Unknown Word Inspires Project

By COLlive reporter

Crown Heights businessman Yossi Malamud was learning a sicha of the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe one evening a few years ago, when he stumbled on a word in Yiddish he did not know.

He asked a number of Chabad scholars and local Yiddish experts in the community if they knew the translation, and was told by each of them “what the Frierdiker Rebbe meant to say was…”, however none of them knew the word’s exact translation.

“The idea that the precious language of our heritage, our roots, could be forgotten really worried me,” Malamud told COLlive, adding that he himself doesn’t even remember the word today.

Then and there, a dream was born: to translate the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Sichos into English for all to learn and easily understand.

“All that we know about our Chabad roots was told to us by the Frierdiker Rebbe in Yiddish,” he says. “It is critical that these talks are not forgotten by the next generation.”

Now, after two years of work, the inaugural volume of the Malamud Edition – Sefer HaSichos of Rabbi Yosef Yizchak Schneersohn of Lubavitch in English has been released.

The entire project has been underwritten by the Malamud family of Crown Heights, who have been involved in translating Sichos of the Chabad Rabbeim for more than 3 decades.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, who is also known as the Rebbe Rayatz, first visited America in 1929, and settled there in 1940. His proactive encouragement of rabbinic and lay leaders to take the offensive against the ravages of assimilation turned the tide in many American communities, as well as throughout the global Jewish community.

The book was released 70 years after the Previous Rebbe’s historic talks of 1944-1945, which until now were accessible only in the original Yiddish, except for partial translations into Hebrew.

The newly-released inaugural English volume explores his in-depth responses to the intense climactic year of World War II, to the bombardment of Warsaw, to the resigned attitude of some American Jewish leaders to assimilation, and to the secular indoctrination of refugee children in Israel. All in all, this volume is a veritable symphony of inspirational teachings, pungent pointers to personal growth, portraits of vintage chassidim and heartwarming narratives.

This series, translated by Uri Kaploun, is published by Sichos In English in conjunction with Kehot Publication Society, which was founded in 1942 by the Rebbe Rayatz. Under the leadership of his successor, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, these Lubavitch publishing houses have brought Torah education to nearly every Jewish community in the world, and together are the world’s largest publisher of Jewish literature.

For further information about the new volume and other publications of Sichos In English, please visit www.SIE.org. For further information about Kehot Publication Society, please visit www.KehotOnline.com.