rebbe; Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gluckowsky, Rov of the Chabad community in Rechovot and member of the Chabad Beis Din; Kotel Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz; Rabbi Tzion Cohen, Chief Rabbi of Or Yehuda; and Rabbi Shmuel Aharon Brodman, Rabbi of Munich.

Also in attendance were Israel’s Minister of Religious Services Michael Malchieli, Health Minister Uriel Buso, Rabbi Uri Sadan, and numerous communal activists and public figures.

The chuppah ceremony was emceed by presenter Efraim Kamisar and officiated by the kallah’s grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov, Chairman of Tzeirei Agudas Chabad in Israel. Members of both families who serve as rabbonim and Chabad Shluchim were honored with the brachos.

Throughout the evening, a steady stream of guests arrived to celebrate with the families, including many friends and associates of Rabbi Bistritzky from Savyon and Rabbi Schnur from Ganei Tikva.

The large gathering brought together figures from across Israel’s Chabad community, alongside hundreds of Savyon residents and prominent members of Israel’s business and public sectors.

By COLlive reporter

A Lubavitcher is warning others after a man posing as a Chossid allegedly attempted to defraud him through an elaborate scheme involving a supposed donation to a well-known Chabad institution.

In a WhatsApp voice message circulated Tuesday, the man, who identified himself as “Moishy,” said he received a phone call from a man claiming to be collecting money for a respected Lubavitch institution.

The caller reportedly spoke using familiar Lubavitch terminology and told Moishy that the mosad urgently needed funds “before the new zman starts.” Moishy said he had no connection to the institution but decided to make a donation.

He asked the caller to send him a payment link. The caller allegedly responded that the link was not working and claimed he was sitting in the mosad’s office and could process the donation manually if Moishy provided his credit-card information.

Moishy said he provided a credit-card number.

The caller then claimed that the card was not working and asked for another card. Moishy said he provided a second credit-card number as well.

According to Moishy, the caller continued speaking in convincing Lubavitch terminology and gave his name as “Drizin,” a name Moishy later learned was not his real name.

The conversation then took an unexpected turn.

“You’re a shliach, I want to donate money to you,” the caller allegedly told him.

Moishy said he initially refused, telling the man that he was a bochur and did not want to take money from him. The caller reportedly responded that he had made a significant amount of money over the summer and wanted to make the donation as a favor to the rosh hamosad.

A short time later, Moishy received a Zelle notification indicating that a payment of $685 had been sent to him. The notification stated that the funds would not be available for up to 24 hours.

The caller immediately contacted him again, claiming he had made a mistake and sent too much money. He asked Moishy to return $285, saying he had intended to send only $400 and needed the money immediately to make a car payment.

Moishy refused.

“I don’t think so. When the money comes in, I’ll send it back,” he recalled telling the caller.

The caller continued insisting that he needed the money immediately. Moishy said he told him he did not have the money available and would return it once the Zelle payment cleared.

The caller then hung up.

Moishy immediately contacted the head of the mosad the caller had claimed to represent to verify the story. He was told that the fundraising request was not legitimate.

The incident left Moishy needing to cancel two credit cards after providing their information to the caller. The $285 the caller had attempted to have him return was never sent.

Moishy said the experience taught him a clear lesson: never provide credit-card information to someone who contacts you unexpectedly, even if the person sounds familiar, uses authentic-sounding Lubavitch terminology, or claims to represent a trusted mosad.

He urged others to independently verify donation requests by contacting the institution directly through a known phone number or official website. He also warned people to be particularly cautious when someone sends an unexpected electronic payment and then asks for part of the money to be returned before the original payment has fully cleared.

Moishy said he is sharing the incident as a warning to others and stressed that the specific mosad involved is not the point, since the same scheme could be carried out using the name of another institution in the future.

AUDIO:

The Crown Heights community and the worldwide Anash family of Chassidim have suffered a terrible loss with the passing of Mrs. Henna Markel A”H.

A young mother of 45 has been taken from her precious children and her dear husband.

Henna suffered in silence for years, while doing everything in her ability to care for her family.

For her husband and children, the blow is devistating.

A group of friends and mentors to the family have launched a campaign to raise necessary funds to support the Markels through this unthinkable pain.

Please open your heart during the Chodesh Horachamim and give generously in support of the beloved Markel family.

Click here to participate in bringing comfort and support to the family.

May Henna’s Neshomo have an Aliya and may she be a gutte better for her husband, her children and all of Klal Yisroel.

Thank you for caring for the Markels at this time of loss and pain.

With blessing for a Ksiva Vchasima Tova, Lshono Tova Umesuka.

Markel Family Fund Oversight Committee

Click here to participate in bringing comfort and support to the family.

She is survived by her husband, Rabbi Moshe Markel, and their three sons, Menachem Mendel, Chaim, and Arik.

She is survived by her parents, Rabbi Shaul and Yita Gittel Margolis of Oak Park, Michigan, and her brothers and sisters.

Her husband, sons, parents, and siblings will begin sitting shiva together at the Markel home: 763 Eastern Parkway, Apartment F3, Brooklyn, NY.

Rabbi Moshe Markel and the children will remain at this address.

The following family members will subsequently continue sitting shiva in their respective cities:

Rabbi Shaul and Yita Gittel Margolis, together with Mendy, Dovid, and Shea Margolis, will sit shiva beginning Friday morning at 23170 Gardner Street, Oak Park, MI.

Sora Milecki and Devora Leah Stern will sit shiva beginning Friday at 6540 NW 46th Street, Lauderhill, FL.

Avromie Margolis will sit shiva beginning Thursday evening at 1807 South Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA.

A fund has been set up to assist the family. Click here to participate in bringing comfort and support to the family.

This Wednesday, the Chabad world will mark the twenty-fifth yahrtzeit of the philanthropist Dovid Deitsch. For close to five decades, Dovid and his wife, Sara, supported numerous educational institutions, but one stands out today in his hometown of New Haven.

Now bearing his name and operating in three locations, Yeshivas Beis Dovid Shlomo has, under the leadership of his children and grandchildren, grown into one of the largest out-of-town Chabad yeshivos. Its flagship campus occupies the former St. Brendan Church, the largest house of worship in New Haven.

When Senator Joseph Lieberman visited his hometown, once home to only a small Jewish community, and saw Hebrew letters on the main campus building, he recalled thinking, “I would not be surprised if Moshiach came this afternoon.” As he told Dovid Zaklikowski for his book Yards of Kindness,, had someone told him even a few years earlier that Chabad would one day occupy that building, he would not have believed it. Now, he could only say, “Wow!”
Rabbi Yosef Kalmenson, the longtime rosh yeshivah of the zal who recently passed away, said that when he first arrived in New Haven, he could not have fathomed how much the community would grow. Nor could he have dreamed of having an employer like Dovid.

“He upheld the material needs of the yeshivah,” he said in Yiddish, “and he never mixed into the spiritual aspects of it.” Rabbi Kalmenson described Dovid as a soldier who did whatever needed to be done: “A refined person, a cherished person.”

Dovid never made Rabbi Kalmenson feel as though he were the boss. Instead, he became his study partner. Each weekday, the rosh yeshivah visited Deitsch Plastic to study with Dovid for forty-five minutes. Before they began, the businessman would tell his secretary that he was unavailable until the rabbi left.

