Posted on 07/06/2008 5:35:56 PM PDT by goldstategop
sioned humanity. His message became a mantra: give charity, pray daily, offer hospitality, and love every stranger as oneself.
He practiced what he preached.
A Catholic gay man I know wrote the Rebbe a letter disagreeing with the Bible's views on homosexuality. Never expecting his letter to even reach the Rebbe, he was blown away when he received a five-page response in which he was treated as being infinitely beloved of God.
Where some religions condemn abortions, the Rebbe sought to cultivate a love of children.
THOSE OF us who can still close our eyes and remember the enormous public gatherings where the Rebbe, a world-renowned scholar, would spend hours teaching children, or the warm smiles he would give our own children when, on Sundays, he would furnish thousands of kids with a dollar for charity, can only imagine the infinite anguish this great man felt when God withheld giving him offspring. But that seemed to only increase his empathy as he adopted the world's children as his own.
When a man wrote to the Rebbe about an argument he had with his wife over home improvements, the Rebbe wrote back, "The true greatness of a man is to fulfill his mission in life by acting in a way that is favorable to the members of his family and the people that are around him." Incredible. A world religious figure telling a man that he would find "true greatness" not by how piously he behaved in the synagogue but in how lovingly he treated his wife in the kitchen.
What is the Rebbe's legacy? Simply this. He gave faith back its heart. In inventing global religious outreach, which has now been copied by nearly every other world religion, he shattered forever the religious inclination to judge, marginalize, and send away.
ONCE, WHEN I was 16, I was standing on Rehov Ben Yehuda in Jerusalem giving out Sabbath candles to non-religious women. An American mother in a tank-top ran away from me as I approached her. I calmly told her that I could not recall giving her offense. She then related that she had just come from a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem where a man with a beard spat on her for showing cleavage. I responded that my rebbe had taught me that in a place where there is darkness it is best to light a candle. She took the Shabbos lights and went happily on her way.
Islam is a great world religion. What it most needs today is a Rebbe courageous enough to buck the trend of religious judgment, enjoining believers to inspire rather than destroy. The same is true of even evangelical Christianity which, while producing adherents of unparalleled generosity and kindness, often sees its teachings spilling over into diatribes against the immorality of a godless culture. They too need a Rebbe to teach them to bless the daylight rather than curse the night.
Most of all, it is we Jews who ought to rediscover the legacy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. With the deep divide between religious and secular in Israel and the chasm that separates Orthodoxy from Reform in the US, we need to remember a leader who taught us that religion places as much faith in man as it does in God and that the principle means by which we come closer to God is by loving His children.
About once a month I travel to the tomb of the Rebbe. I never tire of reading the awesome words of his headstone. "Here lies Ohr Olam - a light of the world."
My God. To be a mere mortal and to burn so brightly that one becomes a light of the world. If only, if only.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
What is a Rebbe?
hu???uh??? What in the world is that title supposed to say? I have no idea...amazing
I’d say that “Rebbe” is a diminutive for “Rabbi”, that is a more familiar and affectionate form of the title.
Are they talking about Menachem Mendel Schneerson aka ‘the rebbe’?
A Hassidic cult in Brooklyn believes this man (deceased) to be the Messiah.
Did a part of the beginning of the article get left out?
Apparently, it's been a while since Shmuley read the Nevi'im.
I have met Boteach. The man is absolutely desperate to remain relevant.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Islam is a collective of individuals...the greatest anti-truth, anti-freedom, anti-individual, anti-life collective in the history of civilization.
BUMP!
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