Don't know where to start with all the wonders of this shiur..... you really need to just listen to it. Some incredibly fascinating insights into angels and white magic [!] aka practical kabbalah. Rabbi Kessin has a unique way of explaining everything and you need to hear this one.
“In material things, look to those who have less than you and thank G-d for His kindness to you. In spiritual matters, look at those above you and ask G-d to give you the wisdom to learn from them.”
Ruach HaKodesh literally means ''breath of the Holy'' or more simply Divine Inspiration - it is what we call intuition, knowing something that you could generally have no way of knowing. Although similar, it's not the same thing as Prophecy, as explained here.
Rabbi Pinson explains why most of us do not have this ability now, and how we can try and get it back.
This week's Parsha, Terumah, means ''contribution'', since the Tabernacle [mishkan] was constructed from contributions made by the Jewish people.
But why is the Parsha about G-d's house named after man's contribution?
Chassidic thought teaches that G-d created the world because He had a Plan, but the Plan contains a clause: The Plan is that G-d's presence should be revealed in the world.
The clause is that this should occur by the efforts of man.
At the giving of the Torah, G-d stated His Plan. He taught us that we can reveal His presence in the world by performing the mitzvot.
But, at that moment, everything had come from G-d.
With the construction of the Tabernacle, G-d's clause began to be implemented. Now man had made an effort to help G-d's Plan reach fruition.
It is for this reason that our Parsha, which speaks of G-d's house, is named after man's contribution. For G-d's house could only be complete when His clause for human involvement was adhered to.
Source: Likutei Sichos Lubavitcher Rebbe
Exceptional Merit of Women
All of us are part of The Plan. We were chosen to be here to witness the Final Redemption, may it come speedily in our days. We are gilgulim [reincarnations] of the D'or HaMidbar - the generation who wandered through the desert. We complained a lot, both then and now. But everything we are doing, and everything that is happening to us, is a tikkun [rectification].
When the Lubavitcher Rebbe established the womens' group N'Shei Ubnos Chabad [Women and Daughters of Chabad], the Rebbe called in Rabbi Yosef Wineberg shlita who was at that time a young man and told him the following:
“It says in Kitvei Arizal [the writings of the Arizal] that the generation before Moshiach is the same generation as the Dor HaMidbar. At that time the women were exceptional in a number of areas:
They did not participate in the Chait HaEigel [the golden calf]
They gave their jewelry for the Mishkan.
They showed great love for the land of Israel.
The reward for this will be that in the generation before Moshiach the Talmidei Chachamim will follow the directions of their wives.
If we want to accomplish with the men we first must accomplish with the women.”
In honour of Rosh Chodesh Adar.....This may just be the most interesting shiur I have ever heard!
Rabbi Mendel Kessin is explaining everything in a way I have never heard before.
A complete overview of how things works in the spiritual realm, the role of the Jews and the roles of the two Moshiachs. Listen to this and you will finally understand exactly how the world operates on a spiritual level. So many questions that you didn't even know how to ask, are answered here. I was totally blown away by this shiur.
The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, arrived on the shores of America in March 1940, after a miraculous escape from Nazi-occupied Poland. Arriving in New York, he set for himself the task of building a Jewish infrastructure to replace the one going up in flames in Eastern Europe. In fact, he established his first yeshivah in the Western Hemisphere on the very night that he arrived. In the decade that followed, many more Torah schools and other religious institutions were founded by his devoted emissaries across the United States and Canada.
The Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn and his
predecessor R' Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn in 1949
Though the Rebbe’s spirit and resolve were indomitable, his body was battered and broken due to beatings and abuse at the hands of the KGB, as well as multiple health issues, including debilitating multiple sclerosis. The Rebbe’s speech was also impacted; after a few years, only those in his closest circle, such as his family and secretariat, were able to comprehend his slurred words. As a result, the Rebbe stopped orally delivering chassidic discourses in honor of special dates on the Jewish and chassidic calendar, as was his custom. Instead, in advance of these propitious dates, he would submit written discourses for publication, to be studied by his chassidim when that day arrived.
The tenth of Shevat was the yahrtzeit of the Rebbe’s grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah. In the year 5710 [1950], the tenth of Shevat would fall on Shabbat. In honor of the occasion, the Rebbe submitted for publication a discourse entitled Basi L'Gani [“I have come to My Garden”].
On that Shabbat morning, the Rebbe passed away at the age of 69.
