Toronto Marks Yeshiva Founding

Yeshivas Lubavitch Toronto kicked off this year with a smashing first week. With over 90 Bochurim sitting and learning from early morning until late at night, taking breaks only to eat, exercise a little and participate in the constant extracurricular programs that they themselves arrange.

On the fifteenth of Elul, the 120th birthday of Tomchei Temimim, the Yeshiva held a farbrengen with the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Akiva Wagner.

Rabbi Wagner spoke about the importance of the yeshivas upcoming trip to the Rebbe for Rosh Hashanah, encouraging the boys to prepare themselves properly by way of the following Chassidic anecdote:

There was once a group of Chassidim traveling to the Rebbe in Lubavitch, as was customary, the Chassidim spent the long horse drawn journey farbrenging.

As they trotted along the dirt road they suddenly felt the wagon lurch, then come to a stop, one of the horses had died.

The wagon driver went out to the nearest town to get some help and in the meantime, the Chassidim continued to farbreng on the stationary wagon.

As the farbrengen progressed, an argument broke out amongst the Chassidim, most agreed that the horse must have been a ‘Misnaged’ being that it decided to die on the road, thus stalling their journey to the Rebbe, however one old chossid argued that the horse must have indeed been a ‘Chassidishe’ horse. The reason that the horse died now was because he knew they were traveling to the Rebbe, and when one travels to the Rebbe, one must no longer be a ‘horse’.

The lesson is understood, when traveling to the Rebbe, we must prepare ourselves properly by bettering ourselves in learning and davening.