holidays – Melava Malka Stories

The Hebron Purim

A special Purim is celebrated by certain Jewish communities on special days of the year to commemorate a particular miracle. One of these takes place in Hebron, Israel where many years ago a sizable Sephardic community lived. Every year on the fourteenth day of Tevet, they would celebrate Purim Hebron! The historical details of this event are hidden in the mists of the remote past. Our story is based on that event.

Lighting Menorah in a soviet labor camp

Rabbi Asher Sossonkin, a soldier in the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe’s army of teachers and activists who kept Judaism alive in Communist Russia in the darkest years of repression, spent many years in Soviet labor camps for his “counter-revolutionary” activities. In one of these camps, he made the acquaintance of a Jew by the name of Nachman Rozman.

Chanukah’s Fifth Candle (part 2)

After getting married, my father served as a teacher and rabbi for the Adath Israel congregation in Washington Heights, New York. My sister and I were born there. When I was five years old, we moved to Toronto where Reb Koppel (great uncle of his wife and a prestigious Jew in Toronto) found a position for my father in a Satmar Yeshiva. My younger brother was born there. Although my father’s attitudes became close to those of Satmar (Hungarian Chassidic group zealous in their approach and very insular), and he sent us to study in schools and Yeshiva close to their approach, he still respected the Rebbe and always spoke of him to us with the highest regard.

Chanukah’s Fifth Candle (part 1)

My father, Rabbi Abraham-Tzvi Greenwald, was born in Lodz. Poland, in 1911. His father died when he was only eight years old, leaving his mother alone with seven young orphans. She sent my father to live with her cousin, Rabbi Menachem Zemba, a famous Talmudic scholar in pre-war Warsaw and a dedicated Gerer Chasid. Rabbi Zemba raised him devotedly, taking responsibility for his education, and even studied with him personally.

The Miraculous Salvation of the Jews of Yemen

Once upon a time* there reigned in Sana, the capital of Yemen, a mighty ruler, the Great Imam. He had a young son, whom he loved dearly. The young prince was as wise as he was handsome. When he rode on his white Arab steed, he looked lovelier than any Arab prince in the world, and all the Arab mothers peered from their veils and wished that their sons would be even a little like the crown prince.

A Journey to Lubavitch: A Six-Year-Old’s Encounter with Blessings and Joy

“I shall never forget my first journey to Lubavitch. The weeks following Passover of 5592 (1832) were filled with excitement and joyous anticipation. I was six-years-old at the time, and I had just been told that father planned to take me along on his annual Shavuot trip to Lubavitch. I was scheduled to soon begin my studies at the cheder and father wanted me to receive the Rebbe’s (the Tzemach Tzedek, third Lubavitcher Rebbe) blessing for success in my studies.
I was scheduled to soon begin my studies at the cheder and father wanted me to receive the Rebbe’s (the Tzemach Tzedek, third Lubavitcher Rebbe) blessing for success in my studies.

The Baal Shem Tov with Little Shaul Margolis

To know the true meaning of Purim joy, one had to go to Medzhibozh and spend Purim in the company of the saintly Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov. Many were the lucky ones who did. So great was the crowd that there was not much left of the Purim feast in the way of food or drink to go around.
But there was much to drink of the endless fountain of Torah which flowed from the lips of the Baal Shem Tov. It was an experience which forever remained engraved on their minds and hearts.

Chanukah in a soviet prison

“There I was, sitting in a Soviet prison without even the remotest possibility of lighting the Chanukah candles,” related Reb Berke Chein, a venerable chassid who spent years in prison after a failed attempt to duck under the Iron Curtain.
One of the many unsung heroes of the Chabad effort to stand up to the Soviet monster, Reb Berke was legendary for his sincere devotion to fulfilling every mitzvah in the best possible manner.

The children of the Rebbe

A number of years back, the Jewish Joint Organization arranged for a group of Jewish educators, principals and teachers from America to travel to Odessa, Ukraine. The purpose of the trip was for them to see firsthand the way of life of Jewish students there.
When the organizers of the trip searched for a place where the group could have a Shabbat meal together, they reached out to the Shluchim of the Rebbe in Odessa. Unbeknownst to them, this special Shabbat was the day before Yud Alef Nissan, the birthday of the Rebbe.

“Elijah the Prophet” appears at the Seder!

Macon, Georgia, an hour’s drive from Atlanta, did not yet have a Chabad presence. Enter Rabbi Chaim and Chayala Markovits, directors of Chabad of Rural Georgia. This young couple from Australia and California, opened the first Rural Chabad Center in the US. They travel around the state to small Jewish communities and bring the warmth and light of Chabad to each place. One of their first Jewish experiences was to offer a public Seder in Macon for Passover last year, 2021. They rented a room in a hotel and transformed it into a beautiful Passover Seder complete with all the details including a delicious kosher for Passover meal. Jewish people heard about it and came out of the woodworks to attend. As the Seder progressed, little did they realize that G-d had planned a special guest to join them for the Seder. The unexpected guest appeared and for a moment the assembled thought they were seeing, “Elijah the Prophet” dressed up as a local.
Here is how it happened: