Divrei Torah

For our purposes - in the article below, replace the word "alcohol" with "Lust". Your Alcohol or Your Life New York - There's an old Jack Benny bit where a mugger jumps out of the bushes and says, "Your money or your life." Benny just stands there doing nothing until th...

Everyone must say the world was created for me (Sanhedrin 37). This shows that humility isn't that one should feel lowly and worthless, rather humility is knowing that all your attributes and accomplishments are a gift from Hashem. There's a contradiction, it says, "and h...

Teshuva mi'yirah is basically when one realizes that the sin that he did is not without consequence and he therefore regrets having done it and wants to erase it. In a sense though, he is still living in the self centered fantasy ...

Should a sin come to a person, he should think to himself that if they would decree upon him to convert he would willingly let himself be killed for Kiddush Hashem, so if he would let himself be killed - which is such a difficult test to withstand, how much mo...

I have seen this concept in many places (including GYE), and also in "Flames of Faith" by Zev Reichman page 65, which I read this past Shabbos: Lessons of the Body What is the body's strongest impulse? I would argue that it is lust. Lust is a mask of a heavenly and soulfu...

R' Ezriel Tauber Shlit"a was once asked to speak in a certain school where the principal had discovered that the kids were sharing blue movies. This is what he told them. He said that the 6000 years of creation are split into three parts. The first part corresponds to Elo...

"And Avraham was 99... BE'HIMOLO - WHEN HE WAS CIRCUMCISED... on the flesh of his foreskin" Shouldn't the posuk say "when he circumcised himself"? Rashi quotes a Medrash: 'Avraham took a knife and took hold of his foreskin and wanted to cut. But he was afraid because he w...

Dear Chevre,I have been doing some major, personal, internal, spiritual work lately. My wife and I found ourselves in a position of a very, very long niddah period (with no birth to announce its coming). As of now we're holding at 5 weeks, but G-d willing it will be over ...

I was listening to a shiur from Rav Pam Zatz"al about how saying 90 times Mashiv HaRuach makes it "ingrained in our minds"... and he said (in yiddish) "Az Mir Zogt Tzaddik P'amim..." and it hit me. The letter Tzadik is the gematria 90! So if you hit 90 days clean, not o...

Chazal say that every human has 248 limbs that correspond to the 248 Mitzvos Aseh, and 365 sinews that correspond to the 365 Mitzvos Lo Saseh. Altogether = 613 Mitzvos. The Sefarim bring down that the Bris (or Yesod) is the one limb in a person that reflects all the other...

The paragraph right after Borchu in our Shachris prayers (pg 84 in the Artscroll Siddur) states: "Boruch Atah Hashem Elokanu Melech HaOlam Yozar Oar U'Vora Choshech, Oseh Shalom U'Vora Es HaKol - Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the Universe, Who forms light and ...

The key to Torah is BeraishisThe key to Life is Beraishis.Because we always have to begin Anew.Hashem tells us, do not think that I created your world and then left it.I am constantly and continuously creating the world,Every single second.Because if I don't, everything t...

Sometimes a person who suffers from addiction will learn that his/her parent/s suffered from it too. Often the parent/s tried to break free of it but were unsuccessful, and the struggle is then passed down to the next generation. And some of us may struggle our entire liv...

When Hashem told Avraham Avinu that He would give his children Eretz Yisrael, Avraham asked "Bama aidah ki irashena - How do I know I will inherit it?" Hashem replied, "You should know that your children will be strangers in a land not theirs, and they will be enslaved an...

R' Yeruchum explains a Rashi in parshas Shelach (by the Meraglim). Rashi brings down that Hashem said, "I will give them room to make a mistake ." R' Yeruchum explains that Hashem didn't MAKE them do an aveirah - He just took away the help that he always provides, and onc...

We are powerless over our addiction in the same way that the Yidden were powerless to overcome the seven mighty nations in Eretz Yisrael. So what was the sin of the Meraglim? After all, they were RIGHT by saying that we couldn't overcome our enemies? To quote Dov (our for...

As we all know, Shemiras Shabbos was THE main Nisayon during the first half of the 20th Century. The six (or seven) day workweek made keeping Shabbos extremely difficult, and, at the time, there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Even those who were able to...

Today, our Rebbe Reb Duvid Chaim, was discussing (on the phone conference) the Middos of Rachamim (Attributes of Mercy). The sixth attribute of the thirteen is "Erech Apayim", which refers to God's endless patience with us. It might be possible that Erech Apayim correspon...