😭 This Story Makes Me Cry Every Time 🙌
The Tech Tribe Dispatch #79
💡 Think:
In 1798, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of the Chabad movement, was imprisoned by the Czar on charges that Chasidic teachings and practice were somehow subversive. For fifty-two days he was held in the Russian Bastille, the Peter-Paul Fortress, an unfinished citadel-cum-prison in S. Petersburg.
Among the Rebbe’s interrogators was the minister of education who possessed broad knowledge of the Torah and its Hebrew commentaries.
Approaching Rabbi Shneur Zalman, he asked him to explain the verse (Genesis 3:9) set after Adam had consumed the fruit from the Tree, “And G‑d called out to the man and said to him: ‘Where are you?’”
”Rabbi,” he asked. “Did G‑d not know where Adam was? How could the Creator of All somehow be unaware of Adam’s location.”
“Where are you?” Rabbi Shneur Zalman explained, “was merely a conversation starter, so as not to unnerve Adam by immediately confronting him with his wrongdoing.”
“What Rashi says, I know,” said the minister. “I wish to hear how the Rebbe understands the verse.”
“Do you believe that the Torah is eternal?” asked Rabbi Shneur Zalman. “Do you believe that its every word applies to every individual, under all conditions, at all times?”
“Yes,” replied the minister.
“Then know that this passage is an eternal dialogue between G-d and us,” explained Rabbi Shneur Zalman, “ ‘Where are you?’ is G‑d’s perpetual call to every human. Where are you in the world? What have you accomplished? You have been allotted a certain number of days, hours, and minutes in which to fulfill your mission in life. You have lived so many years and so many days,”—here Rabbi Shneur Zalman spelled out the exact age of the minister—“Where are you? What have you achieved?”
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