jewishfamily

The Torah says there is a time for silence and a time to speak…..I never contemplated that idea very deeply until now…. I always thought I had a good and close relationship with my younger sister. We both are the “frum”ones in the family. I always felt we should be close. We grew up together, […]

Today, 5th of the month Menachem Av, is the hilloula (yahrtzeit) of the Ari Hakodesh, who brought to this world the teachings of kabbalah, the inner part of Torah. It also is the yahrtzeit of my father Meir ben Rachel. So in honor of these great souls I would like to speak about the portion

Apathy is a big problem our society faces today.  When we hear of a tragedy, we may shed a tear or feel sad, but we also do not FEEL the pain of the others in a deep way. We move on with life and chalk it up to another tragic news. In Israel, there are

There are a number of Turkish tv series on internet these days which are blatantly anti semitic. They twist around the Torah and make it sound like Avraham sacrificed Yishmael rather than Yitzchak (Hashem yirachem). They blame the Jews for problems and try to make it sound like the muslims are the most moral people,

I have been thinking lately about positive parenting. Actually, since we know that what we do down here in this world affects the way things are in the spiritual realm, I think if we all make an effort to do more positive parenting, Hashem will do the same!   I know there are times we simply

Now that we are in the time of the three weeks, mourning for the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, we must take time to feel inwardly the destruction of our own inner beit hamikdash…our own inner kedusha. We must do our utmost to rebuild our inner sanctuary and to learn about rebuilding the Beit Hamikdash

On a subconscious level, everyone senses that something is not right in the world. This is not the world that the Creator envisioned when He created it.  This is not the perfection of the world.  We all know that when Moshiach comes the world will reach its true level of perfection. The fact that Moshiach

Well, Purim was great, as usual. We stamped out Haman harasha….we danced and sang and got a bit tipsy so we could get rid of the forces of impurity and all our enemies and focus on drawing down the blessings without obstacles.  Now that Purim is over we are preparing for Pesach. I actually love

Why is it that simcha, joy, breaks barriers and changes things? The Tzemach Tzedek, the  third Lubavitcher Rebbe, once visited Jewish soldiers in the czars army. They said to him, “Rebbe, we worked to shine our buttons on our uniforms in your honor. Now please polish our souls that have become coarse and heavy.” These

As we leave the month of Adar, where we increase in joy, we enter the month of Nissan, the month of nessim and geula (miracle and redemption). So we have to take the joy of Adar and apply it to our service of Hashem and work on doing things to actualize the redemption. So what