Teshuva

Our message today is intended to be a spiritual antidote to all that's trying to pull us down and to enable us to truly feel good about ourselves. The "Three Weeks" period is a time to yearn for Moshiach and the Holy Temple, but not a time to be sad or depressed.

Today's podcast is dedicated to the loving memory of Jack R. Cohen, Yaakov Yisrael ben Chaviva A"H
There is a terrible phenomenon, even within "religious" circles, of scoffing at baalei teshuva, converts and Noahides because of their pure and innocent desire to strengthen faith and get closer to Hashem. And even within many "religious" communities, people scoff at those who strive past group norms of mediocrity. Today's podcast is a message of encouragement to the victims of the scoffers, who like King Solomon says, will have the last laugh at the scoffers.

For quite a few days, there were no new Corona outbreaks in Israel, then all of a sudden, over the Shavuot weekend, there has been an outbreak of new cases. There's a whole debate going on whether this is the continuation of Round 1 or the beginning of Round 2. Could this be a message from Above? What does it mean?

There's a classic historical pattern whenever Antisemitism exploded in full force; it was always preceded by plague or economic crises. The same pattern is repeating itself right now. What can we do about it?

The Ramcha'l osb"m wrote a Kabbalistic discourse nearly 300 years ago entitled, Ma'amar Hageula, or "Discourse of Geula." There, he brings forth some seemingly cryptic preconditions for the full and final redemption, all of which are happening today before our own eyes, as we hear in today's podcast.

These days, during the challenge of the Coronavirus pandemic, any person with the slightest bit of emuna thanks Hashem profusely for every new day of life, even every moment of life. As things are getting shut down by the minute, we are limited in our choices. But, there is one important choice we can make, where we earn the reward of a good and healthy life, just as our sages promise...

In this week's Torah portion, Moses begs Hashem to forgive the nation of Israel for the sin of the golden calf and says, "please pardon them of their sin, Hashem, for they are a stiff-necked people." (Exodus 34:9)
A stiff neck is the Torah's way of saying stubborn. Like any other character trait, stubbornness can go either way, for good or for evil. Throughout the ages, our righteous people have been so stubborn in their faith that they preferred to endure torture and death in sanctification of Hashem's Name rather than compromise their emuna. On the other hand, the riff-raff of our people have always stubbornly refused to recognize Hashem's monarchy and His Divine Providence, choosing the path of publicly and blatantly trampling the Torah's laws, from the time of Moses to the present.
Hashem is not some old lady in the sky that can do nothing against the Corona Virus, Heaven forbid. The first principle of our emuna is the "He alone did does and will do every deed." The Coronavirus, like all powers of evil, are emissaries of the Almighty and the executioners of stern judgment in the world. But like all powers, they can be harnessed to do good as well. Today's podcast shows the amazing way that the Coronavirus is paving the way to Moshiach...

For everything in the physical word, there is an equivalent in the spiritual world. In fact, the spiritual equivalent is the source and spiritual root of that object in the physical world. For example, the same way that the light of the sun acts in photosynthesis to sustain a plant, Divine light acts upon a soul to sustain it in a strikingly similar manner. Just as we have cataract operations to correct cloudy vision in this world, there is SCS, "Spiritual Cataract Surgery" to better the soul's vision. If a person is unhappy in any way, he or she should strongly consider the option of SCS. Learn all about it in today's eye-opening and eye-healing podcast.