The Deitsch-supported educational institution has grown to include a mesivta and a day school. Even during difficult financial times, the rosh yeshivah heard no complaints from its benefactors, the children and grandchildren of Dovid and Sara Deitsch. “They were still dedicated to the yeshivah,” he is quoted as saying in Yards of Kindness. But their commitment went beyond merely covering expenses; “it was done with breitkeit [expansiveness].”
The community, Rabbi Kalmenson said, has grown exponentially over the past two decades, with more shuls and more organizations. “It is a dream that Dovid wanted,” he said, “and is now being fulfilled by his children and grandchildren.”

The new book Yards of Kindness captures the life of Dovid and Sara Deitsch.

By COLlive reporter

As they prepare for a new year of Jewish activity and the upcoming Tishrei season, a group of the Chabad Shluchim in the United Arab Emirates gathered in Tbilisi, Georgia, for an internal planning conference and several days of focused meetings.

The gathering brought together Rabbi Levi Duchman, Rabbi Mendy Blau, Rabbi Mendel Duchman and Rabbi Shimon Frenkel for a series of intensive working sessions aimed at developing plans and priorities for the coming year.

Holding the meetings away from the demands of their regular schedules allowed the Shluchim to focus on the logistical and spiritual development of their growing activities serving the thousands of Jewish residents, tourists and businesspeople who spend time in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

The conference also provided an opportunity for the UAE Shluchim to connect with the extensive Chabad activities in Georgia and exchange ideas with fellow Shluchim.

During their stay in Tbilisi, they were warmly hosted by Georgia’s Head Shliach, Rabbi Meir Kozlovsky, who accompanied them on a tour of the city’s central Chabad House and shared insights from the development of Chabad’s institutions in the country.

A highlight of the visit was a tour of the Or Avner Chabad Jewish school in Tbilisi. The Shluchim toured the school, observed its Chassidishe atmosphere and facilities, and held an extended discussion with Rabbi Kozlovsky about the challenges of Jewish education on Shlichus.

The discussion focused in particular on practical approaches to establishing and expanding educational institutions, an increasingly relevant priority as Jewish communal life and the number of young Jewish families in the UAE continue to grow.

The days in Tbilisi combined strategic planning with the traditional achdus and exchange of experience among Shluchim, providing an opportunity to brainstorm the next stages of Jewish development in the Gulf states.

The conference concluded with a series of hachlatos to strengthen and expand activities ahead of the approaching month of Tishrei and the new year.

“The days of planning together, along with the warm encounter and achdus with the Shluchim and impressive institutions in Georgia, gave us tremendous strength and renewed momentum for the year ahead,” the Shluchim said.

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

Just six months ago, construction began at Lubavitcher Yeshiva to add two additional floors to the Yeshiva.

Just six months later, those floors are complete and ready to welcome the talmidim as they begin the new Shnas Halimudim in beautiful new classrooms.

To see a project of this size go from construction to completion in just six months is truly remarkable. It is something we could only accomplish with the Rebbe’s brachos and the tremendous support of our community.

The new floors give the Yeshiva much-needed space to continue growing and, most importantly, to continue giving every Talmid the pure, uncompromised Chassidishe chinuch that the Rebbe demands of us, raising proud Temimim and true Chassidim of the Rebbe.

The days of the month of Menachem Av, during which Chabad Chassidus marked the yom hillula of the Kabbalist Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, of righteous memory, took on a special significance this year in the Russian capital.

On the soil of Moscow—a place where not long ago, Chassidim paid with their freedom and their lives for the right to study Torah—tents of Torah learning are now flourishing. The Talmudic chant echoing through the halls of the Central Yeshiva Ketana ‘Tomchei Temimim’ in the Istra district of the Moscow suburbs has recently culminated in an impressive Torah publication, serving as a tangible symbol of the victory of spirit and light over the darkness of the Communist regime.

In preparation for the twentieth anniversary of the Yeshiva’s establishment in Istra by the Chief Rabbi of Russia, the Gaon Rabbi Berel Lazar, shlita, another volume in the ‘Armeia Admora’ series has now been published. This collection compiles notes, explanations, and chiddushim in both revealed Torah (Nigleh) and Chassidus—the fruit of the diligent study of the Yeshiva’s rabbis and students. The central tractate discussed in the sefer is Masechet Bava Basra, which was studied over the past year in the Yeshiva, alongside pilpulim (in-depth analyses) and notes on the sichos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a direct result of the Temimim’s winter study campaign in ‘Likkutei Sichos’.

The significance of this Torah journal extends beyond the walls of the Yeshiva, as it contains hidden treasures seeing the light of day for the first time. A special section at the end of the book is dedicated to the historic publication of four rare handwritten responses (maanos kodesh) from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the chossid Harav DovBer Levy, dealing with issues related to activities behind the Iron Curtain. Additionally, the book features a section titled “Dovev Sifsei Yeshenim,” publishing for the first time a shiur given by the Gaon Rabbi Nachum Partzovitz, zt”l, one of the Roshei Yeshiva of Mir, which was discovered in the genizah of the Chabad House in Lugano. Furthermore, the sefer includes historic halachic responsa from former rabbis of the Soviet Union—the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Chaikin, zt”l, and the Gaon Rabbi Zalman Antzilevich, zt”l—as well as a long, profound, and fascinating halachic correspondence between Chief Rabbi Lazar, shlita, and HaGaon Rabbi Chaim Lieberman from Jerusalem.

The sefer, which is arranged in alphabetical order to emphasize that “the Torah is one,” opens with Chassidic discourses (maamarim) discussing the spiritual significance of the twentieth year. This project came to fruition thanks to the support and encouragement of the Yeshiva’s director, Rabbi Chaim Moshe Weber, along with the extensive editing and coordinating efforts of the Ra”m and Mashpia, Rabbi Chanan Teichtel. All this was accomplished under the guiding leadership of the current Rosh Yeshiva, the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Lerman, who continues to build upon the solid foundations laid by the former Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Mordechai Yona Klein.

The publication of this sefer represents a significant Torah milestone in the development of the Yeshiva, many of whose alumni now proudly serve in the army of Shluchim worldwide. The immense investment in study and in committing these chiddushim to writing breathes new life into the Temimim, born from a deep anticipation that this Torah endeavor on Russian soil will serve as the “one act” that tips the scales, bringing about the complete and ultimate Geula.

Download here

Ahead of the new school year, a throwback to the Kinus HaMechanchim keynote address by Rabbi Benjy Korf, Head of School at Lubavitch Educational Center in Miami, Florida, who focused on the theme of raising פרומע, ערליכע, ווארעמע, חסידישע אידן.

Surrounded by hundreds Lubavitcher Mechanchim from across the globe, Rabbi Korf spoke about the tremendous growth in the world of education and the many skills expected of today’s educators. Pedagogy, curriculum, differentiated instruction, classroom management, technology, and professional development all matter, he said, and a mechanech has a responsibility to continually improve his craft.

But none of those things, important as they are, can replace the foundation of Chabad chinuch.

Drawing on the Rebbe’s approach to chinuch, Rabbi Korf emphasized that education is not only about what a teacher knows, but who the teacher is. There are lessons that can be taught, he explained, and there are values that are transmitted simply through the presence, dedication, and example of the mechanech.

At the heart of his address was the unique shlichus of a Chabad mechanech. Rabbi Korf emphasized that children can sense when a teacher approaches chinuch not simply as a profession, but as a mission, and that the mesiras nefesh, hiskashrus, and sense of purpose a mechanech brings into the classroom are felt by his talmidim.

Professionalism, he explained, should strengthen that mission, not replace it.

