<span style="color: rgb(47, 76, 90); font-family: Signika; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Bechukosai, 20 Iyar, 5784, May 28, 2024, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

At Twilight of the First Shabbos, G-d Created the First Pair of Pliers. Why?

Pirkei Avos Ch. 5 Women's Class

How To Be Present In Life, Showing Up to Every Moment and Every Experience

This text-based class was presented on Thursday, Parshas Noach, 4 Cheshvan, 5784, October 19, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.&nbsp;It is a sicha of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, presented on Shabbos Parshas Bechokosai&nbsp;5722, published in Likkutei Sichos vol. 3 Noach.
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How Did Avraham Get the Reward of the Ten Previous Immoral Generations?

Likkutei Sichos Noach

Our Generation Will Heal All Previous Ones

This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Bamidbar, 25 Iyar, 5783, May 16, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

Before His Death, Achitofel Offers Three Life-Altering Messages

Women's Shavuos Class

Why the Wisest Jew Committed Suicide: The Three Ego Traps

This class was&nbsp;presented on Tuesday, Parshas Emor, 11 Iyar, 5783, May 2, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

In the fourth chapter of the Ethics of the Fathers, we read the following Mishna: Elisha the son of Avuya said: One who studies Torah as a child, to what is he compared? To ink written on fresh paper. And one who studies Torah as an old man, to what is he compared? To ink inscribed on erased paper.

There are a few questions on this Mishnah. First, what&rsquo;s the novelty? This is self-evident. Second, I can understand encouraging parents to teach Torah to their children when they are young and their minds are fertile. But what&rsquo;s the point of the final clause in the Mishnah? If I am an elderly man or woman, and I never had the opportunity to study Torah, why would the Mishnah try to discourage me and make me give up before I even begin?!

Finally, there is something else amiss here. Of the more than one thousand Rabbis cited in the Talmud, only one became a heretic. His name was Elisha ben Avuya. &nbsp;Due to this tragedy, his ideas and teachings are never quoted in the Mishnah. Save in this Mishnah. What happened suddenly? Why did this Mishnah decide to quote him? And why was this particular idea the one chosen to be conveyed to all generations in his name?

He was, by all accounts, one of the outstanding Jewish sages of the second century, a contemporary of Rabbi Akiva, and the teacher of Rabbi Meir, the leading scholar of his generation. Elisha moved so far from Jewish tradition that his colleagues stopped referring to him by his name but rather called him Acher, &ldquo;the other&rdquo;, the outcast, the renegade. Only his student Rabbi Meir remained loyal to the man who had once been his master, sought out his company, and still believed that he might one day repent.

Against this backdrop, we find a deeply moving scene in the Talmud. It is Shabbat, and Elisha ben Abuya is publicly desecrating the holy day by riding on a horse. Walking alongside him is Rabbi Meir. Heretic teacher and faithful disciple travel together along the road arguing and debating Jewish law. Rabbi Meir, the pious Jew, has become so immersed in the conversation that he has not noticed they are nearing the limits beyond which one may not walk on Shabbat. &ldquo;Acher&rdquo;, the apostate, realizes this and says: &ldquo;Meir, turn back. I have measured the distance we have walked by the paces of my horse, and we have reached the Shabbat limit. Beyond here, you are forbidden to walk.

Meir replied: &ldquo;You too turn back.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I cannot turn back,&rdquo; says Elisha. &ldquo;One day I was riding on my horse. It was Yom Kippur, which in that particular year fell on Shabbat. I was roaming behind the Holy of Holies, when I heard a heavenly voice saying: &lsquo;Turn back to me, O lost children, except for Acher... &rsquo;&rdquo;

What is the message of this story? That G-d indeed does not forgive all humans who want to repent? That some must truly be condemned forever? This would contradict a fundamental idea in Judaism that nothing stands in the way of repentance.

Furthermore, if G-d did not want Elisha to repent, why did He communicate with him at all? Why did the heavenly voice begin with words of love and encouragement &ldquo;Turn back to me, O lost children,&rdquo; and end with the fearful decree &ldquo;except for Acher&rdquo;?

