G-d for the Beast
By Rabbi Dovid Markel There is an expression that “an animal never saw the heavens[1].” An animal that walks on four legs only sees the earth. Animals understand physicality and the coarseness of...
Neirot
Parshas Shoftim – Becoming Complete
By Rabbi David Sterne There are many interesting mitzvoth that are associated with our Torah portion this week – Shoftim. Among the commands, for example, is the mitzvah to appoint a king over...
The Incantation
The prodigious chossid, Rabbi Yitzchak Horowitz (Itche der Masmid) would often tell the following story to express the power of learning Chassidus: In a certain town in Russia, there was a certain landowner who...
Joy – Feelings Follow Action
In a letter from the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, he responds to a chossid who was having difficulty being joyful. The gist of the answer is that an individual has...
Reb Yisroel the Joyful
During the lifetime of the Bal Shem Tov there was an individual who lived in the town of Lubavitch by the name of Reb Yisroel “the Joyful.” He would often say that “’a mitzvah...
Bitterness & Joy
The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe writes: “The deepest sense of embitterment is what brings about the greatest joy; this great joy though must spur on an even greater sense of a broken heart and a...
Do Something
The prodigious chossid, Rabbi Yitzchak the masmid, would often quote the Talmud’s dictum[1] in reference to one’s service of G-d: “If a slave’s [work] is not worth the food he eats, what do his...
Choose Life
By Rabbi Dovid Markel The great sage Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg (1215-1293) was arrested by the non-Jewish authorities as a way to extort the Jewish community for 23,000 marks of silver. Rabbi Meir...
Becoming a Simple Jew
By Rabbi Dovid Markel Once[1], the third Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch said: “When Moshiach comes, he will spend his time talking to the simple Jew’s of innocent self-sacrifice. These Jew’s...
Lost in Thought
By Rabbi Dovid Markel Reb Binyomen Kletzker was a great chossid of two Chabad Rebbe’s—the founder of Chabad Chassidism, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi and his son Rabbi Dovber, commonly referred to as...
