Posts by Yaakov Klein
“Set and Setting”: Preparing Ourselves for a Transformative Purim Experience
Hi. I have always found Purim to be an incredibly “noisy” day. It’s so easy to become distracted by everything that needs to get done! I’m wondering if you have any practical advice as to how to truly experience the joy and spirituality of Purim. Thank you! Thank you so much for this important question!…
Read More“Ish Emunah”: It’s Time to Heal Our World
Before the creation of spatial reality, the Infinite One constricted Himself from the center point of His Infinite Light, creating a “vacant space”. He then drew a ray of His G-dliness into the cavity, along which the entire chain of emanation was created and formed to channel this ray toward its culmination in our physical…
Read MoreTwo Suitcases and a Mystery: The Enigma of Mr. Shoshani
Pick a street in Lithuania, India, Yaffo, Switzerland, Cincinnati, Algeria, Morocco, Berlin, Paris, or Uruguay; there he roams, the shadow of his silent presence searching, haunting. Hunched over, face darkened, a suitcase in each hand, he walks toward you in the dusk. His clothes are tattered, stained with ink, a misshapen hat sits above his…
Read More5 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self
If I could speak to my younger self (who I can still envision sitting alone on the back steps of my yeshiva in a grey sweatshirt, broken hearted in a way very few seemed able to understand, hugging his knees and wondering endlessly) here are five things I’d tell him: 1. Beyond serving as your…
Read MoreOur Heart Skipped a Beat
It was late Purim afternoon in Yerushalayim. Our lively, uplifting seuda winding down, we were getting ready to dance our way into Shabbos preparations. A minute before bentching, I glanced at my phone, and I felt a shock ripple through my being. I couldn’t believe the words I was reading. Maran Sar HaTorah, Rav Chaim…
Read MoreThe Blessing of Authenticity
One of the most magical moments in the parental relationship occurs when the veil of authority lifts, and father and daughter, mother and son can sit with each other as equals – on the floor working on a puzzle in the younger years or over steaming cups of coffee at a café table a decade…
Read MoreLPI Tour 2021 – Full Recap!
Thursday, December 16th, 2021 It is midnight at nearly 37,000 feet somewhere over Europe. Physically exhausted from the last week, I conked out for a few hours in the beginning of the flight. Now awake and spiritually exhilarated, I feel compelled to write to you about my experiences. Over the last week, I merited to…
Read MoreThe Eternal Victory of Chanukah
One, less than serious, answer to the question of why we eat an abundance of fried foods during the glorious days of Chanukah is that we do so to counter the Greeks and their worldview. Because the villains of the Chanukah story exalted the human body and the beauty of its form, we eat particularly…
Read MoreGrowing Up
You should see the way his eyes sparkle when he lovingly holds his brand new kippa in his small hands. You should see the smile, wide as the heavens above, that spreads across his face when he kisses his choo-choo-train emblazoned tzitzis that proudly declare in green lettering, “Ani Ben Shalosh!” It’s finally coming, his…
Read MoreI Am Hopeful
We live in a complex world, a world with many issues that manifest across the experiential spectrum of the human condition. Things seem to be getting worse, devolving into a downward spiral of bad to worse, of crisis to more urgent crisis. But I am hopeful. More than hopeful – I am radically optimistic. The…
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