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Rabbi Fischel Schachter
Life for Life
In Yerushalayim, there lived a great Talmid Chacham, Rabbi Braverman, a revered figure in the community. His wife, the Rabbanit, a dignified and elderly woman, had fallen gravely ill, until her condition had deteriorated rapidly and she slipped into a coma. The situation was bleak. Doctors quietly informed the family that the end was near, and the Chevra Kadisha had already been contacted.
And then… the unthinkable happened.
To the utter astonishment of the medical staff, the Rebbetzin regained consciousness. Not only did she wake up, but astonishingly, despite having been wheelchair-bound for years, she began to move, stand, and even walk. It was as if life had returned to her in full.
What had happened?
The story, recorded in Mitzvah B'Simcha by Rav Zilberstein, elaborates. The Rebbetzin described what she experienced as a dream, but it was no ordinary dream.
“I was up there,” she said, referring to Heaven. “They told me my time had come. My years were complete. It was over.”
But then, something changed. “They said no; you must go back down.”
Confused, she asked, “Why? You don’t want me?” “Let us explain.” And then came a story that reached back decades, into the late 1930s.
At the time, Yerushalayim was under attack. Artillery shells rained down on the Old Yishuv. In the middle of that chaos, the Rebbetzin was in Shaarei Tzedek Hospital, giving birth at night. Explosions shattered windows, nurses and doctors were running in every direction. The city had descended into bedlam.
Next to her lay another infant, alone in a crib. “Where is this baby’s mother?” she asked.
Tragically, the mother had been hit by shrapnel during a transfer from one room to another, and she was now fighting for her life. There was no baby formula in Yerushalayim at the time and no reliable source of food. The orphaned newborn stood little chance of survival.
The Rebbetzin looked down at her own baby. Her body was barely sustaining herself, let alone her own child. But at that moment, she made a decision.
She turned her eyes heavenward and said, “Master of the Universe, if You placed this baby next to me, I will take care of them both.”
Doctors warned her: “That’s very noble, but you may be endangering your own child.”
Still, she insisted: “Hashem placed this baby beside me. I will look after them both.”
And she did. Both babies survived. And so did the mother.
Now, decades later, in the heavenly realm, she was told, “You gave that baby life. We are giving you life.”
It doesn’t always require trauma or near-death experiences. These moments don’t only come once every hundred and twenty years. They happen every day.
There is someone next to us who needs something—time, attention, kindness—and we would rather look away, stay in our lane, take care of our own needs. But instead, we say, “I’m here.”
And when we do, a hidden blessing is awakened, and one we never imagined we possessed.
That’s how eternity is earned: one selfless act at a time.
Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair
Ringing to the Heavens
On July 8, 1776, a chime that would echo throughout history rang out from the tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell summoned citizens to hear Colonel John Nixon deliver the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.
Originally commissioned by the Pennsylvania Assembly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s 1701 Charter of Privileges, the bell bore a striking inscription drawn from the Torah: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (Vayikra 25:10).
But what has arguably made the Liberty Bell so iconic is not its message alone, but its imperfection.
When the bell was first hung on March 10, 1753, Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Assembly, wrote with dismay, “I had the mortification to hear that it was cracked by a stroke of the clapper without any other violence, as it was hung up to try the sound.”
The bell was taken down, melted, and recast. In an effort to improve its strength and tone, an ounce and a half of copper was added for every pound of the original metal. The new version was raised into the belfry on March 29. But the sound was still unsatisfactory.
Once again, it was broken, recast, and rehung. Yet even this second bell was flawed. Its tone remained poor, and over time, the crack widened. Finally, on George Washington’s birthday in 1846, the bell was rung for the last time. It cracked beyond repair and fell silent.
To this day, however, on every Fourth of July, the Liberty Bell is symbolically tapped. It no longer rings, but it still speaks.
And perhaps that is the deeper symbolism. That a fractured bell, incapable of producing a clear tone, would become the enduring voice of freedom. There is something profoundly moving about that. We often look at our lives and see only the cracks: the missed opportunities, the limitations, the flaws that feel more visible with time.
And yet, perhaps it is not by accident that a broken bell was chosen to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. We, too, are imperfect. Each of us carries wounds and cracks. But those imperfections do not disqualify us from greatness; they may be the very thing that makes our message resonate.
As the Kotzker Rebbe once taught, “There is nothing more whole than a broken heart.”
To G-d, there is no sweeter sound than the humbled voice, the silent cry of the soul yearning to return, to connect. That is what truly rings in Heaven.
Rabbi Shlomo Farhi
Total Control
Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l was once in the hospital with his beloved wife who was critically ill. And then came the news no one ever wants to hear: she had passed away. The loss shattered him. As he began to leave the hospital, his children surrounded him, literally holding him up, physically supporting his broken frame as he struggled to walk.
