Posts by Yaakov Klein

Yesterday, on the way to my weekly class in Yeshivat Mevaseret Tzion, I had the radio tuned to a Jewish music station. They were playing “oldies but goodies” and I was thoroughly enjoying songs I hadn’t heard since my childhood when, suddenly, the music abruptly stopped, replaced by a static hiss. I was passing through…

As a kid, I used to come down with strep throat every year or so. I would feel it coming on the night before and inevitably wake up with swollen tonsils, a pounding headache, and the inability to swallow. After a quick trip to the doctor, the recovery process was pretty simple; 24 hours after…

I traveled to a small moshav for Shabbos, where Rav Kook zt”l was purported to be spending the summer. My heart was aflame with joy over the knowledge that the Rav was indeed alive in our times. I spoke with the people in shul, expressing my great surprise that someone of Rav Kook’s stature should…

This morning, Shmuel Shmelke was very insistent on being held. I needed to get dressed and take care of a few things, but he absolutely refused to be put down. I carried him into my in-law’s basement/playroom and sat down with him on the floor next to some matchbox cars – his favorite toys. They…

Friends, I would like to share with you a lesson I learned this morning from my greatest teacher, my 9-month-old son, Shmuel Shmelke. B’chasdei Hashem, over the past few weeks our Shmuel has hit several developmental milestones. Among them are crawling, pulling himself up to standing position, and – most recently – high-fiving me, his…

Take a good look at this picture. Looks like any alter Yid, right? What if I told you that this elderly Jew: Survived two World Wars Never missed a single Tikkun Chatzos for 70 straight years Rescued two orphaned siblings from a government orphanage – despite terrible financial woes and under the watchful gaze of…

Although summing up my feelings on the Piacezner Rebbe and what his teachings have done for my journey to an authentic yiddishkeit seems to be an impossible task, I think there are two features that draw me more than anything else: relatability and honesty. From the very beginning of Chovas Hatalmidim, where the rebbe’s soaring…

It is beyond wonderful that we, in this generation, have access to the Torah of all the generations that preceded us; hundreds of thousands of heavy tomes filled with the deepest heavenly wisdom. But sometimes I feel like all we need is the tiniest percentage of that wisdom to actually enter our hearts and have…