Self Improvement Site
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
Articles from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg | Selfgrowth.com
- Shir HaShirim-Public Love-Besht - by Submitted on Jun 12, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Baal Shem Tov taught, “Our love of God should be like the love between brother and sister, or between a mother and her child, rather then like the love between man and wife were between lovers. The first may show their love of both in private and in public; whereas the latter do so ...
Views: 947 - Shir HaShirim-Gaining Admittance - by Submitted on Jun 05, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergRav Shmelke commented on, “He looks in through the windows (Song of Songs 2:9).” A poorly dressed men wish to present a petition to the governor, but the doorkeeper refused to admit him. The petitioner then walked to a window of the room where the governor sat, and loudly begged for ...
Views: 1027 - Acquiring Torah 25: Humility to Remember - by Submitted on May 29, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergRabbi Mattena expounded: What is the deeper meaning of the Scriptural text: “And from the wilderness to Mattanah?” If a man allows himself to be treated as a wilderness on which everybody treads, his study will be retained by him, otherwise it will not. (Eiruvin 54a) Rabbi Mattena does ...
Views: 1053 - Acquiring Torah 26: Having One Rebbi - by Submitted on May 22, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergRaba expounded in the name of Rabbi Sehora who had it from Rabbi Huna: What is the purport of the text: “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathers little by little shall increase?” If a man studies much at a time his learning decreases, and if he does not do so but ...
Views: 895 - Acquiring Torah 29: Inside Outside - by Submitted on May 16, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergOn one occasion, Rabbi issued an order that they should not teach disciples in the open public market place. What was his exposition? “How beautiful are your steps in sandals, O prince's daughter! The roundings of your thighs are like the links of a chain, the work of the hands of a skilled ...
Views: 994 - Acquiring Torah 32: Rashbi: Illuminating Others With Our Eyes - by Submitted on May 09, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergRabbi Yehudah taught: The generation of whom Rabbi Shimon is one are all righteous, saintly and fearful of sin, and the Divine Presence abides among them as among no other generation. Therefore these things are stated openly and not concealed, whereas in former generations supernal mysteries ...
Views: 1241 - Acquiring Torah 36: Derech Eitz haChaim II: Three Gates - by Submitted on May 02, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThere are two factors in understanding: human intellect and the Torah which aids human intellect. Concerning the Torah, it is said, “Is not My word like fire, says God (Jeremiah 23:29).” He thus informed us that the Torah is an actual light bestowed on Israel for illumination. Unlike ...
Views: 870 - Acquiring Torah 44: Ramchal: Derech Eitz Hachaim X - by Submitted on Apr 18, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergNow, to return to the root of the matter, since the radiance in them derives from the stimulus of the King and the stimulus of the King from Israel’s actions, Israel is the essence of the entire creation. “How glorious is Your Name throughout the earth,” relates to the power received by the Holy ...
Views: 954 - Acquiring Torah 48: Ramchal: Derech Eitz Hachaim XIV - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergNow since the main remedy lies in the hand of man and not in the hand of the Angels, we can be certain that he is the essence of the whole of creation and infer that this alone is the purpose for which man was created, and the activity to which he should devote himself. So it was from ...
Views: 1038 - Pesach Sheini: The Torah of The Second Chance and The Torah of The First Oppotunity - by Submitted on Apr 04, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergR' Shlomo was always telling us that Pesakh Sheni instills within us the message of the Torah of the Second Chance, i.e. that unless one actively negated doing something the first go-around, G-d allows for a second chance. I'd like to suggest something perhaps even more beneficial -The Torah ...
Views: 854 - Pesach Sheini: The People's Request - by Submitted on Mar 28, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe people who were Tamei and were not able to bring a Korban Pesach came to Moshe to complain that they also wanted to have a chance to do the mitzva of Korban Pesach. Through this brave act they were Zocheh to have the Mitzva of Pesach Sheni in the Torah through them. What is so special ...
Views: 833 - Pesach Sheini Teshuva - by Submitted on Mar 21, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergPesach Sheni ("the Second Pesach") is celebrated on the 14th of Iyar, a month after the eve of Pesach. The Torah relates that in the first year after the Exodus, when the Jewish people were preparing to bring the Pesach sacrifice: There were [certain] men who were impure because [they had ...
