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How To Chanukah

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The Menorah

On each of the eight nights of Chanukah, this year beginning December 25 through January 1, we light the menorah. Here, in a nutshell, is how it works:

Though meant to recall the seven-branched candelabrum that once stood in the Temple, our modern-day menorah has eight lights, plus one more, known as the shamash, or “servant”, that serves to kindle the other lights and is set slightly apart from them. On the first night, close to nightfall, we use the shamash to light one lamp; on the second night, we add one more; and so we continue, adding another light each night so that by the end of the holiday we light all eight lights of the menorah.

Ideally, the lights must comprise fuel and wick—that includes candles, cotton wicks in olive oil, or paraffin lamps, but not gas or electric lights—and need enough fuel to burn for half an hour after nightfall. On Friday afternoon, the menorah is lit before the Shabbat candles, which are lit earlier than usual, before sundown, so make sure to use more fuel or longer candles. After Shabbat, be sure to wait until after nightfall and the Havdalah ceremony to light. 

There are two blessings to be recited before lighting the menorah each night, and on your first time lighting this year add a third, the Shehechiyanu, a generic blessing for special occasions. After lighting, while watching the candles burn, the Haneirot Hallalu prayer is recited, along with other traditional songs. 

Blessings and Prayers

The blessings provided here can be recited in Hebrew, transliterated Hebrew, or English. Recite all three before lighting for the first time this year, but only the first two on subsequent nights. 

First Night of Chanukah

Wednesday, Dec. 25 – Eve of 25 Kislev

After sunset, recite blessings 1, 2, and 3* then kindle one light on your menorah.

Second Night of Chanukah

Thursday, Dec. 26 – Eve of 26 Kislev

After sunset, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle two lights on your menorah.

Third Night of Chanukah

Friday, Dec. 27 – Eve of 27 Kislev

After sunset, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle three lights on your menorah. The menorah must be lit before lighting Shabbat candles. Light Shabbat candles 18 minutes before sunset.

Fourth Night of Chanukah

Saturday, Dec. 28 – Eve of 28 Kislev

After night falls and Shabbat ends, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle four lights on your menorah.

Fifth Night of Chanukah

Sunday, Dec. 29 – Eve of 29 Kislev

After sunset, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle five lights on your menorah.

Sixth Night of Chanukah

Monday, Dec. 30 – Eve of 1 Tevet

After sunset, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle six lights on your menorah.

Seventh Night of Chanukah

Tuesday, Dec. 31 – Eve of 2 Tevet

After sunset, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle seven lights on your menorah.

Eighth Night of Chanukah

Wednesday, Jan. 1 – Eve of 3 Tevet

After sunset, recite blessings 1 and 2, and kindle eight lights on your menorah.

Chanukah Fun Facts

Keep on Spinning!

When is a spinning top not just a spinning top? When it’s a dreidel. The beloved Chanukah game—especially popular when played for chocolate coins—was popularized in eighteenth century Europe, although accepted attribution places its origin squarely in the Chanukah story. In this account, the four-sided top served as a pretense for Jewish children to gather and study Torah under Greek oppression. 

A hundred more mystical, homiletic, and symbolic explanations dance atop the top’s little handle. The four letters inscribed on its sides (Nun, Gimmel, Hay, Shin) reference the historic Chanukah miracle; their numerical value is the same as that of Moshiach, pointing to our future Redemption; and, in a way, the dreidel tells the story of everything in between: As the centuries have turned, we Jews sometimes fall over, but then we persevere, get up again, and keep on spinning. 

A Whole Megillah

Everyone knows about Purim’s Scroll of Esther, but have you heard of the Chanukah Megillah? Many of the details of the Maccabees’ exploits come to us by way of a somewhat obscure text more commonly referred to as “The Scroll of Antiochus.” More details appear in other ancient sources, like the writings of Josephus and the Books of the Maccabees, but they have not survived as Jewish texts. There were also brief mentions by Greek and Roman historians of the ancient world like Diodorus and Tacitus.

Although, unlike Esther’s Megillah, the Scroll of Antiochus is not part of the Tanach—our holy Scriptures—it is however cited in Jewish sources going back to the Gaonic era. Rabbi Saadiah Gaon, a pre-eminent tenth century Babylonian Sage, traces the work back to the days of the Hasmoneans, although others contend it was composed closer to the Gaon’s day. Some communities have had the custom to read the Scroll aloud, and it has even been printed in some prayer books.

