Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh's blog
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 28th, 2011
Rectifying the State of Israel in 10 steps: Step 1: Faith in the Torah (the Bible as interpreted by the Sages) as the Word of God. Step 2: Commitment to live our private and communal lives in accordance with the precepts of the Torah. Step 3: Proclaim the Torah as the foundation of international law. [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
Meditative prayer lifts us up and out of our mundane reality. The early chasidim would meditate an hour, pray an hour, then meditate an additional hour. What is meditation? Breaking through hard shells, peeling away soft shells, and eating the fruit. * The 10 blessings of Isaac to Jacob are the connective intermediate between the [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
There are many worlds. In the highest spiritual World of Emanation there is no consciousness other than that of God. * The Bible speaks of two “rods,” a “pleasant rod” and a “harmful rod.” The rod – a symbol of discipline – can be either pleasant or harmful. * In our “forgiveness” prayers we say [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
Three great questions: What? How? Why? What‘s out there (or in here), how did it get there, and why was it put there? Science is good at what. Not so good at how. But why is totally beyond it. In Kabbalah, what is wisdom, how is understanding, and why is knowledge. Sometimes understanding is identified [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
The 3 basic nutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Spiritually, they correspond to acts of kindness, prayer, and Torah study. The Torah describes the most basic act of kindness as providing the poor with bread – carbohydrates. The service of prayer, compared to that of animal sacrifice, requires great strength – proteins. Generally speaking, saturated [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
Some people have a sick evil inclination, others have a healthy one. Better to have a healthy one and face the challenge of taming it. We have all succumbed to our evil inclination. “A tzadik falls seven times and rises.” Even God regrets having created the evil inclination. But now that it’s created and inside [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
The greatest mitzvah in the Torah is redeeming souls from captivity. Today that means those that are caught up in false belief systems. Redeeming captives is different than it used to be. Once it was simply a matter of paying the ransom. Today, it’s by spreading light. But even today there’s a monetary ransom to [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
Snails shoot love darts at one another. But you don’t have to be a snail. People do it with their eyes and their tongue. A sign of love is lightning in your eyes. Lightning is God’s arrow. The tongue is also likened to an arrow. Shoot love darts to God. Snails only shoot their love [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
We live in a generation of hope, that all our children grow up to become good, contributing people. It all depends on education, on Torah. In Hebrew, “hope” (תקוה) comes from “line” (קו). Hope creates a line, a vector force, a ray of light that permeates the dark vacuum of our life. Hope is the [...]
Posted in Tweets from the year 5771 on Feb 24th, 2011
A horn is also a musical instrument, beginning with the shofar, the crown of all musical instruments in the Torah. Unicorns have one horn protruding from their forehead. They’re always turning corners, always becoming nothing, so you’ll never see one. In the Bible, the re’eim is usually translated as unicorn and is said to have [...]