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Articles from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg | Selfgrowth.com
- Rosh Hashana: Shades of Light - by Submitted on Sep 07, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergIt was pitch black when I arrived in the park this morning for my daily walk. Each park bench was occupied by a homeless person. Skunks were rifling through the garbage cans. None of the usual walkers were crazy enough to be there in those conditions. It was also freezing and I considered ...
Views: 794 - Temptations - by Submitted on Dec 14, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergWhich temptation was more challenging? Was it Potiphar’s wife or, perhaps it was the temptation to ask Pharaoh’s wine steward to help him get out of jail? All I know is that I would not want to be challenged by either, although I suspect that we constantly face them in different ...
Views: 787(1 vote) - That Day At Sinai - by Submitted on Feb 01, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergJose Saramago, writing in “The Notebook” about Lisbon, describes communal memory: “In physical terms we inhabit space, but in emotional terms we are inhabited by memory. A memory composed of a space and a time, a memory inside which we live, like an island between two oceans-one the past, the ...
Views: 787(1 vote) - Spiritual Matters - by Submitted on Dec 23, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergPharaoh had a problem. It doesn’t seem too serious, but it has the potential to explode. Moses arrived with Aaron to demand; “Let My people Go!” The people in question are not there. Oh! They set out with Moses and his brother to confront Pharaoh, but they dropped off, one by one, and by the ...
Views: 780(1 vote) - Where Everything is Moral - by Submitted on May 25, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergWhat a strange place to build a community! The theme of the fourth book of the Torah is found in its name, Bamidbar, “In The Desert.” Why the desert? Why is the desert so fundamental to all the stories and laws that develop through this book? Were they really considered to be in the desert? Was ...
Views: 757 - The Security of The Succah - by Submitted on Oct 07, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe twelve-hour drive from Toronto for our annual Succot visit with my grandparents left me bruised, battered, and drained by all the fights my sister began with me. (I, of course, never started a fight.) We arrived in 1968, post riots Baltimore. Although I did not see burned out cars on my ...
Views: 756(1 vote) - What To Do With ItWhat To Do With It - by Submitted on Feb 05, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergMy father zt"l was teaching me how to wrap Tefillin. I playfully made a he-man muscle provoking my sister to offer to find a microscope to find my bicep. "What the two of you don't yet know is that if you wear your Tefillin properly, you will become much stronger," my father assured me. My ...
Views: 750 - The Burden of a Decision Part Two - by Submitted on Nov 30, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergOne man has turned your safe world upside down. (See “The Burden of a Decision”) You were comfortable adjusting to Greek rule, and allowing those modern Hellenists to do what they wanted as long as you could live in peace. Matityahu has forced the issue to the fore, and you now have to ...
Views: 749 - Seeing the Monster - by Submitted on Apr 22, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergBlood curdling screams chilled me to the bone just as I hesitantly sat down to write this newsletter. I ran upstairs, my heart pounding, to find my daughter terrorized by a "gynormous monster!" All I could see was an inch long bug, and I was too shaken by her screams and the heavy exercise to ...
Views: 742 - Searching For Silence - by Submitted on Aug 26, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI received the following article and do not know who wrote it, but it’s worthwhile. I’m using it to prepare to listen to the sound of the Shofar: It’s high summer and we’re all out there seeing each other. We’re not hidden away in our homes and offices as we are in winter’s cold. We’re ...
Views: 740 - Something To Explain - by Submitted on Sep 23, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI was putting the final touches on my first Yom Kippur sermon in my new synagogue. I wanted to begin with an acknowledgment that I hurt people even though I had only been there for a month or two, and I wanted people to learn to ask for forgiveness. I was writing, “Request for Mechilah – ...
Views: 737 - Inspiring Good - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha Weinberg“And those who bring the people to do the right thing shall be as the stars, eternal (Daniel 12:3).” The Midrash comments: Just as one sees the light of the stars from one end of the world to the other, so, too, one sees the light of Good People from one end of the world to the other. Just as ...
Views: 730(1 vote) - Korach and Bullies: A Question - by Submitted on Jun 29, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergHaving been the poster child of the 99lb weakling for all those Charles Atlas ads in the back of my childhood comic books, I feel that I must inform my friends, and for that matter, my enemies as well, of my brute strength. My pinky can counteract the gravity of an entire planet that weighs over ...