The Main Miracle

The two most famous, albeit brief, rabbinic accounts of the Chanukah story appear in the Talmud and in our liturgy. A few lines in tractate Shabbos explain just what the holiday is commemorating, while the V’al Hanissim prayer is inserted into the holiday prayers, and Grace After Meals gives a synopsis of the Chanukah miracles for which we give thanks to G-d.

Interestingly, these two sources emphasize different aspects of the Chanukah story: V’al Hanissim makes much of the Maccabees’ defeat over their foes, while the Talmud scarcely mentions the battles, and instead focuses on the miracle of the menorah.

All of which raises the question: Which of these miracles is more significant: The astonishing upset in war, or that marvelous oil that lasted for eight days? What do you think?

The Chanukah Heroine

Along with the latkes, the doughnuts, and the chocolate coins, another important culinary custom on Chanukah is to eat dairy foods. As the story goes, the brave Yehudit (Judith) had the enemy general Holofernes let his guard down by posing as a collaborator, and then fed him salty cheese and plenty of wine. The wine went to his head, which—once he fell asleep—he promptly lost to her sword. The story is commonly placed in the Chanukah context, which is why it became an excellent reason to enjoy some cheese over the holiday, as well as the source of a special custom for women to take a break from doing work for at least the first half-hour of the menorah lights burning.

The scene of Yehudit, decapitating the general has also become a much frequented subject for artists since the Renaissance. From a sculpture by Donatello, through paintings from Baroque artists Carvaggio and Artemisia, to more modern interpretations by Kehinde Wiley (more famously known as President Obama’s portraitist). Judith on Red Square, by Russian-born Jewish artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, reimagines Holofernes as Stalin and Yehudit as a young girl. There are even menorahs depicting the Chanukah heroine and the hapless Holofernes.

Trois-Rivières Historic Jewish Community Welcomes Chabad Center

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Sometime during the height of the COVID pandemic, Rabbi Aaron Spiro posted an ad on Facebook — something that read along the lines of: “Are you Jewish? Do you live in Trois-Rivières?” These questions would soon be answered with an unexpected Jewish revitalization in one of Quebec’s oldest cities.

About a two-hour drive from Montreal, the city of Trois-Rivières gets its name from the three channels where the Saint Maurice River meets the Saint Lawrence River. 

The city has a strong Jewish history. British businessman Aaron Hart, one of the first Jews to live in North America, settled in Trois-Rivières in 1761. His son, Ezekiel, was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in the early 19th century, initially unwilling to take his seat because the swearing-in oath included the phrase, “on the true faith of a Christian.”

Today, the city’s “Hart Street” honors the family’s legacy, and until recently, this was the sole memory of anything Jewish in Trois-Rivières. The last known synagogue closed in the 1950s; even the Jewish cemetery was relocated to Montreal in the 1980s. However, with the Montreal Torah Center’s L’Chaim Project, which aims to revitalize Jewish life around Quebec, an opportunity arose. In 2021, Rabbi Levi New called up Rabbi Aaron Spiro, asking him to participate in a new outreach project to help those feeling isolated due to the Covid pandemic. “Reach out to the Jews of Trois-Rivières,” he said.

After a few Facebook ads, people responded, and the dormant Jewish spirit of the city was awakened. Soon, Aaron and his wife Amanda, along with their 3 children, began visiting the city once a month, offering programs for Shabbat and holidays, with a growing number of participants.

Gina Levine saw the advertisement on Facebook and was overjoyed. “I had been living here for over 30 years, holding strong to my Jewish beliefs and traditions all throughout. But when the Spiros came they brought our small, but warm, community together.” She joined around 25 others in the first public Menorah lighting in the city’s history, a celebration that, she says, “brought tears to my eyes.”

Eventually, the Spiros began making the trek more often. However, each time, they were met with a challenge: where would they host the programs? Searching for a proper venue and koshering kitchens time and again was proving to be quite the hassle.

But just before Passover of 2024, Aaron received an unexpected call from a Montreal acquaintance who offered them a spacious, furnished condo in Trois-Rivières rent-free for Chabad use. Within 10 days, they moved in, furnished it, and hosted a Passover Seder and holiday services. After Passover, they held an event to inaugurate the new Chabad House, drawing 100 attendees. These days, the Spiros visit the city pretty often, hosting Shabbat and holiday services and meals — and soon, Rabbi Spiro says, Torah classes.

