Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Rosh Chodesh Adar - when we enter Adar we increase in simcha - joy and happiness. And simcha breaks all boundaries. A short story.

A great chossid once told a story to the chassidim that late one night, while he was learning, all of a sudden he felt a presence of another person sitting right next to him. The chosid became anxious, extinguished the candle that he was learning by and went straight to bed. "Why did you do that?" the chassidim asked. "Maybe it was "Eliyahu Hanovi." "It was not, answered Reb Shlomo. "Eliyahu Hanovi is always happy and this person was full of sadness. So I knew that he came from the side of evil (sitra ahra)."

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Sarah Palin's Common Sense Speech at the Tea Party



some points from the speech:

drill here, drill now to help economy and make jobs
fear of G-d will help America to prosper!
do not make friends with terrorists
don't be afraid of what the popular media thinks and says

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Two great stories of the Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka that were heard recently

The Rebbetzin, Chaya Mushka enjoyed flowers all her life. When it came to be her and the Rebbe's 50th wedding anniversary Nishei Chabad sent a big bouquet of flowers to the Rebbetzin and included with the flowers a card addressed to her with requests for blessing for women who were married but weren't able to have children yet and were asking for brorchos for children. They brought the flowers to the Rebbetzin and took out the card to take to the Rebbe. The Rebbe looked at the card and when he saw that it was addressed to the Rebbetzin he said “this is addressed to my wife please take it to her” The man, Mr. Halberstam said that these were requests for blessings. So the Rebbe said, “she too can bless”. Then the Rebbe said further that Chassidus explains that there are two kinds of light, memale kol almin and soviv kol almin, a light that fills the worlds and a light that “surrounds” the worlds. When the Rebbe blesses his blessing are a level of memale and a person has to do something in this world like a good deed in order to get those blessing to manifest in this world. When the Rebbetzin blesses her blessings are on a level of sovev and when she blesses a person does not even have to do anything and the blessings materialize in the world.


The first story might help us to understand the second story.

There was a lady who lived in Crown Heights above the old Albany Bakery and she realized that every morning at the same time a car would pull up to the bakery with the Rebbetzin in and her driver. The driver would park, come out of the car into the bakery and buy bread and pastries probably for the Rebbe. The lady lived above the bakery and when she had guests over at her apartment she would close the blinds or divert them away from the windows in order not to disturb the Rebbetzin. One day a lady came over who had been married for eight years without having been blessed with children. So the lady of the house said “I usually don't do this but this is an exceptional case” she told her to go outside and stand on the sidewalk where the Rebbetzin's car would arrive shortly. The Rebbetzin's car pulled up and the Rebbetzin opened the window slightly and gave a glance at the young lady who had positioned herself next to the Rebbetzin's window. Nine months later the lady gave birth to a beautiful baby.

These stories were heard in numerous places including from Yosef Paltiel's shiurim, check them out at insidechassidus.org

Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Physical is Connected to the Spiritual and why learn Chassidus Chabad?

Many people ask why should I, or any other person, learn Chassidus? Firstly, Chassidus was not around until relatively recently and secondly, when a person learns Chassidus the more learned he becomes, the more “bittul” (nullified, void, negated, humble) he becomes. When a person learns nigleh the greater he becomes, the more important, big and respected he is. When a person learns chassidus the opposite happens. So what is the advantage in that? The Lubavitcher Rebbe addressed this question in a sicha in 1952.
We can see the answers to this question from a disease that has unfortunately become strong relatively recently in the course of history. The Rebbe did not even want to say the name of the disease because it is so destructive. When it comes to a regular sickness, the way to cure a person is by strengthening the body. But when it comes to this disease the way to battle it is to destroy it or cut it out of the body. So if a person would come along and claim that he does not want that this disease be destroyed but that he wants that this thing should remain in his body because after all it's a part of him and it adds to him, we would tell this person that this particular sickness has to destroyed.
It used to be that when people learned Torah they felt nullified to G-d Almighty naturally because they saw the G-dliness behind the words of Torah. But a new phenomenon has occurred in more recent times. When a person learns nigleh of Torah, like Jews always have, he builds up his ego and “feels” himself to be a real something. This "something"is not a good addition but an aberration that should be eliminated because it is not a healthy trait. The way to fight this disease is to learn Chabad Chassidus, which shows and reveals the G-dliness behind the words of Torah.
So this answers both of our questions. 1) Since this spiritual disease did not exist in previous generations therefore the cure “Chassidus” was not needed, as it is known that G-d sends the cure before he sends the decease. 2) The reason why learning Chassidus makes a person less of a “something” is because this is precisely the cure which is required for our times and our generation and our problems.

Have a great week everyone!