“Professionalism can never replace hiskashrus. It can only become a tool to support it.” The true uniqueness of Chabad chinuch is the connection of the mechanech to the Rebbe and what that connection allows him to transmit to his talmidim.
Rabbi Korf also spoke about the daily mesiras nefesh of mechanchim, the consistency of walking into the classroom each morning and giving another piece of themselves, day after day, often without recognition or applause. It is precisely that steady devotion, he said, that makes the shlichus of a mechanech so special.
He concluded with an uplifting charge to the mechanchim gathered at the banquet, they are the ones entrusted with transmitting Chassidishkeit and Hiskashrus to the next generation.

By COLlive reporter

Mrs. Miriam Slavin, a Holocaust survivor, longtime Crown Heights resident and matriarch of a large Chabad family, passed away.

She was 96.

Mrs. Slavin was the daughter of Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Sholom Mincberg HYD, the famed Mashgiach Ruchni of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, and Rebbetzin Shaina Gittel Mincberg.

Born in Ostrów Mazowiecka, Poland, she survived the Holocaust together with her mother and six sisters. Her father, brothers, grandparents and other members of her extended family were murdered during the Holocaust.

Throughout years of extraordinary hardship, including time in Siberia, Uzbekistan and France, her mother raised her daughters with a deep commitment to Yiddishkeit.

Even at a young age, Mrs. Slavin displayed the leadership, determination and resourcefulness that helped her family survive extraordinarily difficult circumstances. She later became known as a highly intelligent and business-savvy woman. At a time when it was uncommon for women in her community to pursue business, the Rebbe instructed her to enter the business world.

While in Tashkent, Mrs. Slavin was deeply moved by the Ahavas Yisroel shown to her family by Lubavitcher Chassidim. She later married Rabbi Hirshel Slavin, a Lubavitcher Chossid, in Paris, France, in 1951.

The couple eventually settled in Crown Heights, where they raised their family and maintained an open home known for its Hachnosas Orchim.

Mrs. Slavin developed a deep connection with the Rebbe and often spoke about the guidance she received from the Rebbe throughout her life.

In her later years, she shared her experiences with younger generations, preserving memories of Jewish life before the Holocaust, the hardships she and her family endured during the war years, and the rebuilding of Jewish life and her own family afterward.

She is survived by her children, Rabbi Eliyahu Slavin of Crown Heights; Rabbi Velvel Slavin of Kfar Chabad, Israel; Mrs. Batya Goldberger of Crown Heights; and Rabbi Dovid Slavin of Sydney, Australia; as well as grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

She was predeceased by her husband, Rabbi Tzvi Hirshel Slavin, and their daughter, Mrs. Tzivia Zaklos OBM of Montreal, Canada.

The levaya will pass by 770 Eastern Parkway on Wednesday at 1:30 PM.

The family will be sitting Shiva at 440 Crown Street in Crown Heights.

Shacharis: 7:15 AM and 9:30 AM
Mincha: 7:30 PM
Maariv: Bizman

Friday Mincha: 2:00 PM

Baruch Dayan Ha’Emes.

By COLlive reporter

Mrs. Henna Markel, a Crown Heights resident and mother of three, passed away on Tuesday, 12 Elul, 5786.

She was 45 and battled an illness.

Mrs. Markel, née Margolis, was the wife of Rabbi Moshe Markel, who is involved in the dedicated distribution and sale of Chassidus seforim published by Kehot Publication Society.

She is survived by her husband, Rabbi Moshe Markel, and their three sons, Menachem Mendel, Chaim, and Arik.

She is survived by her parents, Rabbi Shaul and Yita Gittel Margolis of Oak Park, Michigan, and her brothers and sisters.

LEVAYA & SHIVA

The levaya will pass by 770 Eastern Parkway on Wednesday at 12:30 PM and continue to Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, where burial will take place at 1:30 PM.

Her husband, sons, parents, and siblings will begin sitting shiva together at the Markel home: 763 Eastern Parkway, Apartment F3, Brooklyn, NY.

Rabbi Moshe Markel and the children will remain at this address.

The following family members will subsequently continue sitting shiva in their respective cities:

Rabbi Shaul and Yita Gittel Margolis, together with Mendy, Dovid, and Shea Margolis, will sit shiva beginning Friday morning at 23170 Gardner Street, Oak Park, MI.

Sora Milecki and Devora Leah Stern will sit shiva beginning Friday at 6540 NW 46th Street, Lauderhill, FL.

Avromie Margolis will sit shiva beginning Thursday evening at 1807 South Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA.

A fund has been set up to assist the family. Click here to participate in bringing comfort and support to the family.

Baruch Dayan Ha’Emes.

by COLlive reporter

Chana Leiba Chaya Simon (nee Goldhair) passed away on Monday, 11 Elul 5786.

She was 38 and battled a long illness.

Originally from Riverdale, New York, she lived with her family in Ormond Beach, north of Daytona Beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast. She was a registered nurse.

She is survived by her husband, Binyomin Simon, originally from Crown Heights; their two-year-old son; her father, Richard Goldhair; and her sister, Chaya Sarah Lindsay of Ormond Beach, Florida.

The levaya will pass by 770 Eastern Parkway at 2:30 PM on Wednesday, August 26. Kevurah will take place at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens.

Baruch Dayan Haemes.

By COLlive staff
Photos by: Yossi Fajnland, Shalom Ross, Yanky Telsner

The halls of Oholei Torah in Crown Heights came alive today as over 1,100 talmidim began a new Shnas Halimudim across the Cheder and Mechina divisions, filling the classrooms with the vibrant sounds of Torah and tefillah.

Cheder Oholei Torah warmly welcomed talmidim in grades 1 through 7 for a year of growth in Torah, Yiras Shamayim, and Chassidishe chinuch. The talmidim entered their classrooms with excitement, reconnecting with friends and meeting the devoted Rebbeim who will guide and inspire them throughout the year.

At the Troy Avenue campus, the Mechina welcomed its 8th grade talmidim as they began this important stage of preparation for Mesivta. Through a strong focus on Nigleh, Chassidus, personal responsibility, and disciplined learning, the Mechina provides a structured and uplifting environment in which every talmid is encouraged to reach his fullest potential.

A tremendous Yasher Koach goes to the Menahalim, Rabbi Meir Shimshoni, Grades 1 and 2; Rabbi Yossi Evers, Grades 3 through 5; Rabbi Eli Simpson, Grades 6 and 7; and Rabbi Chaim Yisroel Wilhelm, Mechina, together with the dedicated mechanchim who invested significant time and effort preparing their classrooms and programs to welcome the talmidim and begin the year successfully.

The successful opening followed weeks of extensive preparation throughout the summer. The operations department, led by Director of Operations R’ Hersh Meilech Rosenfeld, worked tirelessly to prepare the buildings, classrooms, and campuses to welcome the talmidim.

Behind the scenes, the financial office, led by Rabbi Dov Klyne, worked extensively on staff onboarding, payroll, and the financial arrangements needed for the new year. The registration office, led by Rabbi Sholom Rosenfeld, together with R’ Yanky Vorcheimer and Mrs. Moussia Mondshine, carefully coordinated with families, processed registrations, and organized student records to help ensure a smooth opening for every talmid.

With 1,103 talmidim learning across Cheder and Mechina, the new year begins with tremendous energy and anticipation for a year filled with learning, growth, and meaningful accomplishments.

At every hour of the day and night, Jews from Hong Kong to Hawaii and from Monsey to Moscow turn to ShulchanAruchHarav.com for Torah learning and answers to halachic questions of every kind.