“The Spiros’ efforts to reach out, especially to my son, have made a big difference,” says Sam Falk. Sam lives in a small town nearly two hours north of Trois-Rivières, but he feels a close connection to Chabad there. “It’s comforting to have a Jewish presence in what feels like a spiritual wilderness. Knowing there’s a place to connect for Shabbat and holidays means so much.”“Every Jewish person in the community has a unique story,” says Rabbi Aaron. Some moved recently, while others settled there decades ago. Some even live in even smaller towns nearby and travel to Trois-Rivières for Jewish events. “Whenever we meet a new face, the first thing they often say is, ‘I thought I was the only Jew here.’ We’re here to let them know that that’s not the case.”

A Chanukah Message From Rabbi Krinsky

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Dear readers, 

I’m waiting for Chanukah.

In fact, I can’t wait to give thanks “for the miracles of those days in our time . . .”

It’s one of the blessings we recite when we light the menorah. 

Those days, the people of Israel faced existential threat.

Those days, the tiny nation of Israel stood alone, vilified by its foes. 

And in our time too.

Those days, the people of Israel stunned their enemies with a miraculous victory. 

And in our time too!

On Wednesday night, December 25, the first night of Chanukah, let us give thanks for the light that is finally shining through the darkness. 

Let us celebrate the miracles of those days that we are seeing in our time. 

With each additional light of the menorah that we’ll kindle over the course of eight days, we will shine light on the miracles that are unfolding before our eyes.  

In our time, the Chanukah lights illuminating the night skies will penetrate the darkest of places—even Gaza—with miracles of deliverance for our hostages.

Join me, dear friend, in making those lights shine their brightest. 

In your home, in your neighborhood, in your community. 

And let the light finally triumph, dispelling darkness once and for all. 

This Chanukah, may we see the miracles of those days in our time. 

For the people of Israel, the soldiers on the battlefront and the hostages in captivity.

For Am Yisrael. For the whole world. 

Wishing you personally, a joyous and illuminating Chanukah. 

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky

Chabad Opens in Leander, Texas, Amid Tech-Fueled Boom

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Rachel Binder’s family had no idea they were Jewish.  

Her great-grandmother made sure of that. But when someone in the family discovered a menorah and Torah books hidden away in a closet in their great-grandmother’s home, they had questions. Rachel and her uncle did some digging and confirmed that her great-grandmother hid her Jewish identity.

“I’m trying to teach my children the rituals, customs and culture of Judaism,” Binder told Lubavitch.com. “It’s important to me because it was kept from my family. We’re trying to do our best to raise our children and teach them.”

Rachel’s determination to bring Judaism into her children’s lives was challenging in Leander, Texas, a fast-growing suburb north of Austin. The location near Austin was great for her husband, who works in tech, and the suburban setting was great for her kids, who enjoy living in a home with a backyard. But when they first got to Leander in 2021, there was very little available in the way of Jewish resources, Rachel described.

“There was nothing here. Walmart and Target didn’t even have Hanukkah candles. When I asked for them, they’d confusedly send me to the birthday candles.” Rachel missed the public menorah lightings she had experienced in California, before moving to Leander. “It was heartbreaking not to see that for a while.” 

Then, two years after moving to town, she heard that the city would be having its first-ever public menorah lighting, held by Rabbi Shmuly and Nechomele Levertov, who’d just moved to town to found Chabad of Leander. 

Rabbi Shmuly grew up in nearby Austin, where his parents, Rabbi Yosef and Rochel Levertov direct Chabad of Austin. Growing up, Shmuly says, Leander had a much more rural feel than it does today. “We used to come to Leander to ride horses at a family friend’s ranch,” Levertov described. “But now, it’s being built up very quickly.” Indeed, Leander was the fastest-growing city in the US for a time, with many West Coast imports—like the Binders—moving in to work in tech in Austin.

More than 100 people, including the city’s mayor, attended that first menorah lighting at Robin Bledsoe Park. For Rachel Binder, it was a milestone not just for the city, but for her family. “To have the Levertovs come here, to host menorah lightings, to be able to expose my children and to give them an opportunity to be a part of it—it was wonderful,” she said. “They are so welcoming. They reach out to us weekly; they’re very accepting of my family, there’s so much warmth and kindness.”

