New Book Gathers Rebbe’s Uplifting Views on Life

The latest book in the Advice for Life series, Kaleidoscope: Uplifting Views on Daily Life, distills hundreds of the Rebbe’s talks, letters and private encounters into 75 brief entries. As with the other books in the series, the easy-to-read text is presented with a crisp design and historical photos, some published for the first time.

The entries, with titles like Racism, Leadership and Maimonides, are introduced with brief synopses of the Rebbe’s views on the subjects by Dovid Zaklikowski, the series compiler.

“When two Chabad students visited Iran in 1979, they planned to lay the groundwork for the opening of a Chabad House there,” reads the introduction to Differences. “Instead, the revolution that ripped through the country led them to spearhead an operation that saved thousands of Jewish children. Just as the revolution was coming to a head, they orchestrated a daring escape in which children were airlifted to Italy, and later brought to the United States. Chabad communities cared for the children’s physical needs and encouraged them to maintain their unique Persian customs.”

The introductions are followed by quotes from the Rebbe, in this case, a letter to the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, expressing the Rebbe’s appreciation for every community’s unique traditions and the importance of preserving them:

Virtually every Jewish community comprises a variety of groups, each with a distinct identity in terms of ancestral heritage and traditions, as exemplified by different synagogues with different customs, such as Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Yemenite, etc. Side by side, they contribute to the advancement of the Jewish community as a whole. You surely know that the rabbis in all generations scrupulously upheld the validity of the various canons of prayer services, tracing their diversity to the original twelve tribes of Israel. Experience has shown that whenever a uniform educational system has been imposed on a multifaceted community, it inevitably proves disastrous.

The entry on drugs describes a private audience with scholar and author Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael (Steinsaltz), during which the Rebbe explained that the Torah requires one to be “the master over oneself, and anything that one is enslaved to is wrong.”

In 1964, the book states, the Rebbe wrote that this rule applies with special force to the use of drugs to enhance spiritual experiences: “Drugs are good for healing, as prescribed by a doctor. The Jewish way is not to use artificial means to connect to G-d or to feel more spiritual. When it comes to spiritual life, Judaism teaches that one should use one’s G-d-given capabilities. In this manner, going from strength to strength, one will reach the highest plateaus, as our sages say (Talmud, Megillah 6b), ‘If you toil, you will be successful.’”

Kaleidoscope is available at your local Jewish bookstore, on Amazon Prime or in bulk from RebbeAdvice@gmail.com.