In honor of Chai Elul – the birthdays of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe – the website named for the Alter Rebbe has unveiled a major upgrade, with easier navigation, new interactive features, faster performance and an ad-free learning experience.

Founded and developed by Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein, the site was launched in 2014 to make in-depth Halacha accessible to an underserved English-speaking audience.

More than a decade later, it has grown into a broad learning platform serving both the daily learner and anyone searching for clear, thoroughly researched guidance on a practical question.

Two pillars of the expanded site:

• A massive daily learning program, including a growing audio library and a daily audio shiur that brings Torah into the rhythm of everyday life.

• Tens of thousands of heavily researched Halacha articles, creating an unusually deep English-language library for serious study and practical application.

The daily learning program is one of the central features of the renewed platform. Learners can return each day for structured study across multiple Torah tracks, while the audio library makes it possible to learn while traveling, working or managing a busy schedule.

A daily audio shiur adds a consistent, personal point of connection, transforming the website from a reference shelf into an active daily beis midrash.

Each Daily Torah Companion gathers the day’s major study cycles into one clear packet: Luach Hayom, Tanya, Chumash with Rashi, Tanach, Rambam, Daf Yomi, practical Halacha, From the Rav’s Desk, Ask the Rav and a daily Chassidus insight.

The concise English summaries are designed to make preparation and review easier while giving learners a dependable framework for steady, wide-ranging Torah study.

Readers who want the full experience can join the ShulchanAruchHaRav.com community through a monthly subscription. Membership options include receiving the Daily Learning Companion every day, weekly Parsha Companion PDFs rich with material on the weekly portion, and access to the site’s digital and audio libraries. Higher membership levels also offer additional opportunities for direct engagement and support of the project. View subscription options and join the community.

The second major improvement is the scale and depth of the written library. The website now brings together tens of thousands of articles on Halacha, built through extensive research and organized for both learning and practical use.

Coverage spans the core areas of Orach Chaim, Yoreh Deah, Even HaEzer and Choshen Mishpat, together with extensive question-and-answer material and articles on Jewish mysticism. For the English-speaking public, the result is a remarkably comprehensive destination for in-depth Halachic learning.

“Our overall goal is to make authentic and authoritative Torah learning across the key areas of study more accessible, personal and alive for today’s generation,” Rabbi Goldstein said during a recent tour of the site from his office in Tzfat.

The platform was rebuilt from the ground up to improve usability and performance. Its cleaner, modern interface offers faster load times, simplified navigation and a clearer structure. Pop-up advertisements have also been removed, creating a more focused and distraction-free Torah learning experience.

The upgrade also strengthens the sense of a worldwide learning community. Users can sign up to receive email or WhatsApp content from individual learning categories that have expanded to include Daf Yomi as well as real-time answers to questions submitted to the Rav.

A structured research tool and advanced Halacha database provide organized access to detailed information for study and practical application. The content also draws on Rabbi Goldstein’s extensive published work, including his multi-volume treatment of the laws of blessings, alongside the website’s expanding collection of articles and responsa.

The site also hosts the Home Study Semicha Program, which gives learners around the world a structured path through practical Halacha. Students may study through guided course modules and dedicated textbooks, complete assignments and tests, and work toward certification. The program is designed especially for those who want serious, practical Halachic knowledge but cannot attend a traditional Semicha institute in person.

Chai Elul celebrates the birth of two luminaries who taught generations to bring Torah and Chassidus into lived experience: the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. The renewed ShulchanAruchHarav.com carries that theme into the digital age – connecting rigorous learning with daily life, and opening the doors of a vast English-language Halacha library to Jews around the world.

Plans for further development include continued expansion of content and functionality, additional topics, enhanced search capabilities and ongoing system improvements.

Download daily learning sample 

The redesigned platform is now live at www.shulchanaruchharav.com.
Visit ShulchanAruchHarav.com | https://shulchanaruchharav.com/partner

With camps over and families back home, Crown Heights is getting ready for the start of the school year.

School supplies are being bought, last-minute errands are taking families up and down Kingston Avenue, and everyone is getting those final things in place before the first day of school.

But the school day is only one part of a child’s day.

Across Crown Heights, organizations provide girls with places to learn, spend time with friends, find mentorship and support, and make the most of the hours after school.

Keren Hachomesh helps make many of these programs possible, providing funding to organizations serving girls throughout the community.

As the new school year begins, here are some of the programs Keren Hachomesh is proud to support.

Mogineinu

Mogineinu provides an after-school program for girls who need additional support and a structured, caring environment. Girls can spend their afternoons surrounded by positive influences, activities and people invested in their growth.

Big Sister Program

The Big Sister Mentoring Program pairs eighth-grade girls with post-seminary mentors, giving them a trusted “big sister” for friendship, guidance, and support. The program works with Crown Heights girls’ schools and has already reached hundreds of girls, with relationships that can last for years.

The Space

The Space gives Crown Heights girls a welcoming place to go after school. Through programming, activities, learning and opportunities to socialize, girls can connect with friends in a positive and engaging environment.

Batsheva Learning Center

Batsheva Learning Center empowers women and girls to become confident, independent Torah learners. Its High School Chidon brings that mission beyond their regular school learning, challenging hundreds of girls to master an entire sefer. 

Neshamos

Neshamos promotes mental and emotional wellness in the Crown Heights community, providing education, resources and support around trauma, mental health and addiction while working to reduce stigma and isolation.

Living Chassidus

Living Chassidus provides seminary and post-seminary young women with a warm community centered around Chassidus, learning, friendship and connection. 

Each of these after-school programs offers something different, from mentoring and emotional wellness to learning, activities, and friendship.

Together, they are part of the network supporting Crown Heights girls throughout the year, and Keren Hachomesh is proud to help make their work possible.

As a new school year begins, we’re looking forward to another year of supporting the organizations that are there for our girls, both inside the classroom and beyond it.

To learn more about Keren Hachomesh, visit: Kerenhachomesh.org

Welcome back to school, Crown Heights!

Rabbi Mendel and Mushka Dubrowski will be moving on the Rebbe’s Shlichus to start a New Chabad House in the community of West Philadelphia, PA.

West Philadelphia, once home to a thriving Jewish community of over 75,000 Jews in the 1950s, is now experiencing a remarkable resurgence of Jewish life. The local Jewish population continues to grow as young professionals and families put down roots. Today, upwards of 4,000 Jews call West Philly home.

A New Shlichus Begins Here.

Our mission is to create a warm and welcoming Jewish community where every Jew—regardless of background or level of Jewish knowledge—feels valued, connected, and inspired. From the very beginning, we plan to offer Torah classes, meaningful mitzvah opportunities, holiday programs, community Shabbat dinners, and engaging programs for children and families.

A New Chabad House needs Funding.
As we begin a new Shlichus from the ground up, with no existing infrastructure or financial support, we turn to our friends and colleagues and ask that you partner with us in Kickstarting our Shlichus. Your partnership will enable us to bring this dream to life and lay the foundation for generations of Jewish life in West Philly.

Our goal—as is the goal of every Chabad House around the globe—is to bring more light into the world by adding in Torah & Mitzvos, ultimately bringing about the Coming of Moshiach, may it be speedily in our days. Amen!

Thank you very much for partnering with us in our Shlichus.

Donate here

Start off your year strong with a commitment to learning Halacha. Lemaan Yilmedu, the premiere English-language Halacha program, is kicking off their courses this week! Each year-long course can help you master an area of Halacha in a practical, in-depth way.