Views: 1239 - Countdown to Pesach-28-Chemdah Genuzah - by Submitted on Mar 14, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Premishlaner said concerning the verse, “And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob (Exodus 6:3),” which Rashi explains, “And I appeared to the Patriarchs,” what is Rashi adding? It is customary for one whose father was a man of holiness, to be lax in his efforts to improve ...
Views: 881 - Purim: Likutei Moharan: The Limits of Da’at - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergKnow, that the root of the entire creation is glory. “For everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, created, He created only for His glory. As it is written: ‘Everyone that is called by My name, for I have created him for My glory’ (Yeshayahu 43:7)” (Yoma 38). Since everything was created for ...
Views: 1008 - Esther’s Purim Part Four: Saul and David - by Submitted on Feb 29, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergTranscribed and prepared by Anna Beller: Now you have Shmuel but we have questions: Why does he say the sin of predicting the future is bitter, what’s he talking about netzach yisrael. What happened to Shaul? A few hours ago he couldn’t stand up to the Jewish people and now he’s ripping the coat ...
Views: 991 - Spiritual Tools: Tzitzit: From Chanukah to the Tenth of Tevet - by Submitted on Feb 26, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergTzitzit are always associated with light; they are even described as Clothes of Light. In this, they are also associated with Hanukkah, the Festival of Light. When we hold our Tzitzit during the Shema, we hold all four corners in our hands so that we are surrounded by Light. This is a perfect ...
Views: 1067 - Purim-The Eternity of Israel - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergKnow and understand: each and every nation has a specific guardian angel that came into existence when God dispersed mankind into many nations. Each of these angels is like a head in relation to his nation. The angel's function is similar to the function of a person's head, which directs ...
Views: 910 - Every Man for Himself - by Submitted on Feb 08, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergSay the word and I’ll turn you loose I got mine now you get yours Just like you I’ve got my price Sure is nice that someone paid I’ve got my ticket out of here But for you, I fear, it’s much too late It’s nothing you can blame me for In love and war It’s every man for ...
Views: 1112(1 vote) - Hallel Rosh Chodesh Tevet Part Three - by Submitted on Jan 25, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergParagraph Seven: “Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The Lord of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands He has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, He has made you ruler over them all. You are ...
Views: 1009 - The Courage To Be Carried - by Submitted on Jan 11, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergSomething changed for Jacob in his final night vision. In what we would expect to be one of his grandest moments, he lets loose of the reigns of his life. God had changed his name from Jacob to Israel as he grew into himself, willing to directly confront every challenge. He lost the ...
Views: 850 - Joseph’s Torture” by David Hazony - by Submitted on Jan 03, 2012 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThis week we learn of his nearly pathological efforts to ensnare, baffle, accuse, imprison, and shame his brothers—the same brothers who, decades earlier, sold him into slavery. Now he is Grand Vizier of Egypt, and he gets a chance to show them who’s boss. A famine has struck the region. ...
Views: 943 - Spiritual Matters - by Submitted on Dec 21, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergPharaoh had a problem. It doesn’t seem too serious, but it has the potential to explode. Moses arrived with Aaron to demand; “Let My people Go!” The people in question are not there. Oh! They set out with Moses and his brother to confront Pharaoh, but they dropped off, one by one, and by the ...
Views: 892 - Orchids and Dandelions - by Submitted on Dec 04, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Swedish refer to children who are highly sensitive to their environment, especially to the quality of parenting they receive, as Orkidebarn, Orchid Children. If neglected, Orchid Children promptly wither, but if nurtured, they flourish. An Orchid Child becomes “a flower of unusual delicacy ...
Views: 1259(1 vote) - Traveling First Class - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergIn his unfailingly interesting and often brilliant, "The Act of Creation," Arthur Koestler understands breakthrough ideas in science and art as something that happens exclusively in the mind. In the early 1990s, Kevin Dunbar, a McGill University psychologist determined that the ground zero of ...
