In the Media

...Full disclosure: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is my rebbe (spiritual mentor). In other words, My Rebbe by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is a book by my rebbe about his rebbe. Perhaps, therefore, I should not have been so surprised when I read the very first paragraph of the book — but I was. Rabbi Steinsaltz begins by recalling the first time he met the Lubavitcher Rebbe: "It seemed that he was attuned to a higher outlook", Rabbi Steinsaltz recalls. This was precisely my experience the first time I met Rabbi Steinsaltz in the 1970's...

...On June 10, Telushkin, who wrote Hillel: If Not Now, When? is releasing Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History...

...His latest book, Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson: the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History, is due out next month.

...I recommend Steinsaltz’s book to anyone who wants to understand the Chabad philosophy and mindset. Even Chabad insiders – devotees, ba’alei teshuvah and yeshiva students – will find themselves enlightened by it. In my opinion, My Rebbe should be mandatory for Chabad rabbinical students. Too many of our brightest are turned off by the larger than life Messianic propaganda taught in our schools. The Rebbe was an excellent strategist, visionary leader, brilliant scholar, but someone who lived his life for others. This book will go a long way in helping those who never knew the Rebbe to understand him as a human being and appreciate his powerful personality.

...Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s recent book on the late Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory, My Rebbe, is a close look at the life of his great mentor. It is a love story – but it is also clear-eyed and true.? This is a book both about life and legacy – a life that was intensely private and a legacy that has irreversibly changed the Jewish world forever...

...I am in it again. I am currently charged with helping an organization grow and adapt to a rapidly changing health care environment. Once again I have to lean on the lessons of Duke and the lessons of the Rebbe. Be a leader. Take responsibility. Help others find their voices to lead as well...

...Reading this book has made me a better person, just as it made the author better. Telushkin relates in the introduction: "I am a happier and more spiritual person as a result of writing this book — and I would like to believe more generous and less judgmental of others." While Telushkin is an Orthodox rabbi, he is not a member of Chabad. This lends to the gravity of this biography...

Here is the most simple book review of the new book, Rebbe: The Life And Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, The Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History: Read it and you will become a better person. From reading this book, one can better understand how Rabbi Schneerson had a positive impact on hundreds of thousands – and his life’s work continues to live on today through the organization, Chabad-Lubavitch he built which remains the largest Jewish organization in the world. This book should be read by people of all religions, who seek to become better human beings, better parents, better at business – and of course for those of us who are Jewish, better Jews...

...As Telushkin’s book shares — which in today’s world of heroic athletes and reality stars is vital to note — “belief in a personal good before whom all people are accountable is exactly what the Rebbe believed was required.” What Jewish and non-Jewish children alike need – adults, too for that matter – is understanding that “the world in which they live is not a jungle, where brute force, cunning and unbridled passion rule supreme, but that it has a (Supreme Being) who… takes a ‘personal interest’ in the affairs of each and every individual, and to him everyone is accountable for his or her daily conduct.”...

...Rebbe covers countless issues about the life, times and beliefs of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Amongst those issues – which shouldn’t be over-looked in this master-piece – is Rabbi Schneerson’s direction to Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, when Riskin first became Rabbi at Manhattan’s famed Lincoln Square Synagogue. Riskin permitted women to read from, and dance with the Torah – and got heat from others after he did so. When Riskin visited the Rebbe for advice on whether he could continue to host such services, the Rebbe said “Not only may you do it next year, you MUST do it.”...

Barnes & Noble in Grossmont Center and Chabad of East County’s Rabbi Rafi Andrusier are partnering for a June 12 discussion on the groundbreaking new biography, “Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History.” Rabbi Andrusier will lead the discussion and a Q&A about the Rebbe. The event is set to take place on Thursday, June 12, at 6 p.m...

...What book are you reading now? What is your favorite book ever? I am actually in the middle of a book that was just released this week called "Rebbe: The Greatest Rabbi in Modern History" by acclaimed writer Joseph Telushkin. It's a book on the life of Rabbi M.M. Schnerson, the spiritual leader of Chabad, and my inspiration for being here and doing what I do. Actually, I will be leading a Q&A on this book at 7 p.m. June 16 at Barnes and Noble of Champaign, 65 N. Market St. You can come and learn all about it...

