Daily Archives: April 7, 2006

Education and Sharing Day, U.S.A., 2006

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

A quality education is the cornerstone of a hopeful tomorrow for all our children. Education and Sharing Day highlights our strong support for our young people as they pursue lives of learning, prepare to become responsible leaders, and work to reach their full potential.

On Education and Sharing Day, we remember the efforts of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who promoted the importance of education and ethical teachings to every student’s future. He sought to improve lives and communities through a vast network of education and outreach centers and social service programs around the world. We continue to be inspired by the Rebbe’s good works and all those who dedicate their time, talents, and energy to helping our next generation grow into caring, responsible adults. Through devotion to faith, family, education, and community, we can continue building a better and more compassionate society.

Surprising sedarim Area Jews recall past Passovers

For many Jews, Passover means cleaning the cupboards, dusting off the seder plate and passing on the cookie jar at work.

For some others, however, Pesach has meant having to walk home with an armed guard in the dead of night, sending a Passover recipe via overseas radio and holding a seder in a rain forest.

In October 2004, Rabbi Berel Wolvovsky of Chabad of Silver Spring was commissioned by the Chabad movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to spend Chanukah in Namibia and Zambia. The trips were such successes that he and a friend were asked to return to Africa to host a seder last year for the Jewish community in Lusaka, Zambia.

From Bardichov to Japan

The Seder of the Recovering Alcoholic

Passover of 1997 I celebrated in Japan.

Rabbi Moshe Katlarsky of Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn requested of a colleague and myself to travel to the Far East and conduct public Passover Seder’s for the Jewish community living in the remote city of Kobe. Our journey to Japan and the numerous encounters with hundreds of Jews residing in that part of the world remains etched in my heart and fresh in my memory.

My friend, Moshe Leiberman (today a Rabbi in Boston), supervised the meticulous procedures of koshering the Synagogue kitchen for Passover and preparing the food for the Seder. We did not know how many people to expect (there are wandering Jews to be found in every corner of Japan). To our astonishment, our first public Seder attracted close to two hundred Jews, most of them from very secular backgrounds, some have not attended a Passover Seder in decades.