Today is the yahrtzeit (anniversary of the passing) of Rabbi Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508), one of the leaders of Spanish Jewry at the time of the 1492 expulsion. A minister in the king's court (after having served as treasurer to the king of Portugal), he chose to join his brethren in their exile. He began writing his extensive and highly regarded commentary on the Torah in 1503 in Venice (where it was published in 1579).
Simeon the Righteous was the spiritual and political leader of the Jewish nation during a turbulent time in history—when Alexander the Great conquered and dominated the entire civilized world. Known as “the righteous” due to his saintly character, Simeon was the last member of the Men of the Great Assembly (Anshei Knesses Hagdolah), a 120-member panel of prophets and sages who guided the Jews at the onset of the Second Temple era.
Link: Shimon HaTzadik
The Shabbat after Simchat Torah is Shabbat Bereishit -- "Shabbat of Beginning" -- the first Shabbat of the annual Torah reading cycle, on which the Torah section of Bereishit ("In the Beginning") is read.
The weekly Torah reading is what defines the Jewish week, serving as the guide and point of reference for the week's events, deeds and decisions; Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi called this "living with the times." Hence the theme and tone of this week is one of beginning and renewal, as we launch into yet another cycle of Torah life. The Rebbes of Chabad would say: "As one establishes oneself on Shabbat Bereishit, so goes the rest of the year."
Link: Beginnings
This Shabbat is Shabbat Mevarchim (“the Shabbat that blesses" the new month): a special prayer is recited blessing the Rosh Chodesh ("Head of the Month") of the upcoming month of Cheshvan (also known as "MarCheshvan"), which falls on Sunday and Monday of next week.
Prior to the blessing, we announce the precise time of the molad, the "birth" of the new moon. See molad times.
It is a Chabad custom to recite the entire book of Psalms before morning prayers, and to conduct farbrengens (chassidic gatherings) in the course of the Shabbat.
Links: Shabbat Mevarchim; Tehillim (the Book of Psalms); The Farbrengen
When the Mighty Waters cover your head, suffocating the soul and the flame that burnt inside . . .
When raging torrents of confusion drag you away in their current, ripping you from your hold on Life . . .
Look deeper. Beyond the soul.
For the soul itself, as well as the flame it holds, are rooted in a serene G‑dly World of Emanation, a world of quietness and sublime harmony.
But the turbulence of this world is rooted even beyond that, stemming from a World of Confusion, of light unbounded and untamed, before the orderly emanation of defined being, “and the world was confused and void, with darkness over the face of the deep.”
So you must dig deeper than those roots, to find the coals from which the flame arose and the flint rock from which the spark was struck. Deeper, until you reach the primordial essence of the soul, beyond Emanation, beyond Light—even beyond the unbounded light of pre-creation. Where there is nothing but the seminal thought which inspired all that is and was and will come to be.
And what was that thought? It was the thought of you here and now, in your struggle with this world, and the delicious taste of your victory.
And, since in that thought there is no past and future, there, in that thought, you have already won.
Now you must make it happen.