This class will analyze the tragic story of Acher, the mysterious call to him on Yom Kippur, and his misinterpretation of it. We will explore the moments before his death, and why he had only one student who remained with him even after his betrayal of his faith. It will teach us about the pain and destiny of our own lives, how to view our own brokenness and wounds, and those of the people around us.

Elisha ben Avuya Traumatized His People—But When He Died, the Truth Came Out 

Women's Class Pirkei Avos Chapter 4

The Shocking Truth about the Greatest Jewish Heretic

This class was&nbsp;presented on Tuesday, Parshas Acharei-Kedoshim, 4 Iyar, 5783, April 25, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

We learn in the third chapter of Pirkei Avos: Rabbi Chaninah, deputy to the kohanim, would say: Pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not for the fear it inspires, every man would swallow his neighbor alive. Rabbi Chaninah son of Tradyon would say: If two sit together and there are no words of Torah [spoken] between them, then this is a session of scorners &nbsp;... Two who sit and exchange words of Torah, the Divine Presence rests amongst them...

The basic meaning of (the first) Rabbi Chaninah&#39;s words is that for a society to be civilized its members must submit to the rule of government and law. The need for &quot;fear of authority&quot; may seem an insult to our sophistication and intelligence, but the fact remains that without it there would be nothing to check the worst in man, and the anarchic rule of the jungle would prevail.

The question, though, is how this passage made it into Pirkei Avos, the Ethics of the Fathers, which is a book of character-building, of going &ldquo;beyond the letter of the law.&rdquo; In these chapters you will not find a prohibition of murder, theft, deception, or adultery. For that we have the Torah and the other tractates of Mishnah. Yet here we have an astounding exception. Suddenly the Mishnah tells us that we must do what we can to avoid people eating each other alive!

A second enigma is this. The Mishnah rarely if ever employs poetic language. It is not a book of poetry, but of law. Why does the Mishnah use this phrase, &ldquo;every man would swallow his neighbor alive,&rdquo; not the ordinary and straightforward term in Torah and Tanach, &ldquo;every man would kill his neighbor.&rdquo;

There is a third enigma. Rabbi Chanina was not only addressing the non-Jewish world, but also the Jewish world. In the words of Maimonides in his commentary on this Mishnah: &ldquo;If not for the fear of government we would swallow each other alive.&rdquo; But this seems unfair and harsh. Jews, who are born and bred with the values and mitzvos of the Torah, have rarely been involved in murder. Till today, no Jewish school in the world where Torah is taught has a metal detector. Is it really true that if we had not fear of government, we would murder each other?

Finally, what is the juxtaposition between this clause of the Mishnah and the following one: &ldquo;Rabbi Chaninah son of Tradyon would say: ... Two who sit and exchange words of Torah, the Divine Presence rests amongst them.&rdquo; They seems disjointed. Why were they put together in one Mishnah?

It was at a farbrengen Shabbos Parshas Shlach 1975, when the Lubavitcher Rebbe offered a marvelous and extremely relevant explanation into this Mishnah which answers all the above questions&mdash;and teaches us how to live.

We also tell the story of a horse by the water, two groceries in Crown Heights, the arrogant scholar, the dignity of a child, and Rabbi Lau&rsquo;s Bar mitzvah.&nbsp;

I Want You to Live, But Only Inside of Me

Women's Class Pirkei Avos Chapter 3

The Emotional Cannibal

This weekly women&#39;s class was&nbsp;presented on Tuesday, Parshas Bechukosai,&nbsp;23 Iyar, 5782, May 24, 2022, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

King David&mdash;whose yartzeit is on Shavuos&mdash;remains one of the most fascinating, perplexing, and majestic figures in Jewish history. The combination of wisdom, humility, honesty and spirituality coupled with courage, power, passion, and leadership, and all of them with incredible intensity, conferred upon him the status of the ultimate Jewish king, leader, and poet.

Two of the most powerful stories of love in the Tanach are also associated with him and one two of his children. They are summarized succinctly by our sages in the Ethics of the Fathers ch. 5: &ldquo;What is an example of a love that depended on something? The love Amnon had for Tamar. What is a love that did not depend on anything? The love between David and Jonathan.&quot;&nbsp;

Let us recall these two narratives of love. Let us also understand why the Mishnah needs to find illustrations for two models of love from two ancient stories, when both of these models play themselves out in each of our lives on a constant basis?

