Light to the Nations When I became a baal t’shuva 37 years ago, I benefited greatly by studying the writings of Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsh, especially his Commentary on the Torah and his Commentary on the Book of Psalms. In the year 1836, he wrote in his book,...
A neighbor was giving me a lift and he was asking what I did. I said I strive to be an Oved HaShem, a servant of GD. He said we should all do that but how do you make a living? I said I pray to GD like everyone else. What I do: Fact is that I am in the Chesed...
It feels like yesterday when the six of us very late at night arrived in Israel, November 18, 1996. Warm autumn winds were blowing, and we felt very grateful to have arrived. From the first moment, we felt at home. Our children had not visited Israel before. We had...
When I first came to Israel forty years ago, as a non-religious tourist in search of my true inner self, Rabbi Meir Schuster, of blessed memory, approached me at the Kotel and asked if I wanted to attend a few interesting classes on Judaism at a yeshiva. I had...
Jerusalem Day The neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe, where I live in Jerusalem, near the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, is an interesting blend of Religious Zionists, Haredim, and Hasidim, who live in the adjoining streets of Givat Shaul. Sometimes in the morning, depending on...
Eretz Yisrael and the Secrets of Torah If it is so obvious from a simple, straightforward reading the Torah that G-d wants the Jewish People to live in the Land of Israel, why are so many Jews still living in foreign lands? Rabbi Chaim Vital, the foremost student of...