The year that followed was one of apprehension for Chabad-Lubavitch chassidim. Many immediately recognized that the Rebbe’s son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was eminently suited to succeed his father-in-law, due to his outstanding scholarship and piety. But Rabbi Menachem Mendel humbly refused to accept the mantle of leadership.
After a full year of pleading and cajoling on the part of chassidim, Rabbi Menachem Mendel relented. On the first anniversary of his predecessor’s passing, Rabbi Menachem Mendel accepted upon himself the leadership of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. In traditional Chabad chassidic form, he did so by delivering a chassidic discourse during a farbrengen [chassidic gathering] on that historic day.
The new Rebbe’s discourse was also entitled Basi Legani. In fact, it was based upon the very discourse that his father-in-law had submitted a year earlier. He started off where his predecessor left off . . .
In the decades that followed, every year on the 10th of Shevat, the Rebbe would host a grand farbrengen, in keeping with chassidic tradition that designates the yahrtzeit of a righteous person as a highly auspicious day. For the chassidim, the day had additional import—it was the anniversary of the date when the Rebbe assumed leadership.
And every year at the 10 Shevat farbrengen, the Rebbe would say a chassidic discourse that started with the words Basi L'Gani, always based on a different chapter of the original discourse penned by his predecessor. It became increasingly clear that the themes addressed in this discourse defined the Rebbe’s leadership.
What does this special discourse discuss? Which garden? Who’s coming to the garden? And why is this arrival in the garden such an important message for our generation?
The Garden
The words “basi legani” are taken from Solomon’s Song of Songs.
The garden is our world. Announcing His arrival here in this garden is G‑d Himself—who refers to it not as “a garden,” but as “My garden.” All that He created belongs to Him, but of all the myriad spiritual emanations and worlds, there is only one to which He refers as “My,” because it is only here—the very lowest realm—that He wants to call home. The divine light shines ever brightly in the supernal worlds, but only in this physical world does G‑d wish to manifest His very essence.
His shechinah [presence] was here when He created this world. But it was driven away by a series of sins, starting with Adam and Eve’s eating the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. Subsequent sinful generations drove the shechinah further away, as it ascended from one heaven to the next.
This was no glitch in the plan; it was anything but.
Just as G‑d created the world with the vision that it would serve as His domicile, He also had a clear vision as to how this domicile would be created. He envisioned a world characterized by frightful spiritual blackness, wherein creations—possessors of free choice, capable of embracing the darkness or rejecting it—would repress the darkness, and ultimately transform it into light.
There must be a world which [on the surface] is inhospitable to its Creator. And through the difficult work of banishing and transforming the darkness, it becomes a beautiful “garden.” A place that G‑d is delighted to inhabit.
Over the years, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, elaborated on the many concepts discussed above. The Rebbe’s inaugural discourse in 1951, explains the special relevance of these ideas to our generation.
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“We are now very near the approaching footsteps of Moshiach; indeed, we are at the conclusion of this period. Our spiritual task is to complete the process of drawing down the shechinah—the essence of the shechinah—specifically within our lowly world.”
At the dividing point of the night, I will go out into the midst of Egypt...[Bo 11:4]
Rashi comments: At the literal level [p'shat] Moshe informed Pharoah that the plague would start at midnight precisely.
A non-literal [agadic] interpretation is that G-d told Moshe the plague would start at precisely midnight, but Moshe decided not to tell this fact over to Pharoah because he feared that the Egyptian astrologers might err in their calculations of the exact time of midnight. Then, when the plague failed to come at the time they expected, they would come to the conclusion that Moshe had spoken falsely. Therefore, Moshe told Pharoah that the plague would start at 'around midnight'.
Mizrachi comments: The Torah states that Moshe told Pharoah the plague would begin כַּחֲצֹת הַלַּיְלָה. Literally, this means 'around midnight'. However it is unthinkable that G-d should express Himself in such an uncertain manner. Therefore, Rashi understood that כַּחֲצֹת means precisely midnight. This unusual translation was achieved by rendering the word not as a noun but as a verb: ''when the night divides''.
The second agadic interpretation of Rashi solves this problem by explaining that G-d did indeed express Himself in precise terms, but Moshe chose to use a more ambiguous expression, for fear of being misjudged.
Ibn Ezra: The term כַּחֲצֹת הַלַּיְלָה could be rendered 'after midnight' i.e. in the second half of the night [as in Ruth 3:8]
Ramban: Moshe was clearly not trying to tell Pharoah the exact timing of the plague at all, for he did not mention which day the plague would occur. Rather, Moshe was hinting generally that the next plague would cause Pharoah and his servants to arise in the middle of the night.
