1. Home
  2. /
  3. Mendel's Messages
no comments

Tanya in Quarantine

Rabbi Meir Shlomo Yanofsky was the Rebbe’s maternal grandfather. He lived in Nikolayev, (known in Ukraine as Mykolayev) a southern Ukraine city then part of Russia/Soviet Union. Nikolayev is a famous beloved city in Chabad lore thanks to the many … Read the rest

...
no comments

Seeing Highway Exits as (Torah) Interchanges

We noticed on our road-trip to Toronto that highway exits are not usually called Exits, instead they are more often called “Interchanges”. We assume this is because this is a spot where cars are both exiting and entering the highways. … Read the rest

...
no comments

Collection of Shavuot Messages, Insights & Tidbits

Shavuot is the holiday that celebrates the Giving of the Torah at Sinai. It’s celebrated 7 Weeks (of Omer Counting) after the start of Passover. Most years it falls after Graduation Weekend and it’s the holiday we like to go … Read the rest

...
no comments

Ending on a Good Note

It so happens that thanks to calendar scheduling and when Passover fell, our annual Dessert Bake-Off for 2005 ending up being the last Shabbat of the Spring 2025 semester before Finals Week. I thought about the significance of this, and … Read the rest

...
no comments

Professor’s Sense of (Passover) Urgency

In the two days leading up to Passover this 2025 I spent quite a bit of time with faculty and administration members dealing with one of my Passover religious exemption letters. The issue didn’t involve the holiday dates itself (which … Read the rest

...
no comments

Streits at 100! 1925-2025

This year a lot of Streit’s Passover product was emblazoned with their 100 year centennial, a New York State family business that started in 1925, still going strong, and still a family business in 2025!

Anyone in business (or who … Read the rest

...
no comments

Thinking O’Henry’s “After Twenty Years” this Passover

The first Seder of Passover 2025/5785 is on Saturday Night. The next time we’ll have this setup of a Shabbos Erev Pesach will be Passover 2045 – in twenty years time!

This recalls a classic short story by O’Henry titled … Read the rest

...
no comments

Liberation Day

Not to get political, but most people on both sides of the aisle would consider President’s Trump’s boldly declared “Liberation Day” when declaring tariffs on most countries around the world as anything but liberating. It tanked the stock markets both … Read the rest

...
no comments

Passover Imprinting

On of our journeys this 2025 to bring Shmurah Matzah to UAlbany faculty brought me to the bowels of UAlbany’s Life Science building, advanced labs working to eradicate one disease or another.  One professor I visit each year explained the … Read the rest

...
no comments

The University Janitor’s Lament

“The University Janitor’s Lament” as heard from a maintenance man on UAlbany’s original now downtown campus, at Draper Hall. First his lament, and then the Passover tie-in (as we heard this while delivering Matzah & in the days just before … Read the rest

...