Re’eh
Some people see what the world shows them. The blessed ones see what the world conceals.
Blessings and curses can be equated with vision and blindness; opening one’s eyes is the former, closing them is the latter. When we enter the Land we must build a Temple, a pure sanctuary where the Holy Presence is most at home. There we come to come close. False visionaries – read: true blindness – must be destroyed, as must fake gods. Kosher is assigned. The Mitzvoth, connections, of tithing, dedicating, giving, and supporting are locked in, as are the sabbatical year and the three holy pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.
Is Love About Taking or Giving?
Learn the counter-intuitive truth about love: The more you take the less you get. The more you give the more you get. The less you focus on yourself, the more yourself you become.
Read More
Love is in the Air: Elul in Jerusalem
Learn how the Hebrew month of Elul teaches us how to start anew and open up a new chapter of love in our lives.
Read More
Our Secret Asset
Every moment of time is an opportunity. We are now about to enter a most powerful time of the year: The Hebrew month of Elul. A month which signifies love.
Read More
Child Abuse
Abuse is only possible because there is a climate, an environment, a breeding ground as it were, that allows abuse to fester and thrive. That breeding ground is the utter ignorance and lack of appreciation of the fundamental sanctity of sexuality.
Read More
Behold
This week you are given the power to become a visionary. The first step is to believe in yourself and in your soul’s capacity. The second step is to work on it – to establish regimens in your daily schedule that allow your visionary soul to emerge, to allow it to rear its head and breathe…
Read More
Re’eh: Our Secret Asset
Each day, week and month is defined by its unique energy. By appreciating the personality of each time segment, time becomes our greatest asset; a silent but powerful partner in life’s journey.
Read More
Re’eh: The Kabbalah of Duality
Part II of the series asks important questions about how we reconcile faith and modernity and discusses how spirituality is relevant in contemporary times..
Read More
Reeh: Israel Oh Israel
In the face of war, what lessons can be learned from the speech of Iran’s Ahmadinejad delivered last September before the General Assembly of the UN?
Read More
Reeh: Boundaries
This week’s Torah portion deals with blessings and curses. In the face of world tragedies, how does the Torah explain the reconciliation of both?
Read More
Re’eh: From Jerusalem to New York – Diary
Written from New York, this reflective personal story captures Jerusalem in all its complexity: A city laden with history and ‘quintessential realities’.
Read More
The Times of Our Lives
To the physicist it is the fourth dimension, to the mystic it is the first creation. To most of us, time is simply a faceless tyrant, an abstract dimension.
Read More
What’s in a Name?
The Hebrew word vayikra, “and he called,” used by the Torah to describe Adam’s calling the name of every creature displays the significance of naming…
Read More
The Rich Partner
In this miraculous story the request of one man is directly answered after he requests of G-d to uphold His duties.
Read More
Evil: Two Translations
The Torah unequivocally states: “See, I am giving you today the blessing and the curse”. Theologians and philosophers have oft debated the dichotomy of this
Read More
Does evil come from G-d?
Philosophers and theologians of all ages have asked: Does evil come from G-d? If G-d is the essence of good, can there be evil in His work?
Read More
Kindred Kindness
Why is the chassidah an impure bird? “Because she does kindness with her compatriots,” explained Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk.
Read More
A Business Proposal
I thought that the Rebbe was dispensing business advice, but he must have seen that there is something there, in Siberia, that I must achieve—some part of my mission in life that must be played out in the frozen east.
Read More
Reeh: ISIS Beheadings and Clarity
The horrifying ISIS beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, while Israel is entangled in its war against Hamas terror: Where should the Western world go now?
Read More
