In this week’s edition of Letter and Spirit, we present a letter from the Rebbe to a geneticist who had trouble understanding how it was scientifically possible for Yaakov to mutate the genes of sheep through visual stimulation. The letter was written in English through the Rebbe’s trusted secretary Rabbi Nissan Mindel, and was made available by the latter’s son-in-law, Rabbi Sholom Ber Shapiro.
The late Shirley Chisholm was honored by President Barack Obama at the White House when she posthumously received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. Chisholm made history in 1968 when she became the first female black American elected to Congress, representing New York’s 12th District for seven terms. She also became the first major-party black candidate for president of the United States when she ran for the Democratic Party’s nomination in 1972.
It was one of those rare scenarios for which words cannot do justice. On Sunday, Yud Kislev, if you entered the Bnos Chomesh Academy building here is what you would have seen: A large bouquet of purple and gold balloons gracing the building’s entrance, a sumptuous breakfast buffet of gourmet coffee, pastries and elegant fruit platters, a high grade copier furiously printing 120 copies of Tanya – the Bnos Chomesh Edition, fathers sitting with their daughters in every corner of the school learning b’chavrusa, and a display of gifts for the fathers.
This past Monday Night, Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots football team did something that should never have had to be done, but that makes him a holy man in my eyes. Robert Kraft did what every media outlet, politician, President Obama and countless others in the world should have done, but none did. Robert Kraft acted as the sole voice to a mute world and a heartless American Leadership.
On the 14th of Kislev in 1928, the Rebbe’s marriage to Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, daughter of the then Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, was held in Warsaw, Poland.
A delegation of Chabad Chassidim traveled to attend the wedding of the son of Borough Park philanthropist Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Lebowitz and the daughter of the Alexander Rebbe of Cleveland, Rabbi Shneur Zalman Danziger, who is a direct descendent of the Alter Rebbe and carries his name.
A bus carrying IDF soldiers overturned earlier today, Thursday, near the West Bank settlement of Rimonim near Ramallah, killing one Israeli soldier and injuring tens of passengers, several seriously.
The wedding of Ariel Bigel and Sarah-Tehiya Litman, whose father and brother were brutally murdered last week by a Palestinian terrorist near Chevron, is currently underway at the Binyanei Ha’uma in Jerusalem, with Jews having traveled from all over the world to be in attendance.
Aron Tzvi Sternberg is the Administrator for Talmud Torah Adas Yereim in Monsey, New York. He was interviewed in the My Encounter Studios in September of 2013.
