How come one year at age 60 seems to pass more quickly than one year at age 10? Some have suggested that the perception of time is related to the amount of time already experienced in one’s life. One year at age 10 is 10% percent of the total time experienced time in one’s life…
From where do novel insights of the Torah [חדושי תורה, chidushei Torah] come? On the one hand, there are those of us who merit to study Torah day and night yet rarely come up with (or ‘are given’) chidushim. On the other hand, there are those of us who even though we may not merit…
All living things have within them a vital force motivating them to grow. We are no different. Children and adults alike, we all want to grow. And growth has many dimensions associated with it. Growth can refer to physical size, education, ability or skill, professional development, knowledge or wisdom, emotional maturity, even emunah [faith] and…
We are in the seven weeks of comfort and consolation leading up to Rosh Hashanah. During the first Shabbat of these weeks, we read the haftarah of Nachamu which begins with the quintessential verse of comfort (Yeshaya 40:1): נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי יֹאמַר אֱלֹקֵיכֶם (Comfort, comfort my people, says your G d). It’s worthwhile asking two relevant…
We are all well acquainted with Rambam’s 7th article of Jewish faith, poetically rendered in our siddurim as: אֲנִי מַאֲמִין בֶּאֱמוּנָה שְׁלֵמָה שֶׁנְּבוּאַת משֶׁה רַבֵּֽנוּ עָלָיו הַשָּׁלוֹם הָיְתָה אֲמִתִּית וְשֶׁהוּא הָיָה אָב לַנְּבִיאִים לַקּוֹדְמִים לְפָנָיו וְלַבָּאִים אַחֲרָיו (I believe with complete faith [emunah] that the prophecy of Moshe Rabbeinu [our Teacher], may peace be upon…
Last week in our article Don’t Worry, You Won’t Die we examined Chavah’s grave error in eating from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Torah describes her acceptance of the advice of the Nachash [Primordial Serpent] as a form of seduction, as it says in Likutei Moharan 7:3:…
In the previous issue of The Shoemaker Report, in the article entitled The Primordial Criminal Mastermind we explored the essence of the sin of Adam ha-Rishon [אדם הראשון, Primordial Man] and discovered that he relied on his “superior” intellectual prowess to try to out-think Hashem. Instead of obeying the explicit command not to eat from…
Even though we have written about the sin of Adam ha-Rishon [אדם הראשון, Primordial Man] previously (see “Daat, Daat Everywhere and not a Drop of Truth” and “The Sweetness of Silence”), we are revisiting this topic because without a solid understanding of where we came from and what happened at the beginning of our history,…
Something came up in my life recently that caused me to ask the following: Have I ever done anything in my life that was done for someone else without any ulterior motives on my part, without even a trace of self-interest? After searching and searching, I found nothing. I couldn’t recall a single instance when…
In a recent article How Transparent is Your Aspaklaria? we explained how מידה כנגד מידה [middah k’neged middah] is a gift from the Holy One blessed be He. If we pay attention, especially to the ‘negative’ or unpleasant things that happen to us, we should be able to understand the deficiencies, shortcomings and weaknesses in…
Can you remember when tears flowed freely on Tisha b’Av or on Yom Kippur? If not, have you ever heard stories of how even just one or two generations ago almost every Jew could cry and cry on such days? To paraphrase the lyrics of an iconic Pete Seeger song, “Where have all the tears…
Upon seeing a skull floating on the water, Hillel said (Pirkei Avot 2:7): עַל דַּאֲטֵפְתְּ אַטְפוּךְ וְסוֹף מְטִיפַיִךְ יְטוּפוּן (Because you drowned others, they drowned you, and eventually those that drowned you will be drowned). He was teaching with a real-life example what the prophet Yeshaya said many years earlier (Yeshaya 3:11): אוֹי לְרָשָׁע רָע…