By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
Nechama and I were a few days away from boarding our flights back to Thailand a few weeks ago. We were both two weeks after our second vaccination. The quarantine hotel was booked and just about to be paid for. The Thai Government certificate of entry was about to be issued pending the payment slip for the hotel.
G-d has His ways of adjusting plans.
Something important cropped up in the family and it was obvious that we needed to stay a little while longer before coming back and embarking on the two-week hotel quarantine.
Once we took care of the important matters that had cropped up, we went back to the drawing board and began coordinating our return this time waiting till after the Rebbe’s Yartzeit – Hilula commemoration which we will mark by visiting the Rebbe’s resting place in prayer. While Nechama and I will be praying for all of you, our community and friends and your families, feel free to email me your name and mothers name and any special request you may want me to pray for.
And of course, once we are here in NY we cannot leave before attending the wedding of Benjamin Brewer (son of Zevulun, our very own Jewish rice farmer) to Elisheva Schwartz. Click here for YouTube live streaming of Chupa at Lubavitch World Headquarters 770 Eastern Parkway Tuesday June 15 4:00 PM EST.
The detail we are still waiting to clarify is the Phuket reopening. It would certainly seem wiser to return on July 1 via the Phuket Island quarantine if that indeed is a viable option and oversee the Phuket Chabad House reopening. I am sure Hashem will guide us to make the correct decisions and get back in the best and most effective way possible. Will keep you posted please G-d. In the meantime, we can be reached as usual via email and WhatsApp and will continue the Facebook/Zoom virtual teaching.
That was a long introduction to the story I want to tell.
Because I was here longer then intended, I got to attend a wedding of the firstborn child of a dear friend. It was there that I met a friend of one of my uncles who shared a story I had never heard before. A story that has left me inspired ever since hearing it.
I will tell the story in the voice of the one who told it to me.
‘Your grandfather Rabbi Avraham Hecht called me, as I live in Miami and am friends with his son from our days in Yeshiva. Rabbi Hecht told me that his wife is in their family’s winter apartment in Miami while he is in New York. Something small needs to be fixed in the apartment and he asked me if I could help his wife to get it fixed. I gladly did them this favor.
A while later when Rabbi Hecht came to visit Miami, he asked to come and see the Chabad Center that I direct. I gave Rabbi Hecht a tour and he commented on how beautiful the center was. I didn’t feel that our center is one of the nicest around, and I told Rabbi Hecht that he is probably giving the compliment to be nice without it necessarily being true.
Rabbi Hecht related the following. ‘When I returned from a visit to one of my children in a USA city which has a respectable Chabad presence, the Rebbe asked me for a report. I responded generically that everything was ok. The Rebbe insisted that he wanted a more detailed and honest report. I started giving a report and did not leave out any of the criticisms regarding the imperfections I had observed. It seemed that perhaps I had embellished on those points of fallacy. For when I finished, the Rebbe turned to me and said ‘all of these institutions that you were just criticizing are on my shoulders, and I bear ultimate responsibility for them. I would like to ask you to look at them with a more favorable eye’.
Rabbi Hecht finished telling me that story and said, ‘since then, when I visit holy institutions I look with a positive eye. It’s not even that I have to try and whitewash the faults, rather I have trained myself to see only the good in the first place’.
I heard the story once, and then asked the one telling the story to please repeat it. And I have not stopped thinking about the story ever since.
There are so many aspects of the Rebbe’s life and legacy that are inspirational and empowering. Click here for more. Looking at things from a positive perspective and seeing the good, rather than homing in on the negative, is a truly transformational trait.
Ever since hearing this story a few weeks ago, I find that I am able to ‘catch myself’ either just after I have chosen to look at a situation in an unfavorable light, or better yet, just before making that negative judgement. Once I realize that I can and should adjust my approach to be more positive than critical, the result is always a better and more uplifted one.
Surely, some things need fixing. This is not about whitewashing things that need correction.
This is about how one goes about effectively fixing those things need correcting or that can be upgraded.
It is about recognizing the conscious choice we can make to color our overall opinion about a particular situation in a positive way.
Let’s say for example you went to an event and are asked how was the event.
To be honest, there were some amazing aspects, but there were also some parts that could have been done differently and better.
How will you sum up that event? In your own mind and thus in the way you speak to others about it.
Was it a great event that could have been ever better if a few things would be changed? (and of course, in a respectful way you will point those out to the organizer if there is a repeat event planned, so the next one can be even more perfect).
Or will you relate to it as a terrible event and begrudgingly admit that there were a few good points to it as well.
Sometimes a kid comes home at the end of a day and you ask ‘how was your day’. If the kid responds that it was a terrible day, you would do well to ask for details. Chances are that that there were many good things that happened as well. This works with spouses as well, as with all of us human beings. We tend to generalize. We can choose though, in what direction we went our bias to be.
The Rebbe’s approach to life was a positive one. Adopt a ‘good eye’. Look at others favorably. Look at your life circumstances favorably. Think positive. Be hopeful. Be joyous. Try your very best and have faith that G-d will bless you with all the best.
Most of all, think positively about others! When you believe in someone else’s innate goodness the results are astounding. Read this story about how the Rebbe believed in every single Jew and his or her unbreakable connection to G-d.
One of the great books I have seen recently exploring the Rebbe’s legacy and sharing it in a way that we can adapt it to our lives, is Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson’s ‘Positivity Bias’. You can browse it on line here.
On this special weekend as we mark the Rebbe’s Yartzeit – Hilula on Saturday night, let us avail ourselves of the special spiritual energy associated with this day.
I think you will enjoy reading this article ‘Why has everybody at Chabad.org been so busy’ as it will give you a broad look at what this day ‘Gimmel (3rd) Tammuz’ means to world Jewry.
Let us embrace the Rebbe’s vision and mission and make it our own.
To transform our world into a dwelling place for G-d, by doing one more mitzvah, by reaching out to one more person with kindness and love, by becoming more united with G-d by studying his Torah, and thus bringing the world one step closer to its ultimate perfected state of G-dly revelation with the coming of Mashiach and the utopian idyllic world that will become our new reality.
AMEN
Rabbi Yosef Kantor