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Perhaps we could argue that Rashi accepted the problem presented by Ramban that the warning of a precise time seems totally superfluous here, as Pharoah was in any case not informed of the date.
Furthermore, we do not find that most of the other plagues were associated with a specific time. Even in those instances when the dates were specified [e.g. before the plagues of death of cattle and hail] the time was not. So, why do we find that in this final plague, an exact time was given?
[One exception to this rule was the plague of hail. Rashi explains that Moshe drew a line on the wall and said that when the sun would reach the line, the hail would fall [Vaera 9:18]. But in that case, there was a reason for giving a time, so that those who ''feared the word of G-d'' [Vaera 9:20] would be able to put their slaves and cattle under shelter before the plague started. In our case, however, there is no practical reason to mention the time.]
Since the time appears to be of no relevance here, Rashi concluded that the reference to midnight was primarily a descriptive statement which conveyed the unique quality of the impending plague.
We are therefore left with a question: the distinctive feature of the plague of the firstborn is that it was carried out by G-d Himself, as verse 4 states: ''I will go out into the midst of Egypt''. But if we would follow the usual translation of the word כַּחֲצֹת [around midnight] then how would the verse convey the unique quality of this plague, that G-d was involved personally? Surely, one would expect G-d Himself to be of the utmost precision?
[In fact, we find that the plague of hail was enacted with extreme precision. So, it would be unreasonable to suggest that the plague which G-d enacted personally would be around a certain time, and thus less accurate than one of the previous plagues in which He was not directly ''involved''.]
Therefore, Rashi was forced to conclude that, at the literal level, כַּחֲצֹת הַלַּיְלָה must be rendered [not as 'about midnight' but] as ''precisely midnight'' i.e. even though this is an unconventional [and thus apparently non-literal translation] it is nevertheless necessary to preserve the basic implication of the text, that the plague occurred at a specific time to express G-d's personal involvement.
However, since this interpretation resorted to an unconventional translation, Rashi felt it necessary to bring also a second interpretation from agadic sources.
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Midnight as an Expression of Infinitude
It was explained above that Pharoah was informed of the time of the plague of the firstborn primarily as an expression of G-d's personal involvement. This is highlighted by the comment of Rabbi Yehudah ben Basaira in the Mechilta that midnight is not a definitive moment in time, but rather, a threshold. Thus G-d's revelation at ''midnight'' expresses His true infinitude, how He can be simultaneously revealed in our world that is bound by time, and yet, remain aloof from it.
Source: Based on Likutei Sichos Vol 21 Lubavitcher Rebbe - Gutnick Chumash
One of - if not - the most timeless questions we all ask is: What happens to the soul after death? Where does the soul go to? But is the very premise of this question presumptuous? Our life experiences are mostly limited to the physical and the empirical, defined by our senses which serve as our primary tools. How then can these limited instruments grasp supra-sensory experiences, let alone soulful ones?! How can we expect that they define dimensions of reality that are outside of their narrow scope? So then how can we speak about the soul and the ethereal in any meaningful way?
Please join Rabbi Simon Jacobson in this monumental discussion -- essential to anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of the soul and its journey on earth and beyond.
Rabbi Mendel Kessin - the beginning of this shiur is really a continuation of the 21st Century shiurim, speaking about Trump and the ''future world''. He then talks about what happens to us and the resurrection of the dead after Moshiach comes. As usual, a brilliant lesson from the best!
Chanuka - Fighting Klipat Noga - Powerful Tikun at the end of the video
Klipat: Literally, shells or husks. Singular: Klipa. Used to describe forces that obstruct the divine light. Klipat Noga is a translucent shell—a form of klipa that can be inducted to the service of good.
Rabbi Y. Y. Jacobson's famous series "a journey through the fundamentals of chassidus''. This is just an introduction to the entire series, if you are interested, you can learn the entire Tanya with Rabbi Jacobson by downloading all the MP3s at this link.
The Alter Rebbe - Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi author of The Tanya
The 18th of Kislev marks the completion of the annual cycle of daily readings from the Tanya. The 19th and 20th of Kislev are the "Rosh HaShanah of Chassidus".
On Yud-Tes Kislev we re-commence the annual cycle of daily readings in Tanya, as divided by the Rebbe Rayatz.
It is the anniversary of the release of the Alter Rebbe - Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi [Hebrew: שניאור זלמן מליאדי], the first Rebbe of Chabad, who was informed upon by misnagdim in Russia and arrested on trumped-up charges of supporting the Ottoman Empire.
