Urgency, Importance, and the Yeitzer
Rabbi Ephraim Becker wrote in a reply to a comment on one of his posts: The Yetzer hijacks our urgency (we get more excited about playing with the latest PDA than about getting up...
Category: Psyche
The Point of Decision
A rather well-known section of Michtav meiEliyahu (vol 1 pg 113) is the Qunterus haBechirah. In it, Rav Dessler compares the decision-making process to a battle. All the fighting occurs at the front lines;...
Adam and Pinocchio
(First, please see part I about the eitz hada’as, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The following is extrapolated from a thought in an essay by R’ Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer.) Until Adam...
The Origins of Imperfection
The first we hear of Hashem allowing things to go in something other than the ideal way is in the creation of plants. There is a medrash (Breishis Rabba 5:9) that comments on a...
See but not Seen
The best day of my life — my rebirthday, so to speak — was when I found I had no head… I had for several months been absorbed in the question: what am I?...
The Psychological Model of Orechos Tzaddiqim
(First paragraph edited on July 16 in response to R’ Seth Kadish’s comments. -mi)The following is culled from the introduction to Orchos Tzaddiqim. Orchos Tzaddiqim, was written anonymously some time between 1306 and 1400...
Tum’ah and Taharah, part II
Rav Y Henken replied to my previous entry on this subject (repeated here for the benefit of Google). He wrote: See in my “New Interpretations on rhe Parsha” (Ktav) and also Shu”t Bnei Banim...
Tum’ah and Taharah
[From this week’s Shabat B’Shabbato by Machon Zomet. I found this devar Torah to be particularly Aspaqlaria-esque. See also my take on tum’ah from Mesukim MiDevash on Chukas.]POINT OF VIEW Ritual Impurity and Purity...
Politeness and Taharah
The word “polite” comes from the Latin “politus” via the Old English “polit”, to polish. Polish is itself of the same derivation.I think this is a very telling statement about Western Culture. Politeness is...
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