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.
Fake ice cream. Fake money. Fake friends. Fake free markets. Fake free speech. Fake education. Fake elections. Fake news. Even fake spirituality. Everything seems fake these days Why is this so? What happened to the real stuff? The truth is that what we are seeing in our world today is
We live in a very noisy world. To a certain extent, we have become programmed to eschew silence. Silence has become an enemy of sorts. The moment we might come to experience a moment of silence, we grab our cell phones, turn on a computer, listen to music, etc. The
William Ernest Henley was an English poet, writer, critic and editor who lived from 1849-1903. At the age of 16, he had his left leg amputated due to complications arising from tuberculosis of the bone. When he was in his 20s, he developed major problems with his other leg and
Why There's No Peace in the World and What We Can Do About It With a major war raging in Europe, the USA weakening and becoming more dysfunctional by the day, and China acting more aggressively than it has in recent history, it is no wonder that many people are
Three basic types of motion exist for objects in the universe: translation, rotation and vibration. Translation refers to movement from one position to another position and rotation refers to a spinning movement around a given position. Neither one of these two types of motion is essential. We can fix objects
As of the result of a leaked draft majority opinion of an ongoing U.S. Supreme Court case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization) suggesting that the high court may strike down the infamous Roe v. Wade decision which established a constitutional right to an abortion, the controversy of societal acceptance
Every study that we have seen shows that levels of depression, sadness, despondency, anxiety and many types of mental health disorders have skyrocketed since the outbreak of Covid, reaching record levels across practically all demographic groups including the very young. As the verse says in describing the conditions of our
We hear a lot these days about ‘speaking truth to power,’ i.e. a phrase connoting the necessity for people to stand up for what they believe is right or needed and to tell people who are perceived as being ‘in charge’ what’s what, whether the powers that be want to
Many civilizations and religions over the course of history have taught that the world, including man, is composed of four fundamental elements (sometimes called foundations or forces): fire, earth, air and water. Although perhaps not well known to everyone, these four foundations are also important in Jewish tradition (אש, עפר,
Everyone speaks of it. Some people yearn for it; some people might even be willing to sacrifice their lives for it. But how many of us really know what it is? What are we speaking about? Freedom. Much has been written about it, but it still seems to elude us
How do we know that anything we think we know is correct? Ask that question to one of your friends you will probably receive a very confused look. But, seriously, stop right now and think about it. How do we really know? Above all, keep in mind that the perceptions
One of the most pervasive ideas that emerged from the Darwinian revolution and that still continues to influence the consciousness of man, is the belief that nature is fundamentally a struggle for existence, a survival of the fittest. Most of us accept this explanation of the workings of the natural