His informers pointed to the fact that he would urge his followers to send money to the Land of Israel as "evidence" of his alleged insurrectionist aspirations [in fact, the money was sent to support poor Jews]. At the time, the Land of Israel was a part of the Ottoman Empire, which was at war with Russia.
Rabbi Shneur Zalman was charged with treason, and released in the secular year 1798 on the Jewish date of Tuesday, 19 Kislev.
The 53 days of Rabbi Shneur Zalman's imprisonment are said to correspond to the 53 chapters of the first section of the Tanya.
19 Kislev is also considered to mark the day upon which Rabbi Shneur Zalman was conceived, for he was born exactly nine months later, on 18 Elul. [Shemu'os Vesippurim, Refoel Kahn, vol. 1, p. 39]
Rebbetzin Menuchah Rachel born [1798]
On the very day that Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi was liberated from prison, a granddaughter was born to him -- the daugher of his son Rabbi Dovber and his wife Rebbetzin Sheina. The girl was named Menuchah Rachel -- "Menuchah", meaning "tranquility" [Rachel was the name of a daughter of Rabbi Schneur Zalman who died in her youth].
In 1845, Rebbetzin Menuchah Rachel realized her lifelong desire to live in the Holy Land when she and her husband, Rabbi Yaakov Culi Slonim [d. 1857], led a contingent of Chassidim who settled in Hebron. Famed for her wisdom, piety and erudition, she served as the matriarch of the Chassidic community in Hebron until her passing in her 90th year in 1888.
The 19th of Kislev is also the yahrzeit of R. DovBer, the Maggid of Mezritch, who [as successor to the Baal Shem Tov] was the mentor of the second generation of the chassidic movement - from 5521 [1761] until his passing on the third day of the week of Parshas Vayeishev, Yud-Tes Kislev, 5533 [1772]. His resting place is in Anipoli.
Rabbi Dov Ber was born in Volhynia in 1710, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, though other sources say his year of birth is unknown. Little is known about him before he became a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov. A Hasidic legend states that, when he was five years old, his family home burst into flames. On hearing his mother weeping, he asked: "Mother, do we have to be so unhappy because we have lost a house?" She replied that she was mourning the family tree, which was destroyed, and had begun with Rabbi Yohanan, the sandal-maker and master in the Talmud. The boy replied: "And what does that matter! I shall get you a new family tree which begins with me!"
How aptly those words described the role he was later to play; for the boy was destined to become the successor to the Baal Shem Tov.
Five Life Lessons from one of the greatest Jewish mystics: the Alter Rebbe
1. Don't worry about the state of someone else's soul and the needs of your body,
Worry about the needs of someone else's body and the state of your own soul.
2. The bite of the snake doesn't kill you, it's poison does.
The bite is the sin itself; the poison is that voice inside us that whispers ''You are a loser''.
Ignore that voice and move on.
3. Having faith in G-d means having faith in other people, and the measure of our righteousness
lies in how many people we value, not in how many we condemn.
4. A little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness.
5. Heaven is nice, but on the best things like acts of loving kindness, earth has exclusive rights.
Today we're going to devote our thoughts to the coming year. The number of the
year has many allusions. This coming year is 5777, according to the Jewish
calendar, the number of years from creation. The way we usually count it is as
777, the 5000 being set apart. It is customary to create an acronym out of the
letters that spell the 777, which are תשעז .The acronym which is customarily given
starts with the two words, "May this be a year of…" [תַ נְ שׁ אֵ הֵ תּ ]And what we are
asking for is to interpret the two final letters, which in our case are עז .So the full
acronym depends on what the letters עז stand for.
Avraham sent Eliezer to fetch Rivkah at the earliest opportunity, as soon as she had reached marriageable age.
Eliezer's miracle - where his journey was miraculously shortened, allowing him to complete a 17 day journey in one day - thus spared Rivkah from spending an additional 17 days in an atmosphere of idol worship.
From this we can be assured of the speed with which G-d will send Moshiach, saving the Jewish people from even an additional moment in Exile.
Shortly before his marriage, Yitzchak had reached a remarkable degree of spiritual perfection. Right at the beginning of his life he was the first Jew to be circumcised at eight days. He was then educated by Avraham our father, and later showed an eagerness to sacrifice his life to G-d, at the Akeida, from which point on he attained the sanctity of a burnt offering [an olah temimah].