The Levertovs have hosted holiday events and lots of family-friendly experiences, including a shofar factory, a sukkah-mobile, and next week, a menorah workshop.

“They treat everyone like family,” Binder said. “It’s so wonderful for our children, and we feel grateful and blessed that they came.”

19 Kislev: Rosh Hashana of Chassidut

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Yud-Tes Kislev, also known as the “Chag HaGeulah—The Holiday of Redemption,” or the “Rosh Hashana of Chassidut,” begins tonight and continues until sundown tomorrow. On this day in 1798, the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, was finally freed after spending 53 days in prison.

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Finding the Hidden Jews of Brazil

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Several summers ago, on the 7,000-mile “Southern Route,” a group of Chabad yeshiva students visited the city of Pelotas, Brazil, planning to spend Shabbat at the city’s historic old synagogue. While there, they met an elderly man named Roberto, who introduced the students to two of his siblings — a brother and a sister, who were overjoyed to see them. The siblings had drifted from their Jewish roots as the local community dwindled, they said. The following day was the anniversary of their mother’s passing. The students accompanied them to the old Jewish cemetery, helping them recite prayers by her grave.

A year later, the students returned and were introduced to the siblings’ 92-year-old brother. When they offered him the chance to put on tefillin, he agreed. As he recited Shema, tears streamed down his face. He cried, “G-d, I’m sorry. I’m a Jew, I’m part of Your people. I had no chance to practice Judaism, so I joined the Church. Please accept me back!”

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the room,” shared Shaya Begun, one of the students who was there that day. He adds: “But occurrences like this one are not uncommon. With each visit, another Jewish spark is ignited.”

Each summer, several pickup trucks carrying a group of young rabbinical students embark on a long journey. Some travel through the heart of the Amazon rainforest; others along the sunny South American coasts. All of them are on a search for the hidden Jews of Brazil.

The pickup trucks are part of “Mitzvah Tank Brazil,” a unique Jewish outreach program in the fifth-largest country in the world. What began as a grassroots effort by a handful of rabbinical students has transformed into a highly organized operation that reaches Jewish people across the vast country.

In 1973, a group of Brazilian Chabad rabbinical students decided they were going to do something concrete to reach Jews in the furthest corners of their home country. That summer (Brazilian winter) they made their way across the country, meeting unaffiliated Jews scattered in villages and towns across the country’s lush jungles and expansive coastlines.

They repeated this trip over the next few subsequent summers each time meeting new faces.

In 2017, this project, now led by Shaya Begun, was expanded and formalized. That summer, a group of yeshiva students journeyed through the country, visiting 20 cities and towns. The program grew every year since, and in 2024, five groups of students covered over 120 cities, towns, and villages reaching 570 Jewish families. Equipped with tefillin, mezuzahs, and Shabbat candles, they are ready to connect with Jews wherever they may be.

“The [rabbinical] students are like the children I never had,” says Renato from Paraná. “The feelings of happiness and positivity that these visits bring to my home and city linger long after they leave.”

How do they locate Jews in the most remote corners of the country? Social media is a valuable tool. When the students arrive in an area, they make their presence known on local Facebook or WhatsApp groups and other platforms, inviting Jews to reach out and connect. News of their visits also spreads quickly by word of mouth.

The students stay connected with their new friends year round, sending them holiday necessities that may be hard to come by in those areas, like the lulav and etrog for Sukkot and matzah for Passover. Many people also pursue Torah study sessions  over the phone with the rabbinical students.

The stories of renewed connection and spiritual growth could fill a book. “I had always thought Judaism only consisted of the Chumash and the Siddur,” says Fabio from Rio Grande do Sul. “When the students came, I realized how much more there was for me to learn and gain. Today, I put on Tefillin daily, attend Torah classes, and have a completely kosher kitchen.”

Book Notes

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Letters for Life

Guidance for Emotional Wellness

From the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Levi Y. Shmotkin

Ezra Press

As a teenager, Levi Shmotkin lost his oomph for life. Apathy, cynicism, and indifference became his default disposition. But then, as he writes in his introduction, he discovered the Rebbe’s letters: “An alternative world opened up before me. New perspectives on life and its complexities, new methods of thought, new strategies to approach internal struggles.”

Letters for Life explores the private correspondence of the Rebbe with ordinary individuals in the midst of heartbreak, loss, fear, and confusion. In these letters, the author found the tools that would teach him to “walk through life with confidence and serenity.”

