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Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for
Moscow, Russia
Friday, November 18h
Light Candles at 15:50

Join us Tonight!
Weekly Kabbalat Shabbat Services 20:30
Followed by Shabbat Dinner

Shabbat, November 19th,
Shabbat Ends 17:11
Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Greetings from New York

This week I write to you from Brooklyn, NY as I join over 5000 of my colleagues at the annual International Convention of Chabad Lubavitch Shluchim.

Shaliach – the word means “agent” and “emissary” – is a Torah-legal term for a person empowered by someone else to act in his stead. The concept first appears in this week’s Torah portion, in the person of Eliezer, whom Abraham commissioned to find a wife for his son, Isaac.

The shaliach does not abnegate his intellect, will, desires, feelings, talents and personal “style” to that of the one whom he represents; rather, he enlists them in the fulfillment of his mission. The result of this is that the sender is acting through the whole of the shaliach — not only through the shaliach’s physical actions, but also through the shaliach’s personality, which has become an extension of the sender’s personality.

Indeed, each and every one of us is a Shaliach of the A-lmighty, empowered by His very being to perform a task in this physical world, namely; to make this world His home. Make your daily acts one of G-dly pursuits. Every thought, speech and action can be one additional opportunity to lend your personal touch in building and beautifying G-d’s home.

The Rebbe took the concept of shelichut and transformed it into a calling and a way of life. He recruited, trained, motivated and commissioned thousands of men, women and children to act as his personal representatives and emissaries in hundreds of communities throughout the world. Sharing stories with my classmates who now live in Utah, Paris France, Pasadena California and elsewhere, it is truly humbling to be part of a worldwide effort bringing the joys of Judaism to every corner of the earth.

Perhaps unparalleled in the history of our people has one man built a following so large in number, so diverse, so highly motivated, and so successful in the furtherance of his vision. At the core of this phenomenal success is a seemingly benign legal dynamic, first employed more than 3,600 years ago when Abraham sent Eliezer to find a wife for his son.

I encourage you to read a special article on our website, entitled “The Emissary” about the Rebbe’s vision to change the world… it is fascinating!

This weekend, as I join together with thousands of Shluchim from around the world, we will utilize the time for sharing ideas and energizing the body and soul to formulate the most efficient manner to prepare ourselves and those around us to actualize the immense power laying dormant inside each of us, ready to be utilized – there for the taking.

The annual banquet culminating the convention will be streaming live this Sunday -Click here to tune in at 6:30 PM (EST) to be a part of a remarkably extraordinary evening like none other! With thousands of Chabad Rabbis along with hundreds of friends, partners and supporters of Chabad worldwide – the energy in the room is electrifying.

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yanky Klein

This email is In Loving memory of my dear father
R’ Yerachmiel Binyamin Halevi ben R, Menachem Klein OBM

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for
Moscow, Russia
Friday, November 18h
Light Candles at 15:59

Join us Tonight!
Weekly Kabbalat Shabbat Services 20:30
Followed by Shabbat Dinner

Shabbat, November 19th,
Shabbat Ends 17:18
Torah Portion: Vayeira

Self vs. Selfish

Nationalism? Globalism?

Get my house in order and take care of my own life and its needs? Open the door to others and share my blessings?

It’s possible to satisfy both. The quandary often lies in deciding which element we should emphasize at which point in the ubiquitous struggle of self vs other.

On this point, the Talmud tells us that “one who says ‘what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine’ shows ignorance.” In other words: It’s healthy to recognize that we have boundaries and borders. What’s mine isn’t intrinsically yours. And what’s yours isn’t actually mine.

A society declaring that everything belongs to everybody is creating a world of anarchy. Such a worldview, teaches the Talmud, demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of human nature and its needs.

A sense of self, of our personal boundaries, is healthy. Recognizing someone else’s boundaries is critical to a sense of respect. The Talmud is telling us that it’s good to know where we each begin and end.

But the Talmud goes further with a curious statement: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours…this is the attitude of Sodom”.

Sodom is the Scriptural epitome of a selfish and cruel society, of man’s inhumanity to man. Why should a simple recognition of our respective borders be labeled with such a horrible moniker?

The Talmud’s point is that a secure sense of self, recognizing one’s own independent and valuable place in the world, is extremely important. Independence is a good thing. We want it for our children as they grow out of their dependency stage.

At the same time, independence is not the ideal end-game. If one grows into independence, but hasn’t recognized the need to genuinely share one’s life with others, that’s called stunted development.

We want independence to mature into interdependence. Once I’m truly standing on my own two feet, I’m in a position to go beyond my personal borders to share life with someone else. And that’s where I’ll find life’s richness. In other words: The Talmud tells us that one’s proclamation of independence needs to be followed by a comma, not a period. It’s healthy to achieve an understanding that “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.” But you can’t stop there; we know where that got the Sodomites.

