The Library

Question of the Week: Why do we celebrate the festival of Sukkos immediately after Yom Kippur? Wouldn't it be better to space out these festivals? Or is there some connection between fasting on Yom Kippur and eating in an outdoor hut for a week? Answer: The first thing ...

We might have a tendency to think that after Rosh Hashana and Yom-Kippur when we worked so hard and achieved spiritual heights, the Yetzer Hara won't bother us for a while. But it is exactly the other way around. Precisely when there is so much spirituality and closeness ...

We all know the truth. We all die. We are nothing but flesh, blood, veins and bones; here today, dust tomorrow. Our eyeballs are delicate balls of mushy fluid. And the objects of our desires are also flesh, blood and veins. If we could see what is underneath the thin laye...

On Erev Yom Kippur last year, "Trying" posted: This is very hard for me to say, since I'm dead embarrassed. But secrecy keeps strengthening the addiction, so here goes. I fell again recently. I don't know how I'll even go to shul. I just want everyone to know how pathetic...

The pre-Rosh Hashanah wave of visitors to the town of Uman in Ukraine peaked on Monday as around 9,000 boarded 50 flights from Ben-Gurion International Airport. Another 5,500 people will travel to Ukraine today on 28 flights to visit the kever of Rav Nachman of Breslov...

As we prepare to exit the year 5770, it is a time to make a reckoning of how the year passed. How it started with guilt & regret for all the garbage I was living in, along hopes and prayers for Hashem to help me get out of it. The format was exactly the same as the ye...

Dear Guard, I wanted to wish you a K'sivah V'Chasimah Tovah. As I reflect on Rosh Hashanah I am filled with Hakoras Hatov. B'H, look what a year could bring. Last year at this time, I didn't know much about GYE, I didn't know much about the 12 steps, I didn't know Duvid C...

The Mishna teaches (tractate Avos, 4:17) that an hour of Teshuva (penitence) and good deeds in this world is worth more than the entire World to Come, yet a minute in the World to Come is more sublime than all the pleasures of this world combined.From the above Mishna, we...

When the spies came back and declared "we can't" inherit the land of Israel, the entire nation wept that night in their tents. And Hashem declared that "since you cried on this night for nothing, you will cry on this night for generations". The crying for generations that...

The Zohar (in Chelek Beis, pg 78b) writes that Yakov Avinu took the months of Nissan and Iyar for himself (hence Yetziyas Mitzrayim, Kabbalas Hatorah), and Eisav took the months of Tammuz and Av for himself (and hence, the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha Be'av), but only the fir...

Taanis Tzibbor - Krias HaTorah: "Im na matzasi chein be'einecha - yeileich na Hashem bekirbeinu" If I am to give you pleasure with the eyes (ten lo mishelo, she'ata v'shelach shelo), it can only be if you are with me. I cannot do it by myself. Ilimalei Hakodosh Boruch Hu...