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This is why, when a person wakes up, it is called oorah –an entire world is now revealed to him.

During the Jewish holidays in Israel, one can actually feel as if they are going back in time to the first time that holiday occurred and can picture themselves actually there.

I had no need for my prayer book because, amazingly, my sincere heartfelt prayer came out spontaneously and instantly; I did not have to even think about what to say.

We became the people whose heroes were teachers, whose citadels were schools, and whose passion was learning and the life of the mind. The end result was that Judaism did survive and thrive throughout the centuries, whereas Ancient Greece … declined.

Ideally,nthe physical wisdom of the Greeks and Yefes are to reside within the tent of Shem, for science and the wisdom of the world to be in harmony with Torah. The problem occurred when the Greeks tried to destroy the Torah, which contradicted their ideology, and the Jews were forced to fight for their beliefs. This was the battle of Chanukah.

The Maggid told his disciple, the Alter Rebbe, ‘This day is our Yom Tov.’

You were given a taste of your own perfection, of what you could, should, and hopefully will become. And from this transcendent realm, you were birthed into the physical world.

Sometimes, the motivation to grow spiritually comes from our respect for someone else – a tzaddik, a talmid chocham, or the like. But this can also be a mistake if we seek to imitate a leader of this stature.

This moment is a turning-point in history: Judah is the first person in the Torah explicitly to admit he was wrong

There are messages that we are intended to take from any and every tragedy. The Gemara in Yevamos 63a says that purpose of any tragedy, even when it has nothing to do with Jews, is ultimately for the Jews to take a lesson and better themselves.

Although the Rabbis tended to conform to biblical Hebrew in the phraseology of the prayers, here they used the word purkan because the root peh-reish-kuf already appears in the Torah in the context of “salvation.”

When someone gets injured physically one can usually see the path ahead and see how many weeks or months it will take for them to recover. When there is a problem with mental health, the unknown is so vast.

When we finally yet inevitably bit the proverbial bullet and introduced ourselves to one another, we discovered that we had multiple connections in common, including mutual friends and close family members.

Happiness is not an emotion; it is a decision.  Stop waiting passively to feel it and start actively choosing to be it.

The Rebbe’s parents, living in the city of Yekatrinoslav (then Dnepropetrovsk), were denied permission from the Soviet authorities to travel to their son’s wedding in Warsaw ... That evening, they held their own wedding celebration in their home, in which the entire community participated.

What is the meaning and purpose of our desire for physicality, and how does it relate to our drive for spirituality?

The emotions of an angry person tend to run out of control. If he can take hold of his anger before it begins, all that tremendous energy will continue to flow, but in a different direction.

Chanukah can inspire us to be dorash the Mikdash. It demonstrates to us how dear our avodah is to Hashem.

Who was in the right and who in the wrong are left conspicuously undecided in the text.

She was ahead of her time and was a woman of great value and strength. She spoke up for her family, her friends, and the land of Israel she loved so much.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but living next door to your family turned out to be immensely significant to me.

And this was the very battle between the perception of Yaakov and Esav. They both wanted both the spiritual and the physical.

They live all alone, far from any other religious Jews, and distant from the rest of their family and relatives. The kids only see their grandparents on video calls.

Albert Einstein said it was the ‘almost fanatical love of justice’ that made him thank his lucky stars that he was born a Jew.

The funny thing is that just as we look at gnats in this world, so too are our lives regarded in the supernal worlds.

Alternatively, shaked may refer to the almond fruit/nut itself, and to the almond tree only in a borrowed sense – while luz refers directly to the almond tree. It seems that Avraham Even-Shoshan’s dictionary follows this approach.

We don’t need the sun or a projector to see the light. All we need is a small light in the darkness to help us see what is really necessary.

I asked Rabbi Buchwald, "If I became observant, would I have to give up all of those things I love?" He answered right away. "No Alan, you don't have to give those things up. You just need to put Judaism first."

The Jew, who had a deep faith in Hashem, answered, My life is in G-d's hands. If He does not want me to die, you will not be able to kill me.

Why was Yaakov holding on to Eisav’s heel? The heel is the lowest part of the body! And why is this fact highlighted for all generations in Yaakov’s name?