From: "The Chabad.org Team" <subscriptions@chabad.org>
Date: Dec 29, 2015 2:36 PM
Subject: We're concerned...
To: "PhillipPhillip787@gmail.com" <PhillipPhillip787@gmail.com>
Cc:
By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
We are writing to you today because of a few troubling matters that we think you can help with.
For starters, we're very concerned that the 2015 tax year is coming to a close, literally millions of people are relying on us, and we are still quite a way from covering our budget to help them. We also know that there are many people like you who would like to take part in this work and have not yet been reached.
But there's more.
We're at a bit of a loss as to how to possibly convey to you the full impact of your partnership.
This past Chanukah alone, contributions from friends like you helped more than four million people enjoy the word's grandest Chanukah 'party,' overflowing with learning, fun, recipes, holiday observance tutorials and so much more. (We're referring, of course, to Chabad.org's Chanukah website.)
And during the entire year past you and/or others like you helped more than 40 million people (!) enjoy Judaism's spiritual and moral riches, in seven languages, on a scale perhaps never before experienced in history!
This would never, ever be possible if not for people like yourself!
The trouble, though, is that the number is so fantastic, so large, that the scope of your impact on individual people can be lost. So we want to tell you about some of these individuals.
But:
Who should we tell you about?
Do we tell you about Mary B., who grew up in a convent, never knowing she was Jewish, who finally stumbled upon Chabad.org and is now part of a Jewish community?
Do we tell you about Michael T., who went to Hebrew School and was bar-mitzvah'ed on Long Island, and then decided he wants to have nothing to do with organized religion ever again — until he found Chabad.org while Googling in preparation for his impending intermarriage? (He's now deeply engaged in Jewish learning and practice.)
Do we tell you about Ryan L. who once had all the money in the world but squandered it on drugs, lost all his friends, and was preparing to commit suicide — until he reached out to us in his zero hour to see whether someone — anyone! — actually cared about him?
Do we tell you about Beth P. who for years found peace and meaning only in India's ashrams, regarding Judaism as a shallow religion — until a complex philosophical conundrum led her to an article on Chabad.org that, in her words, "exposed me to an entirely new dimension of meaning, a depth that I never knew existed"? (Nowadays she emails snippets of her daily Torah learning to her former guru and other Jews.)
Do we tell you about Bruce and Jackie R. whose home was torn asunder by Hurricane Sandy and to whom Chabad.org's counselors and content still provide inspiration and support?
Your partnership deeply impacts every single one of them!
*
But we haven't even begun telling you about the outsized role your partnership plays in the life of the teenager, and the college student, and the young professional, and the newly-married couple, and the schoolteacher, and the physician, and the university president, and the author, and the entrepreneur, and the flaming liberal, and the arch-conservative, and the businesswoman, and the communal leader, and the seasoned scholar, and the new parent, and the politician, and the financier, and the young child, and the fallen investor, and the newly bereaved, and so many more —
Each of whom reach out regularly with their own moving stories of human frailty and courage and spiritual quest and relationship-mending and scholarly pursuit and moral dilemmas and connections sought to our age-old People and our Torah — plus so much endlessly more!
So, really, we have no way to begin conveying to you how priceless and crucial is your role in helping each and every person — one by one by one! — to find the guidance or insight or information or inspiration or listening ear they each seek!
[And we've clearly not even touched upon the extended global impact of all of this — the results that grow out of so many people worldwide feeling more fulfilled, more tapped-in to the endless reservoir of holiness and moral guidance and deep scholarship (and so much more!) that is the Torah.
The tsunami of goodness and sensitivity and spiritual-attentiveness and selflessness unleashed around the globe by so many people who've themselves been impacted is really immeasurable — and is yet another result of your partnership.]
*
We're troubled also by the knowledge that we can accomplish so much more, we could reach so many more people, if we'd only have the financial means to do so! The world is torn asunder in so many ways, and Judaism holds the answers. If we could only make more of it available to more people in more ways sooner!
*
So how can you help with all this?
Well, for starters you can help keep all this going — and propel its expansion.
You can contribute generously online to our year-end appeal.
If you'd like to express your partnership by sending a check you can do so here:
Chabad.ORG
770 Eastern Parkway Suite 405
Brooklyn, NY 11213
(Needless to say, your donation is fully tax-deductible.)
Secondly, perhaps you'd like to have a conversation about sponsorship opportunities or planned giving or new levels of partnership that could have even broader impact. If this is the case, please press 'reply' so we can set up a time to talk.
Third, perhaps you can suggest to some of your friends to join, too, by forwarding this email to them with your personal recommendation. We are not certain that there is another cause that, dollar for dollar, achieves such far-reaching impact.
Finally, you can keep coming back to the website and enjoying it. After all, isn't that the whole point of all this to begin with...? :)
*
We look forward to reporting back to you with lots of wonderful news about our partnership and its results.
In the meantime, in the name of the millions of your beneficiaries worldwide, we thank you profusely and look forward to even greater impact — putting your dollars to work in the months to come.
May G-d bless you and yours!
Sincerely,
The Chabad.org Team
P.S. If you are unable or do not wish to contribute, please note that this is but a humble request, not a requirement for enjoying and benefitting from the site. It is simply an appeal to help us continue this work. You are always welcome to enjoy our website and subscriptions, regardless of whether or not you make a contribution.
If you would, however, like to contribute, you can click here to do so.
Finally, if you have not acquired these two great works of biography about the Rebbe, of righteous memory, we urge you to do so now:
NY Times bestselling Rebbe, by Joseph Telushkin and My Rebbe, by Adin Even Israel (Steinsaltz).
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