Columns

The Torah is concerned with what we would nowadays call ‘sustainability.’

The spiritual concept of intoxication is related to the theme of transcendence and the expansion of consciousness. Although done inappropriately, Nadav and Avihu were attempting to transcend their physical state and connect to Hashem on the deepest level.

The trip took a bit longer than they expected, which put them a bit off schedule because in addition to wanting to get back to the kids, it was a Monday and that was when Yaakov, at eight o'clock, gave his class to the neighborhood kids.

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The school’s leadership should concern themselves even about the time when the child is not within the four walls, so to speak, of the school environment. They should ensure that the child be occupied with the right things.

Nowadays, we no longer have korbanos, as the world is in a lower spiritual state. How then do we maintain the connection between Hashem and this world? What replaced the korbanos?

Tocqueville believed that democracy encouraged individualism. As a result, people would leave the business of the common good entirely to the government, which would become ever more powerful, eventually threatening freedom itself.

By consciously choosing each day to "give over" their lives and their will to G-d, they are able to stay clean and sober one day at a time.

With no choice, and a heavy heart, we forked over the three thousand shekel (There went my sheitel fund.) and remembered to thank the volunteer committee as well.

Just days before the celebrations, the situation had all the makings of a powder keg that would inevitably leave one family, and particularly one young man, feeling slighted and deprived.

Everyone saw how the Rebbe would make sure to visit his mother at her home every single day. Even when he had the burden of Klal Yisrael resting upon him, the Rebbe found time to go by foot from his office to his mother’s house.

You can’t see, touch, or smell your mind or consciousness. You will never see someone else’s inner world.

The more positive emotions – such as contentment, gratitude, happiness, love and hope – they expressed in their autobiographical notes, the more likely they were to be alive and well 60 years later.

Reb Noson explains that crying is an especially propitious means for arousing oneself to better serve G-d.

Now that we’ve seen the entire list, we can better appreciate a comment that Rashi made off the cuff.

I slept in fits and starts that night. Thoughts were tumbling around in my mind like clothes in a washing machine, entangled together.

He needed to get a minyan of ten Jews. By now it was after midnight. The streets were empty, deserted; not a living creature could be seen. Where would it be possible to get another eight – aside from the rabbi and groom – to complete a minyan at this hour?

They breath the air filled with the words of their own speech and are influenced accordingly.

There are important features of the moral life that are not universal but have to do with specific circumstances and the way we respond to them.

We have so much potential in our lives, but only by transforming the limitless possibilities into something real can we ever accomplish anything.

The famous Burning Bush where Hashem introduced Himself to Moses was called a sneh, and that word appears a total of six times in the Bible.

David Rousso can also trace his family back to the Spanish expulsion during the Inquisition. Although he’s not a hundred percent sure, he thinks his family hailed from Cordoba/Saragossa.

Reb Yoel’s uniqueness was that not only did he have an exceptional memory, remembering everything that the Rebbe said, but he also understood what the Rebbe said.

This was going to take motivation, so I called upon my best friend – my imagination. Presto! We had it.

One may reach the level of realizing they know nothing, but only in a particular area and on a given level. There is still the next level, and this has not even been touched. The person does not know enough about the next level to even realize their ignorance.

Throughout the Tanach some of the most intense encounters between the prophets and G-d are represented as courtroom dramas.

What makes Shabbos a root mitzvah, why is its punishment so severe, and why do we see it as the measuring stick for all of Torah observance? What is the secret of Shabbos?

Hashem yearns to come home. Hashem yearns to see all His children united and coming to pray in His house right here in Jerusalem.

A “small-world connection” to be sure but this knowledge is not the surprise that Hashem yisborach had awaiting me.

The Rebbe also explains that every Shabbos is a me’ein of L’osid Lavo – a reflection of the time of Moshiach, when it will be Yom shekulo Shabbos, a continuous and perpetual Shabbos.