Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Shliach in Washington, DC and organizer of the National Menorah Lighting on The Ellipse Sunday near the White House, urged people not to lose hope after the Obama administration’s decision to allow the United Nations to pass a resolution condemning Israel.
Rabbi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, turned an Obama administration official’s speech about “fighting darkness with light” on its head, evoking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and urging Jews not to despair about the “darkness” cast by the United Nations vote, The Washington Examiner reported.
Shemtov spoke after remarks by Adam Szubin, acting treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, and the Obama administration’s representative Sunday at the event.
Szubin delivered a short speech focusing mainly on the significance and symbology of candles and light as they pertain to Hanukkah and later helped to light a 30-foot menorah, The Washington Examiner wrote.
“Secretary Szubin spoke before of fighting darkness with light,” Shemtov said. “I remember those words being spoken to a particular man by the Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson] many many years ago on Simchat Torah,” an annual Jewish holiday which marks the conclusion of one reading of the Torah and beginning of another.
“The Rebbe told him you are working in a place where there is great grief and darkness, but remember that in that place of darkness, you can only counter it by lighting a candle. By creating light,” Shemtov continued. “That man was Benjamin Netanyahu, and he was at the time the ambassador to the United Nations.”
Shemtov then went on to bring up Friday’s 14-0 U.N. Security Council vote. In an unprecedented diplomatic rebuke of Israel, the United States abstained Friday on a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, allowing the highly charged measure to pass.
It declares the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”
“So as I know that some of us are so sad at what happened there with regard to Israel,” Shemtov said. “We must remember that the way to counter any darkness, any disappointment is not with harsh rhetoric, not with anger, but when we create light, the darkness dissipates.”
BS”D
# 5 you seem ingnorant of the process and are telling others to calm down, the US only abstained you say, that is equivalent to a votecin favor bc the structure is that one no vote by the US of A would be enough to kill the resolution
You are the one who does not sound calm, here.
Israel is only building on it’s own land that the Jihadists you obviously support, are trying to steal from them, along with the land they have already spent hundreds of years, stealing from the Jews.
When a new condo complex or shopping mall is built in Florida, do you accuse America of “unchecked expansion”?
Or how about when Egypt builds in the Sinai Desert, do you call that “unchecked expansion”?
Or do you only single out Israel, for your attacks, just because they are building on Jewish land?
Thank for standing on the largest platform and standing firm by stating the Rebbe’s position in the face of anti Israel President!
Use your distorted form of logic when it’s your existence that’s at stake, we’ll do what we have to do.
By abstaining it meant it would go through. It all depended on the US all these years and everyone knew it. If the US wouldn’t have wanted it to go through they would’ve vetoed like all the other years. The fact that they abstained meant they wanted it to go through. All the haters of Israel were waiting for that day. Do some research before you post
… Claiming via your headline news that the speech by a Rabbi in Washington ‘trashes’ Obama’s UN move and quoting the Washington Examiner’s depiction of this Rabbi’s direct, sincere and peaceful speech as hostile and manipulative does you no credit. Did you actually listen to the entire video? There was no ‘trashing’ or ‘ripping’ of anybody. This was a much needed message of hope. Using a news source that distorts the speech into a ploy to use the Menorah lighting as a forum for political trashing is a distortion of the truth. The UN move that seeks to endanger the… Read more »
I commend Rabbi Levi Shemtov for his courageous and graceful remarks. I am deeply disturbed with how the MSM has spun his respectful, spiritual criticism into “trashing” Obama and “charging Obama as a criminal.” The media distortion has turned Rabbi Shemtov’s comments into fake news.
The US abstained – didn’t ratify, didn’t veto – just abstained. The vote was 14 – 0 against Israel’s unchecked expansion. If Israel is so sure that its actions are beyond reproach, are justified as existentially imperative, then why all the outrage? Do what you have to do to exist. I believe the outrage belies an underlying sense that maybe this [unchecked expansion] is NOT the best course to follow.
We are proud of you!!!
The Rebbe was telling the PM to use as proof in the UN, all the places where it says in the Bible that the God gives the land to the Jews!! Mr. Netanyahu muffed it and didn’t mention even ONCE this vital point. I hope that Rabbi Shem Tov mentioned that “light” means Torah. Lighting a candle in the UN means reminding the UN that there is a Biblical source for why Jews are on the Land.
Raanan
BS”D Well said
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, made a very public Kiddush H-sh-m in the Rebbe’s name, with this statement.
It has been posted on Glenn Becks’ website, the Blaze (and possibly other popular websites), where most of the readers side with and support Israel (at least they do, when it’s Israel VS the Radical Islamics. In any case the Blaze is less liberal (there aren’t any truly conservative ones, Rachmona Letzlon), then most other ‘news’ websites).
Kol HaKavod Rabbi Shemtov.
May H-sh-m grant you the strength and ability to spread the Rebbe’s teachings, and make kiddushim H-sh-m all over the world.