A Leaf in the Wind

The Principle of Specified Providence (part 2)

One of the principal theological innovations of Rabbi Yisroel of Mezibush – the founder of Hasidism, known universally as the Baal Shem Tov – is the principle that Divine Providence extends even to the most apparently insignificant of events. In the words of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn:

The Baal Shem Tov says that G-d moves many diversified causes in order to carry out a specified providence for even the smallest of created beings. In order that a fallen leaf, which has already blown around in a backyard somewhere since autumn a year ago… should be moved from one place to another… To this end, a strong wind breaks out in the middle of a warm summer day, moving heaven and earth, and thereby is the ordained providence fulfilled for that fallen leaf…

In a lengthy discourse (Lekkutei Dibburim Vol. 1, page 164), Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak dispels the sense of helpless and arbitrary insignificance normally conveyed by the ‘leaf in the wind’ metaphor, and in its place builds a model of elaborate providence. The image is now used to exemplify an irreplaceable component in a carefully ordained plan; a grand design in which each and every created being is endowed with its own unique significance relative to its station. The millions of small events, apparently swept together at random by the great gusts of world shaking events, are in fact precisely ordained, designed to fit together like the pieces of some great puzzle. There is nothing which is not a priority.

When applied to the story of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s life, this model fits like a glove. Some of the most earth-shattering milestones of modern history; the social and political upheavals that began to plague Tsarist Russia at the end of the nineteenth century, the First World War, the Rise of Communism, and the Second World War, swept Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak from the provincial village in white Russia where he was born, to the tottering grandeur of Tsarist St. Petersburg, to the darkly secretive silences of communist Leningrad, to Riga, the Holy Land, Warsaw and ultimately to New York.

Another may have seen himself as a helpless leaf, powerless in the grip of such powerful winds. But Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak saw each new situation into which he was thrust as a provident opportunity, orchestrated with a demanding – if sometime unfathomable – deliberation. For him there was no such thing as default. Each new circumstance carried with it the weighty import of a Divinely ordained mission – it was his responsibility to set his own concerns aside and meet the need of the hour, however difficult.

Hashgacha Protis - The Principle of Specified Providence (part 1)

In Elul 5645 (1885) The Friediker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, then a youn boy just five years old traveled to Yalta with his parents. More than forty years later, while under soviet arrest in the Shpalernaya Prison in Leningrad, he fortified himself with a lesson imparted by his father on that trip:

We were traveling then amongst the Mountains of Crimea, between Sevastopol and Yalta, in a closed carriage harnessed to four horses, as is the custom in those parts… The journey takes us amongst lofty mountains, towering high – a wilderness strewn boulders – with the road twisting and turning below. On the right are the mountains and on the left the sea shore… 

CHASIDIC TEXT OF 1882 PUBLISHED

Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters

A new volume in the series of Chasidic discourses by the fourth leader of Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn, covering the year 5642/1882, has just been released by the Kehot Publication Society.

The year 1882 was a year of great upheaval for Russian Jewry. A large wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Imperial Russia from 1881-1884. In that period more than 200 anti-Jewish events occurred in the Russian Empire. During these pogroms, which continued for more than three years, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, many families were reduced to poverty, and large numbers of men, women, and children were injured.

The Tanya: revealing the essentially transcendent

The "Tanya" is the central work of Chabad thought, a complete guide to the deep and often complicated relationship between man and G-d, instructing the "average" person every step of the way, foreseeing and forewarning all possible obstacles to his or her service of G-d. Written by the first Rebbe of Chabad it was first published in Kislev 5557 (the winter of 1797-8).

The following is a collection of extracts from a letter of the Friediker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneesohn, describing the great importance, value and power of the Tanya.

The title page of the first addition of the Tanya

True Education

There is a difference between a Chassidic upbringing and a regular upbringing… even a religious upbringing. 

When I was a very small child, as soon as I began to talk, my father the Rebbe said to me, “Whatever you may wish to ask, you should ask me”. Although there were others who paid attention to all my needs, my father said, “Anything that you may wish to ask, you should ask me”. 