Views: 822 - Succot Hallel Part One - by Submitted on Nov 02, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergParagraph 2 – Four Species Hallel: “Who turned the rock into a pool of water. Pebbles into a source of water.” God uses His creation at will to do as He wishes. The Midrash teaches that God made a condition with each creation before it assumed its form, to serve certain functions. The ...
Views: 1029 - Neighborhoods in the Sky: Succot - by Submitted on Oct 21, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergMy wife and I turned onto 26th street, between 6th and 7th, the New York City area known as ‘The Plant District’, and strange things began to happen. Storeowners ran outside and began to pull their security gates down, closing their stores. Others were rushing to cover all the plants on the ...
Views: 609 - A Special Kind of Beauty - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergDebbie and I were walking around Central Park when we heard magnificent singing. We followed the sound until we found a family singing a song from the Sound of Music. Their voices were angelic. It was the Boyd Family, and what a beautiful family it is! (You can email Mr. Boyd to purchase his ...
Views: 975 - Mistakes: Latznu - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergIn “Meditations on First Philosophy,” Descartes set out to determine how and if we can distinguish false beliefs from true knowledge. He began by noting that there is theoretically no limit to how wrong we could be, because, God could deliberately deceive us about even the most seemingly ...
Views: 1000 - Joyous Trembling: God as My Advocate - by Submitted on Sep 23, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“Judge me, Lord, and plead my cause against a nation without passion. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. You are my Lord, my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send Your light and Your truth, let them lead me; let ...
Views: 974 - The Mystery & The Puzzle - by Submitted on Sep 14, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergDavid Morris writes in “The Culture of Pain” that to a doctor, pain is a puzzle, but to a patient it is a mystery, in the ancient sense of the word, a truth necessarily closed off from full understanding, which refuses to yield every quantum of its darkness: “a landscape where nothing looks ...
Views: 653 - A Different Perspective - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergFrom that moment the screaming began that continued for three days, and was so terrible that one could not hear it through two closed doors without horror. At the moment he answered his wife realized that he was lost, that there was no return, that the end had come, the very and, and his doubts ...
Views: 831(1 vote) - Not Moment To Moment - by Submitted on Aug 18, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“I was friends with one of the crew members on TWA Flight 800. I had called her because she was on my mind. It had been a while since we’d talked and I missed seeing her. I left her a message on her voice mail to call me. A few days went by and I became increasingly irritated that I had not ...
Views: 832 - Lamentations: Kinah 8: Line 1 - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“Would that I could soar to the sphere of the heaven.” This phrase is usually understood to be based on: “Behold, like an eagle the enemy – Babylon – will swoop down and spread its wings against Moab.” (Jeremiah 48:40) Moab, an ancient enemy of Israel, was confident that, because there were no ...
Views: 773 - Kinah 9: The Final Blow - by Submitted on Aug 05, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“They drowned and slaughtered Cohanim and Leviim who once maintained the tiers of my Temple platform. When, in the valley of Hamath, my Cohanim were murdered…” The final phrase refers to Kings II 25:18-21: “And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second ...
Views: 926 - Inspiring Good - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“And those who bring the people to do the right thing shall be as the stars, eternal (Daniel 12:3).” The Midrash comments: Just as one sees the light of the stars from one end of the world to the other, so, too, one sees the light of Good People from one end of the world to the other. Just as ...
Views: 667(1 vote) - Holy Chutzpah! - by Submitted on Jul 13, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe 1973 Jerusalem Post ad was for “Chutzpah,” by Aviva Dayan, the daughter of the celebrated hero: “Arrogant! Direct! Provoking! But at the same time refreshingly natural like the Sabras in whose image it was created!” Directly underneath the ad another perfume was touted: Mazaltov – The ...
Views: 1188 - Rabbi David Lapin of iAwaken on Balak - by Submitted on Jul 08, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergNot only can animals smell, hear and see things that humans cannot, at times they can even intuit spiritual forces of which humans seem to be oblivious. Both the Ramban and Rashi are intrigued by the capacity of Bilam’s donkey to “see an angel of Hashem” (Bamidbar 22:23). “Even humans do not ...
Views: 906 - Korach and Bullies: A Question - by Submitted on Jun 29, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergHaving been the poster child of the 99lb weakling for all those Charles Atlas ads in the back of my childhood comic books, I feel that I must inform my friends, and for that matter, my enemies as well, of my brute strength. My pinky can counteract the gravity of an entire planet that weighs over ...
