(Lubavitch.com) Jenna Domber, a recent Ithaca College graduate with work experience in marketing and communications, used to “look into the observant world” with the belief that “women seem to be oppressed and have fewer rights.”

Still, when she decided to study Judaism in Israel, she chose an Orthodox institution – specifically, the Chabad-run Mayanot Institute for Women in Jerusalem. She picked Mayanot over other women’s beginner programs for its diverse course offerings, but one of the most powerful benefits, she now says, is that unlike many other programs for the newly-observant, the Mayanot faculty and staff never pressure students to marry quickly, or to lower their career ambitions.

“My understanding is that most women in the Chabad movement don’t go to college, but at Mayanot they understand the women coming here are very active in the secular world,” she said. “They are open and encouraging about it, and give us skills to access our spirituality in the context of our jobs.”

As for women’s participation in Jewish ritual, the text-based, highly academic study program at Mayanot convinced Domber that not all is as it seems. “Once I learned the reasons behind things,” she said, “not only are women not oppressed, but I’ve never felt more empowered to bring my gifts to the world – as a Jewish woman.”

Indeed the driving philosophy at Mayanot vis-à-vis women, careers, and ritual life – and one of the major “draws” for students — is that women are entitled to study Judaism’s classical texts, including Talmud, and to make decisions for themselves about how to apply what they learn.

While some other beginners’ seminaries lecture students on Jewish law and philosophy, and often push them to marry quickly, Mayanot’s curriculum teaches students to pick apart the ancient and Medieval texts which gave rise to Jewish laws and to make intellectual decisions based on first-hand experience with the primary sources.

“Not all seminaries believe that their graduates should return to university or even leave Israel,” said Mayanot’s Executive Director Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov. “We’re proud that those students of ours who were planning to attend graduate school still go. The ones who were starting careers still follow their plans. Our goal is not to convince people to change their dreams, but to infuse whatever they do with spirituality, to go out to the workplace and be a role model there of what it means to be a dedicated Jew, to turn one’s experiences in law school or in the business world into opportunities to bring more Torah into the world.”

Ilana Hecht, 25, made aliyah and became a full-time student at Mayanot after studying in California, Japan, and Russia. She was particularly touched that the Chabad-affiliated Mayanot administration encouraged her to follow her plan of volunteering for the IDF. “I was expecting opposition,” she remembers, “because there is a stigma for religious women to be in the army. But whenever I come back to the campus, [Educational Director] Rabbi Meir Levinger tells the other girls ‘this is Ilana. She used to study here, and now she’s serving the country.’ It makes me really happy. It wasn’t just a place of Jewish learning, it was a home.”  She has chosen to express her Jewish identity by wearing a skirted uniform (rather than pants) whenever she is off her base; she also continues to attend shiurim at Mayanot and at other Torah institutions “all over Jerusalem.” Her future plans include the master’s program in East Asian Studies at Hebrew University.

Located in the charming Old Katamon neighborhood, the Mayanot women’s division re-opened one year ago, and in just twelve months has grown from a student body of 12 to an ever-changing, enthusiastic core of 45 part- and full-time students, despite the Gaza war. (The men’s division in the Makor Baruch neighborhood near Machneh Yehudah Shuk, has a student body of 80.)

Additionally, hundreds of participants of the Taglit-Birthright Israel program have taken classes at Mayanot as part of the “Taste of Jewish Learning” program.

The “old” women’s institute of the late 1990’s which was originally founded through the support of Founding Chairman, Rabbi Joseph Gutnick re-opened last January with a special grant from the George Rohr Charitable Entity in one building of what used to be the Machon Gold campus. The building, surrounded by trees and pre-1948 homes, contains a sizable Bet Midrash, classrooms, offices, and dormitory space.

Most of the students are new college graduates with a minimal background in Jewish education, said Rabbi Gestetner, Mayanot’s Dean, adding that they usually hear about Mayanot while on their Taglit-Birthright Israel trip, or from their campus Chabad rabbi or friends. What distinguishes Mayanot from other beginner-women’s programs, he said, is the unique combination of high-level textual study with significant study of Chassidut.

“Most of the students are either on a personal spiritual search, or they know what direction they want but need to increase their ability to study Hebrew texts,” he said. “This program is ideal for a student who is looking for depth in Judaism, who also does not want to sacrifice her intellectual integrity.”

