by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman | Aug 13, 2015 | Beginner
R’ Salanter once again underscores the point that we’re to always remember to at least observe those mitzvahs that are easy enough to keep at the moment and to avoid the sins that are easy enough to shun at that point, if nothing else. This is especially...
by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman | Jul 23, 2015 | Beginner
We now come upon R’ Salanter’s final letter in this series, and it begins by introducing the idea of straightforward and logical mitzvahs as opposed to the more “inexplicable” and mysterious ones. The former are termed mishpatim in Hebrew and...
by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman | Jul 10, 2015 | Beginner
Returning to his poignant word of warning that at bottom we’ll “always be human” despite our best efforts to always do what’s right, R’ Salanter adds that we’ll always be “encumbered by emotions” and suffer from an...
by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman | May 28, 2015 | Beginner
R’ Salanter makes a number of very cogent and deeply insightful remarks in his excursion spoken of above which we’ll come to now. His first is that despite our efforts to be rational about ourselves and about the world around us, we will “always be...
by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman | May 15, 2015 | Beginner
There are three especially important things to concentrate on in order to serve G-d well, R’ Salanter adds here at the end of this letter. (We’ll come to his lengthy excursion that we spoke of above after this.) We must first be sure to foster a deep...