 Hey, we're back. We're live. We're here on Community Matters with Rabbi Michael Krasnijanski. He comes to visit with us every couple of weeks and we really enjoy learning from the Rabbi. Welcome to the show Rabbi. Thank you Jay. Always a pleasure being here. So you're having an event on the 18th and that's 18th of July this week. Correct. Can you talk about it? Sure. As you know, we had two Torah scrolls that were stolen from synagogue from Chabad a little over a year ago, about a year and a half ago, December of 2018. December 2017. But the 18th is lucky. It is life. And a couple months ago, we had two new Torahs that were dedicated to synagogue and we did a big Torah celebration. And this Thursday, we're having another Torah dedication. Someone else came forward and had a Torah written in Israel and it just came actually today. We're gonna have a big celebration this Thursday. In fact, this Torah is different than that. It's being written for all the children, all the Jewish children under the age of bar and bat mitzvah, under 12 and 13 years old. Usually when you write a Torah, people participate by sponsoring a letter of the Torah. This one is only for the children. And many, many years ago, the Rabbi Rabbi Schneersen talked about, we know that the Torah represents unity. The Torah unites us as a people. The Rabbi came out with this project to write a Torah and everyone should participate in the writing by sponsoring a letter and also to have special Torahs written just for children. Rabbi was a big, big, big advocate of invest, Rabbi invested many, many, many, many hours and thought and teachings to the children, future generation, the future, our future. Well, about education, is it? As a matter of fact, Chabad has lobbied for and sponsors Education Day in Hawaii and maybe nationally as well. Nationally international. Yeah, that's really important. So that's, you know, synonymous with the whole mission and certainly with the Torah for the children. Right, that's this Thursday and everyone who's listening, please come and join us at 5.30 p.m. There's going to be a lot of music and dancing, great festivities of the whole family. I remember, it must be 60, 90 days ago, I visited you in Atkinson at the Chabad Temple there and you had two Torahs that you had achieved after the theft a year ago and there was a Klezmer music playing, was it Klezmer? It was very catchy music, it was dance music, Jewish dance music. It was on Atkinson Drive and there were hundreds of people there and there was a chuppah and you had people, I mean, especially anointed people because not everybody can or should do this dancing with the Torahs and they were having such a good time and I said to myself, gee, I would have to be 50 years younger if I was going to dance for this long with this kind of vitality because those guys holding the Torahs, they were dancing up of storm, they were, I couldn't do that anymore. Never know until you try. Yeah, I was there with Josh Green, Lieutenant Governor and we were, hopefully you'll be able to come again this Thursday, maybe bring your crew and it'll be good, it'll be good, very important. It's a statement, but tell me what is the statement? The statement is you have been able to obtain another Torah for the children this time, it takes a long time to write one, you write one by hand, you have to have a special scribe to write it by hand. It takes about a year, close to a year to write a Torah, big undertaking. Well the statement in general is that it was tragic when the Torahs were stolen and our task, and the Rebbe pointed out many different occasions and it's in line with the basic teachings of the mystical teachings of Judaism is to turn something negative into something positive, to turn things around. So it's not enough just to replace the stolen Torahs, if two were stolen then we're going to replace them with four or five new ones. It's a statement. Yeah, it's a statement. And it was many, many years ago before it was so commonplace in Israel some Arab Palestinians, Palestinian terrorists, broke into a Jewish Chabad school while the students were praying and began to indiscriminately shoot at the students and five students were killed. These were young kids. These were young kids, maybe 13-14-year-old kids. This happened in the early 60s and the Rebbe came out and said that the only appropriate response to this tragedy was to build five new institutions, five new schools corresponding to the five kids that were killed. Because with increased darkness, yeah, I got to increase the light, so to speak. And that's been the Rebbe's general teaching and approach to things of this nature, this extreme nature, but in general, turn everything into something positive. Where in Israel did that take place? That took place in Khar-Khabad. Khar-Khabad is a village right next to the Ben-Gurion airport, not far from Tel Aviv. It was a village that was founded in the early 1950s from the Russian emigrates, many of the Chabad Asidim were Russian and they came from Russia. They emigrated to Israel from Russia and they established a little town. Today it's not little, today it's very large, very big, and that's where it happened. You know, every little town, every