Willpower: Generating Momentum for Our Return
The feeling of making a great decision leads you to another great decision, and the cycle continues.
Eretz Yisrael: A Place Beyond Place (Part II)
Chazal mention a few cases of kefitzas ha’derech. One is when Yaakov travels from the house of Yitzchak, narrowly escaping Eisav’s clutches. Another is when Eliezer embarks on a journey to find a wife for Yitzchak. There are several others as well, but what do these cases have in common? Do they share any deeper connection?
Eretz Yisrael: A Place Beyond Place
The Torah is replete with mention of Eretz Yisrael’s greatness and uniqueness. While we often hear about Eretz Yisrael’s unique kedusha (holiness), we must ask: What is the nature of this holiness, uniqueness, and greatness?
The Birth of Torah She’baal Peh (Part III)
The transition from Torah She’bichsav to Torah She’baal Peh introduced a number of fundamental shifts in our relationship with Torah. These include the introduction of machlokes and a mode of “hearing” as opposed to “seeing.”
The Birth of Torah She’baal Peh (Part II)
Committing something to writing renders it static and finalized, and writing down the Oral Torah would limit its wisdom to finite fragments of individual statements, causing the shards of truth to remain shattered and broken.
The Birth of Torah She’baal Peh: Creating Light Within the Darkness
The first stage of history lasted from Creation until the time of Purim and Chanukah. This stage was highlighted by the miracles of yetzias Mitzrayim and Matan Torah and the presence of nevuah. During this period, Hashem’s revelation in this world was apparent and clear. The physical world was naturally seen as an expression of a spiritual reality, and it was easy to source the physical back to the spiritual.
Yosef and the Battle for True Beauty
Before Adam sinned, he looked nothing like you or I do today. When we look at one another, all we see is flesh and bone, but if you looked at Adam before he sinned, his appearance was angelic, transcendent, luminescent.
Chanukah and the Eternal Battle for Light
We are able to understand and experience the spiritual through the physical, as the two are intrinsically connected. If you're wondering how to understand this concept, consider the way other human beings experience, relate to, and understand you.
The True Value of the Journey
There are two different types, or aspects, of perfection. The first is static perfection (sheleimus), where something is, has been, and always will be absolutely perfect. Such a being does not struggle, has no conflicting wills, and never fails. The second type of perfection is more nuanced, and in some sense, even more powerful.
Deeper Into the Journey
A worthwhile journey often includes a long winding path, twisting and turning in all directions, leading you on a seemingly endless quest.
The Power of the Journey
The Torah is not only a guide to living a life of truth within the physical world; it is also the literal blueprint and DNA of this physical world.
Filling the Void: The Spiritual Joy of Wasting Words (Part II)
What happens when you remove an organ from the body? You are left with empty space. If you remove a kidney or liver, what remains is the empty space that this organ used to occupy. The same applies to spiritual organs as well.
Filling the Void: The Spiritual Joy of Wasting Words (Part I)
While our default experience of life is internal and personal, we occasionally feel compelled to look at ourselves from an outside view and ponder the meaning and direction of our lives.
Pinchas: A Man of Shalom and Kehunah (Part II)
The uneducated mind thinks of the truth as a single, factual statement. But the truth is actually the balance and harmony of opposite, seemingly contradictory ideas.
Pinchas: A Man of Shalom and Kehunah (Part I)
Why was Pinchas’s act of killing even considered heroic? It appears to be violent and rash, perhaps even worthy of criticism. Why then, was it rewarded, and so handsomely at that?
The Journey to Yourself
In a journey to the self, all that we know is the starting point; the destination remains to be discovered. We don’t know what we’ll find along the journey, the challenges we’ll face, what people will think, or if we will even succeed.
The Deeper Purpose of Torah Wisdom
If a teacher wants to share a deep principle with his or her students, they might share a story or analogy that depicts the idea through a more relatable medium. While the mashal does not fully convey the idea itself, it leads the listener toward it, aiding him or her in the process of understanding.
Mirrors and Windows: The Secret of S’chach
We first experience Elul, then Rosh Hashanah, and then Yom Kippur, a developmental process of raising ourselves higher and higher above the physical world and deeper and deeper into the spiritual world.
Yom Kippur: Flying Amongst Angels
If the soul and body are complete opposites, how do they manage to coexist as one? One would expect them to repel each other, like two opposite sides of a magnet.
Rosh Hashana: The Three Stages of Teshuvah
We have brief moments of inspiration, but they soon fade into oblivion, only to be resuscitated for a few more days the next year in the hopes that somehow this year might be different.
Berachos and Klalos: Bounty and Boundaries (Part II)
Only when we negate our egos and acknowledge that the goodness and beracha in our lives comes not from our own independent efforts but from Hashem – our ultimate source and creator – can we then receive more beracha.
Berachos and Klalos: Bounty and Boundaries (Part I)
Although we likely take it for granted that berachos are a pillar of our daily lives, they have not always existed as they do now.
A Reason to Transcend (Part II)
If someone were to ask you to prove that you exist, you would seriously struggle to do so. One’s own existence simply cannot be rationally proven.
A Reason to Transcend (Part I)
Very often, people believe that true depth and wisdom lies only in far-off places – in Eastern spirituality or Western philosophy. However, the deepest wisdom lies within Jewish thought, in the depths of the Torah’s inner wisdom. One must only seek, and they will find.
A Spiritual Pitfall (Part II)
As we previously explained, the purpose of techeiles and tzitzis is to straighten the bent path and help connect us back to Hashem, our Source.
A Spiritual Pitfall (Part I)
Most people, at some point in their lives, have felt invincible, unstoppable, almost G-dly. And yet, at other times, these very same people have felt weak, incapable, deflated, and worthless.
Sight, But No Vision: The Sin of the Spies (Part II)
The meraglim not only misunderstood their experience, but they then reported this distortion back to Klal Yisrael.
Sight, but No Vision: The Sin of the Spies
There are two levels of reality: The first is how things appear on the physical surface; the second is the meaning that lies behind that exterior.
From Last to First: The Story of the Nesiim (Part II)
We don’t wait for spirituality to come to us; we proactively seek it out. We don’t let time wash over us; we actively ride the waves of time.
From Last to First: The Story of the Nesi’im
The most obvious form of chesed is giving money, but this is far from ideal. Short-term monetary gifts do not usually solve a long-term struggle with poverty; the person will therefore remain dependent and poor.