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Shabbos: Hishtadlus vs Rest
When giving the commandment to keep Shabbos, the Torah tells us: “Six days you will work and you will complete all of your labor” (Shemos, 20:8) Surely it’s impossible for a person to actually complete all of his work before Shabbos! Shabbos is more of a “pause” where we take a break after a long…
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Talent Building for Better Divine Service
Have you ever compared yourself to someone else? Most of us do it at one point or another. We ask ourselves, why can’t we be as talented, smart, pretty, or fit as someone else? Or we argue, if we had a certain person’s wealth, house, family, job, and so on, our lives would be so…
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Ketuba: Love Blossoms Through Commitment
Little girls dream of their wedding day. They dream about their beautiful white dress, the magical chuppa, their husband-to-be. Yet, perhaps one of the least exciting moments of the wedding is the signing and reading of the Ketuba, the Jewish marriage contract itself. Aramaic words are read aloud for a minute or two and sometimes…
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Prayer and Hitbodedut: Reflections on Connecting to Hashem in Different Ways
How many times have I raced through davening because of a busy schedule? Or got distracted by the people around me, noises outside, or even the phone ringing? And I can’t even count the number of moments where my own trifling thoughts creep into my daily prayer that I can’t even remember the words I’ve…