"They don’t put you in a box or tell you to be a certain way,” concurred Lindsay Casper, 23, who studied at Mayanot in the first 6 months after it re-opened. “They don’t want you to give up your talents or what you love. That’s not a Lubavitch approach.” Rather, she says, "they expect us to take what we have, and cultivate it, and channel it in a Jewish way.”

(lubavitch.com) Concerns about the future of Jewish life and its continuity keep many community leaders, philanthropists and Jewish census professionals preoccupied. Overwhelmingly, it seems most agree that “the Jewish future can only be secured by ensuring the continued existence and flourishing of practicing, believing, involved Jews.” 

Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim appreciate this intuitively. It’s the impetus for Chabad’s colorful, diverse and comprehensive programs that reach out to Jewish people across the spectrum, and especially to children—the key to Jewish continuity.

When 40 children arrive at Chabad’s Chai Center in Wilmette, Illinois this Thursday night, cooking stations will be there to greet them. Decked out in personalized aprons, the junior chefs will prepare Shabbat dinner for 120 guests. When they have finished cooking gefilte fish, salads, and desserts, these Hebrew School students will decorate and set a dozen tables.

“Our One Shabbat One World concludes four weeks of an intensive Shabbat curriculum, including the how, what, when, and why of Shabbat observance,” says Rivke Flinkenstein. “But there is nothing like the actual Shabbat experience to illustrate how special this day is. And it all starts Thursday night when we gather to prepare the food.”

The Jewish community of Wilmette, 14 miles from downtown Chicago, is joining 300 other communities around the globe in the fifth annual “One Shabbat One World.” The idea, explains organizer Rabbi Chaim Hershkowitz, is for Jews of all ages and backgrounds to unite at a Shabbat table and explore the concepts of Shabbat and its redemptive power. “There is a well-known maxim in the Talmud,” Hershokowitz says, “that guarantees that when the entire Jewish nation keeps one Shabbat, Moshiach will come.”  

According to Rabbi Dovie Shapiro, director of Chabad at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, those at his table are getting a taste of the Messianic era along with their matzo ball soup. “When students sit around our Shabbat table it does not make a difference if they know Hebrew or if they had a bar or bat mitzvah, all that matters is that they’re Jewish. This is how it will be in the times of Moshiach when all the boundaries that divide us will fall by the wayside.”  

Jordan Grelewicz is an NAU sophomore who attends Friday night dinner at Chabad each week. “If you go to a bar or party, you have such a disconnected, empty feeling,” he says, “while at Chabad, you not only connect with Judaism on a meaningful level, but also share a really good meal with really good friends.”

This week, Grelewitz is hoping to be joined by 50 other Jewish students. “This is my main social outlet here,” he says, “all my friends go to Chabad—and I expect that we will be friends for life.”

The social aspect is a large part of what makes Shabbat so appealing. “I host guests every Shabbat,” states Flinkenstein, “and after we have talked and eaten together for a few hours, they comment on ‘how magical the evening was,’ and ask for recipes and advice on how to establish their own Shabbat rituals.” With an overflow crowd expected this Friday night, Flinkenstein hopes that the shared experience will “strengthen people and allow them to see the beauty and blessing that Shabbat is.”  
 In Calgary, Alberta, Rabbi Mordechai Groner says that community members have had One Shabbat One World on their calendars for months. On a regular Shabbat, approximately 50 people visit the Chabad center. This week, though, organizers have had to close registration as over 90 people have signed up, and there simply is no more space. This is the first year that the center is hosting a full Shabbat of activities, and Groner says that this variety makes it more accessible.

“We have many more participants than ever before, and completely new crowds are attending this year. Even if someone cannot make it Friday night, he can attend Shabbat morning or Saturday night.” Australian mystic, Rabbi Laibl Wolf, is the weekend’s presenter and it appears that his presence is causing quite a stir in this frosty city. Shabbat’s meals and lectures will reflect his theme: how to maintain a positive outlook in the current global uncertainty.

“We will spend this Shabbat immersed in study and rest,” says Groner. “It will be just like the times of Moshiach, when we will be able to learn constantly.”    

In Wilmette, Flagstaff, Calgary and hundreds of other cities around the globe, there is a lot of work to be done before the candles will usher in this unique Shabbat.

