« Chai Elul » (Hebrew for « the 18th of Elul, » also meaning « the Vitality of Elul ») is celebrated by the Chassidic community as the birthday of the « two great luminaries » – Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism; and Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (the Alter Rebbe), the founder …
In 5687 (1927), Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn – the Rebbe Rayatz – was arrested and sentenced to death by the Communist regime. A worldwide pressure forced the soviet authorities to re-qualify the sentence to exile from which he was subsequently released. Nethertheless, after the Tishrei holidays of 5687-5678 the …
Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman – Torah scholar, Kabbalist, philosopher, physician, poet and Jewish leader – was born in the year 4954 from Creation. He was raised, studied, and lived for most of his life in Girona, Catalonia. Being a brilliant scholar, he did not wish to make any profit …
On the early morning of the 1st of Elul of the year 2448 Moshe Rabbeinu ascended Mount Sinai, taking with him the stone tablets he had hewn by divine command. Each stone was made as a cube measuring 6x6x3 tefachim (a tefach, « handbreadth », is approximately 3.2 inches). They were …
It is a Jewish custom to blow the shofar throughout the entire month of Elul (except for the eve of Rosh Hashanah) in order to strengthen the concept of Teshuvah (return/repentance), as it is stated: « Shall a shofar be blown in a city, and the people not tremble? » (Amos …
A renown kaballist, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak wrote thousands of manuscripts of Torah analysis and novella. At the behest of the Rebbe, some of his writings, penned on the margins of the scarce books available to him in exile, have been published in a five volume set under the name …
Rabbi Yitzchok Luria Ashkenazi was born in Yerushalayim in 1534. The story has it that Eliyahu HaNavi came in person to his brit. He chose the name Yitzchok and blessed him that he would reveal secrets of the Torah and disseminate them. HaAri lost his father at a very …
The Shabbat before the Ninth of Av is called Shabbat Chazon (« Shabbat of Vision »). One reason is that this week’s haftorah (the selection from the prophets read after the Torah portion) relates a vision (chazon in Hebrew) seen by Yeshayahu: “The vision of Yeshayahu the son of Amoz, which …
The first nine days of Menachem Av are known as a period of mourning over the destruction of The Beit haMikdash in Jerusalem. We refrain from eating meat and drinking wine – except on Shabbat and on celebrations, such as a bar mitzvah, a brit (circumcision) or the completion …
The Talmud relates that on the 17th of Tammuz the first Tablets were broken, and then years later on the same day the walls of Yerushalayim were breached. It is this latter occurrence which places the 17th of Tammuz among the fast days observed in commemoration of the destruction …
