How do I repay a person who helped me strengthen my faith and make me happier? What's it worth, a million dollars? A billion dollars? There's a big difference between paying back a material favor and paying back a spiritual favor. This time of year is especially conducive to pondering the… [Read more...]

People who are stressed out by Yom Kippur have never had the privilege of learning what Yom Kippur is all about. That's understandable; no one ever explained the true and simple meaning of Yom Kippur to them. With the Almighty's help, let's rectify… [Read more...]

Many people haven't yet prepared for the awesome Day of Atonement, and they don't know where to begin. Cramming won't help. This post - an 8-10 minute read - will. It's based on the 11th Principle of… [Read more...]

There's a common denominator between your most valuable asset and your birthright, which is even more than a basic human right. No person on earth has the right to take either of them away from you. What possibly fits that… [Read more...]

Judging other people is like building a bomb. Spiritually, a severe judgment is liable to invoke a sentence of serious damage against another person. Yet, many times, the "bomb" of severe and/or unfair judgment backfires and explodes in the face of the person who built… [Read more...]

Rebbe Nachman is showing us in his classic tale the importance of connecting to a righteous spiritual guide. We see that the road to accomplishing any true goal is strewn with… [Read more...]

The 13th Principle of Emuna is our belief that death as we know it today is a passing stage. It is definitely not terminal, for we believe in the resurrection of the dead. This principle is so very important that we allude to it six times in the initial three-benediction section of the Amidah… [Read more...]

Why do we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah? What's the connection between the shofar and Moshiach? Our sages provide some eye-opening answers that tell us exactly what's happening… [Read more...]

Everyone of us has an acute problem like a pebble in our shoe that hurts every time we take a step. The evil inclination wants us to think that we have to suffer the pebble forever. Not true! All we have to do is to take off our shoe, get rid of the pebble, and put our shoe on… [Read more...]

The king and queen were childless and they yearned for a son. They summoned a secret tzaddik to pray for them. The tzaddik promised that they would have a son, made exclusively of rare jewels. We are all looking forward to seeing this… [Read more...]

Even though Moshiach (the Messiah) has not yet come, we eagerly anticipate his arrival. The advent of the Messianic era includes the Geula, the full redemption of our people, the ingathering of the exiles to our holy homeland of Israel and the rebuilding of our Holy Temple in Jerusalem. We believe… [Read more...]

Since the Hebrew calendar is according to the lunar months, it is in perfect synchronization with the Zodiac. Each Hebrew month corresponds exactly to the dominant monthly constellation. We are now in the middle of the Hebrew month of Elul, which amazingly corresponds to… [Read more...]