When I was taught to say Modeh Ani, I was told to lay one hand next to the other, bow the head, and so say Modeh Ani. When I grew a little older, though still a child, I asked my father the Rebbe, “Why is it that when saying Modeh Ani, one must put one hand next to the other, and bow the head?” 

A moving picture is worth many thousands of words...

The popular COL (Chabad On Line) Hebrew language site recently posted four clips from a documentary that portrays the life led by the Chassidim of Kfar Chabad in the mid 1960’s. The film is titled in German “CHASSIDISMUS – ODER DER FROHLICHER WEG ZU GOTT” (“CHASSIDISM – OR THE JOYFUL PATH TO G-D”), however the narration is in English.

The producer is identified as Kobi Jaeger, I don’t know he was but he seems to have a very good grasp of his subject, and in my opinion has generally succeeded in capturing the essence of the Chassidic ideal authentically and with an elegant simplicity, which reflects the purity of Chassidic life as it should be.

These are beautiful camera shots of real Chassisdim, Davening, learning, Farbrainging and working, epitomizing the ideal of “be’chol derochecho de’aihu” (“in all you ways you shall know Him”) – joyously serving Hashem with every breath. Here you can really see the Chassidus of the Bal Shem Tov as persevered through Chassidus Chabad, so that it may be manifest in every aspect of the human experience.

Rabbi Yakov Landau Ztza"l

הגאון החסיד רבי יעקב לנדא זצ"ל

אב"ד עיר התורה בני ברק ת"ו

This Monday, the 26^th of Shvat, is the twenty fifth Yhortzeit of Rabbi Yakov Landau, who served for fifty years as the Chief Rabbi of Bnei Brak. He was born in the year 5653 (1893) in the Chassidic town of Kurnitz, where his father, grandfather and great grandfather had served as Rov. He too took up that post upon his father’s death, which occurred before is twentieth birthday. He did so at the express directive of the Rebbe Rashab of Lubavitch, with whom he enjoyed a very special relationship.

This week Hebrew language weeklies such as Ba'kehila and Hamodia published special articles or sections in his honor, and while I have not yet seen the Hamodia, the main focus seems to be on his activities as Rov of Bnei Brak. This post will focus on his years in Russia.

New Book! "Journey to Barditchev"

Marking the passage of two hundred years since the journey of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch, to Barditchev in the year 5570 [1800], and marking two hundred and fifty years since the passing of the Baal Shem Tov - one of the aims of the said journey being to pray at his gravesite in Mezubush - a Hebrew language book has been published describing that journey.

New! "History of Chabad in Czarist Russia – Selected Chapters – 1770-1920"

by Chabad-Lubavitch Headquarters - Brooklyn, NY

The Chabad-Lubavitch publishing house, Kehot Publication Society, has announced the publication of an important new book on the history of Chabad.

The Hebrew volume: "History of Chabad in Czarist Russia – Selected Chapters – 1770-1920," was compiled by Chabad historian Rabbi Shalom Dovber Levine, director of the Central Chabad-Lubavitch Library and Archive Center.

Simchas Torah 5690 [1929], Riga

The following is a free translation of a letter by Reb Elyeh Chaim Althoiz to the Friedike Rebbe [Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Shneersohn] describing the tremendous impression made by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson [son-in-law and later successor of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak] on all the Chassidim who gathered at the Rebbe's court in Riga for the festivities of Simchas Torah, while the Rebbe was absent on a visit to the united states.  

Though I have not yet returned to my full strength after the strain of the last two days of Yom Tov [Shmini Atzeres and Simachas Torah], and from all the dancing I am still shattered, there is not a whole limb in my body… I am unable to withhold the good, the gratification and true pleasure from the Rebbe [Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn], who is beloved and dear, for even one moment. I must give satisfaction at the earliest opportunity, while I still stand in a state of great feeling of joy and pleasure; that I merited to see the rising glory of the Rebbe’s household with my own eyes, exalted in spirituality and holiness, may we only merit that it should not cease till the coming of the redeemer.