💡 Think:
Reb Shmuel Munkes is a beloved chasidic personality - known for his quick whit and playful nature, often deceptively laced with deep chasidic ideas. When he first heard of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman, the founder of the Chabad movement, he walked on foot one winter’s morning from his village of Kalisk to Liozhna, where the nascent chasidic leader lived. Arriving in Liozhna late at night, he found the entire village enveloped in an inky blackness. Unsure of where this rebbe lived, he wandered around until he found a lone single-room house with light coming from its windows - piercing the winter night. Reasoning that only the rebbe would be up late at night, burning a candle to light the home as he studied, he walked to the front door and began to knock.
The Alter Rebbe, deep in study at his desk, was disturbed by the sound and came to the front door.
“Can I help you,” he asked the stranger.
“It’s cold out, and I’d like to spend the night here,” Reb Shmuel Munkes declared - putting his foot in the doorway.
“Are there not other places in town, bigger homes as well as inns and taverns, you could stay in?”
“But Rebbe, is this not a Jewish home? Am I not a Jew? I wish to stay here,” Reb Shmuel said, as he barged in and took a place by the hearth.
“I can call the goy, my non-Jewish helper, to escort you out,” the Alter Rebbe declared.
Reb Shmuel, no longer playing the fool, looked the Alter Rebbe in the eyes.
“Rebbe,” he cried out. “Mayn goy iz shtarker fun ayer goy! My goy, the inner inclination that draws us away from our Jewish connection, is stronger than yours!”
* * *
There is a modern day lesson from this story: As spiritual sojourners, we wander the darkness of the world today, we may find homes - large homes, inns and taverns - that can host us . . . but is only a Jewish home - with its warmth and light - where we will truly find respite. To enter that home, the seeker can not merely barge in - the mud and snow still clinging to the feet. Rather, we ask seeker first. “Who are you? What are you truly searching for?” Those pointed questions open the door for self-reflection, for exploration. Indeed the sojourner realizes, ‘I’m looking for something deeper than the mass-culture, than the superficiality of the world at large.’
“I want something that speaks to who I am”.
Then, however, the sojourner realizes, “the goy - that negative voice of worldly dispositions within me - can throw me out,” I must shake off my external attachments and commit to my essence, my soul, to come in . . . which leads to the realization that “Mayn goy iz shtarker fun ayer goy!” When the seeker realizes the true depths of their external attachments, and internal struggle, then it is possible to come in and experience the light . . .
🏃 DO:
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🎧 Listen:
A Yemenite Jewish performance of a song in Russian, celebrating New Years (the most Russian of holidays)
😢 Condolences:
We’d like to offer our deepest heartfelt condolences to Andrew and Rachel Kaczynski on the passing of their daughter, Francesca (Talia Davida). May her memory be a blessing and inspiration us all.
📚 Read:
👩⚖️ A Judge and a Jew: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Chabad rabbi, and the mysterious nature of Jewish identity.
🤳 Sarah Wildman writes about her daughter Orli, “My Daughter, TikTok Warrior” and how my family found an unlikely bridge across the divide created by cancer.
📝 An open letter to tech CEOs and leaders on the importance of diversity.
🚶 Tech Tribe member Armin Rosen reflects on how much of our humanity we have lost to the pandemic in The Satmar Way of Life and Death Used to Be Our Way, Too.
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