From One Shliach To Another: A Shabbos Chavrusa With My Frum Neighbor



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    From One Shliach To Another: A Shabbos Chavrusa With My Frum Neighbor

    In honor of this year’s Kinus Hashluchim, Chabadinfo in collaboration with Beis Moshiach Magazine Presents: From One Shliach To Another, a daily OP-ED throughout the kinus where five Shluchim will give advice to other shluchim. Today Rabbi Gershon Avtzon of Cincinnati, Ohio shares his advice for his fellow Shluchim • Full Article

    Rabbi Gershon Avtzon of Cincinnati, Ohio

    A few months ago, I wrote a duch to the Rebbe and asked for a bracha for a certain challenge I was going through. The answer I opened to in the Igros Kodesh was: You write me about your needs but how is it possible, as a leader in the community, that you don’t write about a shiur you have in Chassidus with another?

    Although I have several shiurim, I understood that the Rebbe expects me to start another shiur. I called a neighbor and asked him whether he’d like to learn with me for half an hour on Shabbos. He happily agreed and the following Shabbos he came to my house to learn.

    My plan was to ask him what he was interested in learning. We sat in my study where I prepare my shiurim, where I have many sefarim about Moshiach, with the main set being Yalkut Moshiach v’Geula al ha’Torah, which I highly recommend for every home and every Chabad House. It’s not necessarily the case that everybody will learn it but it changes the way of thinking of those who come to visit.

    Most people think that Moshiach is a few pages, some points throughout the Torah. The Rebbe wants us to realize that “all the sefarim are full of this,” that this is the most “real” subject and the most spoken about in the Torah. The best way to impress people with this is when they see shelves of inyanei Moshiach and Geula on every parsha. That gets them to realize that all of Torah revolves around Moshiach.

    Literal Transformation

    I’d like to insert here a vort that I thought of in connection with this. The Rebbe says numerous times, “He looked into Torah and created the world” – the world is constantly recreated through the study of Torah. If we internalize and learn how all of Torah is Moshiach, then automatically the entire world is Moshiach, because the Torah is what creates the world!

    My neighbor looks at me and says: Rabbi Avtzon, I want to learn about Moshiach in the parsha.

    We started doing just that, various points, sichos, Medrashim and explanations on the parsha in connection with Moshiach. We’ve been doing this for several months. Not long ago, he told me: This learning about Moshiach has changed my entire outlook on life! It makes my week. I share it with my friends, with other people in the community that I know.

    This person has become “moistened in order to moisten” in inyanei Moshiach. When he wanted to define what learning Geula and Moshiach is to him, he said: When I go and learn about Moshiach, it’s like entering a perfume shop. Even if you don’t buy anything, just being in a room with perfumes makes you smell better. Even when you go outside, whoever is around you starts smelling Geula and Moshiach. You start thinking differently, speaking differently and acting differently.

    This is the reason that the Rebbe tells us and emphasizes that the direct way to prepare oneself and one’s family and city and all around us to welcome Moshiach is by learning inyanei Moshiach. The learning lifts a person up into a different life, a more Geuladike life, a life suitable for someone who is ready to welcome Moshiach.

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    The magazine can be obtained in stores around Crown Heights. To purchase a subscription, please go to: bmoshiach.org

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