Views: 729 - The Strength of Arguing - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Anshei Knesset HaGedolah conclude the first Mishna in Avot by teaching, “Strengthen your Torah through constant discussion.” (Chassid Ya’avetz, who does not believe that the Mishna teaches us to “Make a fence around the Torah!”) Who were these people? The Talmud teaches: “Why were they ...
Views: 729 - Korach and Bullies: A Question - by Submitted on Jun 21, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergHaving been the poster child of the 99lb weakling for all those Charles Atlas ads in the back of my childhood comic books, I feel that I must inform my friends, and for that matter, my enemies as well, of my brute strength. My pinky can counteract the gravity of an entire planet that weighs over ...
Views: 711 - The Mystery & The Puzzle - by Submitted on Sep 14, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergDavid Morris writes in “The Culture of Pain” that to a doctor, pain is a puzzle, but to a patient it is a mystery, in the ancient sense of the word, a truth necessarily closed off from full understanding, which refuses to yield every quantum of its darkness: “a landscape where nothing looks ...
Views: 702 - Timeless: Precious Moments - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Chafetz Chaim had an interesting approach to the Talmudic statement that “Whoever forgets the Torah he has studied has forfeit part of his eternal life.” (Chapters of Our Fathers 3:8) It is commonly understood to refer to someone who does not constantly review what he has learned. The ...
Views: 690 - Job Descriptions - by Submitted on Jan 18, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe Sages teach us that the Egyptians gave everyone jobs at which they were not skilled in order to increase their frustration and prevent them from having any sense of accomplishment. How did the Sages know? The Foundation Stone™ did some serious research on this issue and found an ...
Views: 685(2 votes) - Midrash Esther Chapter Three VIII: On This World - by Submitted on Mar 20, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergAnother explanation: “From among those whose death is by Your hand, God.” How mighty are those who have received empire from Your hand. Who is this? This is Nebuchadnezar. “From among those,” namely, those who have received their portion on this world. “Whose portion is in this life,” ...
Views: 681 - Where’s Moshe? - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergIn December 1974 the Austrian economist Friedrich August von Hayek received one of the first Nobel Prizes in economics. Hayek titled his speech “The Pretence of Knowledge.” Concluding his speech, he warned, “If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he ...
Views: 670(2 votes) - Neighborhoods in the Sky: Succot - by Submitted on Oct 21, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergMy wife and I turned onto 26th street, between 6th and 7th, the New York City area known as ‘The Plant District’, and strange things began to happen. Storeowners ran outside and began to pull their security gates down, closing their stores. Others were rushing to cover all the plants on the ...
Views: 651 - Hail To The King! From The Diary of A Former Slave VII - by Submitted on Jan 27, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI once watched a drunken man running down the street in the rain, weaving from one side to the other. When I asked him what he was doing, he responded, “I’m running through the raindrops!” I’m not drunk. I’m not even running. I can walk, even stand between the hailstones. They just won’t fall ...
Views: 647 - Loving God 8 - by Submitted on Jun 10, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe verse tells us that we are challenged by false prophets; "for God, your Lord, is testing you to know whether you love God, your Lord with all your heart and all your soul." Nachmanides explains that God wills to measure our love for Him, in order that we can realize the intensity of our ...
Views: 643 - The Study Partner - by Submitted on Feb 17, 2010 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI recently took out a sefer – holy book – that I studied in the summer of 1980 in order to certify as a Shochet – a ritual slaughterer. I was surprised to find that it was a far more enjoyable study and challenge than the first time. The book is highly technical and my chavrusa, or study ...
Views: 636(1 vote) - Responsibility - by Submitted on Jan 14, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergI am reposting this blog on the first anniversary of the Haitian earthquake: It is far easier to work for the BNN, the Biblical News Network, and report on thousands of years and cities of Jewish history, than it is to work for CNN and report on everything that is happening all over the world ...
Views: 602 - Signposts: From The Diary of a Former Slave II - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2011 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergThe blood has been gone for a few days. The city is humming again, except for all the work projects that have stopped. The Egyptians stay away from us. Everyone is wondering whether the blood plague was the end of it. I already overhear some of my former masters whispering, “We’ll get them back ...
Views: 586 - Neighborhoods in the Sky: Succot - by Submitted on Oct 12, 2009 from Rabbi Simcha WeinbergMy wife and I turned onto 26th street, between 6th and 7th, the New York City area known as ‘The Plant District’, and strange things began to happen. Storeowners ran outside and began to pull their security gates down, closing their stores. Others were rushing to cover all the plants on the ...
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