The book is divided largely into two sections—“Essentials for Healthy Living” and “Overcoming Darkness.” Each letter is accompanied by the author’s commentary and a takeaway for direct application. A final section traces the Rebbe’s guidance to biblical and Talmudic sources, and provides the reader with a more expansive discussion of the themes addressed in the letters. 

Make Peace

A Strategic Guide for Achieving Lasting Peace in Israel

Elisha Pearl 

Yonah Press

Making peace with its hostile neighbors has been the clarion call of Israel’s allies ever since its establishment. But to the tiny nation fighting for its life while destruction looms at every border, the call often rings hollow and absurdly naive. 

October 7 magnified the threat to Israel, while the demands that she make peace with enemies who don’t want peace just grew louder. What is the answer to this perennial conundrum? 

Since the 1950s, Israeli military and political leaders have sought the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Distilling thousands of pages of his commentary into a systematic guide, Make Peace represents the Rebbe’s timeless vision for Israel’s security and an enduring peace. 

Mendy of Australia

Ella Verzov, Chana Oirechman

Menucha Publishers

Mendy from Australia was born with Angelman syndrome. He cannot speak or walk, but the nine-year-old son of Chabad shluchim in Melbourne invites readers to follow him as he goes about his daily routine and his vibrant life. 

With beautiful photography accompanying loads of interesting facts about Australia’s geographical, natural, and local features, readers get an inside view of life Down Under, as seen through Mendy’s eyes.  

We learn how he navigates his disabilities, communicating with classmates using his eyes and a computer. We follow him as he joins his siblings and his parents in their Chabad outreach activities, and how he enjoys the natural wonders of the Australian landscape.  
A winning addition to the Young Lamplighters series that has taken readers into the homes and lives of young shluchim from Venice to Nigeria, Mendy of Australia will inform and inspire readers of all backgrounds, while demonstrating the art of giving and caring for others.

Art as Avodah: A Visual Conversation with Tobi Kahn

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Tobi Kahn’s art lives in two worlds. His paintings of expansive oceanic horizons, akin to the color field works of Mark Rothko, hang in the collections of major museums. His large body of sculpture and ceremonial Judaica, on the other hand, exists in the lived experience of people who visit the sacred spaces he has created around the country, and in private homes where they are used in ritual practice.

Kahn, who was raised in an Orthodox family and attended Jewish day school and yeshiva in Israel, has used his unique position to build bridges. As co-founder of the Avoda Project, he taught thousands of university students of all races and religions to make their own ceremonial objects; he also co-founded the Artists’ Beit Midrash in New York City, a program that encourages fine artists to engage with sacred Jewish texts. His current exhibit, “Memory and Inheritance,” the culmination of four decades of work, combines his paintings and his Judaica. On view through November 10, 2024, it is housed in the Museum at Eldridge Street, a historic Manhattan synagogue.

You often use the Hebrew word avodah to describe your work. Why?

Sometimes a Hebrew word can carry a range of meanings that have no equivalent in English.

Avodah was the service of the priests in the Holy Temple; then there’s avodah in its meaning of work; and the word is also used for prayer or worship. My avodah is through art, but everyone does avodah.

You’re most famous for your “Sky & Water” paintings, which have no obvious connection to Judaism. You’ve also made mezuzah cases, Omer counters, and memorial lights. How do you define Jewish art? 

I’m Jewish, so my work is Jewish. But if you say you’re a Jewish artist, it could mean there’s a Jewish artistic style, and I don’t believe that. My work is me—everything that I encompass. I don’t call myself a “husband artist” or an American artist. Is my work deeply imbued with my belief in the Creator? It is. For me, the color blue is inseparable from [the biblical blue dye] techelet.

I want to make art that brings the viewer to a higher place. I have created a great deal of ceremonial Jewish art, but my abstract paintings are no less Jewish than the Judaica.

Beyond creating beautiful ritual objects, what can visual art add to Jewish life?

It’s like the difference between taste and smell—it adds a totally different dimension. A visual component does something to your heart, through your eyes. It makes you think differently because of what you’re seeing. People can experience Judaism that way. I don’t have words in my art, because I really like a purely visual experience. 

I work for months on each painting or sculpture, and sometimes years. I want people to feel differently about a work of art every time they look at it, to be in conversation with the image. You can get a lot out of art if you give it the time.

