Every year Rabbi Mordechai and Chana Lightstone travel to Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest (SXSW) technology conference, there they promote #openShabbat where they encourage Jews to ‘unplug’ and attend a Shabbat dinner.
Over the 8 days of Chanukah, Yeshiva students from Tzeirei Hashluchim of Tzfas will be visiting over 40 army bases in northern Israel, on the Lebanese and Syrian borders, bringing the light and joy of Chanukkah to the soldiers who are protecting our holy land on the front lines.
With Chanukah beginning this Wednesday evening, Nov. 27, preparations are at a high pitch at Chabad-Lubavitch centers to reach an estimated 8 million people in more than 80 countries through public menorah-lightings large and small, in addition to the distribution of 2.5 million holiday guides, 700,000 menorahs—oversize public ones and those affixed to car roofs for parades—and some 30 million Chanukah candles.
On November 11, 2013, 354 menorah sets were shipped to various destinations around the world. From California to Florida, from Nigeria all the way to Belgium, these packages were shipped to the students of the Jewish Online School who are participating for the first time ever in a global mission: “Light It Up.”
Every Friday, 23-year-old Yonasan Waller hops aboard an oversized RV outfitted with colorful signs and loudspeakers. Dubbed a “mitzvah tank,” the vehicle—stocked with folding tables, Torah literature, tefillin and Shabbatcandles—serves as a mobile command center for Waller and a dozen of his fellow yeshivah students, who drive from Brooklyn to Manhattan every week. Their goal along the way is to spread Jewish awareness, and encourage Jewish men and women to perform mitzvahs.
This past Friday afternoon, a group of Bochurim learning at the Rabbinical College of America in Morristown visited Rutgers University in central New Jersey to reach out to Jewish students on campus.
A mobile Sukkah with several Bochurim on board brought the Mitzvah of Lulav and Esrog – as well as eating in the Sukkah – to many Jews in the shadow of the iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.
“Excuse me, are you Jewish?” It’s a question heard on the streets of New York and other cities this time of year as members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement approach other Jews and ask them to shake the lulav and the etrog — a sheath of palm fronds and a citrus fruit — in observance of Sukkot.
The iconic Tefillin stand at the Kotel, operated by Tzeirei Chabad, ‘switched over’ to carrying the Daled Minim for the days of Yom Tov and thousands merited to shake the Lulav and Etrog. Photographer David Kotlar presents a gallery.
Yesterday, Yossi and Sterna Zwiebel of Crown Heights took their children on a Chol Hamoed trip to the Prospect Park Zoo. The children made sure to bring along a set of Lulav and Esrog, and asked any Jewish person they encountered if they would partake in the Mitzva.
Released Time Program, run under the auspices of the NCFJE, distributed sets of Arba Minim for the families of the public school children who attend the program.
Two intrepid young rabbis are going “up the river” for the High Holidays — to a federal lockup in Brooklyn, where they will lead Rosh Hashana services for Jewish convicts.
A Jewish merchant in Manhattan was the proud owner of a beautiful looking Mezuzah which he purchased a few years back at a Judaica store. Last Friday, as two bochurim paid their weekly visit to his office, they suggested that – as is customary in the month of Elul – he allow them to inspect the Mezuzah and make sure every letter is Kosher.
The New Republic ran a feature story about the lives of inmates in one of Russia’s harshest prisons, founded in the late 1930s as part of the infamous Gulag system. In a couple of photos, Lubavitcher bochurim can be seen putting on tefilin and sharing a few words with several Jewish prisoners.
In a follow up to the story we published last week – of an 83-year-old man who put on Tefilin for the first time, Rabbi Moshe Klein returned to the old-age home this week with a decorated cake, which he presented to the ‘Bar Mitzvah boy.’
Each Friday afternoon, students of the Rabbinical College of Australia (YG-Melbourne) and Mesivtah take part in Mivtzoim, and this past Sunday, the eve of the 15th of Av – 21 July, over 50 people regularly visited on Mivtzoim gathered to thank their Friday volunteers.
Rabbi Moshe Klein of Crown Heights travels every Thursday to an old-age home to help the Jewish residents put on Tefilin. One elderly Jew would always refuse week after week, saying he never did it before and didn’t want to begin now.
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