Reflecting on my incredible trip to Kazakhstan

I returned on Friday, August 19 from a most spiritually invigorating journey to probably the most distant location I’ve ever visited. On Monday, August 15 at midnight, I boarded a constitution flight from Miami to Almaty, Kazakhstan with 200 Florida Chabad rabbis.

We flew twenty hours every means with a view to maintain this yr’s annual Rabbinic conference on the web site of the resting place of the Rebbe’s saintly father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson.

Nestled simply three hours from the border of Western China and Afghanistan, Almaty is a metropolis of putting magnificence on the foot of the Himalayan mountain vary that towers over it. The Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson (born 1878), was the charismatic, dynamic, and influential non secular chief of the massive industrial metropolis of Yekaterinoslav (often called Dnipropetrovsk at present), Ukraine earlier than he was arrested by the KGB, the Communist secret service, for his crimes in spreading Judaism.

The Communists exiled him to the distant japanese Asian metropolis of Almaty with a view to render him unable to affect different Jews away from the Marxist paradise that left no room for religion. The Rebbe’s mom, Rebbetzin Chana, eloquently describes the non secular isolation her husband endured in Almaty by the dearth of any paper for him to even write down the insightful Torah insights that have been gushing from his sensible thoughts. Right here he lived his closing years in nice struggling, poverty, and starvation till he calmly returned his soul to his maker.

I used to be in a position to expertise a way of his isolation as we walked by means of a winding path to his resting place by means of Christian burial plots, adorned with big gargoyles, life-size rock statues, and communist symbols engraved on many graves. It broke my coronary heart to assume that this big of a person, the daddy of probably the most influential rabbi in trendy historical past, was relegated to such insufferable circumstances.

Reb Levik’s non secular greatness lives on at the present time as numerous tales of miraculous salvation unfold for a lot of who trek to go to his tomb with heartfelt prayers for his Divine intercession. At some stage in our thirty-six-hour go to, I used to be deeply disturbed and sometimes overcome with emotion as to why G-d would have despatched such a saintly soul to endure in such dire circumstances.

As I sat writing this text on the lengthy aircraft experience dwelling, I used to be enlightened with the reply on this week’s Torah portion. The Torah is our reward from G-d, and the weekly portion is our compass.

Our sages inform us that we will at all times discover the solutions we search within the Torah portion of the week.The Parshah tells of the bottom second our Individuals have ever fallen. Having simply acquired the Ten Commandments on two Divinely-produced Tablets on Mount Sinai, the Jews selected to show their backs on G-d with a surprising betrayal — they created a calf of gold and bowed all the way down to it!

Because of this, Moses smashes the Two Tablets. When finally G-d forgives their indiscretion, he instructs Moses to make the brand new tablets “for himself”. The Talmud (Nedarim 38a) reveals to us that the seemingly superfluous phrase “for himself” was an instruction to Moses to carve the Second Tablets out of sapphire and to maintain the leftover shards for himself. Certainly, these treasured shards made Moses a really rich man!

It appears inappropriate on all ranges: why would G-d throw an instruction for Moses to casually”hold the change” right into a severe story of Divine reconciliation? And the way is it even moral for Moses to revenue from what’s clearly public property? Moreover, who cares about Moses’ private monetary assertion throughout this time when the way forward for the Jewish nation lay within the steadiness?

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In a shifting sermon in 1908, Reb Levik’s Rebbe, the Fifth Chabad Rebbe, often called “Rashab,”explains the importance of this wonderous windfall. These sapphire shards have been the product of man’s epic failure at Sinai. Having only recently triggered the destruction of the First Tablets, G-d’s reward to mankind, the Jewish Nation was crushed. They felt hopeless and irredeemable. They’d gone too far. But the origin of Moses’ wealth in these damaged, shameful remnants evokes us to hunt the optimistic and purposeful parts behind our failures. As an alternative of seeing them as ineffective black holes, we will view them as alternatives for progress and even greatness!

Our issues are our function. Our errors don’t occur to us; they’re despatched to us from Above. Although we can’t at all times admire why we’re fortified with the religion that our dysfunction is our future and our failures pave the way in which to our fortunes. If G-d wished us to be good, He’d have made us so. He desires us, warts and all, to climb out of our sinkholes as we overcome our challenges with character and braveness. Certainly, our function lies within the potholes. That’s the place the gold lies!

Moshe’s wealth deriving from the damaged shards of the Second Tablets proves that our prosperity is reached by means of making the perfect of our pitfalls. What you could have is what G-d wants from you now! As an alternative of resenting your lot, rejoice it, embrace it and launch from it! Even in our perceived errors, we’ve function. Actually, your perceived detour is perhaps exactly the exit you have been speculated to take with a view to attain your particular vacation spot.

As we clearly noticed in Almaty, regardless of the Communists sincerest intent to isolate Reb Levik in Kazakhstan, he continues to encourage and uplift numerous hundreds of passionate disciples who proceed to journey internationally to go to him, a full eighty years after his passing! In a mysterious means, his faraway exile finally led to his way more important affect!

Wishing you a month of appreciating the worth within the damaged elements of our lives.

Rabbi Dovid Vigler is director of Chabad of Palm Seaside Gardens.

Go to Rabbi@JewishGardens.com and www.JewishGardens.com