Short Idea- Parshat Naso 5782💡
My special light of Torah💥

The excitement is building as we prepare for Matan Torah, for Chag Shavuot,🌳 when we receive the Torah anew.
Rebbe Nachman teaches in Likutei Eitzot, Advice🔥, that when a person learns a teaching in the Torah, he needs to find himself in the teaching. He also teaches in Likutei Moharan, 62nd teaching, that a person who merits to reveal new insights in the Torah needs to believe in himself. He needs to believe that Hashem finds great joy and importance in his Torah insights.🤩
We want and we need the Torah to be sweet and meaningful and relevant to us everyday.🤗 I think that part of feeling a personal connection to the Torah happens when we are able to reveal and share our own Torah chidushim, our own original ideas💡🤔. We need to search for our own special potion of the Torah and share our insights. The Torah belongs to all of the Jewish people, and unites the Jewish people. However, each and every one of us has their special letter of the Torah.
An important part of the 12 step program❤️ I have learned recently is doing daily journal writing. Writing our questions, our insights, our pain, and what we are thankful for✍️. We reveal our true, inner voice also through writing. A special part of our soul can be revealed through writing. This part of finding our special light in the Torah. May we all merit to receive the Torah anew and to reveal our own special light of Torah!🕯️
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach! 💖

Short Idea- Parshat Bamidbar 5782💡
Walking in the desert

As we begin a new book in the Torah💥, our parsha and this book of the Torah teach us about the Jewish people as they journey toward the land of Israel. There are many obstacles, and many challenges during their years in the desert🧐. The Sin of the Spies, the rebellion of Korach…

The Torah is always teaching us messages for our life today🤔. As I thought about the word, Bamidbar, in the desert, the wilderness, I thought to myself: sometimes it feels in life like we are walking in the desert too. Lost, tired and hungry.😢 Going through so many challenges, on the inside and the outside. Longing to reach our destination, longing to come home.🙏 Longing to live a happy, healthy life. How can we feel inside, and also know that we are not alone in our difficulties? Step 2 of the 12 Step✍️ program teaches us that only a power greater than ourselves, a friend, a mentor, a group and ultimately Gd, can help us find healing and true connection🤗💖. To discover who we truly are and to share our light.🕯️ They can help us return to our sanity, to our true voice.
I have a prayer I want to share, a prayer that came to me as I was writing this week🙏: I pray that we will always feel Hashem walking with us and guiding us; to know that He’s holding our hand. He is always helping us, even on those long journeys in the desert🦶. He is right with us. To feel his embrace and support.❤️
This is the truth, but sometimes it is so hidden from us. May we all begin to feel this more in our lives as we get closer to Chag Shavuot, to receiving the Torah anew. Amen.

Short Idea- Parshat Bechukotai 5782💡
Hod- Gratitude 🙏

The special attribute of this week of the Omer is Hod💥. One of the meanings of hod is l’hodot, which means to thank, to be thankful. Part of the special light of this week, in addition of course to the awesome light of Lag B’Omer and Rebbe Shimon🔥, is looking at what we have to be thankful for. There is so much to be thankful for in our lives.
The first avodah, the first thing which we started working on in the 12 step program I am currently learning in was to keep a journal✍️. The teacher suggested that we write down everyday, in addition to our pains and challenges, a list of things that we are thankful for. This helps us to see that despite the difficulties we might feel and be facing in life, there are also many gifts, many blessings that we have in our lives. Many times or most of the time we are focused on what we are lacking💔. Gratitude helps us to see the good that’s already there right in front of us🤗. It opens our eyes and our hearts to a new perspective.❤️
Rebbe Natan also teaches that giving thanks to Hashem for our blessings also helps us to pray from our hearts for what we want and what we are lacking.  It gives us strength to pray and keep trying. By first giving thanks to Hashem for the good we recognize in our lives, this helps to pour out our hearts in prayer for everything we might be lacking.
To end, I saw a beautiful quote today🤩 from the Thank You Hashem status:
Gratitude is an inner state which is always available to us.
Shabbat Shalom

Short Idea- Parshat Behar 5782💡
Every moment can be eternal

In this special time💥 of the year between Pesach and Shavuot, we have a special mitzvah called Sefirat HaOmer, the counting of the Omer (which was a special sacrifice brought at the beginning of the second day of Pesach). We count the days from Pesach until Shavuot with yearning🙏. Each week of the Omer is connected to a special energy, a unique attribute. This week is the week of Netzach🔥, eternity. As I was contemplating🤔 what to write this week and asking Hashem for help to write something, the words popped into my mind💡, ‘every moment is eternal’. When we are able to focus and be present and connected to the moment, with Hashem’s help, our experience of life changes. Our appreciation for life changes. We can appreciate the moment and the people we share it with.💖 It takes work and prayer. It might be easier said than done, but I think this is part of connecting to the energy of netzach. There is an opportunity🤗 to practice this week. Trying to make our moments and our life eternal. We can try to appreciate the gift of every moment, and make it eternal.🕯️
This week’s parsha also talks about the special mitzvah of Shmitah🌳, an entire year of Shabbat for the land of Israel. Just as every week we have the opportunity to connect to the deep, eternal truth of Hashem creating the world in six days and resting from creation on Shabbat, so too the entire year of Shmitah is an opportunity to connect to this eternal truth.
May we all merit to experience beautiful, eternal moments. Shabbat Shalom

