By COLlive reporter
This week’s edition #245 of the Ami magazine features the curious cover story titled “Looking for Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch in Lubavitch” with a photo of an elder Chabad chossid.
The 13-page article by editor Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter examines “the influence of Rav Hirsh through the lifework of the Rebbe’s mazkir Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel.
Both Mindel and Rabbi Mordechai Aizik Hodakov, chief of staff of the Rebbe’s secretariat, respectively studied and directed in the Yeshiva Torah Im Derech Eretz gymnasium in Riga, the capital of Latvia.
The school espoused by Rabbi Hirsch, the great 19th-century Orthodox rabbi and leader of German Jewry who developed a curriculum featuring both Jewish studies and a secular program.
“I don’t want to give the impression that Torah Im Derech Eretz was all he spoke about,” Mindel’s daughter told the magazine. “But that was a big part of him. He needed that in order to be the person he was.”
Frankfurter also visited and spoke to Rabbi Schneur Zalman Yudkin, an elder Lubavitcher chossid living in Crown Heights who learned in Torah Im Derech Eretz in Riga as well.
“His mesiras nefesh under the Bolsheviks evident in every crease of his holy countenance,” Frankfurter noted about meeting Yudkin.
Accompanying the article is a 10-page article written by Dr. Mindel himself detailing his life in the service of the Rebbe.
“In retrospect, I see the hand of Hashem in the choices I was given and the decisions I ultimately made based on these choices,” he writes. “These decisions brought me to a life dedicated to a mission far different and greater than I could have imagined, and for which I feel privileged and thankful to Hashem.”
-was taken by the Chabad Chossid, Portrait Photographer –
Marko Dashev, From Crown Heights !!
Yeshar Koach !
if you don’t have this Ami, run and get it, i read the whole story Friday night. was in tears at the end. Thank you Ami magazine for an excellent read. I’m in awe of Rabbi Mindel, the workload he had was unbelievable yet he worked with total dedication to the Rebbeim
It’s more than just this article. It’s been a recurring and regular thing. This magazine is the most fair and balanced in the from world today as far as giving equal respect and coverage to all communities. Lubavitchers have been used to being ignored (or worse) by charreidi media. Ami is a breath of fresh air.
if I recall correctly they had an ad in the neshei Chabad Newsletter and “neshei” was a code to get a discount.
if ami can give 23 (YES, TWENTY-THREE) pages to a story featuring Lubavitch and 770, including several beautiful pictures of the Rebbe and stories, I am a truly loyal reader. hope you are too. subscribe at amimagazine.com. oh and by the way last year Rechy Frankfurther wrote a glowing editorial about the women’s kinus hashluchos. Ami is our friend and i hope we show our support. we should.