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.
When writing about the importance of reciting the Shema morning and evening, we often focus on the first verse that declares the oneness of G‑d, i.e. Hashem echad. However, in this article we’re going to focus on a verse in the third paragraph (Bamidbar 15:39): וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְצִיצִת וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ
On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. that many historians believe helped seal his fate in Dealey Plaza on that infamous day of November 22 later that year. What did he say that was so unacceptable and inappropriate that
When you hear the word teshuvah, what do you think about? Perhaps the first ideas to come to mind are that it means to repent or to return to Hashem and His ways. We could add the notion of moving from being far away to being closer to Hashem. Maybe
Part 3: The Lights of the Supernal Aleph (Likutei Moharan 6:5) This is the third article in our series focused on finding one’s zivug in today’s world. To recap, the first article explained that the root of the problem is related to the widespread difficulty that [young] men today have
Part 2: The Essence of Teshuvah (Likutei Moharan 6:2) In last week’s article, we examined the true reason behind the shidduch crisis in the orthodox Jewish world. With G-d’s help, we will now begin to lay out the path that a young man can take in order to cleanse his
Part 1: Defining the Problem (Tikkunei Zohar 14) The orthodox Jewish world is in the midst of a crisis, a crisis of not being able to find one’s marriage partner [shidduch]. Many young men and women are either not dating, or even if they are dating, they are having a
We all know that the Torah instructs us to offer appropriate correction when we witness a fellow Jew behaving in a way contrary to the teachings of the Torah, as it is written (Vayikra 19:17): לֹא־תִשְׂנָא אֶת־אָחִיךָ בִּלְבָבֶךָ הוֹכֵחַ תּוֹכִיחַ אֶת־עֲמִיתֶךָ וְלֹא־תִשָּׂא עָלָיו חֵטְא (You shall not hate your brother
Fears can be extraordinarily debilitating, and generally speaking sane people don’t want to be debilitated. This is the reason why a great deal of psychology exists around fear, i.e. how to deal with it, how to overcome it, and even how to benefit from it. On the surface this sounds
On the Necessity of Hitbodedut In the past two issues, we wrote about the importance of waking up and getting out of bed at midnight. We focused on two tasks and their accompanying benefits: (1) by learning Torah after midnight, we draw down a thread of chesed throughout the day,
The Importance of Tikkun Chatzot It is taught (Berachot 3a): אָמַר רַב יִצְחָק בַּר שְׁמוּאֵל מִשְּׁמֵיהּ דְּרַב שָׁלֹשׁ מִשְׁמָרוֹת הָוֵי הַלַּיְלָה וְעַל כָּל מִשְׁמָר וּמִשְׁמָר יוֹשֵׁב הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא וְשׁוֹאֵג כַּאֲרִי וְאוֹמֵר אוֹי לִי שֶׁחֵרַבְתִּי אֶת בֵּיתִי וְשָׂרַפְתִּי אֶת הֵיכָלִי וְהִגְלִיתִי אֶת בָּנַי לְבֵין אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם (Rav Yitzchak bar Shmuel
It is taught in the Gemara that David ha-Melech made it his habit to wake up at midnight and engage in Torah until the break of dawn (Berachot 3b): אָמַר רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן חֲסִידָא כִּנּוֹר הָיָה תָּלוּי לְמַעְלָה מִמִּטָּתוֹ שֶׁל דָּוִד וְכֵיוָן שֶׁהִגִּיעַ חֲצוֹת לַיְלָה בָּא רוּחַ צְפוֹנִית וְנוֹשֶׁבֶת בּוֹ וּמְנַגֵּן
Likutei Moharan 9 and the Light of Chanukah In last week’s issue of The Shoemaker Report, we learned about the halachah of placing the Chanukah light within ten tefachim of the ground. Since we are still basking in the light of the days of Chanukah, let’s take the time to
