Columns

After decades of being the ba’al ha-bayit at his own Shabbat table with his family and guests, singing Eshet Chayil, making kiddush and hamotzi for everyone, and leading the singing of zemirot, all that had ended. Now he was always the guest.

America’s position towards Israel independence was so uncertain that 74-year-old Dr. Chaim Weizmann, in ailing health, set sail for America to lobby President Truman.

By giving him a hug and being friendly to him, he brought the man closer to Torah and mitzvos. Today he has five children who follow the path of Torah.

It is one of the most counterintuitive acts in the history of leadership. Moshe did not speak about today or tomorrow. He spoke about the distant future and the duty of parents to educate their children.

If you had waited just a little longer, you would have had a fine meal, as I had.

I scanned my room and saw that my dresser drawers were pulled open with clothes spilling out like rags. The door to my closet was ajar and my belongings lay on the floor. I had just been robbed!

Surely this civil war was not greater than the other ten makkos, and surely not Maakas Bechoros. This civil war likely appeared as a natural revolt of one group against another.

In every generation each Jew should see himself as though he personally had been liberated from Egypt. This is to say, that the lesson of Passover has always a timely message for the individual Jew.

According to the Sages’ interpretation, the law of tzara’at constitutes one of the rare instances in the Torah of punishment by shame rather than guilt.

Having decided to content themselves with what they have, they are happy with their portion regardless of what it may be.

The students asked the Rebbe why was that simple farmer's cry for alcohol, so sincere, that it turned the tables in heaven, and sent the Rebbe a recovery.

Imagine a world where every restaurant was kosher. Every McDonalds. Every KFC. Every Pizza Hut. Not to mention all the finest dines. That’s impossible, right? You must be talking about some future utopian era.

To avoid being detected, the soldiers could not stand. They had to assume a slouching position – you might call it mesubin!

Eight days after Truman became president, he was visited by a Zionist delegation headed by Rabbi Steven S. Wise. The President told his guests that he supported the Zionist goals, but he was very concerned about opposition from the State Department.

It is difficult to imagine where the Jewish community of Ukraine would be at this very moment without these human angels.

Lena told the families with whom she was working that every day they must notice each member of the family doing something right, and say so – specifically, positively and thankfully.

The Maharal explains that Yetzias Mitzrayim was not merely a physical process, in which the Jewish People departed from the land of Egypt and traveled to a different physical location. It was a spiritual metamorphosis – an existential transition, the birth of a people.

A person must turn away from sin in the same situation in which they previously failed. It's not enough for one's teshuvah to be theoretical.

Jon was a very fine, smart boy with great potential. If he would stay on, he would grow tremendously in Torah and would most probably choose a religious way of life.

One sees no other way than to instill in the hearts of the children, from their earliest years, a strong belief in Him Who created the world and continues to rule it and direct it.

Why is it that in our generation, which is on a much lower spiritual level, even the secrets of the Torah are easily available?

Do you prefer to stand out from the crowd or to be part of the crowd?

The most fundamental mistake – the mistake of Nadav and Avihu – is to take the powers that belong to man’s encounter with the world and apply them to man’s encounter with the Divine.

There is something about a true leader that makes you feel that he is protecting you even if you don’t know him on a personal level.

One day, I was in the basement of a building and I had just finished collecting the change there and was about to leave when I saw money on the ground. I picked it up and it was two one-hundred-dollar bills in a rubber band. I wanted to find its owner and return it but I knew that would take time.

‘If you see countries bickering with one another, wait for the coming of Moshiach.’ – Bereishis Rabbah

There is a spiritual principle that when any creature is in a state of distress, it will feel a powerful impulse to return to its source.

The world we live in is exquisitely structured and ordered down to the finest details. Anyone who has studied physics, biology, or chemistry, or any form of science for that matter, has gotten a taste of the beauty and sophistication of our world’s order.

Rabbi Avraham Bedersi in Chotam Tochnit points out that in rabbinic usage, the term shechar clearly refers to some drink other than wine.

Had G-d not told the first humans: ‘Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves in the ground’? That is why Abel brought an animal sacrifice.