Collected Archive of Shoemaker Reports
The Shoemaker Report is Rav Hoshea’s weekly Torah publication. Its focus is on internalizing and living Torah from the heart, not only from the head. The divrei Torah often take the parashah of the week as their point of entry and address central questions of inner avodah — including teshuvah, prayer (tefillah), emunah, bitachon, and related areas of spiritual and personal refinement.
The writing assumes seriousness from the reader and speaks from within Torah life, with meaning emerging organically from honest analysis of our holy Torah and the words of Chazal, rather than from short-lived inspiration or simplified conclusions.
In our last issue, we explored the Torah of time dilation, not only as a consequence of special relativity but more importantly, as a consequence of expanded consciousness or intellect [seichal]. In this issue, we will look at the Torah of length contraction, another major consequence of special relativity. Avraham
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
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
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
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 (Yeshayahu 40:1): נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי יֹאמַר אֱלֹקֵיכֶם (Comfort, comfort my people, says your G-d).
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
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
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
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
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
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
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,