city in Israel has a history like that with some kind of needless attack, with murderous intention and result. I know somebody who is out of Kibbutz. I can't remember the exact name, but David was in the name and was in the northeast corner of Israel. They're underground, Kibbutz is underground. Oh wow, because they've had so many of that. What we have here is the memory of this sort of thing and you demonstrate exactly what the Jewish reaction is when something like that takes place or when they come around and steal your Torah. So one of the things that we're going to talk about today is two things. In Chabad we mark two days. One today, which in the Hebrew month is the 13th day of the month of Tammuz. Can you spell Tammuz? T-A-M-M-U-Z. It usually falls out around July or August. And today in 1927 the previous Chabad Rebbe, the name was Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Shneerson, who lived in Russia, was born and raised and grew up in Russia. At some point he, this was during the height of the Communist reign, and he was arrested for his tireless work on behalf of keeping the torch of Judaism alive in Russia. Because the Communists forbade any kind of religious practice and it was illegal and by punishment of death or imprisonment to observe anything Jewish. However, the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe, he had a whole network of schools and synagogues that were pretty much underground where all of the activities were kept up, but they were kept up in hiding and it embraced the whole length and breadth of Russia. It was a big, big, big undertaking and at some point they arrested the previous Rebbe. And those days when you were arrested it wasn't like prison today where you have rights and you have due process and representation. This is, you know, they were a thoroughly evil corrupt government regime. They killed people like flies all the time and there was a great danger for the Rebbe's life. And there's a fascinating story. The end of the story is a very good story in that he was released. But, you know, the behind the story, the behind the scene was an amazing story of firstly unbelievable courage in the part of the previous Rebbe in handling this whole, this whole affair. His name was what? Yitzhak? Joseph Isaac Schneersen. Joseph Isaac Schneersen. The name Schneersen. And he was a Talmudic scholar to begin with. He was a brilliant Talmudic scholar as well as a teacher. And here's a picture of him. Yes. See, Rebbe, Joseph Isaac Schneersen, the sixth Rebbe who lived most of his life in Russia. What part of Russia? Well, Chabad was, Chabad is the name of the philosophy because this movement has the very distinct philosophy. Chabad in Hebrew, me is an abbreviation for the words Chokhmah, Bina and Das. Wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Chokhmah, Bina and Das. Which is translated as wisdom, understanding and knowledge which represent the intellectual faculties. Because this Hasidic movement placed a great emphasis on the intellectual, the need to intellectually comprehend and understand and not just accept things on faith, things of that nature. And a Chokhmah is a smart person, a wise person. A wise person, exactly. So Chabad is the name of the organization is known by Chabad or the movement is known as Chabad. But Chabad is really the name of the philosophy. The town in which many of the leaders lived, going back 200 years, more was called Lubavitch. That's why it's Chabad Lubavitch. Lubavitch is a small little town in Belarus, white Russia. They're still there? Still there, a small little town. I doubt there are a lot of Jews there though. Well actually they resurrected the town and they rebuilt the synagogue there. People went back after the war. Well no, people go to visit and to visit the gravesites of the holy men there. A lot of people killed there during the war. So the previous Rabbi was sitting in jail and there was a real danger that they would kill him like they've done this time before. But with a great miracle he was released from prison and in no small part because, fascinating story, because pressure was brought to beer on the communist government to release him by, I think it was Roosevelt at the present in the United States. There was a, maybe you would know, Morgan Thor, he was the... Yeah, Robert Marvithay. Yeah, he was, he was the, what position did he have? He was like... I don't know what's often he held but he was in FDR's cabinet. Yeah, he was in the cabinet and he was Jewish. And then there was the Chief Justice Leo Brandeis. Jewish. Jewish. They all were brought in and they put tremendous amount of pressure and through Roosevelt, the Russian government, the communist government freed the previous Rabbi. He was expelled and freed him by expelling him from Russia. Oh, so they expelled him at that time? Expelled him from Russia. He went to Poland, Warsaw and he was there for many years and he finally got out of of Poland after the Nazis took over. The Nazis came to power. Lucky to get out. It was lucky to get out again with the, with the aid of the United States government and it's a fascinating story how a member of the SS was put to the task of finding the Rabbi Schneers in