יום חמישי, ו׳ תשרי תשפ״זThursday, September 17, 2026
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Why a new house? What about an "old house"?
Just as there are people who need food, there are people who need to be noticed - now more than ever.
Chassidus offers a refreshing approach. Although it takes the soul-searching of Elul very seriously, it emphasizes positivity.
Undoubtedly one will merit children so that all the souls are born sooner and Moshiach can come.
There is nothing wrong – and actually everything right – about loving God’s world. But to be significant, it must be a love grounded in enhanced awareness and appreciation of God.
The true challenge of our lives, as described in Sefer Devarim, is living with prosperity – in a society where everything is abundantly available.
The Angel of Death was unable to take Rabba bar Nachmani to heaven because he never stopped learning.
Just as G-d provides places of refuge – arei miklat – for someone who accidentally killed his fellow, so too He provides a special time – Elul – during which we can seek refuge from the effects of our sins.
The game is my life. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace. -Michael Jordan
Shofetim reminds us of the necessity of institutions, inherently and always an infringement on personal liberty. Prophet, king, and court
The anniversary of Adam’s creation is so important that every year Hashem determines the fate of the entire world on it.
R’ Nachman of Breslov states that a Jew must disregard two days – yesterday and tomorrow.
Happiness comes when we leave the "I" and enter the "We." There is giving and no taking.
Whether in its variation or in its norms, the world around us provides countless ways to see God. But that will only happen to someone who is looking for them. In other words if we really want to see God, we must also seek God.
It's always possible to ask forgiveness and to forgive, and to begin anew.
In 2001, Indra Nooyi was named president of PepsiCo. Five years later, she would be promoted to CEO and, in 2007, she would become chairman of the company as well. She once spoke about the day she was appointed president and put in charge of running the $166 billion company. That night her parents happened […]
Rashi explains: “From the 15th of Av onward, whoever adds nights to the days by studying Torah adds life to his lifetime.”
If a person lacks yiras Hashem, his heart is subject to the wiles of the yetzer hara.
Every great person has first learned how to obey, whom to obey, and when to obey. -William Arthur Ward
Parshat Ekev draws our attention to the complex balance between Divine Providence and human effort.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe points out that this powerful exchange between the Jewish people and Hashem emphasizes our extraordinary special relationship with Hashem.
A Jew has the power to bring merit to all of mankind.
We are like poor people who do not know they are poor and how rich they could be.
The Tisha b'Av experience is a spiritual affliction, "Acedia," a "sadness, a disgust with life, which comes from our inability to get along with ourselves, our disunion with God."
Most of Devarim is Moshe’s series of parting lectures to the Jewish people. Two things about them are clearly felt – the first is that they are long, often abstract and sometimes even appear repetitive; and the second is that Moshe accordingly uses diverse tactics to keep the Jews listening.
On Shiva Assar B’Tammuz, the sin of the golden calf occurred. If we had not sinned on that day, Moshe would have come down from Mount Sinai without breaking the tablets and would have given them to us with great celebration.
Even though he knew it was possible he would forfeit his inheritance, he refused to dishonor the grave.
Most of us aren’t on this level and don’t actually see it, so what’s the point of telling us we’re being shown this vision?
The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them. -Jean Genet
What baselines have we accepted? What properly unacceptable behavior has become common, ordinary, the baseline we didn’t stop to notice?
You write the story of your journey through life. You choose whether to give pleasant or unpleasant names to the stations along the way.
Since the Torah – which is the epitome of truth – states that studying about the Beis HaMikdash is like building the Beis HaMikdash, it must be so, even on a physical level.
In a lecture delivered by Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto shlit”a regarding contemporary times, he describes the singular proven method to merit salvation in these days of evil * Torah and chessed safeguard one from all harm * The spiritual forces that battled in heaven throughout every war in history * Subjugating forces of evil in the […]
The Ari writes that in the future, the 22 letters of the aleph beis will descend and, through them, everyone will be resurrected.
The notion that all men are created equal is a modern myth. The truth is that all men are created differently
What do we do in the face of this corona that has not disappeared as we expected?
Yehoshua humbled himself with purity of heart for the sake of Heaven, and engaged in the menial tasks of setting up chairs and preparing the beis medrash.
Now is an excellent opportunity for whoever has not yet participated in this rewarding study to start, thereby uniting with hundreds of thousands of other Jews around the world.
Sometimes, life requires immediate action that cannot be fully predicted or prescribed.
A birthday marks the day one’s soul descended to earth to fulfill its unique Divine mission. It therefore is an opportunity to take stock of how well one is accomplishing one’s mission.
Each day of a person’s life in this world is a gift, borrowed time, to learn more Torah and do more mitzvos.
So I ask you, who’s stronger HaShem, or Trump, Johnson, the EU and UN?
Each tent faced a different direction so that no one could see into the tent of anyone else.
a different leader of the next generation steps up and takes action. That leader was Pinchas...True leaders like Pinchas don’t come out of leadership schools. When the time is ripe, they simply emerge.
Must there be a reason for everything?
Korach was the hero of the hour. His ratings and the spirit of the times were on his side.
Tefillah is only m’drabbanan, but the avoidance of machlokes is m’doraysa.
By expressing, in terms they could comprehend, the Torah’s profound mystical secrets, he provided his disciples a window into his own overarching perspective and exalted vision.
With Moshe at the rock, I wonder whether the Gemara implies Moshe had trouble believing words alone could do the trick.
The nation had nothing to do. There was no mission to accomplish, no sense of urgency, and about this our sages wrote: "Idleness leads to boredeom and boredom leads to sin."