From a spartan basement synagogue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson became the spiritual leader to tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews across the globe, a man whose counsel was sought by world leaders and rock ’n’ roll icons. As the grand rabbi, or Rebbe, of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Schneerson was a pioneer — the man who, unlike his forebears, made it his mission to spread Judaism across the globe, dispatching an army of emissaries to help convert, or at least convince, Jews to become more observant...

...Many hailed the Rebbe’s innovative outreach programs. Many others did not. The Chanukah menorahs spurred lawsuits on the grounds of separation of church and state, and the mitzvah campaigns struck many secular Jews as annoying or intrusive. Nor were his political opinions always popular or welcome: In regard to Israel, he vigorously opposed any negotiations that would trade land for peace, including the Camp David Accords. ..

...As Telushkin recounts, “an innovation of the Rebbe lay in expanding the search for spiritual and ethical lessons to the worlds of business, science, the professions, and even recreational activities…”. How special it is to read about this great Jews’ passion to continually better Jews from all walks of life. Simply amazing...

...“This is an admiring biography,” Telushkin writes, “but one that I hope has been written with open eyes.” I think that Telushkin did his best, but what can one say about a subject who, after accepting the job that he would hold for the last 40 years of his life, had no personal confidants except his wife (and she none besides him, at least none that have spoken up); never traveled outside his home state; and in millions of written and spoken words rarely spoke of himself or his own feelings?...

...The most incontrovertible demonstration of the Rebbe’s lomdut is found in the hadranim, the lectures he delivered at the conclusion of studying Talmudic tractates. The Rebbe delivered 151 such hadranim, eighty-four of which are recorded in the two-volume Hadranim al HaShas, published by Kehot Publication Society. I have two personal favorites: one is the hadran that the Rebbe delivered on the occasion of the completion of the entire Talmud, in which he persuasively argues that a common thread runs through all of the hundreds of disputes between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. The other is his hadran on the tractate Bava Kama. This is a tour de force...

Two well-known contemporary rabbis. Two prolific authors. Two personal journeys. One Rebbe. Rabbis Joseph Telushkin and Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz have come out with new volumes on “the Rebbe,” Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 20 years after the death of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement’s seventh and final leader. To these authors, Schneerson was no ordinary biographical subject—in fact, according to the subtitle of one of their books, he is “the most influential rabbi in modern history.”...

...Broadly educated, Schneerson spent eight years studying engineering at prestigious universities before seeking rabbinic ordination, and each morning he read the newspapers in four languages. His far-reaching secular interests were evident in his humanistic mindset and lateral thought processes; he praised the astronauts after the moon landing, saying that he “discerned in [their] disciplined lifestyle…lessons with which Jews—particularly the sort who would not instinctively accept the demands of the Torah—could inspire themselves to be more observant.”...

...In a conversation with the young philosopher Yitzchak Block, “in the circles in which Block moved at Harvard, Plato was regarded with the highest respect, representing the epitome of high culture and civilization. But the Rebbe had a different take on Plato’s writings: He spoke of Platonic philosophy as cruel…What upset the Rebbe in particular was Plato’s social philosophy, his advocacy of the abolition of the nuclear family and his belief that children should be taken away from their parents.”...

...Given the Rebbe’s strong opinions on various matters, it was surprising the degree to which his decisions, as his secretary Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky told me, were not “cookie-cutter." He always tailored his advice to the individual in front of him. For example, because of the secular or anti-religious orientation of many university faculty, he was generally opposed to a college education for his followers. But there were instances in which he approved it, and many instances in which he urged people to finish their degrees. It really depended on the circumstances and the person...

...Perhaps the absence of a true historical work on the life of the Lubavitcher Rebbe these past twenty years is a result of the sublimity of his life coupled with the paucity of historical sketches from his youth and the fact that he spoke very little of himself throughout his life, as Rabbi Miller writes in his foreword to the book, which presented a rather insurmountable challenge to anyone who ventured to sketch the Rebbes life...

...I love Chaim Miller’s biography of the Rebbe for four main reasons: Firstly, he paints a human picture of the Rebbe. Some Chassidim are critical of this and I have already heard complaints. But to me, the more I understand what the Rebbe’s chracter was like, the more I understand his passions and pains, the more I come to love him and am inspired by him. I would make this required reading in all Chabad yeshivot...

