2020-01

For many of us, our goals seem like dreams that are impossible to reach. We want them to materialize, but we think they never will. If you think you can't, today you'll learn 3 time-tested tips of how you can and will succeed in whatever you want to accomplish - spiritual, material or both.

Today's podcast takes us on a 3400-year tour back in history to Ashdod's ancient port citadel. From the scenic backdrop of ancient stones and the blue Mediterranean, we learn how the Book of Psalms resembles the history of the Land of Israel - the digger you deep the more you uncover. We also learn how three significant words invoke a good livelihood and one lone word invokes miraculous salvation, all signed checks from King David.
 

In today's video podcast, Rabbi Lazer tells a moving story from the Gemara in Tractate Taanis about Rebbe Yehoshua's encounter in Rome with Caesar and his daughter. When Caesar's daughter saw the renown Jewish sage from the Land of Israel, she asked,  "How can such magnificent wisdom be housed in such an ugly vessel?" In explaining this passage of Gemara, its Kabbalistic ramifications and the practical advice each one of us can glean from it, we learn the key to successful relationships. Today's lesson will not only help us choose friends and the right soulmate, but it explains the proper balance and relationship between body and soul.

History was made on January 1, 2020 when an unprecedented crowd of over 90,000 Jews filled New Jersey's Metlife Stadium to celebrate the completion of the current cycle of Daf Yomi, the daily page of Gemara learning that enables a person to learn all of the Talmud in seven years, a monumental accomplishment that hundreds of thousand of Jews around the world have achieved. History was made again a mere 48 later on January 3, 2020, when the arch-villain and modern day Haman, Iranian Quds commander and world's most dangerous terrorist General Qassam Soleimani was terminated in a brilliant US military operation in Baghdad airport. Is there a connection between the two events? Let's here today's podcast.

Some forty years ago, there was an interesting character whom all of Jerusalem knew and were fondly tolerant of. This was an eccentric old man who stood all day long, rain or shine, in the middle of what was then the only entrance to Jerusalem from the west, helping the traffic lights direct traffic with his cane. The poor guy was a Holocaust survivor, and who knows what the Nazis did to his brain. Yet, why do so many of us act just like him?

During the difficult years of the Communist Revolution in Russia, the town's rabbi died. The elders of the town wanted the rabbi's son to inherit the position of town rabbi, whereas the young people of the town wanted a stronger, more forceful individual who understands the challenges of the generation. The arguing sides took their case to the Chofetz Chaim; the holy Chofetz Chaim's answer describes the exact type of leader we need today.

Some people look at themselves in a negative light and think that they're unworthy of serving the Almighty, maybe because they've been in such low places and done such kinky things that they think Hashem doesn't want anything to do with them at all. Or, maybe they were born into an observant family and at some point fell off the path, and they think that the Almighty is angry at them; they fear that their Father in Heaven will reject them. Both groups are utterly wrong, as Rabbi Lazer explains in today's podcast with one of his original parables.

When you feel good about yourself, other people will feel good about you. There are three ways to pursue happiness and to build a healthy self-image: strengthening the body, strengthening the soul, or to understand that body and soul are inseparable and to strengthen both simultaneously. Today's Emuna Beam teaches us how to do that.

Emuna Beams looks at current events from an emuna perspective. King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that there's nothing new under the sun. How does that possibly corroborate Google Search and other technological nuances? How does King Solomon's nothing new under the sun synch with today's news, both in Israel and abroad, especially the USA? Today's podcast searches for the answers.