The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst …
The fasting on Yom Kippur prepares us for the feasting on Sukkot. The abstention from the physical pleasures of this world on Yom Kippur is only meant to heal us from the sickness of overindulgence. But, once we take control of ourselves and free ourselves from our sins, addictions and …
When we take a bird’s eye view of the holidays that inaugurate the New Year, we see a collection of diverse and disturbing of images for G-d. The predominant image for G-d, on Rosh Hashanah, is King and Judge who is writing us into a cosmic Book of life or …
Yom Kippur is all about love and forgiveness. It’s about how we are always inseparably close to G-d. On Yom Kippur we get a glimpse of ourselves, our choices and our relationship to G-d from another perspective–G-d’s perspective. This is the transformational power of Yom Kippur that makes it into …
The Kabbalah teaches, “There is no king without a nation.” This point requires deep exploration especially on Rosh Hashanna when we acknowledge G-d as our King. It may make sense that, in the human world, a king is dependent on having subjects who acknowledge his sovereignty. The last Emperor of …
The magic formula to true and lasting happiness. And you shall be happy in all that the Lord your G-d has given you (Deut. 26:11) Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. — …
Judaism does not believe in faith. The Hebrew term emuna has been loosely translated into “faith” but that is not quite right. To understand the true definition of emuna, we have to examine its original meaning and its association with other similar Hebrew terms. Interestingly, the word emuna is correlated to three Hebrew words. One …
Unfortunately, many people think “serving God” is submitting to a Slave Driver who dwells in heaven and demands, “You must serve me! Obey my commandments and do them with a smile! Or else I will punish you.” In other words, they fear that a life of mitzvot is about complete …
When we read the Torah some of its laws disturb our moral sensitivities. When this happens we must remind ourselves of the purpose of the Torah. Not all the laws of Torah represent its ideals. Some of them may even seem to contradict the very ideal that they are serving …
“I (G-d) will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto you (Moses); and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him” (Deut. 18: 18) The Torah claims that G-d revealed Himself to the entire …