At a &ldquo;farbrengen&rdquo; in the spring of 1973, Shabbos Parshas Bechokosai 5733, the Lubavitcher Rebbe offered an explanation to the Mishnah. As was his style, he demonstrated how the answer to the above enigma lay in what seems like a discrepancy of a single world. It teaches us a novel idea about how family members need to nurture relationships between themselves and also what type love we are capable of achieving with our spouses and even toward strangers.

The riveting stories of how Amnon violated Tamar and how Jonathan loved David illustrate what we are capable of and what we must be caution of in the volatile and complex world of love.

Siblings Can Learn to Hate Each Other; Strangers Can Learn to Love Each Other

Women’s Pirkei Avos/ Shavuos Class

A Tale of Two Loves: Amnon and Tamar Vs. David and Yehonasan

The Lord and the President

A little boy wanted $100 so badly that he prayed for two weeks, but nothing happened. He decided to write a letter to the Lord requesting the $100. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to "Lord, USA," they decided to send it to President Biden.

The President was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5 bill. The President thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy.

The little boy was delighted with the $5 and sat down to write a thank-you note to the Lord, which read:

"Dear Lord,

"Thank you very much for sending me the money. It's just a pity you had to send it through Washington, D.C. and, as usual, those morons deducted $95."

The Traveler

It is a deeply enigmatic Mishnah:

Rabbi Jacob said: One who walks on the road and studies [Torah], and interrupts his study and remarks, ‘How beautiful is this tree! How beautiful is this landscape!’ the Torah considers it as if he were guilty of a mortal sin. — Mishnah, Ethics of Our Fathers, 3:7, the chapter studied this week.

This seems to be a very strange teaching. The person who interrupts his Torah study to marvel at the beauty of nature is essentially celebrating the workings of the Creator who designed a magnificent universe. Why would this be considered a grave sin?

Some have deduced from this passage that Torah rejects enjoying the beauty of nature. This is a profoundly mistaken and un-Jewish view. The same G-d who gave us the Torah, designed our brilliant universe, and wants us to appreciate it. Much of the Torah and Tanach enjoins us to contemplate the workings and miracle of creation. A major part of our daily morning prayers consists of marveling at the diversity and artistry of our universe as witnesses to the author of this magic, as a way of appreciating the spiritual oneness at the core of all reality.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Midrash states: “G-d led Adam around the Garden of Eden and said, ‘Look at My works, see how beautiful they are! How exquisite! For your sake, I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil or destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.'"<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref1')" id="_edn1" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>

Maimonides writes in his legal code that the way to achieve love and awe of G-d is by contemplating the brilliance and dazzling beauty of His world: “What is the path to attain love and fear of G-d? When a person contemplates His wondrous and great deeds and creations and appreciates His infinite wisdom that surpasses all comparison, he will immediately love, praise, and glorify Him, yearning with tremendous desire to know the great name, as David stated<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref2')" id="_edn2" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a>: ‘My soul thirsts for the Lord, for the living God.’"<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref3')" id="_edn3" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a>

What is more, six chapters in the Code of Jewish Law<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref4')" id="_edn4" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a> are devoted to the special blessing to be recited at the sight of beautiful creatures, splendid trees, and diverse natural phenomena! So when the individual who is traveling and learning encounters a particularly beautiful tree he is, perhaps, obligated to take a break from the learning and recite a blessing to G-d for this creation. If anything, this individual may be performing a mitzvah, not a sin!<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref5')" id="_edn5" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a>

Fragmentation

I once heard a beautiful explanation. Let us read the text again, this time more carefully:

“One who walks on the road and studies [Torah], and interrupts his study and remarks, ‘How beautiful is this tree! How beautiful is this landscape!’ The Torah considers it as if he were guilty of a mortal sin.” The emphasis should be put on the word “interrupts.” The problem is not the mere appreciation of our dazzlingly stunning world, but rather the fact that for this individual the esthetical exquisiteness of the tree or the landscape is an interruption of Torah study. He must interrupt his Torah learning in order to take in the beauty of the cosmos.

