6.08.2005

The Lubavitcher Rebbe - from Sephardic Sages

posted by Editor at 6/08/2005

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Blogger Editor said...

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson ZT"L

The Rebbe was the great Spiritual Leader of the Lubavitch Hasidim, known around the world for their Chabad centers. The Rebbe was not Sephardic, but was a great Sage who was always a friend to the Sephardic community.

Hasidic Jews (such as Lubavitch, Satmar, and Gerer Hasidim) do not use the standard Ashkenazic or Sephardic rite. Instead, they use one based the Lurianic Siddur. This siddur was developed by Rabbi Yitchak Luria, better known as the Ari. He was a 16th century Kabbalist (advocate of Jewish esoteric mysticism) who lived in Sefat, Israel. For him, prayer involved special kavvanot (intentions) relating to the mystical union of man and God. He believed that one could derive a precise text in which every letter had cosmic importance, such that when recited properly, one could repair and perfect the ultimate basis of reality. He combined kabbalistic prayers with the Sephardic liturgy, and eventually developed his own unqiue nusach, the Lurianic nusach. The exact text of the Ari's actual siddur was not preserved; its influence however lies in the siddurim known as the Hasidic Siddur, Nusach Sepharad & the Lubavitch [Habad] Hasidic Siddur, Nusach ha-Arizal.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known simply and lovingly as "the Rebbe," has cast the warm glow of his sanctified existence, his Solomonic wisdom, his vision for a world perfected, and his sensitivity and love for humanity, over the lives of millions, to the farthest reaches of the world.



The Rebbe endowed all of his followers with a passion for the good and the G-dly, and the means to understand that the good and the G-dly are inherent in our world and within each of us and in our everyday lives. It is a vision that will inspire the world for generations to come.

From his early years in Nikolaev, Russia, where he was born in 1902, the Rebbe displayed a prodigious mind and a sensitivity to human suffering.

Educated by private tutor as a child, and then at the University of Berlin and the Sorbonne, the Rebbe exhibited an extraordinary breadth and depth of knowledge, was gifted in the sciences, and had a remarkable fluency in many languages.

But it was in the Torah, the Talmud, in both the exoteric and esoteric realms of Torah and Judaism, that the Rebbe's erudition and brilliance provided fundamental and original insights to Jewish scholarship. Indeed, more than 200 major volumes of the Rebbe's prolific writing and discourses have already been published; and more are on the way.

In all his talks, as well as in his innovative, worldwide ubiquitous mitzva campaigns, one discerns a unifying system which binds the physical to the spiritual, and empowers every individual to actualize their potential to impact their immediate surroundings, their community, and ultimately, the world, through their even small acts of kindness.



Chief Sephardic Rabbi Harav Eliyahu Bakshi Doron shlita, visting 770 Eastern Parkway, home of the Lubavitch in America

The Rebbe engaged the greatest thinkers of our times and simplefolk with equal intensity. It is truly impossible to gauge the scope of this great leader, as he never took a day off in 42 years. He rarely slept. He fasted most days while praying for the hundreds of thousands of people who beseeched him to intervene on their behalf. He also inspired us all with his incredible activism, devotion, foresight and leadership. He always saw what others did not and did what others saw not.

Well before activities on behalf of Soviet Jews became a popular cause, the Rebbe quietly and effectively worked to save lives. Well before the demonstrations and sit-ins began to make news, the Rebbe had established a clandestine network of Chasidim to supply money, food, clothing, and spiritual support to the thousands of Jews suffocating physically and spiritually under Communism's boot.

While the prophets of doom talked of the vanishing Jew -- through intermarriage and assimilation -- the Rebbe, in contrast, established bold and daring programs to reach out to those people who otherwise would be lost to the Jewish people. When others had given up, the Rebbe always discerned even a small ray of hope and enlarged that hope so that everyone could share in it, and draw strength from it.

And as always, at every step, regardless of the idea or project, there were voices of opposition to the Rebbe's movement toward a better, saner and more G-dly world. Never inhibited by these voices, the Rebbe persisted, and prevailed.

He has left us a legacy of thousands of educational institutions, humanitarian projects and outreach centers the world over. As it is impossible to gauge the scope of the Rebbe as a person, so it is impossible to gauge the impact of his world wide achievements. Millions are inclined to a better life of goodness and meaning, due to his counsel.

Who can tally the acts of kindness and charity inspired by the Rebbe's own example, while he stood seven hours every Sunday, even into his ninth decade of life, receiving people from all walks of life, from all over the world, handing out dollar bills to men and women, young and old, Jews and gentiles, to be given to charitable causes?

The Rebbe graced us with untold merits and helped us realize the enormous potential for good that lies within each and everyone of us.

By sharing with us his vision, his hopes and his promise, and by making us active participants in the perfection of G-d's world, the Rebbe has empowered us in a way that every parent can only hope to empower his and her children.

The Anos / Yahrzeit of the Rebbe is Tammuz 3th May his Merit Protect us all

7:04 PM  

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