שבת שלום❤️

Short Idea- Parshat Emor 5782💡
Looking for the openings, Striving for more

Every morning as part of my daily learning I read from the letters of Reb Noson z”l, Rebbe Nachman’s top student. His letters, most of which he wrote to one of his sons, are filled with incredible chizuk (encouragement) 🔥and insights. As I was reading one of the letters this week an important idea stood out to me.💥
“You also need to remember what he (Rebbe Nachman) said, that it’s forbidden to give in to Hashem, so to speak. That means, when He gives you an expansion, an opening, it’s forbidden to just settle for that. Rather a person needs to plead and to long for more🙏, each person according to what he is still lacking in his service of Hashem. However, he said that it’s forbidden to become sad when a person sees how much he’s still lacking…”
Reb Noson’s letter teaches us an important principle.🕯️ We need to hold on to two opposite aspects of trying to grow and improve in serving Hashem and being our best self. In Judaism there is room for opposites, and ups and downs. On the one hand we need to always strive for more. To believe that there is so much more we can give and accomplish🤗. To set goals for ourselves. However, on the other hand, if we don’t succeed, or if we have a fall, we still need to try to strengthen ourselves and be happy with where we find ourselves now. Hold on tight and look for your good points!💖 We still have so many good points. Rebbe Nachman calls these two aspects in another teaching running and returning. When things are hard, when we struggle, we need to see how we can strengthen ourselves in simcha.  May we all merit a beautiful month of strengthening ourselves and others. Shabbat Shalom🍷
(Dedicated to the memory of all the soldiers, security forces, and terror victims, kedoshim, who died to protect us)💔

Parshat Kedoshim 5782- Short Idea💡
Being Clean.
In this week’s parsha Hashem gives us different mitzvahs which help us to be holy. “You shall be holy, for holy am I, Hashem your God.”
In addition to the mitzvahs that we learn about in this weeks parsha, I think🤔 that another aspect of holiness is working on introspection; taking an accounting of our own actions, seeking to correct them, and asking for forgiveness when needed. It is taught in step 4 of the 12 Step program💖 that part of the process of healing and being clean is to take an accounting of ourselves, who we are and what we need to correct. This helps us to let go of the weight of the past and know ourselves better.😃 Some areas that we can focus on and look at in our cheshbon hanefesh, self reflection, are secrets we have kept inside, fears we have, complaints about others, and people we might have hurt. A lot of the suffering that we feel inside😞💔 is due the fact that we hide our fears, mistakes, trauma and hurt, we feel ashamed of them and we carry this weight with us. Many times fear of what we might discover blocks us from looking inside.🧐 However, we don’t need to be afraid of looking inside, because taking an accounting of ourselves is cleansing and it reveals our inner holiness❤️. It removes a weight that we don’t need to carry. It removes the things which block us from being who we truly are. We are beautiful souls🤗😃, sometimes we just need a good cleaning.🫗
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov!

Parshat Shmini 5782💡
All our beginnings are from Purim now. Rebbe Nachman teaches us to start anew all the time.🔥

Rebbe Nachman teaches in Likutei Moharan that the light of Purim leads the path and prepares us for Pesach. In the beginning (of our history as a people), all new beginnings were from the light of Pesach,🍷 many mitzvot and holidays we have are a rememberance of the Exodus. However now, as we are close to the end of exile, all of our beginnings come from the power of Purim.🥳
The light of Purim helps us with the new beginnings we want to make in life. We can start anew 💪as we prepare for the upcoming holiday of Pesach. This is an important principle which we can all learn from, especially in our generation when we have an expectation that things should be instant and easy. Even when we fall and stumble🙃, we have the strength to begin again. It is emphasized in the 12 step program💖 that when we are trying to heal from an addiction or something we suffer with, we should only focus on the current day. רק להיום If it’s hard for me to think about obstaining for a month, for example, I just need to try today. All I have is the day in front of me.🧐 Focusing on today and the moment helps us be present, and not stuck on things in the past or worried about the future. Starting over and trying to focus on today can really help us in our lives and avodah.
This past erev Shabbat, Shushan Purim, we lost a great tzaddik and talmid chacham, gadol hador, Rav Chaim Kanievsky,😢 ztz”l. He really emobodied this principle of starting anew. Every year he would celebrate finishing all the major parts of the Torah on Erev Pesach. The next day he would start the same learning cycle anew, to the last day of his life, despite his incredible knowledge. May his memory be a blessing and inspiration for Am Yisrael.❤️(The Rav Chaim connection was inspired by R’ Yaakov Klein)
Shabbat Shalom