By Rabbi Yoseph Kahanov Jax Fl.
As a child of four or five, Rabbi Shalom DovBer of Lubavitch, during an encounter with his grandfather, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, burst into tears. He had learned in Cheder the opening verse of Parshas Vayeira: “And G-d revealed himself to Avraham…” “Why,” wept the child, “Doesn’t G-d reveal Himself to me?!”
Rabbi Menachem Mendel replied: “When a righteous Jew, at the age of 99, realizes that he must circumcise himself – that he must continue to perfect himself – he is worthy that G-d should reveal Himself to him.”
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“As a young man, full of questions about faith, I travelled to the United States where, I had heard, there were outstanding rabbis. I met many, but I also had the privilege of meeting the greatest Jewish leader of my generation, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Heir to the dynastic leadership of a relatively small group of Jewish mystics, he had escaped from Europe to New York during the Second World War and had turned the tattered remnants of his flock into a worldwide movement.