Lemaan Yilmedu was created to fill the need for high-quality, immersive Halacha instruction in English. Working with a team of Rabbonim, teachers, translators and graphic designers, we have produced the most comprehensive English-language Halacha courses to date.

This year, Lemaan Yilmedu is offering no fewer than eighteen (!) courses covering a vast range of halachic topics — from the popular Semicha program, through a series of programs tailored for baalei batim such as Hilchos Shabbos, and Orach Chaim, to more advanced study tracks designed for shluchim or rabbis. These include the comprehensive Dayanus program, as well as courses in Hilchos Taharah, Rav Kehilla, Chuppah v’Kiddushin, and more.

“This was the first time I really delved into the practical aspect of a Yid’s life by learning Shulchan Aruch and halacha really well.” says Mordechai Fadlon, a resident of Crown Heights.

“It opened the door to a whole other area of learning that I otherwise would not have had. Additionally, the program is built to provide married men who lead very busy lives an opportunity to learn Torah in a comfortable and doable manner. The demands of the program and the times of the shiurim are all well thought out so that they do not infringe on a person’s work schedule and ability to provide a parnassah for his family.”

Courses are starting this week! Register today to begin your year on the right foot, committing to learning Torah in a practical, concrete way.

Click here to view the full course catalog 

For more details and registration, click here

The halls of Mesivta Oholei Torah are once again filled with the vibrant sound of Torah as 225 talmidim begin a new Shnas Halimudim at the Greenwald Campus on Remsen Avenue, making it the largest Lubavitch Mesivta in North America.

Many of the bochurim arrived directly from a summer at Yeshivas Kayitz Program (YKP), Oholei Torah’s overnight summer program, carrying the energy and growth of the summer into the new year.

Led by Menahel Rabbi Moshe Silman, the Mesivta provides each talmid with the guidance and environment to grow in Nigleh, Chassidus, and Chassidishe hanhogo. Shiur Alef is guided by Sgan Menahel Rabbi Eli Oster, while Shiur Beis and Gimmel are led by Sgan Menahel Rabbi Zalman Laufer. With each division situated on its own floor and learning in its own zal, the bochurim benefit from a focused setting tailored to their stage of growth.

Joining the Mesivta this year is Rabbi Yitzchok Polter, who will serve as a Maggid Shiur in Shiur Gimmel. Rabbi Polter joins the Mesivta’s dedicated team of Mashpiim, Maggidei Shiur, and Mashgichim who devote themselves to the learning, growth, and wellbeing of every talmid.

The Mesivta also welcomed a large group of 17 shluchim, whose energy, warmth, and Chassidishe chayus contribute greatly to the atmosphere of the Mesivta. Through learning with the talmidim, arranging programs, and serving as positive role models, the shluchim play an important role in strengthening the spirit of the Yeshiva.

Located just 15 minutes from Crown Heights, the Greenwald Campus enables every bochur, including those who live at home, to experience a complete day in Yeshiva. Comfortable facilities, three daily meals, and all three tefillos on campus provide an immersive Yeshiva environment centered around learning and Chassidishe growth.
This year, 80 bochurim are residing in the Mesivta dormitory. On Shabbos, the Mesivta hosts sedarim in two locations: at the Greenwald Campus for the dormitory bochurim and those living in Remsen Village, and at Oholei Torah’s main campus at 667 Eastern Parkway for bochurim living in Crown Heights.

Throughout the summer, extensive preparations took place to ensure that every detail was ready for the arrival of the talmidim. Menahel Gashmi Rabbi Sholom Gordon invested tremendous time and effort coordinating the many practical needs of the Mesivta and preparing the campus for a smooth opening.

Director of Operations Rabbi Hirsh Meilech Rosenfeld, together with Rabbi Shneur Zalman Oster, Shaina Rosenfeld, and the entire operations team, worked diligently to ready the batei midrash, classrooms, dormitories, and campus facilities.

The financial office, led by Rabbi Dov Klyne, devoted significant effort to staff onboarding, payroll, and the many financial preparations required for the opening of the year. The registration office, led by Rabbi Sholom Rosenfeld, together with Rabbi Yisroel Cohen, worked closely with families to process registrations, organize student information, and ensure that each talmid could begin the year smoothly.

With spacious learning areas, a state of the art mikvah, a full gym, an outdoor sports field, and comfortable dormitory facilities, the Greenwald Campus offers an ideal setting for the complete development of every bochur. With the new Shnas Halimudim now underway, the talmidim are poised for a year of dedicated learning and personal growth.

In memory of Rabbi Tzvi Meir Steinmetz, known as Tzvi Yair, on his yartzeit, the twelfth of Elul

Tzvi Yair once asked the Rebbe whether his time would be better spent learning Chassidus than writing poetry. The Rebbe answered that his poems would bring many people to learn Chassidus.

On the eleventh of Nissan, 5732, Tzvi Yair brought the Rebbe a collection of poems he had written over the years for that day.

One of them was about the transformative nature of the farbrengen, how we come with our Bikurim, our first fruit offerings.

However when we come to the farbrengen, not all of our gifts are the way they should be, we come with mixed baggage, both good and bad. At the farbrengen the process of birur of Tikun takes place, through “the fire of his word” negativity is burned away and the good is uplifted on high. We have begun to set some of the poems to music please see here https://www.youtube.com/@TheRebbesPoet For an in depth analysis of the poems he gave the Rebbe visit www.therebbespoet.com

A whole matzah
A year after he handed over that collection, on erev Pesach, the Rebbe put a whole shmurah matzah into his hand and blessed him for success in his writing.

He had spent the season packing matzah for other people. He did it every year for decades and reported on it each time, synagogue by synagogue, with the totals written out: fifty packages here, thirty there, a hundred and forty-six to the Hebrew-speakers’ committee, several hundred more to individuals, some four hundred in all. He called it the first of the Rebbe’s campaigns and said he was especially careful about it. One year he mentioned a small refinement, a הידור. Until then he had packed the matzos in plain bags with nothing printed on them, so that nobody knew where the gift had come from. His daughter pointed out that Tzach had printed bags, explaining the purpose of the gift and ending “in accordance with the directives of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” This year, he wrote, they would know, and not only this year but retroactively, across all the years that had gone before.

He wrote to the Rebbe about it the following Nissan, in his birthday report, under the heading he kept for his literary work. He had been listing the encouragement he had received from writers and educators, and then came to the Rebbe’s own:
גם כ״ק אד״ש הרעיף עלי בכמה הזדמנויות דברי עידוד אשר באו כדשן בנפשי, והאחרון הגדול, אות חסדו אשר נגה עלי בערב חג הפסח העבר בתתו לי מצה שמורה שלימה וברכת הצלחה ביצירה ספרותית

The Rebbe has poured words of encouragement on me on several occasions, and they came into my soul like rich food. The greatest of them was the last: the sign of his kindness that shone on me on erev Pesach a year ago, when he gave me a whole shmurah matzah and a blessing for success in my literary work.

