Tag: Jewish Growth
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The parsha begins with Noach ish tzaddik and ends with Avraham ha’chasid.Two righteous men. Two ways of serving Hashem. One preserved the world; the other began to redeem it. “Noach was a tzaddik, perfect in his generation.” Rashi teaches that some praise him for staying righteous amid corruption, while others say that beside Avraham, he…
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Before Adam and Chava ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they didn’t have a pull toward evil.The yetzer hara was there — but it was outside.It could whisper, but it couldn’t touch them from within. But the moment they ate, everything changed.They didn’t just break a command — they rewired the human condition.The struggle became…
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Before a single flower bloomed or tree grew, the world was already filled with hidden potential—waiting. The grass was beneath the surface. The seeds were in place. But nothing sprouted. Why? Because there was no man to pray for it.Rashi explains that Hashem withheld rain because there was no one to recognize the blessing it…
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In this week’s parsha, Nitzavim, the Torah tells us: “And you shall return to Hashem your God, and listen to His voice… with all your heart and all your soul” (Devarim 30:2). Notice — the pasuk doesn’t say “return from sin”, but “return to Hashem.” Teshuva is not about running away from suffering or punishment.…
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Ki Teitzei – The Two Battles We Fight Parshas Ki Teitzei begins with war and ends with war. But they’re not the same war. At the start, Chazal tell us the Torah speaks about the inner battle—the war with the yetzer hara. At the end, it speaks about the outer battle—the war with Amalek. Inside,…
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Climbing the Right Mountain We’ve all heard of rock bottom — when a person loses everything and only then realizes it’s time to change. But Parshat Shoftim warns of another danger that’s spoken about far less. When you spend so much time climbing the mountain of success — money, fame, luxury — only to reach…
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Hashem wants us to love one another — not only in words, but in how we see, judge, and treat each other.Parshat Shoftim opens: “V’shaftu et ha’am mishpat tzedek” — judge the people with righteous judgment. The Rachmastrivka Rebbe explains that we begin Elul with Shoftim because as we prepare for Rosh Hashana and our…
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Jerry Seinfeld has a great bit about how easy it is for kids to make friends.You meet a kid at the park, he likes slides, you like slides—boom, best friends. But as adults, it’s different. You meet someone and start comparing: You can line up a hundred points of similarity, and yet we focus on…
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A man struggling to make ends meet wants to one day buy his wife a gift. He doesn’t have much, but every night, he empties whatever spare change he has into a jar—nickels, dimes, maybe the occasional dollar. “One day,” he tells himself, “this’ll turn into something special.” Years go by. The jar gets full.…
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“Let me go over and see the good land…” Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest leader in our history, pleads with Hashem to enter Eretz Yisrael.He doesn’t ask for comfort, reward, or recognition.All he wants is to step foot in the land Hashem promised. Chazal ask: Why did Moshe want to enter Eretz Yisrael so badly? Was…
