Chabad.org has provided us with a stunning article, based on a JEM video interview with a Senator, all available here: click here.
The gist of it is that a black (respectfully referred to as an African American) Congresswoman who spearheaded the WIC program, was not only comforted by the Rebbe on her sadness at being given a token post on the Agricultural committee, but the Rebbe then turned it around into a blessing, to use the committee as a way to bring food to poor people, the people she wished to serve.
But of course, we all know the Rebbe did not care about people. Certainly not about people who were not Lubavitchers. Certainly not about people who we were not Jewish. Certainly not about people who were colored. The Rebbe was the ultimate introvert and unvisionary, lacking foresight to see the Meshichisten and lacking the ability to care about others.
Not only did the Rebbe take the time to invite the Congresswoman over to console her, initiating the contact, he did it in the best way possible: By turning what seemed to be a wall blocking her path into a tool to be used, giving tremendous meaning to her life and work.
Read the article, and I hope you will feel the pride I feel in having such a Rebbe, in being given the Zechus to participate in some way in his Chasidus and his Horo'os. I will say to you: If you continue to believe that the Rebbe did not care, you have never experienced caring and need to grow a heart to understand the meaning of the world.
At times, Yad HaChasidim Al HaElyona can come from the most curious places and the unexpected "small" stories.
1. David Luchins was not and never will be a senator.
2. The story about Chisholm "turning what seemed to be a wall blocking her path into a tool to be used" is simply not true. In fact she refused the assignment, and was put on the Veterans Affairs Committee instead.
3. She had little or nothing to do with the passage of WIC, which happened in 1972, when she was on the Education and Labor Committee. WIC was originally introduced in the Senate, not the House, and was sponsored by Hubert Humphrey.
The full article on chabad.org and video mentions her connection to Bob Dole, who did work on food stamps while in Congress . . . Some facts have definitely been skewed, but there could be some basis to all of this.
Guravitzer, she was not a senator, and she didn't resign, she refused the assignment in the first place. She was never on the committee to resign from it.
And no, freshman congressmen don't refuse committee assignments, but she did. It was a huge chutzpah on her part, and had she been a white man she'd have been slapped down for it, but she wasn't a white man so she got away with it.
milhouse, I don't understand why you are up in arms about the story, and nitpicking. The details are clear. She was assigned to this committee, over the summer before Congress opened session she was home and the Rebbe called her, when she got to Washington she was reassigned (as you add, and is irrelevant to the article). According to the aide interviewed, this meeting with Dole was on the first day in Washington. That she was then transfered to a more powerful committee (which has nothing to do with the poor as well) is irrelevant. This is someone repeating what they heard from her first hand. If JEM had known about this in 2005, they would have tried to interview her as well. In fact, chabad.org followed standard journalist practices, and contacted 2 additional sources to back up the story and provided their quotes.
1. She was not assigned "over the summer" -- congress is elected in November.
2. She was assigned to the Ag Committee, was publicly upset over it, may well have met the Rebbe, who may well have told her to use it for good, but if so she did not take that advice. Instead she refused the assignment. She never used her position on the Ag Committee for good, bad, or anything else, because she was never on it. She kicked up a fuss, demanded to know how they dared do this to her and did they know who she was (remind you of anyone?), and she was reassigned to something more in accord with her self-esteem. She never served a day on the Ag Committee.
3. Dole was a senator, and thus not on the same committee as her anyway. She met him as House members meet senators, just by being around the Capitol, nothing to do with what committee either one was on.
4. since neither one of them came up with WIC, I don't see the relevance of this meeting anyway. WIC came out of the 1969 nutrition summit that Nixon called, was developed over the next 3 years, and didn't become a law until 1972. It was pushed by the agribusiness lobby, including Dole though more prominently by other senators. The chief sponsor was Humphrey, not Dole, which means it was his initiative and he got the credit. If Dole was behind it he'd have got his name on it.
5. I don't care if Luchins said it, or if Chisholm herself said it, it's not a true story. Yes, the part about meeting the rebbe may be true, and yes, this meeting may somehow have served as a general inspiration in her career, but it had nothing to do with the introduction of WIC (boruch hashem); and it does not teach the lesson it's intended to, since Chisholm did not make lemonade out of the lemons life handed her, she handed them back to life and demanded cherries instead.
