Living Torah Archives

Mrs. Chana Popack and her husband served as Chabad emissaries in Philadelphia for three decades. She was born in Soviet Russia during Stalinist times, and her father was at a loss about where to send her to school. He couldn’t communicate directly with the Rebbe, for fear of being intercepted by the Soviet authorities. But through various maneuvers, he managed to get advice from the Rebbe, and somehow, the Rebbe’s unlikely idea worked. (1930s)

Rabbi Avraham Rottenberg recalls that when he received word from Israel that his father had suffered a heart attack, the Rebbe insisted that he take the oldest medicine in the book, and to good effect. (Late 1950s)

Sometimes, quite out of the blue, we can experience thoughts of repentance, of growing spiritually, and of bettering ourselves. Far from random, the Talmud relates that such thoughts are the soul’s response to a call which issues daily from Heaven.

Reb Mendel Futerfas, imprisoned in a Soviet gulag and unable to communicate with the outside world, composed a unique letter in his mind and “sent” it off to the Previous Rebbe. Reb Mendel’s wife was shocked to receive a letter from the Previous Rebbe in reply to her husband’s “telegram.”

“The Baal Shem Tov teaches: ‘Wherever a person’s thoughts are, that’s where he is present.’ In the Laws of Eruv Techumin, the Techum is established based upon where you have in mind, not necessarily where you physically stand. Although you are here in America, your thoughts are, no doubt, in the Land of Israel. Draw Israel’s holiness upon the people here in the Diaspora.”