But even the work is fun. “”Usually the guys come an hour or so before and help set up the tables,” says Grelewicz. “This just gives me more time to ask the rabbi any question of my mind (including the logistics of Shabbat in Alaska and the presence of mythical creatures in Judaism). It also allows me to get to know the other Jewish students even better.”

For Grelewicz at least, Shabbat is about the “three F’s of food, friends, and fun.” One Shabbat One World, playing at 300 Chabad centers around the world, should have all three. 

(lubavitch.com) With the arrival of the new first family and the 44th president of the United States into the White House last month, came a new email system. Also gaining residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was President Obama’s souped-up PDA.

Like our new president, many Chabad-Lubavitch representatives (shluchim) are finding that technology is an inseparable part of modern life. And though they may not be carrying the world’s only NSA-secured smartphone on their hips, shluchim are using assorted Web 2.0 applications to get their own executive missions accomplished.

“If any group would embrace this technology, it would have to be Lubavitch,” asserts Noam Cohen, a technology writer for the New York Times. Cohen discovered Chabad Lubavitch’s presence on the social networking site, Twitter, when official news organizations drew a blank in coverage during the Mumbai massacres last November.

Mordechai Lightstone, a writer for Lubavitch.com, updates Twitter with regular tweets (instantaneous messages of up to 140 characters). “I was surprised to see Twitter being used in such a sharp way,” recalls Cohen. “They played it to its strength and were able to inform people of the goings-on.” 

“For better or worse,” Cohen continues, “people today want to be in constant touch. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are the way of the future.”

On college campuses around the globe, they are also very much the way of the present.

Rabbi Mendel and Brocha Lent moved to Nottingham, England last August and both credit the internet with their budding success on the Universities of Nottingham and Derby campuses. “Students’ lives literally revolve around Facebook,” says Mrs. Lent, “so we reach out to them through this medium. Many students think that we’re here to convert them, and are too nervous to come by. After we develop a friendship with them, through chatting on Facebook, they are willing to check us out.”
  
In Venezuela, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Slavin says that of his ten years serving the downtown Jewish community of Caracas, this past was his most successful. The credit, he says, goes to a three-minute JabadTube presentation which he has prepared each week since December of 2007.

The audio-visual presentation explaining the week’s Torah portion takes approximately 30 hours per week to produce. Together with his wife and a professional editor, Slavin finds subject matter, writes and translates his speech into Spanish, locates appropriate graphics, and films the presentation.

Slavin estimates that 1,000 people view his short clip each week, via YouTube, his own website, and through email. “People who I have never met before thank me for the show…and ask when the next one is coming out.” Slavin ends each video by saying, “Chassidut explica” (Chassidut explains) and leaves his viewers with a parting message of inspiration. “Often when I am walking through the streets of Caracas,” he chuckles, “people will beep their car horns and shout, ‘Chassidut explica!’”    

“The broadcast,” says Slavin, “allows me to get into people’s homes and offices. I know of many couples who watch the show on their laptops before bed.”

“Not everyone is available, emotionally or otherwise, to come to the synagogue on Shabbat to pray and listen to the rabbi’s speech,” explains Rabbi Mendy Herson of Basking Ridge, New Jersey. “I feel that the words I say from behind the pulpit are directed to a more select group. My blog provides an avenue to reach people who do not want to attend shul regularly, but do want a connection.”

Herson began his blog in August of 2007 when community members begged him to record his experiences visiting sites of historic and religious significance in Russia.

Though Herson directs his “quick capsules of inspiration” towards community members, some of his 300 regular readers hail from across the United States, Australia, and France. “My writing has taken on a certain style. I know that I have to keep it short. People are accessing it in their offices and there is not enough space in the brain to process a long speech. My goal is to flip into the tiny crack of consciousness that is open.”  

Approximately 900,000 blog posts are created daily around the world with over six billion people using the internet on a regular basis. The thousands of Chabad representatives who utilize this important tool, are quick to point out that the internet is merely a springboard for personal, meaningful connection. “People read my posts and then bring discussion points or questions to the synagogue and the street,” states Herson. “I didn’t realize what a tremendous (and undervalued) tool we have available.”

Chabad has been at the forefront of viral marketing even before the internet was created, and was one of the first to use the web with the creation of chabad.org, our Torah content and children's content website, and then askmoses.com, a live chat website.

