By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
Fine wine gets better with age.
Wise people become more sagely as they advance in years.
A Tzadik, albeit physically passed away, becomes more present, active and alive, even in this earthly world. So says the Zohar.
Last week I shared an example of this regarding the speech by a student of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in the UN. The Rebbe had asked for this speech to be delivered in the 1980’s. The difficulties in fulfilling this mission were insurmountable at the time. Twenty-five years after his passing, the Rebbe’s vision to share Universal Morality – the Noachide laws – from the podium of the UN, came to fruition.
This week I would like to share an inspirational experience I had during my trip to NY for our daughter’s engagement just a few weeks ago.
I walked into the visitor area near the Rebbe’s Ohel (resting place) and noticed a visitor who looked different than the average visitor to the Ohel (I have included a picture below). Mathew Charles was indeed not your average ‘Ohel-goer’. He had recently come out of prison where he had spent more than two decades. Mathew looked excited and emotional.
Mathew Charles had every reason to be thankful and happy. He had been released more than a decade early from a thirty-five-year prison term. Due in large part to the activism of the Aleph Institute. The Aleph Institute, the leading Jewish organization caring for the incarcerated and their families, was born directly from the vision, and by the instruction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The meeting with Mathew took me back to the 1980’s when as a teenager, I listened to the Rebbe’s live talks broadcasted from 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn NY to our Yeshiva/Synagogue in Melbourne Australia.
The Rebbe’s message had been a very clear one. Prison is not one of the methods of punishment in the Torah. While it needs to be used in our times to protect society, the rehabilitative aspects must be at its core.
The Rebbe was revealing the deeper cosmic truth of how humans operate.
The only way to change the growing crime rate and prison population was to change the way society operated. For a start we need preventative activism. To ensure the crimes don’t get perpetrated in the first place. Not merely by more policing. That is not getting to the soul and root of the matter. The cause of increased crime is because of the lack of internal morality.
The solution must be to introduce stronger morals to society. A great start would be to teach morals in schools. The Rebbe advocated strongly for a ‘Moment of Silence’ to be instituted at the opening of every school day. A child would need to ask his parent what to think about during that moment. This would be the perfect opportunity for the parent to transmit their values about belief and morality.
It would make a world of difference.
Once a criminal is in prison, he is no longer a danger to society for the duration of his lock up time. This should not be our end goal. We must seek to cure him, to rehabilitate him. The system must consider the inherent ‘divine image’ within every human. G-d said in the Torah that man was created to toil and be productive. When a person has a chance to work towards becoming a productive human being and rejoin society, they can find purpose and meaning to their lives and try to turn themselves around. This motivation would have a great impact on getting people out of jail quicker and have them stay out in higher numbers.
I heard these teachings from the Rebbe in my teens. (Click here for more on this topic) I would never have even imagined that decades later I would meet a fellow human who had had his life rescued through these words of the Rebbe uttered in Yiddish with unwavering moral clarity. How in the world would a Rebbe who never ventured forth from Brooklyn, except to visit his father-in-law and predecessors resting place in Queens, change the reality for prisoners in the USA?
But yes, the Rebbe’s words did change the reality of this world, touching the lives of even those who had made serious mistakes in their lives. A short while ago, nearly twenty-five years after his passing, legislation relating to prisoners inspired by the Rebbe’s approach, was written into law. Legislation that was supported by both sides of the political discussion.
Click here for more details on this story.
Once again, Hashem had given me a window of clarity to see the words of the Zohar, that a Tzadik is more present after his passing, in a real and mundane way.
As I write these lines it hits me with force.
This places the onus squarely on me.
I have been shown the reality of the Rebbe’s continually growing influence and his presence and accessibility for blessing and inspiration.
It is now up to me to avail myself of this blessed energy and commit to achieving things that till now could only be dreamed of. For what was impossible yesterday may be possible today if only you dare to continue to try.
It is up to me to connect to the Rebbe’s soul more deeply by studying his teachings more deeply and fulfilling his directives more energetically. The ‘writing is on the wall’. Big changes are taking place as the Rebbe’s vision goes from conceptual to actual. Counterintuitively, time is working in our favor. It will happen to my undertakings too no doubt.
But here is the caveat. It won’t happen without effort.
I need to intensify my determination.
It is Providential that at the Rebbe’s twenty-fifth anniversary dinner in Thailand, I presented the plans for the new Beth Elisheva Campus – The heart and soul of Jewish life in Thailand. The building we envision is a dream. Nechama and I were sent to Thailand by the Rebbe twenty-six and some years ago. With a blessing and a mandate to do whatever needed for igniting Jewish souls and enhancing Jewish life in Thailand. I’d like to hope that we have carried out his mission with some measure of success thank G-d.
But its time for even greater growth.
Twenty-five years since the Rebbe’s passing calls for a great leap upwards of additional light and holiness. The Beth Elisheva Campus is certainly a leap of note. It will take miracles and communal partnership to bring this to reality.
It is a grandiose undertaking which will revolutionize Jewish life in Thailand for the local community, traveling Jewish community and for the all the citizens of the Royal Kingdom of Thailand. (I look forward to sharing more about this with you in a future column).
Now is the time to embark on this great dream. And on other projects that would only have been imaginary till now. G-d will no doubt bless our efforts with success.
It is with this sense of renewed commitment and vigor that I prepare to visit the Rebbe’s resting place in connection to his yahrtzeit.
And I invite you to share your name and mothers name so I can pray for you too at this holy place at this auspicious time.
I will undoubtedly hear his message resounding in my consciousness ‘don’t be satisfied… keep on adding and achieving… he who has one hundred desires two hundred, two hundred desires four hundred….’
To you my dear readers, join me in taking that leap. If you are reading these lines, you too are a student of the Rebbe and have been impacted by him.
Therefore, you too can, and should, connect to the Rebbe’s vision for you.
If you were to come to visit the Rebbe, the Rebbe would no doubt show how great he things you are for doing what you have done till now. And then he would ask you to do even more. For as much as you are doing, from the Rebbe’s perspective you are greater than you think, and hence you could be doing even more…
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks captures it in a line, (watch him and several others share their story at the video posted below) “You saw your reflection in the Rebbe’s eyes, and you were suddenly much bigger than you thought you were.”
By adding in acts of kindness and goodness, by doing more mitzvahs, by studying more Torah, by adding more light into the world, we hasten the imminent coming of Mashiach!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS I have traveled to New York to visit the Rebbe’s Ohel in proximity to his Yartzeit. I wish to pray for you while I’m at this very special and holy site, so I ask for your Hebrew name and mother’s Hebrew name (for a Jewish soul we follow the mother’s name, otherwise it’s the father’s) or whichever names you have. Feel free to ask for general blessing or specify the nature of what you would like to pray for. Or visit www.ohelchabad.org to email your prayer notes directly.
For more information about the customs connected to the Yartzeit/Hilula of the Rebbe click here.