The COLlive Magazine for Nissan 5781 – March 2021 has been published and distributed directly to Jewish homes around Crown Heights and will be available for pick up in leading stores of the neighborhood.
As in the past, the full-page color magazine featuring articles and essays will also be mailed out to other Chabad homes in various other communities in the USA.
“We are excited to be present this new issue and have already been receiving enthusiastic feedback from readers who managed to read parts of it in midst of their preparation for Pesach,” says Mica Soffer, publisher and editor of COLlive.com and the COLlive Magazine.
The theme of the new edition is “From lockdown to freedom” with a letter from the Rebbe from Erev Shabbos Hagadol 5739 emphasizing how Pesach “represents the birthday of our Jewish nation” and how it pertains to the individual and to society as a whole.
Writer Danit Schusterman brings monologues of Crown Heights residents about Pesach 5780 (2020) which was spent in isolation as the Covid pandemic ranged. Some found the lockdown liberating, while others are thrilled to finally reunite with grandchildren.
“Do miracles still happen?” was written by the late Rabbi Zalman Posner, the trailblazing Shliach of Nashville, Tennessee, who was a regular speaker at the Pegisha – Encounter with Chabad retreats in the 60s-80s. The essay is an excerpt from his famous essay book “Think Jewish” which was recently republished and is available in bookstores and online.
A fascinating article by writer and historian Dovid Zaklikowski tells of a Chabad wedding in Florida that rekindled a long-lost friendship between a Shliach and a truth-seeking Jewish student who was born to a Muslim father from Afganistan and is now a father to a Lubavitch family in Pittsburgh.
Poignant thoughts about chinuch are shared by Rabbi Shais Taub, the renowned speaker and scholar-in-residence of Chabad of the Five Towns in New York, in another article by Danit Schusterman. Every child needs an advocate and there’s already someone appointed to the job, he says in answering the question why does Hashem give people mental health challenges.
The popular “Our Shuls” series of articles on COLlive.com, written by Libby Herz, is included in the magazine, highlighting Aliya – the first in-reach shul in Crown Heights; the 91st Street Shul – the shul for a blossoming neighborhood; Itchke’s Shteibel which is growing out of 2 shuls; and Merkaz Sefarad which is a home for Sephardim away from their hometowns.
Additional articles tell how the Rebbe responded to a disrespectful letter written to him from a Jewish man in North Carolina, how the Italian Borsalino hatmaker is making inroads in Brooklyn, and a little-known teaching from the Tzemach Tzedek about the 4 cups of the Seder.
Licensed marriage and family therapist Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch discusses anxiety disorder which is the most common mental illness in the United States, Master Herbalist Sara Chana Silverstein sheds light on how an ancient homemade healing technique uses Kosher L’Pesach ingredients you already have at home, and humorist Mordechai Schmutter writes about a potentially better way to clean for Pesach.
Other features include a photo gallery of the Rebbe presented by JEM, the Pesach Post for children by Shazak, and a comic story about the death of King Faissel of Saudia Arabia from the new book “The Rebbe and the Mazkir Rabbi Leibel Groner.”
FFH, the Pesach program launched 6 years ago and now directed by Lubavitchers Shloime and Alyson Feldman and Levi Feiginson of Table One Catering share 3 outstanding recipes for Pesach that can be replicated at home.
Read the full issue:
Click here to download the COLlive Magazine
Funniest article was schmutter!