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ב"ה

Av 15, 5768 - August 16, 2008

Living
Holy Cravings

I learned one of my most favorite prayers from a recovering crack addict. He told me that whenever he feels the urge to use drugs, he closes his eyes and prays: "Please G-d help me find in you what I am looking for in the drug."
Life in Bizarro World

I live in the Bizarro World. Bizarro World is a parallel universe in Superman's world where everything is the opposite. Up is down. Black is white. Right is wrong.
For Sixty-Five Years I Thought She was Dead

Simon Glasberg never forgot his sister, Hilda. As soon as the Germans entered their hometown of Chernowitz, Romania, she was smuggled into the Soviet Union. His family never heard from her again.
Jewish Holidays
Committing to Love

Commitment and love are the two most basic components of marriage, and they are the foundation of our relationship with G‑d too. This concept explains the joyous nature of the Tu B’Av holiday.
The Day of the Breaking of the Ax

A desert decree revoked . . . a marriage ban lifted . . . 600 survivors go wife-hunting . . . roadblocks to Jerusalem removed . . . Betar dead buried . . . What is the connection between all of these events?
The Jewish Woman
Letter From an Israeli Soldier

I took families out of their homes forever, I put them on buses that took them to nowhere. On the third anniversary of the evacuation of Gush Katif, I want to ask forgiveness...
The Circle and the Line

Two of the most basic of shapes, yet two extremely deep and complex ideas. Feminine and masculine. The circle and the line . . .
Four Stages in Torah Learning

Home in the womb, on the road of life, lying down in the grave, and waking up in the world to come . . .
Parshah
The Parshah in a Nutshell
In which Moses implores G‑d, describes the Exodus and the giving of the Torah, predicts Israel’s abandonment and return to G‑d, and summarizes the fundamentals of the Jewish faith.
Land and See

If Moses would have crossed the Jordan, that would have been the end: the end of the struggle, the end of history . . .
Echo! Echo!

The awesome sounds of G‑d resonated throughout the universe... but there was no echo. The greatest sound and light show in history was a strictly one-time production with no residuals or encore.
Expressing Oneness: The Shema Prayer

What does it mean to "lengthen" the echad ("one") of the Shema?
Consolation

When you’re feeling sad, do you go to your father or to your mother? Is it transcendence that you seek, or the solacing embrace that assures us that nothing is meaningless, that everything we are and feel can be borne, inhabited and redeemed?
"Love your fellow like yourself" is an interpretation of and commentary on "Love G‑d your G‑d." He who loves his fellow-Jew loves G‑d, because the Jew has with in himself a "part of G‑d Above." Therefore, when one loves the Jew - i.e. his inner essence - one loves G‑d.
— Hayom Yom, Av 12
Print Magazine

It’s G-d’s world. Everything He gives is good, the sweetest good.

But it is often a good far too great for us to understand. We imagine it is not good, because that’s the only way to make sense of it with our small minds.

Yet the truth is, He gives us all the good we can handle. If we could take more, He would g...

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