There are really only two ways to go.  There’s not enough room for two kings here – my world either reflects my intelligence or Hashem’s.  Seems like an obvious choice, but it is hard to do.

We will spend about an hour – almost 10% of our waking Yom Kippur time – confessing.  What is the goal of this confession?  How do you know when you’ve done it right?

We started Torah 82 in tinyana.  This Torah revolves around how we liberate ourselves from our illusions by asking ‘mah’ – what is this?  So many people are afraid to ask ‘mah’ because they are afraid of the answer.  But if we ask, we will be connected to the wisdom and intelligence that Hashem put [...]

There are two primary kinds of work, called ratzo v’shov – running and returning.  We are supposed to master both of them – and Rebbbe Nachman says it is possible.   Sometimes our work is glamorous – we are high, and we have to reach a bit higher.  But sometimes we are doing nitty-gritty work of [...]

We have begun a new mussar class, under the auspices of Dr. Alan Morinis and the Mussar Institute.  Today we kick things off with an attempt to define the work of mussar.

It seems that we are born with a certain amount of material that, if expressed in the simplest way, will perpetuate bad karma.  The truly righteous among us will work through the material they are born with so that can turn the wheel in the other direction. These are the people Rabbah Bar Bar Channah [...]

We continue in Torah 6 through the Rabbah Bar Bar Channah story.  Rabbah Bar Bar Channah sought out ways to work on humility.  We can create moments to work on our weak traits, if we are paying attention.  It takes wisdom to create those moments, and also to create those moments for others.