In the consciousness of this person, the Torah and the world are disjointed. Religion and science are at best strangers; Torah and psychology are at best foreign to each other. This person lives in a fragmented reality: The spiritual and the physical constitute two diverse realms, and never the twain shall meet. G-d runs the heavens; politics and science run the earth. The secular and the holy are divided by an absolute gulf. Torah is confined to the synagogue and the yeshiva; outside, in the real world, you surrender to the powerful embrace of the secular.

But the living presence of G-d saturates all of reality! What appears externally as secular pulsates, internally, with Divine energy. Torah is the blueprint, the Midrash says,<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_ednref6')" id="_edn6" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a> of the entire universe. Any genuine celebration of the world is a celebration of Torah. The vision and passion of Torah encompass every aspect and nuance of creation just as a blueprint includes every detail of the home designed on it.

In the weltanschauung of Judaism, the chemistry and DNA of every cell and atom is Divine energy. When the doors of perception are cleansed, everything appears for what it really is—a manifestation of infinity. Every blade of grass, grain of sand, turtle, and elephant, black holes, electrons, and bees all sings the praise of G-d and tell the story of infinite love and ecstasy.

Why would I think that stopping to breathe in the glory of G-d’s universe is an interruption of Torah unless I am cut off from the source of life which saturates every leaf, droplet of water, and heartbeat?

____________________

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn1')" id="_ednref1" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Midrash Rabah Koheles 7:28

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn2')" id="_ednref2" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> &nbsp;Psalms 42:3.

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn3')" id="_ednref3" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> Rambam, Yesodei HaTorah, 2:1

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn4')" id="_ednref4" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Orach Chaim 225-229

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn5')" id="_ednref5" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Some argue that the Mishnah was not attempting to ridicule an appreciation of nature’s majesty, but rather to make it clear that one ought not to equate its significance with the study of Torah. Notwithstanding the importance of developing an appreciation for G-d’s awesome world, it pales in comparison with the study of Torah which captures G-d’s most essential and intimate wisdom and will, transcending even G-d as a brilliant Creator.

Other commentators suggested a more pragmatic approach. During Rabbi Jacob’s days, most of the oral tradition of Judaism was not transcribed yet. The students needed to memorize lots of material, and they typically enjoyed memorizing their lessons while strolling outdoors. (Such peripatetic memorization is still practiced today in some parts of the Middle East). Since they were, naturally, tempted to shift their attention from studying to the surrounding scenic views, the Mishnah specifically warned against this.

The Maggid of Mezrich presents an incredibly powerful interpretation. A person is on the path of study but interrupts his study to congratulate himself, saying, "How beautiful is this 'tree' and 'plowed field'!"—referring to himself and his academic achievements. This is a person who allows his learning to become a source of arrogance and haughtiness. Such a person endangers his own soul because his arrogance cuts him off from the oneness of reality, the source of life. The ego cannot co-exist with infinity. The phrase hamafsik m'mishnato can be translated: "He who interrupts—his connection with G-d—because of his study (m'mishnato, from his very study)." It is the learning itself that disconnects him from G-d since his learning is filled with narcissism (Rimzei Torah 442).

<a onclick="ty.scrollTo('_edn6')" id="_ednref6" href="javascript: void(0);" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Midrash Rabah Bereishis 1:1

Nature is a Manifestation of Torah

Essay Pirkei Avos Ch. 3

To Live in Oneness

This weekly women&#39;s class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Acharei Mos-Kedoshim, 8 Iyar, 5781, April 20, 2021, live from Rabbi YY Jacobson&#39;s home in Monsey, NY.

You Are the Captain of Your Soul: Nobody Can Tell You Where to Go, Besides Yourself

Women's Class Kedoshim/Pirkei Avos 3 

When We Judge Others, We Are Really Judging Ourselves

This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Tazria-Metzorah, 27&nbsp;Nissan, 5783, April 18, 2023, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

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rabbi yochanan ben zakai

empowering students

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Weekly Women's Class

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Pirkei Avos

Leadership 

In Our Darkest Hour, Reb Yochanan Ben Zakai Understood How to Create Leaders

Women's Class Pirkei Avos Chapter 2

How to Empower Our Children & Students? A Must-Watch for Every Educator & Parent

How to Empower Our Children & Students? A Must-Watch for Every Educator & Parent

In Our Darkest Hour, Reb Yochanan Ben Zakai Understood How to Create Leaders

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