by Ben Goldberg | Mar 22, 2024 | Beginner
Last class we reviewed the fourteenth blessing of the Shemoneh Esrai, continuing to review the communal blessings and focusing on our request that we return to Jerusalem. Today we review the fifteenth blessing overall and continue our examination of the prayer’s set...
by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld | Mar 22, 2024 | Beginner
One who has repented (lit., ‘a master of repentance’) should not imagine that he is distant from the high level of the righteous because of the transgressions and sins that he did. The matter is not so. Rather, he is beloved and precious before the Creator...
by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld | Mar 20, 2024 | Beginner
Pestilence comes to the world for death penalties mentioned in the Torah which are not in the hands of the courts [to administer] and for [the forbidden use of] Sabbatical year produce. The sword comes to the world for the delay of justice, the perversion of justice,...
by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld | Mar 15, 2024 | Beginner
Do not say that teshuva (repentance) is only for sins which involve doing an action, such as adultery, theft, or burglary. [Rather,] just as a person must repent these, so too he must examine his bad qualities and repent over them, [such as] from anger, hatred,...
by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld | Mar 15, 2024 | Beginner
Seven types of punishments come to the world on account of seven basic transgressions. If some people tithe and some do not, a famine caused by [partial] drought will result; some will be hungry and some will be sated. If people have determined not to tithe, a famine...
