Torah Thought

A person might ask that if the Creator alone did, does and will do everything, then why pray? What do we need prayer for? Isn't everything predetermined? So what difference do my prayers make? These are the questions that today's Emuna Hour answers...

The letters of the Hebrew alphabet have a very deep significance. They correspond to 600,000 windows in the sky that reflect 600,000 Divine illuminations. There are 600,000 letters in the Torah, each of which reflects a unique ray of Divine light. Likewise, there are 600,000 roots of souls, each which corresponds to a letter of Torah. These are all indications of how a person's name is so significant. Many secrets of the person's life mission and personality are hidden within one's name, as we learn in today's lesson.

Our sages tell of a wise old man who sits at a crossroads and warns travelers, "There's a road whose beginning is rocky and its end is smooth, and there's a second road whose beginning is smooth and the end is rocky." The wise man is relating a fact of life that applies both to material and spiritual endeavors, as we learn in the following thought-provoking parable.

Is there a contradiction between Divine Direction and free will? If Hashem directs everything, like we learn in the first principle of emuna, what's left for us? We find our answer in a most unlikely place. The frogs come to enlighten us.  

Sometimes, two people see an identical situation. There is no change in reality. Yet one person is happy and the other person is miserable. That's the difference between looking at Hashem and looking at causes, or catalysts that trigger events. "Looking at Hashem" means viewing life's occurrences within the framework of Divine Providence. A person who attributes success and failure, happiness and grief to catalysts – human or otherwise – will never find inner peace. By ignoring Hashem and attributing one's fate to catalysts, events seem random, senseless and frequently cruel. That not the hand of a loving Father in Heaven, as we see in today's Emuna Hour lesson.

In one of the most dramatic episodes of the Torah, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. At this very moment, Joseph makes a monumental discovery. He suddenly sees the Divine hand of providence involved in every detail of his life. This is a lesson for each one of us, for posterity.  

Learning the Ten Commandments in depth is a wonderful preparation for the holiday of Shavuos; today, we have the opportunity to learn them and to learn how the entire order of creation depends on them. 

Where do we learn the concept of "friends and lovers" from? What is love according to Judaism? It certainly is not lust and infatuation...

Rabbi Lazer Brody with a special message for the Omer period from the Western Wall remnant of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Today, an olive best categorizes the American Jew. We'll learn how and why in today's emuna-oriented analysis of current events in the USA.

Our sages tell us that we don't have to learn how to hate - that comes natural to a person because of innate egotism. Loving someone else, on the other hand, is something we all must learn to insure our emotional and physical health.

Welcome to Emuna News, where you find out what's really happening in the world. Today's news update and message is, "Avalanche or Birth?" It sounds weird, but it's an exact description of current events right, where we find out the connection between COVID 19, wildfires, BLM and Yom Kippur.