Sukkos Festivities in Albany

The Civil Calendar’s Columbus Day vacation during Chol Hamoed Sukkos helped Capital Chabad strengthen Jewish awareness in general and especially Mivtza Sukkah and Esrog/Lulav.

Many hundreds of Lake George area tourists and I-87 and I-90 travelers enjoyed Minyanim and Sukkah at Saratoga & Albany Chabad, while Chabad of Clifton Park’s “Sushi In the Sukkah” featured Jewish-American Heritage food, decorations and activities based on the probability that Columbus was actually a Marranno trying to find a new safe haven for Jewish exiles during the infamous expulsion from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.

Head Shliach Rabbi Yisroel Rubin was interviewed by popular Radio Station WROW AM and WRGB FM, where the Caribbean-American show host mentioned that it is commonly known also among Jamaican non-Jews that Columbus and his navigator Zacuto were secret Jews escaping from Spain. While on the air Rabbi Rubin spoke about the meaning of the holiday of Sukkos and various other Jewish observances.

A beautiful Tzivos Hashem rally for children featured Columbus themed prizes, a grand Bingo game, Tehillim for Eretz Yisrael, Pesukim and much more.

Motti Rubin, visiting from Yeshiva Gedola in Melbourne, Australia, delivered a special Columbus Day Shiur for the Local Maimonides alumni and visitors, in accordance withe the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching that one must learn in his service of Hashem from all that he encounters.

The shiur was regarding R. Akiva Aigar’s question about the Halachic status of a Sukkah and a houseboat regarding Eruv and Mezuzah, based on a Chiddush that the Rebbe’s father R. Levik Schneerson told R. Chaim Brisker.