But with its inception, Torah podcasts, Youtube videos illustrating how to wrap Tefillin, and Shabbat invitations via Facebook, are the contemporary facade of this traditional movement. Wherever you find Google, there too is Chabad.

(lubavitch.com) Askmoses.com, possibly the largest online Jewish knowledge base, took its one millionth chat session recently, garnering a spot on CBS's 6:15 Spotlight.

After 10 years of answering questions live, 24/6, the website created by Chabad of California has become a point of reference for people looking for a reliable response to anything related to Jewish life and practice. Sometimes, it’s not a question but a cry for a listening ear.

With a staff of 45 respondents, men and women knowledgeable in all things Jewish, “Askmoses makes an extraordinary dialogue possible across all boundaries,” says Rabbi Simcha Backman, Askmoses project director.

Questions are typically posed anonymously and run the entire gamut from spiritual matters, interpretations of texts, traditions, Jewish observance, to questions about marriage, sexuality, abortion and suicide. 

“The average person on the street does not have access to a rabbi," Rabbi Yosef Loschak, AskMoses' "chief scholar," told the LA Times in a recent interview. "Here is a way they can do that. If they have a question about Judaism, Moses is a pretty good source."

Many visitors develop an online rapport with a particular respondent, and will keep a conversation going over a long period of time. The website also connects users to local Jewish community centers, rabbis, teachers and other resources. According to Askmoses facts, the website has, to date, introduced more than 13,000 users to a Shabbat dinner in their local communities.

“It’s an incredible resource where someone is always available,” one user who asked to remain anonymous told Lubavitch.com. “I can be as specific and particular as my dilemma may be, I can remain completely anonymous yet discuss something really personal, and someone is there when I need them.”

You can’t overstate the value of something like that. Especially when it’s free.

(lubavitch.com) If a son kills his parents in order to claim their estate, does he still get to inherit?

This and five other provocative issues form the basis for the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s latest course, “You Be the Judge II: An Exhilarating New Exploration of Jewish Civil Law.” Coming on the heels of a popular 2006 series with the same name, the six-week course seeks to “introduce Talmud to the public through a case study method incorporating American cases,” explains JLI’s curriculum developer, Chana Silberstein. The synthesis of authentic Talmud and contemporary cases gives students “an emotional immediacy where they can relate to real people and real cases,” she says.

The Talmud documents rabbinic discussions regarding Jewish history, law, and ethics. Written over 2,000 years ago, it continues to occupy and engage Jewish students. It is, according to Silberstein, “the pinnacle of Jewish intellectual creativity, incorporating the essence of morality and legality: the two timeless questions of ‘whose is this’ and ‘is it fair?’”

Silberstein points to one case, highlighted in the third class, which deals with just these issues. What happens if two people claim something is theirs? Neither has a witness or written proof. What principles help in deciding actual ownership?

To offset the Talmudic account, a 2004 South Carolina case is presented in which Thomas Law Willcox, a descendant of a confederate general, put up several hundred Civil War documents for auction. The government tried to seize the papers, worth over two million dollars, claiming that despite the Willcox family’s ownership for over a century, the effects belonged to them. Ultimately, the courts decided in favor of Willcox. 
   
Verdicts were long in coming in the courtrooms of old, and are hardly presented on a silver tray in classrooms today. Students analyze various Jewish legal texts and add their own professional knowledge in a quest to discover the actual ruling.

“This course is unique among other JLI offerings in that it is wholly interactive,” Rabbi Cheski Edelman says. “The emphasis in the class is on ‘You.’ We begin by studying a concept of Talmudic law and then introduce a question brought before the judges on the ancient Jewish court. Then it is up to the students to discuss and resolve the issues.

“The lawyers give good answers,” Edelman laughs, “but when they see what the early scholars had to say, it blows their minds away. They are totally off.” 

Edelman has a lot of experience helping students understand the Talmudic angle. He taught nine JLI courses in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he served as adult education director. Now living and running a Chabad Center in Olympia, Washington, the young rabbi expects an eclectic group of 18 lawyers, housewives, and doctors to attend February’s course.

In Perth, Australia Rabbi Shalom White is reviewing materials, exploring ideas, and searching for additional sources. Although instructors receive comprehensive courses, it takes White and his colleagues approximately 10 hours to prepare each lesson. When his 35 students arrive, it will all be worth it.

“People find it interesting to learn that the cases that they thought were revolutionary in today’s age, were already debated in the study halls thousands of years ago,” he says. “Often they use similar logic and ideals to arrive at the conclusion—but there is always a twist, new insights offered from those ancient halls.”

“So often lawyers tell me that the course allows them the joy of thinking,” relates Silberstein. “It reminds them of why they became passionate about law in the first place.”

Though the courses are not solely for those with a legal background, lawyers do get a bonus. “You Be the Judge” is eligible for CLE credits in 17 states and CPD credits in British Columbia and the United Kingdom. “People who may otherwise be too busy to take a course on Jewish ethics or philosophy are given a novel opportunity to learn the Jewish perspective while accruing CLE credits,” states Rabbi Ephraim Mintz, director of JLI. Not only that, he says, “but attorneys are always amazed to see how the ancient Talmud resonates with modern living. It is not foreign or remote; it is relevant to the here and now.”

And so the question remains: does a murderous son inherit his dead parents’ property?

According to secular law, explains the author of “You Be the Judge,” Rabbi Eli Silberstein, an inheritance is based on the will of the deceased. American courts may therefore conclude that a slain individual would not want his property to be passed on to his killer.

Jewish law, on the other hand, interprets inheritance in an entirely different manner. “There is a natural flow between parents and children. When a parent dies, his child is his natural extension. According to the Talmud a person’s property is preordained, and thus runs automatically from father to son.”

“The same rule,” continues Rabbi Silberstein, “relates to a Jewish person’s spiritual inheritance. Even if someone has been assimilated for five generations, he has a connection to his Jewish heritage, it remains his inheritance.”

It is that inheritance that JLI directors and instructors hope to pass on to thousands of students in 280 cities around the world.

(lubavitch.com) With the difficulties that Jewish communities everywhere are facing as philanthropic resources dry up, the completion this week of a new school building in the Ohr Avner network in Orenburg, Russia, was good reason for a celebration. The project reached its successful goal with the help of Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar, local officials, supporters and parents.

Guests toured the new building’s classrooms and computer center, and were treated to a special cultural program by the students which included a skit about Jewish life in Communist Russia.

Formerly a city preschool, the building was approved for sale to Chabad by Mayor Yuri Meshirikov after discussion and negotiations with the input of  Rabbi Lazar. The facility gives the ten year old growing school of 200 students a new home where all its divisions from ages two to seventeen can be under one roof.

“Having all the students together in such a modern facility will help us tremendously in our efforts to revive Jewish education and Judaism in Orenburg,” said Rabbi Goel Mayers of Orenburg who started the school ten years ago when he first arrived. “The growth has been amazing. We started with a handful of kids.”

Orenburg’s only Jewish school, the Ohr Avner Chabad Day School enjoys a strong reputation after strong annual showings by its students in local academic competitions. Mrs. Kinneret Mayers introduced several students to the group and spoke about their development and progress in the school. Rabbi Lazar and Rabbi Mayers sat in on a few classes, observing the school’s curriculum, philosophy, and teachers in action.

“A lot of dedicated effort went into this project,” said Rabbi Mayers of the $2 million project backed by philanthropists Lev Leviev and Michael Miralashvili. “Despite the difficult financial times, we’ve worked hard and seen many miracles.”

The school’s completion celebration comes as the Ohr Avner school system, founded by Leviev in 1992 as a tribute to his father, deals with the challenges of world wide financial difficulties. The Orenburg school is part of the network of 75 day schools and 20 other programs across Russia which serves 13,000 students.

“Most of our schools are and continue to provide student scholarships,” said Rabbi David Mondshine, Director of the Ohr Avner Foundation. “We’re meeting the financial challenges with greater parent involvement, cutting back in areas that won’t impact quality, and in some schools we’re beginning to charge nominal fees for services like food and transportation.

Rabbi  Mondshine told Lubavitch.com that the school opening is a bright spot among the financial difficulties of the past few months, and represents the conquering spirit of the Foundation’s schools which have revitalized Jewish education in Russia.

A modest city of about 850,000 residents, Orenburg is located in southeast Russia on the shores of the Ural River near the Kazakhstan border. Established in 1743 as a fortress, the city residents have included the author Pushkin, the Ukrainian writer Shevchenko, the famous musician Rostropovich, and the first Cosmonaut in the world, Gagarin.