Warsaw and getting him out of Warsaw. And at first, the, the, the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe, he wasn't hiding at the time because the Nazis were hunting down Jewish leaders and killing them. He was in hiding and until he was, he was notified by his followers in America that this big effort is being undertaken to get him out and that such and such person would contact him and that such and such person was an SS man. And the reason why the SS did that was, I guess, curry some favor with the United States. This is before the U.S. joined the, we had friends all the way through in high places in the United States. He was, he was like the world leader of the Jewish leaders. He had a lot of followers and I guess the followers were not only, you know, in Russia and in Poland, also right here in the United States. And he was, he was a, he was the founder of the movement. He was the sixth generation. It had existed before. It existed in, in it started in the early 1700s, or in the late 1700s. And this Rebbe who we're talking about who was freed from prison was the sixth in the dynasty. And then when he passed away in 1950, his son-in-law, Abel Menachem Schneersen, who was the seventh Khabad Rebbe, he was the Rebbe of our generation and he was the one who took a small group of followers. At the time after, after the Holocaust, so many Jews got wiped out that, you know, it was just embers left from what was and he rebuilt it into the worldwide movement, which we have today. Let's take a short break, Rabbi. We'll come back and talk more about the Rebbe, Rebbe Menachem Schneersen and his life and what he did for the Khabad and the Lubavitcher movement and how that impacts us today. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines. I was the head coach for the Punaho Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championship. This show is based on my book which is also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, achieving and sustaining success, and finding greatness. If you're a student, parent, sports or business person, and want to improve your life and the lives of people around you, tune in and join me on Mondays at 11 a.m. as we go Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Aloha, I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough of Sister Power here at Think Tech of IE and Sister Power is all about motivating, empowering, educating and inspiring all people and we have various subjects here. Sister Power is here at Think Tech every other Thursday at 4 p.m. Again, my name is Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, host of Sister Power. We look forward to seeing you. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at sistersandparandkawaii at gmail.com. Look forward to chatting with you soon. Aloha. We're here with Rabbi Itchel Krasovansky. He's the Rabbi of Khabad of Hawaii and we're having a very interesting discussion about Khabad dating back to 17th century and all the rabbis that have been involved in Lubavitch and across the world. So we talked about Rabbi Yitzhak who died in 1950 after an interesting and troubled experience with both the Russians and the Germans. Thanks to the support of the American government he was able to get to safety on both occasions. And now he left behind him his son-in-law Rabbi Menachem Shneerson and that's 1950 and see that's modern times as far as I'm concerned Rabbi. So how did that work? How did Menachem get into the leadership position? That's a very interesting question. The Rebbe assumed the leadership, Rabbi Menachem Shneerson assumed the leadership in 1951 one year to the anniversary of the passing of his father-in-law and he served in that capacity as the leader of Khabad. That's a symbolic period one year, it's a mourning period. Yes and he served as Rebbe until 1992 passed away in 41 years and it was a remarkable remarkable period when the Rebbe energized the small Khasidic group Jews and through them the wider Jewish community. You have to understand that 1950 was just a barely 10 years or less after World War II, after the horror of the Holocaust when the survivors many of them who've come to America or two different parts of the world were all shattered and broken, demoralized and the Rebbe began with a message, a very positive message, a very rejuvenating message about the goodness inherent in this world, latently, in this world and life and through the teachings of the Torah and the mystical teachings of the Torah. They needed to hear that. They needed to hear that and it drew many many many people to the Rebbe and the Rebbe started this outreach effort, send out young rabbis to different communities across the United States and across the world and today there are several thousand Chabad centers around the world all teaching the message of the Rebbe, to be inclusive and welcoming and loving and the relevance and the positive message of the Torah. A Chabad center is a congregation? Yes but it's more of a Chabad houses because it's more of a house feeling than a formal... People spend a lot of time there, they gather there, it's a social experience as well as a religious experience. Exactly and it's all a very loving, non-judgmental, welcoming