Find independence. Then keep growing and share yourself with others.

That’s what life is all about.

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yanky and Rivky Klein

This email is In Loving memory of my dear father
R’ Yerachmiel Binyamin Halevi ben R, Menachem Klein OBM

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for
Moscow, Russia
Friday, October 28th
Light Candles at 16:40

Join us Tonight!
Weekly Kabbalat Shabbat Services 20:30

Shabbat, October 29th,
Shabbat Ends 17:53
Torah Portion: Bereishit – Genesis

Carry It Forward

This past month was a Holiday whirlwind: On Rosh Hashana, we revisit individual responsibility. On Yom Kippur, we dig deep into ourselves, resolving to align our behaviors with our priorities and personal potential. On Sukkot, we experience community, and on Simchas Torah we recognize the genuine joy of living a meaningful life.
Four consecutive Holidays.

Solemn moments. Festive meals. Meaningful rituals. A stream of inspiration.

All coming to a close this week.

Now what?

Every morning, we say a prayer which begins: “My G-d, the soul which You gave me is pure. You have created it, You have formed it, You have breathed it into me. And You preserve it within me….”

Chassidic thought tells us that this prayer traces our souls’ journey into the human condition. The various expressions chart how our existence begins with G-d’s ‘choice’ of a specific soul to inhabit a particular baby, and continues with the soul’s descent through a succession of spiritual levels, ultimately finding expression in our bodily lives.

But then the prayer presents a final leg of the journey: “You preserve it within me.” What does that mean? To put the question in context: We wake up every morning and recognize that G-d has gifted us with a pristinely Divine soul, paring down its spiritual intensity – level by level – so that it can animate our physical human lives. The consciousness we feel in the morning is the human tip of a Divine iceberg. But once we have our human lives, what does G-d need to preserve?

Our spiritual sensitivity.

Every morning, we thank G-d for giving us human lives capable of embracing mundanity, yet equally capable of genuine spiritual feeling. Every morning, we recognize natural, physical impulses, and simultaneously acknowledge our profoundly spiritual roots. We take note that our hearts, deep inside, are playing a sublimely Divine chord.

If we only pause to hear it.

A spirituality-filled Holiday season has guided us to the threshold of a wonderful new year. We need to take the inspiration with us.

In fact, G-d helps us to preserve its echo for the year ahead. It’s resonating within you.

Every morning, take a moment and listen.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yanky and Rivky Klein

This email is In Loving memory of my dear father
R’ Yerachmiel Binyamin Halevi ben R, Menachem Klein OBM

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for
Moscow, Russia
Friday, November 4th
Light Candles at 16:25

Join us Tonight!
Weekly Kabbalat Shabbat Services 20:30

Shabbat, November 5th,
Shabbat Ends 17:40
Torah Portion: Noach

Creating Rainbows

Clouds.

We know how they’re formed.

A. Water fills the earth’s streams, lakes, rivers and oceans.

B. The sun’s rays evaporate some of the water,

C. Droplets rise to form clouds (which eventually yield rain back to the earth).

Now, let’s phrase it differently: Clouds represent the Earth’s ‘feedback’ to the skies, bringing welcome precipitation to our environment, creating overcast days, and sometimes bringing storms to shake our world.

A little deeper:

The ‘heavens’ – the sky for the purpose of this conversation – represents G-d, while the Earth represents Humanity. And the clouds, hovering between Heaven and Earth, represent our behavior; our behavior is our feedback to G-d, our response to His gift of life.

G-d created us for a purpose: To make this a better [Holy] world. We can either acknowledge – and try to live by – that mission, or we can ignore it and live in misalignment with our core selves. Either way, we’re sending up clouds.

So what do we do when we feel that life is overcast?

We look for a rainbow, and they only occur when the clouds aren’t too thick and opaque. When our lives are heavily centered on self-focus, we leave no space for the rainbows. Living a good life means thinking about purpose. When we stop asking ourselves “what do I want out of life?” and begin asking “what does life want out of me?” we allow a bright ray of G-dliness to shine through.

When you stand at the right attitudinal angle, looking at your day with the right perspective, you can catch the majesty of the Rainbow. And it has a message from G-d: “Let Me shine through; I’ll show you the beauty that can be found in the diverse challenges I give you. Just let your life’s droplets refract My light.”