The titles of your artwork are neologisms that sound like Hebrew words. Why not use actual words? 

I don’t like giving too much information, because it closes down the viewer. People can experience the work in different ways depending on their knowledge. If you know color theory, you’ll experience my art one way; if you know Judaism well, you’ll understand it another. The names are allusive. They’re not meant to be literal.

In my current show, I have a painting, TSELA, which is a close-up of the inside of an orchid. Many people have said it looks like a shofar, which is fine. I also have a sculpture, HYYLAH, which uses an actual shofar as part of the piece. To make it, I looked at the contours of a shofar and created a setting to match. The dark shapes underneath remind me of the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah, and the Jewish people beseeching G-d to forgive our iniquities, but it’s fine if you see something else.

I believe making art is a religious act. And a work of art is complete only when viewers bring their eyes to it.

Thousands of Shluchim Gather for Annual Convention, Days After Colleague was Murdered

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Rabbi Bentzion Butman was on a long, long flight. 

He was on his way from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to New York City, where this week some 6,500 Chabad-Lubavitch shluchim (emissaries) and their guests will convene for the Kinus, the annual International Conference of Shluchim.

Rabbi Butman is the Chabad emissary to Cambodia, He left Phnom Penh for the Kinus Wednesday morning, one of thousands of rabbis taking flights that vary from an hour or two to Butman’s — a multi-stop, twenty-plus-hour trek long enough that he recited Shacharit multiple times en route — to join a conference that is annually a time to reconnect, grow and be inspired. This year, however, the Kinus is taking on a solemn and urgent tone, as it begins some 48 hours after Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Zvi Kogan, who was abducted and murdered by terrorists in the United Arab Emirates, was laid to rest in Israel.

The convention will include workshops and training sessions, with unique daylong seminar tracks covering topics including adult education, Chabad on Campus, educators, Chabad Young Professionals, mental health and wellness, youth leadership, fundraising, and technology. 

Throughout it all, they will gather to draw strength from one another, to grieve the loss of their colleague, and to honor the mission he gave his life for.

Rabbi Mendel Ehrenreich is the youth director at Chabad of Forsyth County, Georgia. For Ehrenreich, Kogan’s murder hit especially hard. As yeshiva students, the two of them —Ehrenreich and Kogan — volunteered together at Chabad of the UAE in the months following the Abraham Accords in 2020, as more than 60,000 Israeli tourists visited the country, and Chabad stepped up its services to provide for their Jewish needs. 

“I really got to see what it means to be dedicated,” Ehrenreich recalled. “He didn’t stop for a second. When someone called the Chabad House and asked to join us for Shabbat dinner, and we were already sold out, with 400 guests filling the hotel ballroom to capacity, found a way.”

“He called the hotel and got them to squeeze another table, another two tables in. He’d call the caterer and ask them to prepare another few trays of food,”  Ehrenreich said. “If there was a Jew in a foreign land who needed something, Kogan’s answer was always yes.”

The Kinus will include a memorial gathering in Rabbi Kogan’s honor, and the gala banquet — the closing event of the Kinus — will open with a tribute to his life. Emissaries will gather at the Ohel, the Rebbe’s resting place, to pray for their communities and for the Jews of Israel. There will be time to grieve and time to find support, time to cry and time to heal. But most importantly, Ehrenreich says, there will be a call to action.

“This was someone who committed his life to Judaism; to helping Jews in a far-flung place. As shluchim, as we head to the Kinus, we need to know that there’s a soldier missing,” Ehrenreich said. “Everyone else needs to fill the shoes of that missing soldier; everyone has to do their part to fill that void.”

STATEMENT BY CHABAD-LUBAVITCH WORLD HEADQUARTERS

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We are deeply concerned about Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary who went missing in the Emirati city of Dubai on Thursday. 

Our emissaries are working closely with authorities as they investigate his disappearance. 

We pray, along with the worldwide Jewish community for his safe return, and we ask everyone to keep Zvi haCohen ben Ettel in your prayers. 

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky

Chairman

Lubbock, Texas Welcomes Chabad Presence

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It was a Friday afternoon, and the hot, northwest Texas sun was beating down on students as they walked to and from classes along the broad Engineering Key at Texas Tech University. A small folding table stood along the way, a lone figure standing near it. A smiling rabbi, black fedora perched on his head, sleeves rolled up in the Texas heat, asked student after student, “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” 

Of the more than 40,000 students at Texas Tech this year, some 400 are Jewish. That Friday on the Key, they found a welcome sight. 

