Living Torah Archives

Shmuel Abramson works in special education and lives in Monsey, New York. As a college student in the mid-1970s, he began to re-connect to his Jewish heritage. After getting engaged to his wife-to-be, he and his fiancé went to the Rebbe to seek a blessing before getting married. During their audience, he took the opportunity to ask two questions of the Rebbe. Their answers have guided him until this day. (1977)

When the match was proposed between the Alter Rebbe, the founder of Chabad Lubavitch, and Shterna, the daughter of one of the wealthiest Jews of his day, the Alter Rebbe set a tough precondition: His dowry was to be used to help settle poor Jews on the land, and help them earn a livelihood.