...But as the book marches on, Telushkin struggles to retain the human side of the Rebbe. He is simply so much larger than life. His magnificence abounds. Not by his chassidim, but by scholars, rabonim, and political and military leaders. And as we near the middle of the book Telushkin also submits. He is forced to, and as readers we are as well. I dare you to read this book and not think more than once about what your life would be like in the service of the Rebbe...

...This year marks the 20th anniversary of Schneerson’s death and comes as a new tome, “Rebbe” by author Joseph Telushkin, hovers at No. 18 on Amazon’s best sellers list after being released earlier this week. Rabbi Zvi Konikov, who heads the Chabad of the Space Coast in Satellite Beach, will hold a talk about the Rebbe Schneerson’s looming influence at 7 tonight at Books-A-Million at the Avenue Viera...

...Early in the text, Telushkin reveals three key principles of the Rebbe: “G‑d is infinite, G‑d is incomprehensible and G‑d is actively involved in the world.” With this book, the Rebbe no longer is incomprehensible. Spend some time getting to know the Rebbe. You’ll be glad you did.

...His legacy and his vision live on in the activities of his emissaries, who are known for events that range from the world’s largest Passover seders in Nepal, to giant outdoor Hanukkah menorahs, to kosher food welcoming travellers in far-flung destinations. So wide-ranging is their presence that commentator and writer Dennis Prager has quipped that the word “remote” means a place without a Chabad representative...

...The Rebbe insisted on maintaining shluchim in challenging circumstances. In "Rebbe," American rabbi and author Joseph Telushkin describes a 1982 incident where the Israeli government planned to evacuate the Tunisian Jewish community after the Palestine Liberation Organization established a headquarters in Tunis. The Rebbe, citing his own intelligence sources, insisted the threat wasn't credible. The Israelis backed down, and Chabad, along with the city's native Jewish community, remains in Tunis today. Such persistence isn't without risk: In 2008, shluchim in Mumbai were targeted...

When a coalition of secular U.S. Jewish groups joined the fight to oppose prayer in public schools, one of the most prominent rabbis stood virtually alone in vocally opposing them. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, commonly known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, or just “the Rebbe,” rejected as illogical the argument that prayer in public schools would result in some form of Christian domination over other religions in the U.S...

...Rabbi Chaim Miller, compiler of the widely used Gutnick Edition of the Chumash, has also penned a new biography of the Rebbe, titled "Turning Judaism Outward." His book weighs in at 590 pages, in the ballpark of Telushkin's 640-pager but more than double the length of Steinsaltz's 250-page volume. Miller and his publisher stressed that they sought for "Turning Judaism Outward" to be complete and comprehensive in its treatment of the Rebbe's entire life, which spanned from 1902-1994...

Two biographies of the Lubavitcher Rebbe written by authors outside the Fold attempt to give fuller picture of his life

...The Rebbe intuited that while all Jews are familiar with the commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself,” it seems that virtually everyone, even some otherwise very great figures, have reasons and rationales to justify why it doesn’t apply to those with whom they disagree. The Rebbe therefore modeled a new pattern, one of non-judgmental love for all Jews. Some critics of Chabad suspected that this well-known predilection of the Rebbe was a tactic intended to augment financial support for the movement or to stimulate goodwill for Chabad. But they were wrong. This love represented what the Rebbe really felt...

...Chaim Miller has painted as broad and as honest a picture of the Rebbe as is possible. Perhaps the most important contribution of his book is to set the Rebbe in the context of Chabad tradition going back to its founders. The Rebbe remained intensely loyal to his predecessors and to the dismay of some of his admirers refused to depart from a fundamentalist approach to Judaism. And yet beyond the ideology he was able to break the mold and mental constraints that have limited the impact of almost all the other Chassidic dynasties. Within Judaism he positioned his movement both within and without the Charedi world...

On Tuesday, July 1, synagogues across Crown Heights, the city and the world will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad Lubavitch movement– considered one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th Century... In both celebration of his life and commemoration of his death, three books have been recently published to look back on his legacy, recount the details of his accomplishments and gild the significance of his messages...

Rebbe – a biography of the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, has reached to the list of best-sellers on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles, but that’s not all. After selling out of its first print — according to chabad — the book went as far to reach the New York Times best seller list for the week of June 29...