In this week’s edition of Letter and Spirit, in anticipation of the Yomtov of Shavuos, we present a letter from the Rebbe in which he explains why G-d gave 613 commandments to the Jews and 7 commandments to the rest of humankind, the benei Noach. The letter was written through the Rebbe’s trusted secretary Rabbi Nissan Mindel, and was made available by the latter’s son-in-law, Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro.
Thirty talented new youth counselors, from the 15 branches of the rapidly growing ‘EnerJew’ Jewish youth movement in the former USSR, attended a special five day professional seminar in Moscow, the capital of Russia, which was also attended by mentors and leading lecturers.
Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, executive vice-chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, along with his son Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, director of Merkos’ Suite 302, arrived this morning in Kathmandu, Nepal, to assist the local Chabad Center with their humanitarian efforts in the aftermath of an earthquake that devastated the impoverished nation.
A Crown Heights family recently uncovered a vintage collection of photographs taken in and around the original building of Lubavitcher Yeshiva in the U.S., located on the corner of Bedford and Dean in Brooklyn, during the mid 1940s. The album was shared with us by Lubavitch Archives. Can you identify anyone in the photos?
When Chabad of Nepal got word that about 50 Israelis were stuck in several remote villages with no food, electricity or water, they sprang into action, organizing an effort to try and reach them. But a rescue mission to deliver food and a satellite phone to them by motorcycle yesterday ended after a 10-hour journey that met with blocked roads and no way to get through to them.
As a spoof of the viral video published last fall of a woman experiencing over 100 instances of verbal harassment during a 10 hour period walking the streets of New York City, Shliach to Uruguay Rabbi Mendy Shemtov made this video to show what it’s like to walk the streets of Montevideo as an Orthodox Jew.
Many people are shaking their heads at the destruction in Baltimore and wondering how anyone could burn and loot their own community. PIX11 News spoke to Richard Green, an activist in the Crown Heights African-American community, about what he believes leads protesters to stage violent riots.
IDF Captain (Res.) Dan Gordon, a screenplay writer and author, relates a story from the recent war between the IDF and the Hamas terror group, how a group of Orthodox Jews looking for wheat to be used for Matzos during a Shmitah (sabbatical) year foiled a terror attack that Hamas sought to launch through one of its terror tunnels.
Rabbi Shalom Rephun was the principal of Manhattan Day School and currently resides in Manhattan. He was interviewed by JEM’s My Encounter with the Rebbe project in his home in June of 2009.
