it can be done
via youtube.com
Believe this: it is possible to know with clarity what our purpose in life is and to fulfill our unique potential. Live with this thought and you will see that you can even walk on water...
because my soul is not a raisin
a precious treasure
We're still holding after Shavuas. It is important to remember that the forty days after Shavuas is the time when Moshe was in shamayim learning the Torah, and this time period has its own special avodah. Rav Tzvi Meir says that the avodah after the Yom Tov is even more important than the preperation for the holiday and even the holiday itself. The work now is to guard the treasure that we received. Sounds sweet but the situation after the holiday creates a unique challenge.
to see and be seen
It is an obligation to visit one's Rebbi on the Holiday (Sukah 27:b)
RAV YONASAN EIBESHITZ (Ya'aros Devash 1:12 and elsewhere) explains that during the times of the Beis ha'Mikdash (when Elisha lived), everyone would go to greet the presence of the Shechinah in Yerushalayim. They would visit the Rebbi only on Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh, when there was no requirement to go to Yerushalayim. After the Churban, the practice was instituted to visit the Rebbi in place of going to Yerushalayim, because a Talmid Chacham reflects the presence of the Shechinah.
via dafyomi.co.il
do it now!
If you haven't done teshuvah, whether you did not awaken yourself before the counting of the omer began (or any other time during the counting), do not say that there is no hope. Rather "until the morrow of the seventh week you are to count fifty days," which means, the entire time that there is even one day left from the counting. This teaches us that with teshuvah (even on this last) day it is possible to enlighten all the fifty days.
Avodas Yisroel
the cleansing fire
Parshas Shemini
excerpt from a discourse of the Biala Rebbe, shlita
As Bnei Yisrael travel through Golus, we are inevitably influenced by association with our neighbors, and pick up the mannerisms of the countries where we sojourn, as the Rambam writes: “The nature of man is to be drawn after the his peers in thought and deed, and to act according to the manner of his countrymen.” As a result, we adopt impure desires and philosophies that contradict the holy Torah.
As the generations pass, the impurity of the Golus intensifies and its corruptive influence on Bnei Yisrael steadily increases.If we wish to maintain the holiness and purity that is our legacy as the Chosen Nation, our only recourse is to cleave to the holy Torah with all our hearts and souls, and thus draw down from Heaven the cleansing fire that descended on Har Sinai to purify our ancestors from the influence of the primordial snake. This same fire can cleanse us from the negative influence of Golus.
a unified relationship
(download)
Rabbi Moshe Weinberger
May 14, 1996
In this talk about Shavuos, Rav Weinberger addresses a question about a verse in Shir haShirim (1:2) "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine." Who is asking who for a kiss? The bride, the people of Israel, from Hashem, or is it Hashem, the groom, asking for a kiss from his bride?
see the thunder and hear the lightning
via youtube.com
“All the people saw the sounds and the flames.” (Shmos 20:1) In this verse, which describes the revelation at Sinai, Rabbi Akiva maintains that the Giving of the Torah brought about an upheaval within the natural order; the people “heard what is usually seen and saw what is usually heard.” They saw the sounds and heard the flames.
We can understand Rabbi Akiva’s statement that at the Giving of the Torah, the Jews “heard what is usually seen and saw what is usually heard.” In his view, the purpose of the Torah is to transform a person’s frame of reference, to draw him away from involvement in worldly matters and connect him to the spiritual. In his reading of the verse, this is what the Jews actually experienced at Sinai. Their senses were reoriented and they “saw” the spiritual and “heard” the material.
via chabad.org
the highest reflection
The 48 ways of acquiring the Torah (as explained in Pirkei Avos) correlate to the 49 days of the counting of the omer, and the 49th day corresponds to prayer.
Reb Noson of Breslov