Views: 684 - Where Everything is Moral - by Submitted on May 25, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergWhat a strange place to build a community! The theme of the fourth book of the Torah is found in its name, Bamidbar, “In The Desert.” Why the desert? Why is the desert so fundamental to all the stories and laws that develop through this book? Were they really considered to be in the desert? Was ...
Views: 705 - The Cloud of Record - by Submitted on May 24, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergWe people possess records, like gravestones, of individual clouds and dates on which they have flourished. In 1824, John Constable took his beloved and tubercular wife, Maria, to Brighton Beach. They hoped the sea air would cure her. On June 12 he sketched, in oils, squally clouds over ...
Views: 782 - I’m Desperate - by Submitted on May 17, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergRabbi Akiva gave five instructions to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai when Rabbi Akiva was incarcerated in prison (See Berachot 61b): Rabbi Shimon said to him, “Master! Teach me Torah!” Rabbi Akiva said, “I will not teach you (to protect his student from being imprisoned).” Rabbi Shimon said, “If you do ...
Views: 895 - Rosh Chodesh Iyar: Vav: Truth and Beauty By Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach - by Submitted on May 08, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergEvery month has its own letter of the aleph beit, its corresponding tribe, and its specific fixing. According to the Ishbitzer, the letter of Iyar is Vav, the tribe Is Issachar and what we have to fix is “hirhur” – “thinking”. In Hebrew there are two words for thinking – “machshava” and then ...
Views: 1240 - Seeing the Monster - by Submitted on Apr 22, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergBlood curdling screams chilled me to the bone just as I hesitantly sat down to write this newsletter. I ran upstairs, my heart pounding, to find my daughter terrorized by a "gynormous monster!" All I could see was an inch long bug, and I was too shaken by her screams and the heavy exercise to ...
Views: 685 - Midrash Esther Chapter Three VIII: On This World - by Submitted on Mar 20, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergAnother explanation: “From among those whose death is by Your hand, God.” How mighty are those who have received empire from Your hand. Who is this? This is Nebuchadnezar. “From among those,” namely, those who have received their portion on this world. “Whose portion is in this life,” ...
Views: 637 - Active Memory - by Submitted on Mar 17, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg"It happened that when Moses raised his hand, Israel grew stronger, and when he lowered his hand, Amalek was stronger (Exodus 17:11)." "Was it Moses' hands that won the battle or lost it? Rather, as long as Israel looked heavenward and subjected their heart to their Father in Heaven, they would ...
Views: 799 - Looking Backward First - by Submitted on Feb 13, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe further backward you will look the further forward you will see.” Winston Churchill Helenus, in the Iliad, was a difference kind of Seer. the son of Priam and Hecuba, he was the cleverest men in the Trojan army. It was he who, under torture, told the Achaeans how they would capture Troy ...
Views: 784 - What To Do With ItWhat To Do With It - by Submitted on Feb 05, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergMy father zt"l was teaching me how to wrap Tefillin. I playfully made a he-man muscle provoking my sister to offer to find a microscope to find my bicep. "What the two of you don't yet know is that if you wear your Tefillin properly, you will become much stronger," my father assured me. My ...
Views: 698 - The Story of The Two Pebbles – Judgment Calls Part Two - by Submitted on Feb 04, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergMany years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry ...
Views: 1452(1 vote) - That Day At Sinai - by Submitted on Feb 01, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergJose Saramago, writing in “The Notebook” about Lisbon, describes communal memory: “In physical terms we inhabit space, but in emotional terms we are inhabited by memory. A memory composed of a space and a time, a memory inside which we live, like an island between two oceans-one the past, the ...
Views: 734(1 vote) - Nicolini & The Lions - by Submitted on Jan 19, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergA great debate raged in early 18th century London: Was the lion battled by the Cavalliere Nicolini Grimaldi in the opera “Rinaldo” live, a real beast of the jungle, or was it only an actor in disguise? I often wonder about the lions we battle in our religious lives; are they real or imagined? ...
Views: 2188