Dear Friends,
When we enter into Shabbos, we literally transport ourselves into another dimension. It is simultaneously both the journey and the destination — transcendence itself. In this week’s talk, we explore the two names of Shabbos, to try and unlock the mystery of why it is so much more than just another day of the week.
Dear Friends,
Wow, there is a ton of stuff in this week’s talk, exploring everything from fixing the Tree of Knowledge, to the end of death, to why Eliahu lives forever, to the Kabbalah of circumcision, to the connection between Eve and the daughters of Tzlafchad receiving an inheritance in the land of Israel, to making peace, to the walls of Jerusalem. If you make it all the way through this one (it gets deeper as you go along) drop me an email!
Dear Friends,
Is the Torah a book? A scroll? A set of instructions? All of the above, none of the above? Deeper still what does it mean when the Talmud teaches us that the Torah existed 974 generations before the world was created?! Further still, what does it mean when it says that G-d looked into the Torah and created the world? What did He look into exactly?? We can’t really begin to understand our own lives or what the grandness of history is all about until we arrive at a deeper understanding of these questions. In this talk we address what the true giantness of the Torah is all about.
Dear Friends,
Speech creates reality. Our Sages teach that Hashem spoke the world into being. Reb Shlomo Carlebach said it’s even deeper than that. Hashem actually sang the world into existence. In this week’s talk we look into the power of speech, how to tie your shoes according to the Torah, what the first Divine directive was, and further adventures of the letter Beis inside the letter Pay (see chart).
Dear Friends,
There is so much going on!! We are in the awesome holy month of Nissan, which marks the beginning of the universe and the dedication of the Holy Tabernacle which was a microcosm of the universe. It is also the month that the Jews leave Egypt. In this talk we explore a number of ideas — including the interrelationship of freedom and forgiveness, the souls of Noach and Moshe, and the nature of miracles and human effort. By the way, Sir Isaac Newton was fascinated by the Holy Temple and felt that understanding the dimensions of it were the key to grasping the shape of the universe.
Dear Friends,
What does it mean to unify the Name Yud kay with Vav kay? What does it mean that every Parsha in the book of Shemos/Exodus starts with the letter vav except the final one which starts with the letter aleph? How is the first word of the Torah — Breisheet — a microcosm of human history? How do we go about revealing the hidden? Lots and lots of ideas in this week’s talk!
Dear Friends,
Our Holy tradition teaches that Hashem created the world with the letters of the aleph-bais. With this in mind, our Sages teach in the Talmud (Shabbos 104) that there is a system called A”t B”ash where we reimagine words by exchanging the last letter of the alphabet for the first letter, the second to last letter of the alphabet for the second letter and so on. More than just “playing games” to derive new spellings, the Sages are offering us a new portal into accessing the infinity of the Torah. In this talk we deeply explore the geometry of this world and the next, and the opportunities available to us only in the here and now.
Dear Friends,
When Hashem gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai the Kabbalists say that He pronounced the letter Aleph. Now all that is well and good — except the letter Aleph is silent! We explore the meaning of this paradox while also looking into the nature of beauty, Yoseph and Chanukah.
Dear Friends,
We are living through a time often called the “age of information”. Ironically, the barrage coming at us can often obscure that which is most essential to keep in the forefront of our consciousness. In other words, sometimes the more we know the less we end up knowing! In this week’s talk we pull the lens way back to observe the overall pattern that informs not only our personal lives, but all of creation.
