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The packed room had been silent for a few minutes, the air thick with anticipation. All eyes were on the stage at the front of the dimly lit room, where the beloved “dancing Rabbi”, Reb Shlomo Carlebach z”l, was about to begin a long-awaited concert. But something clearly wasn’t right. R’ Shlomo was bent over…

  “Never confuse righteousness with self-righteousness. They sound similar, but they are opposites. The righteous see the good in people; the self-righteous see the bad. The righteous make you feel bigger; the self-righteous make you feel small. The righteous praise; the self-righteous criticize.” – Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sachs, Letters to the Next Generation “As for…

THERE EXISTS A dual perspective of reality. One perspective is reality as seen from God’s viewpoint, while the other is reality as seen from the viewpoint of Man. In the words of the Zohar, this paradigm is called “mimaleh and soveiv“, “filling and surrounding”. 1. Mimaleh: From Hashem’s perspective, the physical universe and the reality it contains, including…

In sharp contrast to the traditional approach of the other Chassidic masters, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772 – 1810) would often play chess with the “enlightened” Jews of Uman, Jews who had forsaken the ancient tradition of their birth for what they saw as being a more sophisticated lifestyle. As they played, the great master…