Fears can be extraordinarily debilitating, and generally speaking sane people don’t want to be debilitated. This is the reason why a great deal of psychology exists around fear, i.e. how to deal with it, how to overcome it, and even … Continued
Last week in our article Don’t Worry, You Won’t Die we examined Chavah’s grave error in eating from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Torah describes her acceptance of the advice of the … Continued
In the previous issue of The Shoemaker Report, in the article entitled The Primordial Criminal Mastermind we explored the essence of the sin of Adam ha-Rishon [אדם הראשון, Primordial Man] and discovered that he relied on his “superior” intellectual prowess … Continued
Even though we have written about the sin of Adam ha-Rishon [אדם הראשון, Primordial Man] previously (see “Daat, Daat Everywhere and not a Drop of Truth” and “The Sweetness of Silence”), we are revisiting this topic because without a solid … Continued
Something came up in my life recently that caused me to ask the following: Have I ever done anything in my life that was done for someone else without any ulterior motives on my part, without even a trace of … Continued
In a recent article How Transparent is Your Aspaklaria? we explained how מידה כנגד מידה [middah k’neged middah] is a gift from the Holy One blessed be He. If we pay attention, especially to the ‘negative’ or unpleasant things that … Continued
Can you remember when tears flowed freely on Tisha b’Av or on Yom Kippur? If not, have you ever heard stories of how even just one or two generations ago almost every Jew could cry and cry on such days? … Continued
Describing the time in the future when Mashiach will reign, David ha-Melech expressed a beautiful thought simply and eloquently (Tehillim 149:3): יְהַלְלוּ שְׁמוֹ בְמָחוֹל בְּתֹף וְכִנּוֹר יְזַמְּרוּ־לוֹ (Let them praise His name with a circle-dance; with tambourine and with lyre … Continued
All of us are familiar with the three basic dimensions of space: length, width and height. Some of us are even aware that in some way or another (incomprehensible to most of us) Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity treats … Continued
We live in a very noisy world. To a certain extent, we have become programmed to eschew silence. Silence has become an enemy of sorts. The moment we might come to experience a moment of silence, we grab for our … Continued