Chabad Rebbes

Introduction The Talmud relates: Taanis 2a-b. Rabbi Yochanan said, “Three keys are [held] in the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, which were not transmitted to an agent. They are: The key of rain, the key of life, and the key of the Resurrection of th...

Introduction In the sichah that follows, the Rebbe focuses on Rambam’s categorization of the charge, Devarim 28:9. “Walk in His paths,” as one of the 613 mitzvos, as Rambam writes in his Sefer HaMitzvos, Sefer HaMitzvos, positive mitzvah 8. “[With this mi...

Introduction The sichah to follow combines two different talks delivered by the Rebbe. The first focuses on the mitzvah of bikkurim, the first fruits, that were brought as offerings in the Beis HaMikdash. The Rebbe highlights two different lessons gleaned...

The seventh section of the Book of Deuteronomy concludes Moses’ second farewell address to the Jewish people. It contains Moses’ completion of his review of the commandments, beginning with one that would become relevant only after the Jewish people would...

Near the end of this Torah reading, Moses tells the people: “G‑d has not given you a knowing heart... until this present day.” What does he mean by “a knowing heart”? A heart that responds to the knowledge it has been given, that what it understands means...

The Selichos prayers are often recited on Saturday night after the Shabbos when this Torah portion is read. There is a classic chassidic story about these prayers. Once the well-known chassid, R. Shmuel Munkes, was traveling to Liozna to spend the holiday...

In the shtetl communities of Eastern Europe, there were often sages who would seclude themselves in houses of study and spend the entire day in prayer and contemplation of the Talmud and its commentaries. The Baal Shem Tov once entered a room where one of...

I. In Sefer HaMitzvos, Rambam writes: The eighth mitzvah with which we were commanded is to [en­deavor to] emulate Him, may He be exalted, according to our potential, as it is written:Devarim 28:9. “And you shall follow His ways.” This commandment is reit...

Our Sidra contains a description of the ceremony of offering the first-fruits of the land of Israel, and gives the prayer that was to be recited by each person as he made his offering. One peculiarity of this prayer, is the way it singles out two miracles...

In the Torah portion Savo, we are told to “walk in His paths.”Devarim 28:9. The Rambam regards this exhortation as a positive command,Sefer HaMitzvos, Positive Command 8; Hilchos De’os 1:5 — based on Sotah 14a. explaining it to mean that “we are to emulat...