Free Republic

A Vain Battle If there was ever a battle fought in vain, this was it. Or at least, so it seemed at the time. The year is 1924. Vladimir Lenin, the father of the communist revolution, is dead; over 900,000 people pass through the Hall of Columns during the four days and nights that Lenin's body lay exposed to the public. Josef Stalin succeeds him as the new leader of the Soviet Union. During the following thirty years, he would murder 50 million of his own people. Jews and Judaism would be one of his primary targets. He sets up...

NYC Mayor-Elect Eric Adams @ Menorah: ‘We NY’ers Know What the Rebbe Did for Us’ Shares Chanukah message of hope By Dovid MargolinNovember 30, 2021 11:15 AM On the first night of Hanukkah, New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams helped light the world’s largest menorah at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, sharing the message of Chanukah as taught by the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. On the first night of Hanukkah, New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams helped light the world’s largest menorah at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, sharing the message...

The Riminov Rebbe visited the Florida communities made up of South American immigrants from France, gave an unequivocal command to the Jews to leave and go to Israel, saying that there will be a civil war in the US. BeHadrei Haredim reported that the Rebbe said: “Leave while you still can. The situation will get worse and it will be difficult to move from state to state. After World War II the survivors came to the great men of Israel and Hasidic leaders and asked why they had not ordered the Jews of Europe to leave and immigrate to Israel...

During the darkest times, Hashem sent Mordechai to shine a light and renew people's faith. His battle wasn't limited to the physical and the natural. As a first step, he strengthened the Torah education of Jewish children and gathered the people to return to Hashem. The darkest part of the Egyptian exile caused Hashem to send Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses) into the world. Were one to pin their success to some characteristic of theirs, no matter how lofty a trait, one would miss the mark. No one set of attributes allowed Moshe to bring the 10 plagues upon the enemies of...

Link to the (ongoing) "Kinut haShluchim" Conference of the Emissaries, the rabbis of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement throughout the US (all stated but SD!) and abroad.

Thirty-three miles into the Arctic Circle, in the village of Kotzebue, Alaska, where more than 70 percent of the people are Eskimo, the local elementary school had guests one day: two Chabad shluchim (emissaries) from Anchorage, some 550 miles away. The children showed them Eskimo dances from the Inupiat tribe. The shluchim danced chasidic dances. Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz asked, “Did any of you ever meet a Jew?” One girl raised her hand, yes, and she pointed to her mother, the fifth grade teacher. The mother had intermarried with a native man. The mother asked if the visitors could tell something...

Whenever someone asks me a question, I first have to think, “What kind of a box has this guy trapped me in?” Then I can deconstruct the box. If the box dissolves, there goes the question. If it doesn’t dissolve, I better listen up. The guy’s got a point.

Somewhere in the Carmel hills of northern Israel, diamond exploration company Shefa Yamim hopes to uncover the exact spot where faith meets science. Inspired by the words of a revered rabbi who prophesized that precious stones were divinely buried in the area, the firm has been mining for about a decade along the steep hills and lush valleys that surround the city of Haifa. Now, Shefa Yamim, the first and only diamond explorer in Israel, says it has found strong signs that significant diamond deposits are indeed hidden in the Holy Land, surprising many who had dismissed the mission as...

In 1961, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory, and Professor Cyril Domb exchanged correspondence on the subject of Torah and Science. Professor Domb was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University from 1952 to 1954 and professor of theoretical physics at King's College, London, from 1954 to 1981. From 1981 to 1989, Domb was professor of physics at Bar-Ilan University, and remains professor emeritus there. He is also president of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists. He now lives in Israel.

The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory and President Ronald Reagan enjoyed a deep relationship for many years. National Day of Reflection By the President of the United States of America Amid the distractions and concerns of our daily existence, it is appropriate that Americans pause to reflect upon the ancient ethical principles and moral values which are the foundation of our character as a nation. We seek, and steadfastly pursue, the benefits of education. But education must be more than factual enlightenment-it must enrich the character as well as the mind. One shining example for people of...

"Joy to the world the Lord has come." This misquote from Isaac Watts, along with a link to a Chabad Web site, appears on a billboard. Not a real billboard, but a Photoshopped one that appears on the Web site of a Chabad activist in the U.S. Advertisement Rabbi Ariel Sokolovsky is a Moldova-born Chabad rabbi in Portland, Oregon, and a more amiable soul would be hard to find. Yet Sokolovsky maintains a blog he entitled "Rebbegod" and refers to Schneerson as "Rebbe-Almighty" among other adulatory sobriquets. Drawing on rabbinical sources, he attempts to show that this is not as...

We share a wondrous account sent in by Rabbi Moses Hayyim Greenvald, translated from the Yiddish. My father, Rabbi Abraham Zvi Greenvald, was born in Lodz, Poland, and was orphaned from his father at the age of 8. His mother was left with seven little orphans, and she worried much about the education of her eldest boy, whom she sent to live with a cousin, the exalted scholar Rabbi Menachem Zemba, may G-d avenge his blood. It was he who raised my father with great self-sacrifice. Understandably, he was concerned about my father's studies and even tutored him personally. My...

This morning as the sun rose over Jerusalem, my wife Leah gave birth to a beautiful baby girl at the Hadassah Medical center. A few hours later I drove to the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Malachi where my wife's parents live.After packing several personal items that my wife will need for her hospital stay, I set out to drive back to Jerusalem. As I passed the central bus station in Kiryat Malachi, I saw an Israeli soldier waiting to get a ride. I rolled down the window and asked him where he needed to go. He said his...

The dispute over which of Moses Teitelbaum's sons will succeed him as the grand rabbi of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Jews raged in and out of court for the last six years of his life. Rabbi Teitelbaum's death last night appears unlikely to bring the controversy to a close. Less than two hours after the rabbi died, as tens of thousands of grieving Satmars thronged the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Kiryas Joel, N.Y., a judge in Orange County issued several orders. Rabbi Teitelbaum's third son, Zalmen, lives in Williamsburg; his eldest son, Aaron, lives in Kiryas Joel in...

NEW YORK CITY, USA - Shoppers, fresh from the streets of a city mad with holiday glitter swept into the lobby of the New York Hilton and found themselves in a different world. Eddies of buddy groups, the boys who played basketball in the yeshiva gym and grew up into spiritual leaders the world over, who only saw each other over the four-day International Conference of Shluchim clustered alongside the lobby sculpture. Newlywed young, wise eyed sages, the thin, the not-so-thin. Ginger headed, blond, gray streaked, speaking a polyglot of Hebrew, Yiddish, English, Russian and French. Chabad -Lubavitch Shluchim--2,769 representatives--had...