Position yourself wisely. And look for that rainbow.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yanky and Rivky Klein

This email is In Loving memory of my dear father
R’ Yerachmiel Binyamin Halevi ben R, Menachem Klein OBM

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for
Moscow, Russia
Friday, September 9th
Light Candles at 18:44

Join us Tonight!
Weekly Kabbalat Shabbat Services 20:30

Shabbat, September 10th,
Shabbat Ends 19:57
Torah Portion: Shoftim

We Are One

Some folks think of people much as we think of cars on a highway: each with its own origin and destination, relating to one other only to negotiate lane changes and left-hand turns. For cars, closeness is danger, loneliness is freedom.

People are not cars. Cars are dead. People live. Living beings need one another, nurture one another, share destinies and reach them together. When you’re alive, closeness is warmth, loneliness is suffocating.

People belong to families. Families make up communities. Communities make up the many colorful peoples of the world. And all those peoples make up a single, magnificent body with a single soul called humankind.

Some chop this body into seven billion fragments and roll it back into a single mush. They want each person to do his or her own thing and relate equally to every other individual on the planet. They don’t see the point of distinct peoples. They feel such distinctions just get in the way.

But we are like leaves extending from twigs branching out from larger twigs on branches of larger branches, until we reach the trunk and roots of us all. Each of us has our place on this tree of life, each its source of nurture—and on this the tree relies for its very survival.

None of us walks alone. Each carries the experiences of ancestors wherever he or she roams, along with their troubles, their traumas, their victories, their hopes and their aspirations. Our thoughts grow out from their thoughts, our destinies are shaped by their goals. At the highest peak we ever get to, there they are, holding our hand, pushing us upward, providing the shoulders on which to stand. And we share those shoulders, that consciousness, that heritage with all the brothers and sisters of our people.

That’s why your own people are so important: If you want to find peace with any other person in the world, you’ve got to start with your own brothers and sisters. Until then, you haven’t yet found peace within your own self. And only when you’ve found peace within yourself can you help us find peace for the entire world.

Every Jew is a brother or sister of a great family of many thousands of years. Where a Jew walks, there walk sages and martyrs, heroes and heroines, legends and miracles, all the way back to Abraham and Sarah, the first two Jews who challenged the whole world with their ideals. There walk the tears, the blood and the chutzpah of millennia, the legacy of those who lived, yearned and died for a world to come, a world the way it was meant to be.

Their destiny is our destiny. In us they are fulfilled. In all of us and every one of us, and all of us together. For we are all one.

When one Jew does an act of kindness, all our hands extend with his or hers. If one Jew should fall, all of us stumble. If one suffers, we all feel pain. When one rejoices, we are all uplifted. In our oneness we will find our destiny, and our destiny is to be one. For we are a single body, breathing with a single set of lungs, pulsating with a single heart, drawing from a single well of consciousness.

We are one. Let it be with love
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yanky and Rivky Klein

This email is In Loving memory of my dear father
R’ Yerachmiel Binyamin Halevi ben R, Menachem Klein OBM

Shabbat Candle Lighting Times for
Moscow, Russia
Friday, September 2nd
Light Candles at 19:03

Join us Tonight!
Weekly Kabbalat Shabbat Services 20:30

Shabbat, September 3rd,
Shabbat Ends 20:17
Torah Portion: Re’eh

A Family that Eats Together . . .

The old adage has it that “a family that prays together, stays together.” Yet I’m not sure I fully agree. I know too many people who were regularly dragged to services as children, yet now wouldn’t set foot back in a synagogue and don’t have much to do with their parents, either.

You’d like to think that if parents demonstrate their priorities for religion, their children will watch and be inspired, but it doesn’t always happen that way. You can’t force someone to believe, and it takes a host of factors and circumstances to motivate the new generation to follow in the path of their parents.

From my experience, more important than praying together is eating together. Making time to sit down as a family on a regular basis, catching up on each other’s lives in a non-threatening environment and breaking bread together, is a sure recipe for harmony. The highlight of Shabbat is not just the synagogue services but the Shabbat meals, with fine food, communal singing and pleasant conversation. Though not an overtly religious experience, this is often the glue that binds generations together.

I don’t know many people who became religious from going to services; more commonly, it’s those people who are coming closer to Judaism who start attending synagogue. But I do know lots of people who are observant today because their family ate Shabbat meals together.

A few months ago, I was speaking to a middle-aged lady, a grandmother many times over, who recalled being invited to her first-ever Shabbat meal some 30 years ago and being entranced by the easy interactions of her host family. She walked out of their house knowing that she wanted the same one day for her future children.

We read in the Torah, “And you shall eat before the L rd, your G d . . . so that you may learn to fear the Lord, your God.”1 The context of the text is pointing out that the surest path to learning to fear G d is by eating before Him. It’s not the food that does it. Rather, it is our ability to transform the seemingly mundane act of eating into a religious experience.

Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Yanky and Rivky Klein

This email is In Loving memory of my dear father
R’ Yerachmiel Binyamin Halevi ben R, Menachem Klein OBM