Guravitzer You surprise me.You are a level headed guy usually but now you seem to be buying into these Chabad.org and JEM stories? Most of them are cute non accurate stories, some are outright falsifications.These mayses are meant for noshim and ketanim.Ess past der nisht
I am not interested in taking this further, I see your goal is only to nitpick and you have no real point other than that. As far as "buying in", this is a video interview, slightly hard to fake. You can take your points up with Luchins, I am tired debating anonymous people (including myself) over something done by real people. If you ask who I trust: "milhouse", "shwartz", "guravitzer" or people using their real names in real life, the latter.
This is David Luchins- I am a bit stunned that no one bothered to check with me about this matter. Incidently, I worked for Hubert Humphrey in 1972 and am familiar with this piece of legislation (and never worked for Senator Clinton, but the truth seems irrelevant to those with agendas). Bob Dole served in the House BEFORE he becama a Senator. As for this story,If you listen to the interview (instead of flipping out because an Orthodox Jew said something nice about a lady of colour) I never claimed that the Representative created WIC - only that she told us this stirring story about being inspired by the Rebbe to use her new position to help feed poor people and working with Bob Dole (and ,yes, Hubert Humphrey and Carl Perkins to do so). Its her story- not mine. She obviously thought enough of the Rebbe that she repeated it with great love decades later. What part of that upsets you so?
Is there anyway to verify that this is truly David Luchins?
Regardless, hoping that it is you, I would like to A) thank you for stopping by to set the record straight, B) thank you for having given the original interview which I found so inspiring. I hope you don't mind that I accidentally elevated you to a Senator.
Toldos Ahron goes to A Chabad house and talks about the greatness of the Rebbe and you run old pics of Kfar CHabad? dosent PAS
ReplyDeleteUnrelated to this thread:
ReplyDeleteBut the Rebbe didn't care!
Chabad.org has provided us with a stunning article, based on a JEM video interview with a Senator, all available here: click here.
The gist of it is that a black (respectfully referred to as an African American) Congresswoman who spearheaded the WIC program, was not only comforted by the Rebbe on her sadness at being given a token post on the Agricultural committee, but the Rebbe then turned it around into a blessing, to use the committee as a way to bring food to poor people, the people she wished to serve.
But of course, we all know the Rebbe did not care about people. Certainly not about people who were not Lubavitchers. Certainly not about people who we were not Jewish. Certainly not about people who were colored. The Rebbe was the ultimate introvert and unvisionary, lacking foresight to see the Meshichisten and lacking the ability to care about others.
Not only did the Rebbe take the time to invite the Congresswoman over to console her, initiating the contact, he did it in the best way possible: By turning what seemed to be a wall blocking her path into a tool to be used, giving tremendous meaning to her life and work.
Read the article, and I hope you will feel the pride I feel in having such a Rebbe, in being given the Zechus to participate in some way in his Chasidus and his Horo'os. I will say to you: If you continue to believe that the Rebbe did not care, you have never experienced caring and need to grow a heart to understand the meaning of the world.
At times, Yad HaChasidim Al HaElyona can come from the most curious places and the unexpected "small" stories.
1. David Luchins was not and never will be a senator.
ReplyDelete2. The story about Chisholm "turning what seemed to be a wall blocking her path into a tool to be used" is simply not true. In fact she refused the assignment, and was put on the Veterans Affairs Committee instead.
3. She had little or nothing to do with the passage of WIC, which happened in 1972, when she was on the Education and Labor Committee. WIC was originally introduced in the Senate, not the House, and was sponsored by Hubert Humphrey.
In other words, lo dubim, velo yaar.
Mr anonymous:
ReplyDelete1) it's the BROTHER of the TA Rebbe
2) What can I say? it's nice, but there's not much left to say except a whole lotta chest-thumpin'
The full article on chabad.org and video mentions her connection to Bob Dole, who did work on food stamps while in Congress . . .
ReplyDeleteSome facts have definitely been skewed, but there could be some basis to all of this.
Milhouse
ReplyDeleteI am not familiar with the history to respond to comment 2 and 3, but the article states the Luchins was a Senior Advisor to Moynihan.
The Senator was my mistake, not in article.
ReplyDeleteAccording to wiki, she requested reassignment, not resigned. Junior senators don't resign.
Whether Humphrey was ultimately the one asked to sponsor the bill means nothing about the process it took to get to that point.