Orenburg’s Jewish community, dating back to around  1806 counted about 1200 by the end of the century. When German occupation of Russia’s western regions flooded the area with Jewish refugees, the number grew significantly. Today, there are approximately  7,000 Jews living there.  

Although many left after the war, the remnants formed the nucleus of the current Jewish community. Perestroika saw a steady stream of immigrants to Israel from the area which cooled off as the Russian economy strengthened, including large local oil and gas production refineries.

Chabad has played a major role in reviving Jewish life in the city which annually hosts two Jewish festivals: the “Peace Festival” and “the Festival of the Jewish Book”.

“There was nothing here Jewish when we came except a small, old synagogue that had a minyan only on Shabbat,” recalls Rabbi Mayers who arrived with his wife and 5 month old son from Israel after being appointed by Rabbi Lazar. “We started with a preschool right away and fixed up the synagogue, which now has a minyan every day.”

The Rabbi acknowledged they felt the financial crisis notwithstanding, the community is growing because of a strong and unwavering commitment to its wellbeing. “Given the tough situation, we are all working much harder to move along at a good pace.”

(lubavitch.com) In the case of Chabad-Lubavitch vs. Russia, US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth today accepted Chabad’s request to deny Russia’s legal counselors release from the case.

In a hearing on Tuesday, the Judge gave the defendants 45 days to find substitute counsel, and 60 days to report on the status of the Archive and Library of Chabad-Lubavitch, which Chabad now fears may have been compromised.

Tuesday’s ruling follows last week’s hearing when Chabad filed a motion for an injunction after learning that 12 pages of the manuscripts that are currently in litigation, were removed from the archives, possibly to be sold on the black market.

 “The Judge has basically taken the approach that we proposed, albeit in more limited steps in the hopes of reengaging Russia in the case,” Eliza Lewin of Lewin and Lewin, representing Chabad-Lubavitch, told Lubavitch.com.

Last week, attorneys (Squire and Dempsey) representing the Russian parties asked the Judge to be released from the case, claiming “a breakdown of communications” with their clients.

According to Ms. Lewin, defendants in the case, namely the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library and the Russian State Military Archives, have not had contact with their counselors since April.

The Judge instructed them to advise their clients that they risk a default ruling in the case if they do not have legal counsel in the U.S. court.

The Judge also said that if Russia flouts the court’s orders to report on the status of the library, and provide a catalogue of all of its contents as per the court’s instructions, it will grant Chabad permission to send a delegation to Russia to inspect the archives and the library.

Thursday, Judge Lamberth issued a restraining order against removing anything from the Archive and Library, pending final disposition of the case, and further ordered the defendants to locate and return original volumes of the Library and pages of the Archives that were removed.

Chabad-Lubavitch filed a lawsuit against Russia in 2004, claiming violations of international law  by the Russian government, and seeking the return of both a "Library" and "Archive" of sacred, irreplaceable religious books and manuscripts.

The Library was seized by the Soviets during the Bolshevik Revolution. The Archive was stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War and placed in a Gestapo-controlled castle. In 1945, the Soviet Army captured the castle and took the Archive as "war booty" to Moscow, where it remains at the Russian State Military Archive. The entire collection, according to Chabad, consists of some 12,000 books and 50,000 rare documents.

The Russians filed a motion to dismiss the claims, but in December 2006, Judge Lamberth refused to dismiss the lawsuit. He noted that efforts by Chabad to recover the books and manuscripts  for the benefit of Chabad-Lubavitch date back at least as far as 1939, by the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, who fled the German invasion of Poland.

The collection was formerly held by Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn who was born in Russia but forced by the Soviets to leave in 1927. He took the documents to Latvia and later Poland, but left them behind when the Nazis invaded. The collection was seized and taken to Germany, then recovered by the Soviet Army in 1945.

(lubavitch.com) For all the blessings of the internet age—and they are enormous—this generation may spell the end of certain social conditions vital to the existential experience.

Tethered as we are to every hi-tech gizmo designed to keep us “in touch” with everyone everywhere at all times, we are rarely alone with ourselves, even when we are without another in the same space. At the very least, we have diminished aptitudes for genuine solitude and the introspection it breeds.