Today, the challenge is to bring the Torah’s teachings, including its deepest mystical concepts, to Jews far from Torah as a means of drawing them back to Yiddishkeit.
Because the Jewish people lacked emunah, they became troubled and confused.
Many of the commentators find a disturbingly strong rationale in the Jews’ complaint mentioned above. The complainers were essentially blaming Moshe for setting up a murderous trap for the two hundred and fifty men that contested the choice of Aharon and his sons as priests.
When R’ Menachem regained consciousness, he…cried bitterly because he had not worn tefillin that day.
Despite decades of intense communist persecution, they had steadfastly remained faithful to the Torah.
In a world devoid of prophecy, it becomes exceedingly difficult to understand or even relate to the propehcy
Sometimes we set up camp for a short period of time and other times for a much longer period.
R. Lichtenstein saw how the spies could have turned the event around for the better, and I find his logic shows us many other candidates as well.
Until he got sick, Yudi, of course, had never missed a day of wearing tefillin since his bar mitzvah.
The Torah offers us something new: learning for the sake of learning. In the world of competition this is something exceptional.
Discord and divide in government has trickled down to the everyday man.
In this week's parsha, there is an unusually insightful process of how a little complaint can undermine a gigantic and noble enterprise:
By observing a mitzvah, we rise and become united with, and absorbed in, Hashem’s holiness and infinitude.
We did not huddle together because of Pharaoh or the Egyptians or the Nazis or any other threat.
It is man’s triumph over his yetzer hara that brings true honor to Hashem.
“Mi laHashem eilei!” is a charge to every person in every generation to step up to the plate.
Each individual felt less responsibility for completing the minyan, felt someone else would take his place, and simply excused himself from showing up.
The family fled on the last train out, embarking on a long trip to Central Asia. German airplanes strafed the train, and they survived only by miracles, said Rabbi Schwei in recalling the fright all his life.
Most of us don’t understand the Torah of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at all, but we understand that there is something there, that there is a greater unseen depth to life.
He never sat in the Rebbe’s presence – he always stood – almost without movement, listening intently to the Rebbe’s every word and watching him for the slightest indication that he might need something.
Hishtadlus is proper; worry and concern are not.
Rashi had thought the blessings the parasha details before the tokhaha also started with consistent Torah study. We can initiate a virtuous cycle, consistent Torah study aimed at discovering the best ways to act on Gd’s word, and reap remarkable blessings.
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God. -Sir Thomas Browne
We don't seek leaders who transcend human struggle and temptation, sit on mountaintops meditating on their naval. Our leaders are individuals who embrace the physical, uplift it, and connect it to the infinite.
People who are challenged in extraordinary times are often able, not only to survive, but to flourish.
None of us, of course, can be so presumptuous as to compare ourselves with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
Our children have learned how to maintain a connection with grandma and grandpa without hugs, how to manage with their brothers and sisters when cooped up in isolation, and how to follow new rules that changed their lives.
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the teacher of the Zohar who we honor on Lag B'Omer, plants seeds of infinite growth in our minds so each of us can begin our time travel with Torah with a taste of her eternally expanding wisdom embedded in our souls
Why may Kohanim not attend to the dead?
It follows that particularly in Iyar, Hashem supernaturally heals, removing sickness as if it never existed.
Taking revenge on another individual is like taking revenge on oneself.
It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead. -Robert G. Ingersoll
The high priest is alone. It is forbidden for anyone to be with him, but it is precisely because of this restriction that his power is so great.
As I read Aharei Mot-Kedoshim each year, I wonder about what it does to us as Jews to live in a world whose morality is so clearly at odds with the Torah’s.
Great is charity, for it brings closer the Geulah.
The Chofetz Chaim notes that despite the severe sins of individuals, if we wouldn’t speak lashon hara, the Satan would be completely powerless.
In this week's portion, the man, having been officially declared impure, is now ready for the end of his nightmare beginning his process of purification--on the sidelines.
A man of courage is also full of faith. -Marcus Tullius Cicero
The Be’er HaChaim says that during moments of stress, a person’s focus should always be on the good in his life.
So what are we getting out of Pesach this year? Pesach itself. In this strange and difficult time, we are left with Pesach itself. With the festival of freedom.
“They will laugh the first day. The second day there will be less laughter. After a few days, no one will laugh anymore.”
Considering how morally depraved Egypt was, for the Jews to leave this country, rise up to true freedom, and then receive G-d’s holy Torah just seven weeks later required a tremendous “leap” on their part.
Our sages who tell us that causing a chassan and kallah to rejoice is like rebuilding one of the ruins of Yerushalayim.
The lecturer said he understood her message to him – that in her classes the objective was not to demonstrate how much she knew (and she knew a lot), but to teach the public.
A true Jewish leader, however, must be aware of and interested in the lives and problems of individuals and communities.
Our Matzah is not Shmurah if we are unconcerned with those who have nothing to eat, or no Seder to join.
It might seem easier to pray alone to God, rather than with the various distractions of a communal setting. True, Jewish law actually recognizes this and tries to minimize these distractions by recommending a set seat, prohibiting holding objects, etc. Still, the many distractions are impossible to completely eliminate. Yet in spite of its drawbacks, we derive strength from doing things together with a group.
Local secret police in Rostov hounded the Rebbe and even arrested him once. They closed his yeshiva and in 1924 forced him to leave his home in Rostov.
We explore life through the lens of Torah through the entire year. Now that Pesach approaches, we pause and listen as this week we hear God's loving call as if For The First Time.
September 18, 2026 
