I know, I know. The month of Elul should inspire awe and fear. I have heard stories of people in previous generations who would tremble when Rosh Chodesh Elul (the approach […]
Shabbat and Holidays
Advice from an Ant The Midrash (Parshat Shoftim 5:2) quotes a pasuk from Mishlei (6:6-8), “Go to the ant, you lazy one, observe its ways and become wise…. It prepares […]
Ask the Rabbi with Rabbi Chaim Mintz What went wrong?! Why did Hashem (God) bring such horrors to our nation on Simchat Torah, one of the happiest days of the […]
He Who Is Forgiving Merits Forgiveness Yom Kippur – the day of atonement for our sins – is an exciting day. However, it’s not a “freebie”. One must repent properly […]
Ask the Rabbi with Rabbi Chaim Mintz The Rambam tells us that there are some sins for which the regular, proper teshuvah (repentance) process is enough, while other sins require […]
The King is in the Field The young nurse quietly slipped a piece of paper into my hand – it contained her name and private cell-phone number. “If you have […]
In Mizmor Lisoda, a part of our daily morning prayers, we say a passage from Tehillim (psalms): “Ivdu es Hashem bisimcha, bo’u lifanav birnana – serve Hashem with joy, come […]
There’s an anecdote in my wife’s family about how her uncle tried to give his father-in-law, her Zeidy Shmelka, directions to the Catskills that might avoid traffic. This was in […]
One of my favorite stories from Chovos HaLevavos is that of a certain chassid (as in close to Hashem, since it was written centuries before the Baal Shem Tov, founder […]
This Yom Kippur eve during the evening service, I got to a point in my prayers where I realized that there were things I had done during the past year […]