Neither have we–for all the amazing technologies designed to facilitate powerful communications–improved the quality of social togetherness.  For even when we share the same space with others, the ring tones of our i-phones ensure that we are never fully in the same exclusive headspace with the other.

Against this backdrop the gift of Shabbos may have never been more profoundly needed, and more richly enjoyed than today, when, for a dedicated 25 hours out of every 7-day cycle, we disconnect from the technology designed to keep us connected, and revert to a more organic way of being, with ourselves, with others, with G-d.

I couldn’t help but think of this when listening to Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s presentation at the Unity Lecture. To hear him speak in real time, you had to have physically made your way to his center in Jerusalem, or be physically present at any of the 350 Chabad centers where hundreds of others convened to hear him over live video hook-up. There was no live internet feed. Deliberately.

According to Rabbi Efraim Mintz, “we wanted to capture the Hakhel experience,” where once in every 7 year cycle, the Jewish people arrived in body, to Jerusalem, to listen to the king teach.  Sunday night’s event offered participants an approximation of that awesome convention.

Rabbi Steinsaltz explored the idea of Torah study as a comprehensive form of Jewish worship: its intellectual pursuit is often, necessarily, a solitary one, but it is also, ultimately part of a communal sharing of a common heritage. Taken as a whole, the Torah bears messages of universal significance, yet speaks to each of us, as individuals, in a manner of uniquely particularistic relevance. Through Torah study, we create the ladder to the human-Divine vertical connection, yet it is also the bridge to a horizontal, human-to-human bond.

In his talk, I discerned implicit themes that are so familiar to Judaism: the challenge always to negotiate opposites towards balanced harmony; the ideals of a spiritually and physically wholesome life that are within our grasp if only we learn to do so. The study of Torah in its highest form as an end itself, but for some of us lesser mortals, as a path towards a more genuinely thoughtful way of being, even in this age of extreme internet-connectedness. With ourselves, with others, with G-d.

[AP] — A federal judge is ordering Russia to preserve sacred religious documents that members of a Hasidic Jewish movement fear could be headed to the black market.

During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth says he will finalize an order promptly telling Russia to protect the documents and return any that may already have been removed from the Russian State Military Archives.

The order comes in a lawsuit filed by members of Chabad-Lubavitch, which follows the teachings of Eastern European rabbis and emphasizes the study of the Torah. The group is suing Russia in U.S. court to recover thousands of manuscripts, prayers, lectures and philosophical discourses by leading rabbis dating back to the 18th century.

An attorney for the movement, Nathan Lewin, told the judge Thursday that during a visit to Israel last month he learned that pages from the handwritten archive were shown to an expert in Jerusalem. The expert, a former university librarian, had been asked to confirm the documents' authenticity and was led to believe that they were going to be offered for sale.

The entire collection, which Chabad says totals 12,000 books and 50,000 rare documents, is being held in the Russian State Military Archives. Lewin said Chabad fears the documents are not being properly cared for and could end up missing.

The collection was formerly held by Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, a leader of Chabad-Lubavitch who was born in Russia but forced by the Soviets to leave in 1927. He took the documents to Latvia and later Poland, but left them behind when the Nazis invaded. The collection was seized and taken to Germany, then recovered by the Soviet Army in 1945.

Lewin asked Lamberth to order Russia to allow a delegation from Chabad to inspect the collection at the Russian library and ensure that they are being properly secured.

Lamberth said he will issue a temporary restraining order Thursday directing Russia to protect against removal of any documents from the collection and to return any that may already have been taken.
Lamberth also warned Russia that the government faces a default ruling in the case if it does not get new lawyers to represent them in the U.S. court.

The law firm representing Russia has asked to withdraw from the case because they say their client has not paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and no longer communicates with them.

The law firm says government representatives have refused to take their calls, respond to memos about the case or see an attorney who traveled to Moscow for a face-to-face meeting.

Lamberth told Chabad that he did not think that he could order a sovereign government like Russia to accept foreigners into the country and encouraged them to explore other methods of reviewing the collection, such as hiring attorneys already in Moscow.

Lamberth agreed to take the case in U.S. court because he said both the Nazi seizure and the Russian government's appropriation of the archives violated international law.

Members of Chabad also say that they are asking the Obama administration to intervene to get the documents returned.