Rivkah, on the other hand, was ''a rose amongst the thorns'', born into a wicked, idol-worshipping family.
The union of Yitzchak and Rivkah was thus a meeting of extremes, and for this very reason it is recorded in the Torah, since Torah itself is a guide to uniting extremes. For when any mitzvah is observed, a mundane physical object becomes infused with Godliness and holiness.
Thus, the marriage of Yitzchak and Rivkah represents the marriage of the spiritual and the physical. And this explains why the Parshaspends so much time discussing their story, since it was the basis of everything that was to follow.
Source: Lubavitcher Rebbe: Based on Likutei Sochos vol 20 p 95-96
''There's a crack in everything - that's how the light gets in.'' [Leonard Cohen]
...actually I would say that's how the light gets out.... because every single thing in this world contains a Divine spark, and when we utilize that object in a good way, as part of a mitzvah, we redeem the sparks. This is called birurim.
Sitting in his hotel room in New York, Rabbi Sacks suddenly had a thought about a connection between the late Leonard Cohen's final song "You Want It Darker", the current state of the world and the week's parsha of Vayera.
The following is written by Zvi Hershcovich
Leonard Cohen was given a Halachic Jewish burial in a quiet ceremony before the media was notified of the poet and musician's passing.
Leonard Cohen
Leonard [Eliezer Ben Nissan HaKohen] was born in Montreal on the 12th of Tishrei, 5695 [September 12, 1934]. His great-uncle, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Cohen, a pious graduate of the Volozhin Yeshiva, had been the chief rabbi of Montreal and Canada.
Born in Westmount, both his grandparents were prominent Orthodox Jews. His mother's father was Rabbi Shlomo Kolnitsky-Kline, a graduate of the Kovno Yeshiva. He was called the Sar HaDikduki (master of grammarians), and he wrote important Sefarim, including a thesaurus on Talmudic interpretation. His father's father was Lyon Cohen, one of the founders of the Shaar Hashomayim Shul, of which Leonard was a member.
In an interview with Jeff Burger, he told the biographer that he often reads Tehillim to find inspiration for his music and poetry. "When they lift up the Torah and say ‘Etz chayim hi l’mah chazikim bah,’ that kind of thing sent a chill down my back," he said. "I wanted to be that one who lifted up the Torah."
He also recalled his pride at being a Kohen. "I wanted to wear white clothes, go into the Holy of Holies, and negotiate with the deepest resources of my soul," he told Burger. "That was poetry to me."
As Cohen's fame grew, he took public stands for Jewish causes and openly displayed his Judaism with pride, singing in Yiddish and going on a tour in Israel where he performed the Birkas Kohanim. During the Yom Kippur war in 1973, he flew to Israel to perform and raise the morale of Jewish soldiers. Cohen's father had fought in World War I, and he rushed to Israel, because as he later told the media, "I am committed to the survival of the Jewish people."
According to the New York Times, he was Shabbos observant on tour and wore Tefillin. He described inheriting his grandfather's Tefillin, gazing at them and trying to make sense of them. "I saw I really could use this material, how exquisite and skillful these prayers were, how they had been designed by minds that you have to incline your heads towards," he said. "These minds who designed these prayers or received the inspiration to design these prayers–these are incredibly subtle and exquisite prayers for lifting the soul."
Just before Rosh Hashana, Cohen released a single which he worked on together with Cantor Gideon Zelermyer of the Shaar Hashomayim and his choir. The song quotes directly from the mourner's Kaddish.
Cohen passed away on Monday, the 6th of Cheshvan [November 7] and was buried quietly in the Orthodox Jewish tradition near the entrance of the Shaar Hashomayim cemetery on Mont Royal.
The media was notified of his passing on Thursday when the Shaar Hashomayim issued a release which noted that, "Leonard’s wish was to be laid to rest in a traditional Jewish rite beside his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents."
Rabbi Adam Scheier shared in a post on social media, that the community had taken great pride in Cohen. "Our pride was not simply that a child of the congregation grew up to be successful and famous; rather, it was that Leonard took the Jewish themes and concepts that he learned at The Shaar and gave them new and inspired expression in his poetry and his songs," wrote Rabbi Scheier. "It was at The Shaar that Leonard first encountered the liturgy of Who By Fire, the praise of Hallelujah, and the reverence of Hineni, I’m ready, my Lord."
New video from Rabbi Yuval Ovadia, in English Title is actually "End of Days Special" and I've only heard the first couple of ...
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"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
