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Articles from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg | Selfgrowth.com
- 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: 889 - 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: 900 - 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: 962 - 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: 1050 - 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: 959 - Responsibility - by Submitted on Jan 14, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI am reposting this blog on the first anniversary of the Haitian earthquake: It is far easier to work for the BNN, the Biblical News Network, and report on thousands of years and cities of Jewish history, than it is to work for CNN and report on everything that is happening all over the world ...
Views: 602 - 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: 1267 - Rosh Hashana: Shades of Light - by Submitted on Sep 07, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergIt was pitch black when I arrived in the park this morning for my daily walk. Each park bench was occupied by a homeless person. Skunks were rifling through the garbage cans. None of the usual walkers were crazy enough to be there in those conditions. It was also freezing and I considered ...
Views: 793 - Searching For Silence - by Submitted on Aug 26, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI received the following article and do not know who wrote it, but it’s worthwhile. I’m using it to prepare to listen to the sound of the Shofar: It’s high summer and we’re all out there seeing each other. We’re not hidden away in our homes and offices as we are in winter’s cold. We’re ...
Views: 740 - 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: 742 - 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: 1084 - 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: 998 - Signposts: From The Diary of a Former Slave II - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe blood has been gone for a few days. The city is humming again, except for all the work projects that have stopped. The Egyptians stay away from us. Everyone is wondering whether the blood plague was the end of it. I already overhear some of my former masters whispering, “We’ll get them back ...
Views: 586 - Something To Explain - by Submitted on Sep 23, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI was putting the final touches on my first Yom Kippur sermon in my new synagogue. I wanted to begin with an acknowledgment that I hurt people even though I had only been there for a month or two, and I wanted people to learn to ask for forgiveness. I was writing, “Request for Mechilah – ...
Views: 736 - 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: 961 - 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: 1105 - 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: 1086 - The Burden of a Decision Part Two - by Submitted on Nov 30, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergOne man has turned your safe world upside down. (See “The Burden of a Decision”) You were comfortable adjusting to Greek rule, and allowing those modern Hellenists to do what they wanted as long as you could live in peace. Matityahu has forced the issue to the fore, and you now have to ...
Views: 749 - 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: 838 - 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: 906 - The Judgment Of The Birds - by Submitted on May 06, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“…and for the person being purified there shall be taken two live, clean birds…and the one bird shall be slaughtered…as for the live bird…set free upon the open field.” (Leviticus 14:4-7) Every time I study this portion, which describes the purification process of the Metzorah, who has been ...
Views: 5083 - 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: 702 - The Strength of Arguing - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Anshei Knesset HaGedolah conclude the first Mishna in Avot by teaching, “Strengthen your Torah through constant discussion.” (Chassid Ya’avetz, who does not believe that the Mishna teaches us to “Make a fence around the Torah!”) Who were these people? The Talmud teaches: “Why were they ...
Views: 729 - Timeless: Precious Moments - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Chafetz Chaim had an interesting approach to the Talmudic statement that “Whoever forgets the Torah he has studied has forfeit part of his eternal life.” (Chapters of Our Fathers 3:8) It is commonly understood to refer to someone who does not constantly review what he has learned. The ...
Views: 690 - 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: 877 - 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: 750 - 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 ...
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