experience and that's what... Don't forget the eating part. Eating part is the most important part. Right. So okay and when were you ordained by the way in all of this? I was born in 1916 and I was ordained as a Rabbi in 1985. You come to Hawaii right away or were you? And I came to Hawaii in 1987. It seems like a long time ago but it's not that long ago I'm sorry. So you know this is it's really interesting so there's a there's a combination ceremony we're having here on the birthday of the Rabbi Yitzchak and Rabbi Menachem is happening this week. Both of them are being celebrated. Right so the the birthday and the celebration of the release from prison of the previous Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Schneersen that is today in the Hebrew calendar and the commemoration of the Rabbi's passing was this past week and you know many many Jewish people around the world. I don't know if celebration is the right word when you commemorate the past. But it's it's it's not a sad it's not a sad commemoration it's the commemoration that you know that that highlights and celebrates the teachings of the Rabbi which are you know which are as relevant today and as needed the world needs it today as when it was spoken 20 30 40 years ago. Well that actually brings me to an interesting question which I thought about you know whenever we've met you've indicated with great affection and respect you know how much of a contribution Menachem Rabbi Menachem Rabbi Rabbi Menachem Schneersen has put into the Lubavitcher community and indeed he is he is permeated through that community but you also said that just now that there have been seven rabbis correct since this is what 17th century or 1700s in the Lubavitcher community in the Chabad organization so the Chabad movement Chabad philosophy so what happens after Rebbe Menachem dies isn't there an eighth and a ninth I mean don't we have a succession plan here and you think it could be you well I first of all I can tell you the easy the easiest answer as the first answer in reference to me the answer is absolutely not I had to ask okay thank you that's a very interesting question when the Rebbe passed away because Rebbe had no children I mean his wife could not have children the Rebbe passed away in 1992 there were many many you know experts who were who were saying that now the movement is going to wane and going to fade away because it no longer has a leader but in the last 25 years what we saw was the very opposite not only has it grown but it's grown exponentially when the Rebbe passed away in 1992 there were maybe 1000 Chabad centers around the world today there are over 5000 these are all that's the amazing thing young people who actually never met the Rebbe in person but are studying the Rebbe's teachings and are enthused and inspired by the Rebbe's message and teachings and they themselves have gone out and become Chabad Rabbis and pass that message on it's a message that there's a lot of aspects to it but at the core is the faith of God of the Torah in each and every one of us every single human being has an important role to play in this world contribution to make it's bigger than all of us bigger than all of us but it needs all of us it needs all of us it needs all of us or each and every one of us to make our unique contributions only we could make but after a time don't you think that the Rebbe Menachem Rebbe Menachem Schnersen's message will will fade simply by the passage of time you know I give you 10 years 20 years 50 years ahead don't we need to have another Lubavitcha Rebbe who will carry the torch who will reinvigorate things as we go forward so you would think so but no I'll tell you why okay so for example we know that the temple the Jewish temple was destroyed close to 2000 years ago it was burnt down by the Romans and the question is why can't we rebuild another temple right it's a good question right many synagogues are burnt to the ground and are rebuilt you know a year or two later why why was a temple never rebuilt and the answer is synagogue is a small little holy place but the temple represented God's you know manifestation here on earth and because it's such a large larger than life edifice so we are taught in the Torah that when the Messiah comes you will rebuild the third temple so in answer to your question you know rabbis come and go teachers come and go when one person you know passes on someone else steps in and moves things along when you have one rabbi when you have a rabbi yeah the rabbi who was larger than life and who embodied the truths of Torah in a way that just really boggles the mind is like the personification of all the things that you that you learn in the bible in the Torah i understand and you know what this suggests that going forward i would like to meet with you again and ask you what those teachings were and to see if we can get a handle on the you know the essence of what the rabbi was was saying and why he has outlasted his own death this this way Rabbi it's an itchal kresen jansky so nice same here as always thank you i hope you have a wonderful event i'll try to be there yes thank you and everyone please who's hearing please listening please come as well yes