Editor's note: Three notebooks of notes by the Rebbe, of righteous memory, came to light about a month after his passing, when they were discovered in a drawer in his room. The entries in these journals date between the years 1928, the year of the Rebbe's marriage, and 1950. Throughout these the Rebbe kept these notebooks with him at all times, jotting down the scholarly and sublime products of his phenomenal mind also in the most precarious of circumstances. Read more »
ב"ה
The Rebbe's Notebooks
The "Reshimot"
The sukkah is a makeshift hut in which the Jew dwells during the seven-day festival of Sukkot that remind us of how G‑d sheltered us with the miraculous “clouds of glory” in our forty-year journey through the desert from Egypt to the Holy Land. Yet the sukkah also has a more ancient origin, dating back four hundred years before the Exodus, to Abraham, the first Jew.
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Many claim to intuitively know what is right in life. They reject the notion that one must transcend a subjective self to achieve harmony between body and soul. They argue that the body and the soul are complementary parts of an integral self, requiring no external laws and rituals to govern their relationship and define a particular path through life.
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It is specifically in the lowest end of Creation that the potential for holiness is the greatest.
G-d commanded the Jewish people to take vengeance against Midian because they enticed them into the idolatry of Pe'or ;
this idolatry of is hedonism, the indulgence in sensual pleasure as an end in itself, implying that physical pleasures are either too "low" and vulgar to serve divine purposes or are somehow off-limits for the holy life.
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The relationship between G-d and the Jews is like that between husband and wife.
According to the Midrash, G-d allegorically fulfills all the precepts that He commanded the Jewish people. Since G-d is considered the husband of the Jewish people, thus He is "obligated" to provide His people with food, clothing, and conjugal rights as His basic obligations to His wife.
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Intermediate
The word for “give thanks” in Hebrew also means “to acknowledge.”
If we recover from all four of those dangers requiring a thanksgiving offering brought to the holy Temple— by not drowning in the sea of chochma, by progressing to the 50th gate of understanding, by manifesting the emotions born of our intellect, and by
communicating our inspiration to others—we thereby rectify our entire complement of soul-powers.
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Related Topics
- Reshimot (11)
- Lubavitcher Rebbe (374)
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