AM Inspiration

Its that time of year again. The time of year when we all scramble. Scramble to fix everything we did wrong the whole year in one week. After all, Chazal tell us that its possible. Today i can do teshuva for all the Wednesdays of the year. Its a daunting and overwhelming task. How is it even possible to do that? If I am perfect today...will it make all the past Wednesdays perfect? Is it a superimposed image? does it replace them? How does it work? That i cannot profess to know. But one thing I do know...it would be foolish of me to ignore the opportunity. The Rambam says that we are to consider ourselves as if we are " bein onim " middle of the rd..neither tzaddikim or reshaim, and must use this week to do teshuva so that we will be worthy of being written in the book of life. It is not enough to just do more mitzvot to push us over onto the "good" side. It is only the "act" of teshuva that will bring us a favorable judgment. I was thinking about wha...

there is something that i have noticed among people since I have been here. It probably exists everywhere i just didn't  notice, It might be that i myself am lacking in this area and the mirror is reflecting my own deeds.  I have noticed an indifference towards judasim. People just do not care anymore about the sanctity of Shabbat. It is a well known reality in my program that many people in my class study on shabbat. I could never bring myself to do that. Besides, I asked my rav and he said no. Recently, I was talking to a guy in my class and he casually mentioned that he studies during davening. He gathers notes, he highlights. He has no problem with this. All this came out after I was going down on him for not learning on shabbat instead of studying.  Today I came into school and told my friend, its gonna be a long day! I woke up hungry and that is never good on a fast day. She looked at me funny "oh, your fasting day?" like it was a surprise. O...

A long time ago, I watched the The   Jett Jackson Movie. Yes i was a Disney Channel junkie. For those who haven't seen it, which I am assuming is most people, the bad guy is basically stealing cities from earth and putting them into his world. First New York City disappears and then Chicago, LA..etc. Dr. Kragg (the bad guy) occasionally looks into his world, through his peep hole, checking in on his world.  This is how I feel our world is. We are going about our daily lives, doing the things we do. We have our conversations, our tears, our laughter. We shop, we eat, we sleep. But none of this is real. This is not the true life. Lately, I've been more aware than ever of this. I walk around and i try my best to do what it is that i am supposed to, yet it just seems so meaningless.  I find myself constantly asking myself " what is it exactly that Gd wants from me? Why am I here?" Sure, the Torah gives us guidelines. We have rules tha...