Chabad had come to Lubbock, Texas. 

Rabbi Zalman and Chana Liba Braun moved to Lubbock earlier this year, to serve the needs of Jewish students at Texas Tech as well as the local Jewish community. With a population of 250,000, Lubbock was the largest remaining U.S. city without a Chabad presence.

Lubbock’s Jewish community traces its roots to the early 1900s, when a Jewish couple opened a dry goods store in the then-tiny town along the Santa Fe Railroad. Today, several hundred Jewish people call the city home. Andrea Herrera is one of them. 

When the Brauns first visited Lubbock, Herrera and her husband Alex met them for coffee. “We spent an hour and a half kibitzing,” Herrera recalled. “They were trying to decide whether to move here.”

It wasn’t an easy decision. Lubbock is five hours away from the nearest Chabad house, hundreds of miles from the closest kosher supermarket or mikvah. But here was a community excited to welcome a new rabbi and rebbetzin. Here was a college — the sixth-largest in the state — that had never had Jewish infrastructure in its nearly century-long history.

The Brauns visited again, this time on Chanukah. They held a public menorah lighting on campus at Red Raider Plaza, and another at South Plains Mall, where the nascent Chabad center was greeted by Mayor Tray Payne and other public officials.

“It was very well attended, very public—it was wonderful,” Herrera said. “It was then that I began to realize that they were considering moving here.”

The Brauns hit the ground running, with a Purim party, Passover Seders, High Holiday services and Shabbat dinners. Jewish students welcomed the new Jewish presence on campus—eight of whom even joined the annual Chabad on Campus  Shabbaton in New York, last week. 

Nowadays, Chabad’s table on campus at Texas Tech is becoming a familiar sight, as Jewish pride takes off in northwest Texas.

What Israel Means To Them Now: Shehekhiyonu

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Following the events of October 7, I reached back to a poem I committed to memory when I first read it—a poem written when we Jews thought that the worst was already behind us. I was born in East Central Europe in 1936, and raised in Canada as a fortunate immigrant in the 1940s, and I consider it the greatest privilege of my life to have seen the establishment of the state of Israel. 

But our post-Shoah enemies never stopped trying to destroy our monumental achievement, and because they fail, they try to desecrate its glory. I will never let them. In its quiet, private way this Yiddish poem by Avrom (Abraham) Sutzkever, reaffirms how much is at stake in the Jewish return to the Land of Israel.

First published in November 1948 in the weekly of the Displaced Persons camp in Munich, the poem later appeared in the author’s collected works under the title Shehekhiyonu. Many Jews recite this prayer when first arriving in the land of Israel: Blessed art thou, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, who has kept us in life (shehekhiyonu), and preserved us (vekiymonu), and enabled us to reach this season (vehigiyonu lazman hazeh). The poet maintains the triple structure of the prayer’s three parallel verbs, but in the conditional form, through the negative possibility that he might not have made it to the Land of Israel. 

By the time Sutzkever arrived in Palestine in November 1947, he was renowned in the Yiddish literary world as one of its greatest poets and bravest of survivors. Forced into the ghetto of Vilna with the rest of the Jewish population after the German invasion of June 1941, he continued to write poems and to inspire cultural resistance. He and his wife also joined the Jewish underground resistance and escaped in September 1943 to fight as partisans in the surrounding forests. He said that his subsequent life story reads like a maysele fun Tanakh—a legend of biblical proportions. 

Coming to Israel months before the declaration of statehood, he experienced himself as part of both the dead left behind and the Jewish people in their resurrected homeland. This lyric blends the two. Every word in the description of Israel’s birth pangs reverberates with echoes of liturgical and traditional sources. The rhyme of akeyde with zeyde, blending biblical Hebrew with homiest Yiddish, reassures us that not only did Isaac survive G-d’s test of Abraham, but generations of Jewish sons lived to become beloved grandfathers. Every pebble of the Land of Israel is our familiar ancestry.  