It was the third time. And then he begins to reason:
ואומרה לנפשי: הלא דבר הוא אשר מכל השתדלויותי יעלה כ״ק תמיד על נס את יצירתי הספרותית
And I said to myself: surely this means something, that out of all my efforts the Rebbe always singles out my writing.
ואחפוץ לדעת זאת: אולי הפעולה הזאת היא אצלי בבחינת ״במאי זהיר טפי״ וזה עיקר תפקידי בימי חלדי וכל השאר טפל
And I want to know this: perhaps this work is, for me, in the category of what a person is especially careful about, and this is my chief task in my lifetime, and all the rest is secondary.
ואם כן דבר, אולי מן הראוי וההגון והרצוי להקדיש למלאכתי זאת (אשר אמנם ארוכה המלאכה וקצרה המראה) יותר תשומת לב וזמן מאשר הקדשתי לה עד עתה
And if that is so, perhaps it is fitting and proper and desirable to devote to this work of mine more attention and more time than I have devoted to it until now.
And then the request:
אשר על כן בקשתי מרובה, אשר יחונני דעתו והדרכתו בנידון זה
And therefore my request is great: that he favour me with his opinion and his direction in this matter.

Nine days later it was erev Pesach again, and the Rebbe gave him another whole matzah.

He decided what it meant. A year on, writing on the ninth of Nissan, he says so:
לקראת יום י״א ניסן, הנני בזה למלא את ברכתו (וכנראה גם פקודתו) של כ״ק אד״ש בנתנו לי אשתקד בער״פ מצת שמורה שלימה, לאמור: כי המצה השלימה היא אות וסימן לקובץ שירים חדש בשנה שבעל״ט

Toward the eleventh of Nissan, I am herewith fulfilling the blessing, and evidently also the instruction, of the Rebbe in giving me last erev Pesach a whole shmurah matzah, that is to say: that the whole matzah is a sign and a token of a new collection of poems in the coming year.
He read a piece of matzah as an order and spent the year filling it. The reading is his own, and he marks it as his own with that וכנראה, evidently. Then he submits the collection בנשיאת לב ורעד נפש, with a lifted heart and a trembling soul.

The Rebbe answered in his own hand:
ז״ע נתקבל [קובץ השירים] ות״ח ת״ח (וכמובן — ודאי יו״ל כמו דע״ע). וג״ז מזכיר ומעורר השייכות המיוחדת דחה״פ (וכתוצאה — גם ימי ההכנה דחג זה) לשירה, ו(לאח״ז) ושיר — ל׳ זכר דוקא דלעת״ל וכנאמר בהגש״פ: ונאמר לפניו שיר חדש
Received just now, and many thanks. And obviously it should certainly be published, as until now. And this too recalls and awakens the particular bond between Pesach, and consequently also the days of preparation for this festival, and שירה; and afterward שיר, in the masculine specifically, of the time to come, as it says in the Haggadah: and we shall say before Him a new song.

For most of the last fifty years the poems were accessible to only a small number of people. Rabbi Yanki Tauber has translated a number of them on Chabad.org. The rest sit in three Hebrew volumes, in a rich biblical Hebrew woven through with talmudic, midrashic, liturgical, kabbalistic and chassidic allusion, and they arrive on the page bare, with no translation and no notes, nothing to tell you that a phrase in the third line is lifted whole from Yeshaya or that an image in the fifth belongs to a passage in Berachos. A reader who does not already carry those texts in his head reads a beautiful surface and misses most of what is under it.

We have been working to change that. Every poem is being set out line by line with an English translation facing it. The translation does not try to be a poem in its own right; it is a guide to the meaning, meant to open the Hebrew rather than replace it. Beside each line are suggestions as to the sources it may be drawing on and the poetic techniques at work in it, so that a reader can weigh for himself what the poet was doing and what he was working with. The full treatment is at therebbespoet.com. We are also setting the poems to music, with the translation alongside, in the hope that hearing them will carry them further than reading them alone.

Ki Savo opens with a man walking to Jerusalem. He has watched his field all season, and when the first figs ripen he ties a thread around them so he will know which ones are his to bring. He puts them in a טֶנֶא and carries them up.

הִתְוַעֲדוּת חֲסִידִים
Chassidic Farbrengen
א
מִקָּרוֹב וּמֵרָחוֹק
From near and far
הֵם בָּאוּ בַהֲמוֹנִים
they came in throngs
וְהַטֶּנֶא בִּידֵי
baskets in the hands
נְעָרִים וּזְקֵנִים.
of young and old

The basket is the one from Devarim 26:2, the טֶנֶא a farmer fills with his first fruits and carries up to Jerusalem. Here it is in the hands of chassidim arriving at a farbrengen.

ב
וְהַסַּלִּים הָרַבִּים
And the many baskets
מְלֵאִים וַעֲמוּסִים
full and laden
מַחְשָׁבוֹת וּמַעֲשִׂים
with thoughts and deeds
רָעִים וְטוֹבִים.
evil and good

First fruits are רֵאשִׁית fruit, the first and the best. These baskets hold whatever the year produced. The poem piles up מְלֵאִים וַעֲמוּסִים together, full and then laden on top of full, and nobody has picked through it on the way.

ג
בְּחֶדְוַת־חֲרָדָה
In joy of trembling
הֵם עוֹטְרִים שֻׁלְחָנוֹ,
they crown his table
וּטְנֵאֵי־נַפְשָׁם
laying the baskets of their souls
לִפְנֵי הֲדוֹמוֹ.
before his footstool

Gladness and dread in one word-pair.
הֲדוֹם is the word Tanach uses for the Beis HaMikdash itself, the footstool beneath the throne. So when the chassidim set their baskets לִפְנֵי הֲדוֹמוֹ, before his footstool, the poem is not reaching for a vague picture of lowliness at G‑d’s feet. It is naming a building, and putting a table where the building stood.
The gesture is the ceremony’s own: the phrase וְהִנִּיחוֹ לִפְנֵי describes the basket set down before the mizbeach in Devarim 26:4.
Elisha was not a kohen, and still he was brought לֶחֶם בִּכּוּרִים as a gift, from which the Talmud learns in Kesubos 105b that whoever brings a gift to a talmid chacham is as one who offered Bikurim, first fruits.

ד
עֲרוּכִים בַּסָּךְ
Arranged together
פְּרִי הִלּוּלִים
fruits of praise
וְעִנְבֵי רוֹשׁ —
and poison grapes
לְתִקּוּן נִוְהִים,
yearning for repair
לִגְאֻלָּה מְשַׁוְּעִים,
pleading for redemption
כְּמֵהִים עַד בּוֹשׁ.
longing beyond shame.

The phrase פְּרִי הִלּוּלִים names the fourth-year fruit consecrated as praise in Vayikra 19:24. The phrase עִנְבֵי רוֹשׁ comes from Ha’azinu in Devarim 32:32, the fruit of a vine gone bad. Both sit in one basket with a dash between them.
The last three lines say what the people know they are carrying. They are כְּמֵהִים עַד בּוֹשׁ at the end of it, longing past the point where longing is comfortable.

ה
וּבַעֲלוֹת הַמִּנְחָה
And at the hour of the offering
וְרָצוֹן בְּנַפְשׁוֹ —
as the will rose in his soul
וַיִּפֹּל בָּהֶם
There descended upon them
לַהַט אִשּׁוֹ.
the blaze of his fire

The phrase בַּעֲלוֹת הַמִּנְחָה comes from Elijah at Mount Carmel in Melachim I 18:36, where he asked a people wavering between two loyalties to stop wavering, and fire came down and settled it. The verb וַיִּפֹּל echoes verse 38.
A person should be careful about the Minchah prayer, says the Talmud in Berachos 6b, since Elijah was answered at that hour, which the Zohar calls an עת רצון time of favour. The poem has רָצוֹן בְּנַפְשׁוֹ instead, the will rising in his soul. Perhaps the hour of favour comes down into him, and from him onto the table.

