Aleph-Beit, The

As a carpenter employs tools to build a home, so G-d utilized the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, the alef-beis, to form heaven and earth. In Letters of Light, the essence of these holy letters is explored, illustrating how the letters ...

Likkutei Sichos, Vol. VI, p. 107ff. I. “And on the third day, when it was morning, there were sounds (Kolos) and lightning; and there was a heavy cloud on the mountain. And the sound (Kol) of the shofar [resounded] very powerfully... And the sound (Kol) ...

The Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi,  1747-1812. The first Rebbe, or leader, of the Chassidic movement known alternately as Chabad or Chabad Lubavitch. wanted to teach his son the alef-beis. He called one of his disciples into his study ...

King Ptolemy II (283-246 bce) wanted a Greek translation of the Torah (the Septuagint). He gathered 72 elders of Israel and sequestered them in 72 different houses.  Megillah 9a. He visited each of them and said, “Translate for me the book of ...

My mother’s paternal great-grandfather, Hersh-Meilech Hecht, came to the shores of America in 1880. The story is told that one day, when Hersh-Meilech was in the beis midrash (study hall) of the Shiniva Rav, Rabbi Yechezkel Halberstam, the Rav placed a ...

A young girl is born into an observant Jewish home. A staunch believer, she wakes up one morning and suddenly decides she wants to experience other religions. So she ex­plores various cults and faiths, and begins to learn about their ideas. Her father, ...

In the late 1920’s my paternal grandfather and namesake, R. Aharon Leib, went to the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, for a berachah, a blessing. The blessing he requested was that his children grow up to be G-d-fearing and ...

The part of the river used as a mikveh for ritual immersion was situated high atop a steep hill on the outskirts of Premishlan. When the road leading up to it was slippery, people had to take the long way around the hill, for to walk straight uphill ...

Rabbi Jacob J. Hecht, o.b.m., my maternal grandfather, once told me the following story: In the times when the Jews lived in the shtetl—long before the New York Lottery came along—there would be a traveling lottery “agent” who would sta­tion himself ...

Before marrying my grandmother, Rebbetzin Chava Hecht, my grandfather, Rabbi Jacob J. Hecht, o.b.m., told her, “I, being a ‘Yanky,’ an old-fashioned American boy, will marry you only under the following condition: I must be the head of the house.” My ...