Yes, he was (and later to Hillary Clinton), but how does that make him a senator? JEM did not interview Moynihan a"h.
ReplyDeleteGuravitzer, she was not a senator, and she didn't resign, she refused the assignment in the first place. She was never on the committee to resign from it.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, freshman congressmen don't refuse committee assignments, but she did. It was a huge chutzpah on her part, and had she been a white man she'd have been slapped down for it, but she wasn't a white man so she got away with it.
milhouse, I don't understand why you are up in arms about the story, and nitpicking. The details are clear. She was assigned to this committee, over the summer before Congress opened session she was home and the Rebbe called her, when she got to Washington she was reassigned (as you add, and is irrelevant to the article). According to the aide interviewed, this meeting with Dole was on the first day in Washington. That she was then transfered to a more powerful committee (which has nothing to do with the poor as well) is irrelevant. This is someone repeating what they heard from her first hand. If JEM had known about this in 2005, they would have tried to interview her as well. In fact, chabad.org followed standard journalist practices, and contacted 2 additional sources to back up the story and provided their quotes.
ReplyDelete1. She was not assigned "over the summer" -- congress is elected in November.
ReplyDelete2. She was assigned to the Ag Committee, was publicly upset over it, may well have met the Rebbe, who may well have told her to use it for good, but if so she did not take that advice. Instead she refused the assignment. She never used her position on the Ag Committee for good, bad, or anything else, because she was never on it. She kicked up a fuss, demanded to know how they dared do this to her and did they know who she was (remind you of anyone?), and she was reassigned to something more in accord with her self-esteem. She never served a day on the Ag Committee.
3. Dole was a senator, and thus not on the same committee as her anyway. She met him as House members meet senators, just by being around the Capitol, nothing to do with what committee either one was on.
4. since neither one of them came up with WIC, I don't see the relevance of this meeting anyway. WIC came out of the 1969 nutrition summit that Nixon called, was developed over the next 3 years, and didn't become a law until 1972. It was pushed by the agribusiness lobby, including Dole though more prominently by other senators. The chief sponsor was Humphrey, not Dole, which means it was his initiative and he got the credit. If Dole was behind it he'd have got his name on it.
5. I don't care if Luchins said it, or if Chisholm herself said it, it's not a true story. Yes, the part about meeting the rebbe may be true, and yes, this meeting may somehow have served as a general inspiration in her career, but it had nothing to do with the introduction of WIC (boruch hashem); and it does not teach the lesson it's intended to, since Chisholm did not make lemonade out of the lemons life handed her, she handed them back to life and demanded cherries instead.
Guravitzer
ReplyDeleteYou surprise me.You are a level headed guy usually but now you seem to be buying into these Chabad.org and JEM stories?
Most of them are cute non accurate stories, some are outright falsifications.These mayses are meant for noshim and ketanim.Ess past der nisht
I am not interested in taking this further, I see your goal is only to nitpick and you have no real point other than that. As far as "buying in", this is a video interview, slightly hard to fake. You can take your points up with Luchins, I am tired debating anonymous people (including myself) over something done by real people. If you ask who I trust: "milhouse", "shwartz", "guravitzer" or people using their real names in real life, the latter.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd trust "guravitzer" or any "randomNomDeBlog" over David Luchins any day.
ReplyDeleteThis is David Luchins- I am a bit stunned that no one bothered to check with me about this matter. Incidently, I worked for Hubert Humphrey in 1972 and am familiar with this piece of legislation (and never worked for Senator Clinton, but the truth seems irrelevant to those with agendas). Bob Dole served in the House BEFORE he becama a Senator. As for this story,If you listen to the interview (instead of flipping out because an Orthodox Jew said something nice about a lady of colour) I never claimed that the Representative created WIC - only that she told us this stirring story about being inspired by the Rebbe to use her new position to help feed poor people and working with Bob Dole (and ,yes, Hubert Humphrey and Carl Perkins to do so). Its her story- not mine. She obviously thought enough of the Rebbe that she repeated it with great love decades later. What part of that upsets you so?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIs there anyway to verify that this is truly David Luchins?
ReplyDeleteRegardless, hoping that it is you, I would like to A) thank you for stopping by to set the record straight, B) thank you for having given the original interview which I found so inspiring. I hope you don't mind that I accidentally elevated you to a Senator.