ו
וּבְהִתְלַקַּח הַשַּׁלְהֶבֶת
And as the flame caught hold
וַתֹּאכַל לָאֵפֶר
it consumed to ash
כָּל חַטָּאת וְכָל אָשָׁם –
every sin and every trespass
וְגַם מְזִמּוֹת הָאָוֶן
and even the schemes of iniquity
אֲשֶׁר בַּלְּבָבוֹת
harbored in the hearts
כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן.
vanished into smoke

The word הַשַּׁלְהֶבֶת carries the definite article, and behind it stands שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָ-ה of Shir HaShirim 8:6, the flame many waters cannot quench. The phrase כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן is taken word for word from Tehillim 37:20, where it describes the end of the wicked.

ז
וְכָל פֹּעַל צֶדֶק,
And every righteous deed
כָּל רַחַשׁ בָּר,
every pure stirring
כָּל צָקוּן לַחַשׁ –
every whispered prayer
מִמַּעֲמַקֵּי תְהוֹם
from the uttermost depth
בְּלַהַב דְּבָרוֹ
in the fire of his word
עָלוּ מָרוֹם.
ascended on high

A rising list: the deed, then the stirring too small to be called an action, then צָקוּן לַחַשׁ from Yeshaya 26:16, a word that appears nowhere else in Tanach and means something close to pressed out under pressure. The least of the three is named last.
The phrase בְּלַהַב דְּבָרוֹ names the fire of his word. Is not My word like fire, says Yirmiya 23:29. The tzaddik’s holy speech is the vessel through which his vitality reaches those bound to him, says Igeres HaKodesh, chapter 27.
The closing עָלוּ מָרוֹם echoes עָלִיתָ לַמָּרוֹם in Tehillim 68:19, which the Talmud in Shabbos 89a reads as Moshe ascending Sinai for the Torah.

My mother, Mrs. Rochel Yaffe, compiled the biography of Tzvi Yair, The Rebbe’s Poet, which can be purchased here.
The poem appears in volume 2 of כל שירי צבי יאיר under the title מראש צורים at page 267, among the poems for the eleventh of Nissan. It was presented to the Rebbe on the eleventh of Nissan, 5732. Hebrew text © Family Steinmetz; reproduction permitted with attribution. English edited by RY from an AI draft.

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By Menachem Rubinstein

Two things stood out to Rabbi Yosef Mishulovin as he approached the Chabad shul in Samarkand this past Adar.

First, the community had an actual shul that he was no longer afraid to attend. Second, local police were protecting it.

Both facts stood in stark contrast to the last time R’ Yosef strolled the streets of the Uzbek city almost 60 years earlier, when it was buried deep behind the Iron Curtain.

Many people know R’ Yosef as the owner of Chabad Atara’s bookstore and one of the pillars of the Los Angeles Chabad community. R’ Yosef started Cheder Menachem in the early 1990s despite never attending formal school as a young child in Samarkand. He was also one of the original members of Congregation Levi Yitzchok.

Less well known is the story of R’ Yosef’s childhood in Samarkand and the many challenges his family overcame along the way. A recent family visit to Samarkand made it crystal clear that the Mesiras Nefesh of the previous generations produced visible results almost 60 years later.

The Legend of Samarkand

R’ Yosef was born in Samarkand in Adar 1956. His parents, R’ Eliyahu and Sara, née Zaltzman, fled to Samarkand during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The city had a large Lubavitch community, but everyone had to observe Yiddishkeit secretly. R’ Eliyahu served as the unofficial “Rosh Hakohol” of the city despite suffering a major illness he developed as a young man while walking home from a Yud Tes Kislev farbrengen in the snow.

R’ Eliyahu made sure never to record any of his community-related cheshbonos in writing out of fear that the Soviet authorities might discover them. Mrs. Mishulovin had extended family in the city, including her brothers Hillel and Berel Zaltzman. The Mishulovin family had a pet goat that supplied them with Cholov Yisrael milk, and only the kitchen of their home had indoor plumbing.

The city had a few mikvaos, including the mikvah made famous by the chosid R’ Refoel Chudaitov. R’ Refoel once drank the murky mikvah water in front of a Soviet official to assure him the pool was being used for water storage and not ritual purposes. The Mishulovin family also had a mikvah in the shed behind their house.

Most community members, including adults, davened at home in Samarkand out of fear of being caught by the secret police. Children gathered in a different boy’s house every few weeks instead of an official school building. Yiddishkeit could only be practiced in secret in the Soviet Union. R’ Yosef did not set foot inside a shul the entire time he lived in Samarkand. As a result, today he is particular to respect the decorum and sanctity of shul and davening. R’ Yosef is also a perfectionist when it comes to pronouncing the words of the Tefilos and Krias HaTorah. Those who sit at his table know that R’ Yosef does not permit any talking during davening or Kaddish.

R’ Yosef remembers his parents sending letters to the Rebbe via Israel, addressing the letters to “uncle” instead of Rabbi Schneerson. A relative in Israel would receive the letters and then forward them to the Rebbe’s office. Once, the Rebbe responded to one of the letters and signed it “Mendel.”

R’ Yosef remembers learning the Bar Mitzvah ma’amar in the living room of his childhood home. Many families left Samarkand in 1946. R’ Yosef’s family tried for many years to gain permission to leave too. The family was finally allowed to move to Israel in 1969. The majority of the community left Samarkand a few years later, in 1971. Many of these families, including R’ Yosef’s, settled in Kfar Chabad. Sadly, R’ Yosef’s father, R’ Eliyahu, passed away from his illness at the age of 41 just three years after the family resettled in Israel. Mrs. Sara Mishulovin, later Cohen, passed away at the age of 91 in 2023.

70th Birthday

R’ Yosef’s children wanted to celebrate their father’s 70th birthday in a unique way. The Mishulovin children grew up knowing about the legendary stories of Samarkand, many of which are published in the book “Samarkand,” written by their great-uncle, Hillel Zaltzman. R’ Yosef did not discuss his Samarkand experiences often. The Mishulovin children had the idea to accompany their father on a visit to Samarkand to see where it all began for their family.

“I didn’t want to do it,” relates R’ Yosef. “My children took me kicking and screaming! But for my children to see where their ancestors lived with Mesiras Nefesh, I agreed to do it. This was only for my children.”

After months of planning and arranging the logistics, six of the Mishulovin children flew from various cities throughout the world and met up with their father in Tashkent. From Tashkent, they hired a driver to take them on the five-hour journey to Samarkand.

Visit to Samarkand

Once in Samarkand, the Mishulovins visited the Chabad shul. R’ Yosef was surprised to see police guarding the building. Growing up in Samarkand during Soviet times, there was a small shul, but only elderly members of the community attended. In fact, the police at the time sought to arrest people who davened, not protect them! It was a true “V’Nahafoch Hu” moment and a fitting experience for the month of Adar.

R’ Yosef and his children also visited the Jewish cemetery. This was particularly meaningful, as R’ Yosef remembers many of the people buried there, including his grandmother and two great-grandmothers. R’ Yosef’s daughter Alta Bracha Goldstein was especially moved to daven by the kever of her great-grandmother, for whom she is named. Her great-grandmother, together with her husband R’ Avraham Zaltzman, sacrificed to live as observant Jews in Samarkand. Decades later, Alta and her family are continuing their ancestors’ example by spreading Yiddishkeit as shluchim in Naperville, Illinois.