Speaking in his own voice, the poet expresses thankfulness for his great good fortune, haunted by the knowledge that most of his community failed to reach this destination. The word “not” appears six times in eleven lines, carrying the weight of those others. Had he not arrived, he would have expired, fargoyt—a deliberately untranslatable neologism, a word that Sutzkever creates to define a certain kind of dying, turned into a goy, dying as a member of the Jewish people. The Yiddish prefix far, which can mean “turned into,” joined to the term for gentile makes assimilation explicit. This is less a political rejection of galut than a post-war craving to be fully Jewishly at home.

Yet, this is not yet the end. An added line that requires a new rhyming scheme tells us that even had the poet not made it, his yearning would have come on its own. So powerful and sustained is the Jewish longing for Israel that even without any physical presence, the longing would have remained a metaphysical force. Supernatural power is here ascribed to the civilization that the people of Israel have forged. And the power of this longing speaks for those who have not lived to pronounce the Shehekhiyonu blessing.

By Abraham Sutzkever

If I were not at one with you, 

Not breathing air of joy and pain here, 

Were I not burning with the Land 

Volcanic Land in throes of labor; 

After my Trial, if I were not 

Being resurrected with the Land 

Whose ever pebble is my ancestor—

No bread would sate my hunger, 

No water cool my gums, 

Till Gentiled I’d expire, 

And on its own my yearning would come. 

This poem first appeared in the weekly of the Displaced Persons Camps, Af der vakh (On Guard), Munich, November 25, 1948. Dated 1947, the year of the poet’s arrival in Eretz Israel,,it was placed as the opening lyric of the section Shehekhiyonu in Abraham Sutzkever’s collection of poems,In fayer-vogn (In the Chariot of Fire) Tel Aviv: Di Goldene Keyt, 1952.

This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Lubavitch International, to subscribe to the magazine, click here.

Thousands of Jewish College Students Meet Up at International Shabbaton

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After the year Jewish students have had, Rabbi Ariel Stern knew he had to do something special for them.

Rabbi Stern and his wife Mushky have been serving the Jewish student community at Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec, for nearly a decade. Overall, the school has been a positive space for Jewish students. This year, however, rising antisemitism brought immense challenges for Jewish college students around the world. 

So Rabbi Stern reserved 70 spots at Pegisha, the largest annual Jewish student gathering arranged by Chabad on Campus International. Pegisha brings students to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York for a weekend filled with warm Shabbat meals, workshops and speakers, joyous celebrations, and a grand havdalah ceremony.

Joyous dancing at Pegisha (File photo courtesy of Chabad on Campus International)

The 70 spots Rabbi Stern had reserved weren’t refundable, so Chabad Dawson got to work filling them. Jewish Dawson students created a hosting committee, inviting their friends to join them for the weekend. Interest in the weekend quickly grew, and this weekend, Chabad Dawson will be joining Pegisha for the first time filling every one of the 70 reservations with students.

“One reason students were excited was obviously for the trip — to get to go to New York City,” said Dean Fleming, a sophomore at Dawson College. “But it’s also because Chabad is such a happening place, and everyone comes together — they wanted to take it to the next level, and Pegisha allows us to do that, and to connect with students from other Chabads.”

They’re not the only Chabad center seeing increased interest in Pegisha this year. Not long after registration opened earlier in the academic year, it sold out. A waiting list quickly grew, with hundreds vying for a reservation. Typically, about 1,200 students attend Pegisha. This year, Chabad on Campus International realized that that simply wouldn’t cut it.

“In this critical moment, we could not turn away a single student,” Chabad on Campus International COO Rabbi Avi Weinstein said. So they booked a second venue, and this year will see the largest-ever gathering of Jewish college students: 2,000 of them, hailing from 176 colleges.

2,000 Jewish students will join Pegisha this weekend (File photo courtesy of Chabad on Campus International)

When two of his students were attacked on the way to a Shabbat dinner at the University of Pittsburgh, Rabbi Shmuli Rothstein rushed to their side, after which they joined Chabad at its safe, welcoming Shabbat dinner. Less than a month later, Rothstein, director of Chabad at Pitt, rushed to help another student who’d been attacked on campus while wearing a Star of David necklace. This weekend, Rabbi Rothstein will travel to Crown Heights with a group of students to participate in Pegisha, and he says they are determined to continue to be there for Jewish students. 

“It’s unfortunate that this is the reality for Jewish students, but their resilience continues to inspire us, and we will continue supporting them in every way we can.”

Pegisha is an annual celebration of Jewish pride (File photo courtesy of Chabad on Campus International)