23 Roza Luxembourg

R’ Yosef wanted to find his childhood home, but he was not hopeful. A relative recently visited Samarkand and reported that the home was no longer there. After discussing this with a cemetery attendant, R’ Yosef was surprised to learn that his childhood home was actually still standing, only the street had been renamed after the fall of Communism. The Mishulovin children sprang into action, knocking on every house on the block until they reached 23 Roza Luxembourg. That’s when R’ Yosef saw a familiar sight.

“I was completely shocked,” says R’ Yosef.

His children had helped him find his childhood home. The residents of the home were happy to allow the Mishulovin children and their father inside the home where he lived until he was thirteen.

R’ Yosef’s parents sold the home in 1969 to another Chabad family to ensure that the mikvah would continue to operate. The home was sold again in 1971 when it became clear that most of the community intended to leave Samarkand. The Uzbeki family who bought the home in 1971 still owns it today. The grandfather of the current owner, who speaks Russian and also lives in the home, was able to converse with R’ Yosef and give him a guided tour.

“My father was stunned,” relates Levi Mishulovin. “You could just see it on his face.”

R’ Yosef says it was a happy form of shock. This living room was where the majority of R’ Yosef’s time was spent as a child. It was the room where his brother Shalom Ber’s bris took place in 1959, R’ Yosef’s first memory from Samarkand. It was the room where he learned in the underground Cheder, studied his Bar Mitzvah ma’amar, put on Tefillin for the first time in secret, and even just played with the construction toys his mother bought him. Standing there with his children almost 60 years later was an emotional but proud moment.

When asked whether he was happy he made the trek to Samarkand, R’ Yosef responds without hesitation: “Yes, yes, yes!” He was proud to show his children where it all began, and he even wants to visit again. For his children Chana Cohen, Chaim Eliyahu, Alta Bracha Goldstein, Levi, Ahron Laizer, and Mushka, an important piece of the family puzzle had been pieced together. Nearly 60 years after R’ Yosef and his family left Samarkand, the Mesiras Nefesh of the previous generations had tangible results.

It was a meaningful and inspiring way to celebrate R’ Yosef’s 70th birthday.

Rabbi Yosef Mishulovin can be reached at [email protected]. The author can be reached at [email protected].

By COLlive reporter

With sons of Shluchim and Chassidim from 11 different countries, Yeshivas Tomchei Tmimim Austro-Hungary opened the new school year with significant growth in enrollment.

Students arrived from across Europe, the United Kingdom, and Eretz Yisroel to begin the new year at the Yeshiva, which is housed on a spacious private campus.

Last Sunday, dozens of Temimim walked through the campus gates accompanied by their parents, ready to begin a year dedicated to Torah, Tefillah, and Gemilas Chasadim.

For the first time, the Yeshiva also welcomed a younger cohort of Bar Mitzvah-aged boys as part of its newly established Mechina program, taking their first steps in Tomchei Tmimim.

After settling into their spacious dormitory rooms and enjoying dinner, the students gathered in the Zal for an opening address from the Rosh Yeshiva. Following the address, fathers and sons sat down side by side for a special learning session.

Together, they studied the Maamar “Arba’ah Roshei Shanim Heim,” originally delivered by the Rebbe during a Farbrengen on Chamisah Asar B’Shevat 5731 (1971). The Maamar explores the concept of learning Torah with true pleasure and geshmak.

During his opening remarks, Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Fieldsteel shared an anecdote he had heard from the Rebbe’s Mazkir Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky.

“Rabbi Krinsky once shared with me that during his early days serving as the Rebbe’s secretary, he entered the Rebbe’s office to receive a corrected draft of a letter to retype and mail. When he looked at the paper, his eyes grew dark with confusion. While he was already familiar with the Rebbe’s handwriting, he had never seen anything like this before. It was a maze of words and letters, filled with arrows and circles indicating additions and omissions.

“The Rebbe noticed his confusion and told him calmly: ‘Start from the first word, move to the next word, and so on. When you finish the first line, move to the second line. In the end, you will see that everything is fine.’”

Turning to the newly arrived Temimim, Rabbi Fieldsteel applied the message to their experience at Yeshiva.

“This is exactly how it works in life, and this is how it works in Yeshiva. Many things here might feel brand new to you: the schedule, the intense study hours, the Maggidei Shiur, and your new friends. Do not be overwhelmed. Simply ask yourself: ‘Can I sit and learn during Chassidus Seder tonight?’ Then, ask yourself: ‘Can I say Krias Shema and go to sleep?’ Next, ask yourself: ‘Can I wake up tomorrow morning and learn Chassidus?’ In this way, hour by hour will combine into a full day, and line by line will build into a page of Gemara.”

“We invested immense resources to bring in Maggidei Shiur and Mashpiim from the forefront of the Yeshiva world,” said Budapest Shliach Rabbi Shlomo Koves, under whose auspices the Yeshiva operates and who secured the government approval to establish the institution.

“With the significant growth in student enrollment, we needed to expand our faculty. Instead of settling for local searches, we went above and beyond to bring the absolute best educators from New York.”

Rabbi Fieldsteel credited the Yeshiva’s success to its dedicated faculty members.

“The success of the Yeshiva belongs entirely to each and every one of our Maggidei Shiur and Mashpiim, who are fully devoted to the Yeshiva as a whole and to every single student individually,” he said. “Everything achieved by myself and the Temimim is thanks to them. We are blessed with first-class educators, led by Rabbi Shmuel Alperowitz, Rabbi Avi Biederman, Rabbi Meir Wilhelm, Rabbi Mendel Vishetsky, Rabbi Yitzchak Niazov, Rabbi Yaakov Neimark, Rabbi Meni Neimark, and Rabbi Yehoshua Fuchs, alongside a team of dedicated Madrichim. We are truly fortunate.”

The Yeshiva has built a reputation for providing sons of Shluchim and Anash in Europe with high-level Torah study combined with individualized attention. The program takes place on a private, expansive campus designed to provide the students with the yishuv and harhavas hadaas needed to thrive.

Rabbi Shmuel Glitzenstein, the Yeshiva’s Menahel, said the growth in enrollment led to the establishment of the new Mechina program.

“Due to overwhelming demand this year, we were privileged to launch a Mechina program for 8th-grade-aged boys on very short notice. We have welcomed students from Finland, Germany, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, Eretz Yisroel, Ukraine, Hungary, Monaco, Italy, and Austria.

“Baruch Hashem, we currently have close to 70 students. As the Yeshiva’s reputation continues to soar, we unfortunately had to close registration because we reached full capacity. In the coming months, we will begin expansion works on campus so that we can accommodate up to double the number of Bochurim next year.”

This video was a featured highlight at the Kinus Mechanchos Chabad Banquet 5786, sharing the moving story of Mrs. Nami Freedman, who began her teaching career in Johannesburg, South Africa, highlighting the lasting impact of her work.

Nami’s first year in the classroom was challenging, and at the time, she had no way of knowing the impression she was making on her students. Years later, the results of that first year came to light in a deeply meaningful way, revealing the profound influence she had on a student’s life.

Her story is a powerful reminder that a mechaneches may not always see the impact of her work in the moment. The seeds planted in a classroom can take years to grow – and the effects of one teacher’s dedication can last a lifetime.

What She Never Knew

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]

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/

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.

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.

By COLlive staff
Photos by Shalom Ross

Oholei Torah Beis Medrash in Crown Heights 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 Blau. “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 Lustig. “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.

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.