Suddenly, across the hospital lobby, a young man came running toward them. “Rav Shlomo Zalman! Rav Shlomo Zalman!” he called out with excitement.
The sons instinctively moved to shield their father. He was now a mourner, heading home to prepare for his wife’s funeral. But Rav Shlomo Zalman gently waved them off.
The man, beaming, exclaimed, “Mazal Tov! Congratulations! We just had a baby boy!” And Rabbi Shlomo Zalman… smiled. That unmistakable, radiant smile of his lit up his face.
He looked at the young man and said warmly, “Mazal Tov! That’s wonderful news!” He offered a heartfelt blessing. The young man, thrilled, thanked him and walked away.
And just like that, the light faded from Rabbi Shlomo Zalman’s face. The pain returned. The smile disappeared. His children helped him into the car, and they drove home in silence.
Finally, one of them asked, “Abba… even then? Even in that moment, you couldn’t allow yourself just a second to grieve? For yourself? For Mommy?”
He answered. “That man was experiencing the happiest moment of his life. He came to share it with me. If I had responded with my pain, if I had said, ‘Mazal Tov? For me it’s the opposite,’ I would have taken the joy out of the most joyful moment of his life. What right do I have to do that to him?”
That is the power of Torah.
Torah can rewire your internal circuitry. It can transform you into a person so disciplined, so attuned to the needs of others, that even in moments of profound personal anguish, you retain control. Torah teaches that not every situation must trigger an automatic emotional response. Just because something would typically make a person angry, bitter, or broken, doesn’t mean it has to.
That’s the miracle of Torah. It is a sam chaim, a living elixir. If you prepare yourself properly, if you absorb its values deeply, it doesn’t just inform your actions; it transforms your reflexes.
That moment, when Rav Shlomo Zalman smiled through heartbreak to preserve another person’s joy—that’s what greatness looks like.
Rabbi Eli Scheller
Reverse Engineering
In the early 1900s, when cameras were first invented, they were astonishingly expensive, often costing as much as an entire year’s salary. Only professional photographers, typically by taking out loans, could afford such a luxury.
A group of Japanese innovators saw one of these early cameras and asked a simple yet profound question: Why should a plastic box with a few wires cost thousands of dollars? Driven by curiosity, they took it apart to understand how it worked. Their goal: to replicate it—better yet, to improve it.
They assumed it would take a few months. It took years.
Eventually, they succeeded. Their first camera wasn’t perfect, but it worked. They called it Kwanon. It wasn’t the most refined device on the market, but people liked it. It did the job. Over time, the name was changed to Canon. And by 2010, they had produced their 40 millionth camera.
What they did is known as reverse engineering: studying a successful product, breaking it down to understand its components, and then recreating it, sometimes even better than the original.
And that’s exactly what Avraham, our forefather, did.
Avraham lived long before the Torah was formally given. There was no Jewish people yet, no commandments, no instruction manual. But Avraham looked at the world, and—like those engineers—he studied it deeply. He “reverse engineered” reality.
Our Sages teach that Hashem looked into the Torah and created the world from it. The Torah was the blueprint. So Avraham, looking at the world and all its details, was able to deduce the Torah itself. He kept all the mitzvos before they were ever written (Yoma 28b) because he understood the underlying design by examining the finished product: creation.
Reverse engineering.
Often, we look at successful people and assume they were always successful because they were born with it. But that’s rarely true. Many began with nothing. The key is: success leaves clues.
If you find someone thriving—in business, in character, in spirituality—you can study their actions, trace their habits, and emulate their process. You can reverse engineer greatness.
Just like Canon. If you see something valuable, take the time to understand how it works. Break it down. Rebuild it.
The path to mastery isn’t always about invention. It’s often about observation, analysis, and application.
So go for it.
Rabbi YY Jacobson
No Envy
The story goes like this. An angel appears to a man walking down the street. “Today is your lucky day,” the angel says. “You can have anything you want, in unlimited quantities. However, there is one condition: whatever you ask for, your neighbor will receive double.”
The man immediately thinks, “Oh, this is bad news. I can’t stand my neighbor.” After a moment of thought, he comes up with a solution. He turns to the angel and says, “I would like to lose sight in one eye.”
Why do we feel jealousy toward others? Why do we become envious when we see the success or possessions of those around us? Because when we are not in alignment with our own purpose, when we are disconnected from our unique life force and energy, we feel a void. This emptiness leads us to seek external fillers—things or achievements—that we believe will fill us up.
When I see someone else's success, I may feel that they’ve taken something that belongs to me, and I desire it for myself. But when I am fully aligned with my unique expression of G-d, I realize that no one can take what is truly mine. I am channeling the exact energy and life force that I am meant to at this moment, and no one can impede that.
Imagine being a ray of light emanating from the sun. Should you feel jealous of another ray? After all, another ray does not steal your light. The sun has enough light to reflect infinitely in countless rays. In fact, the energy output of the sun in just one second is equivalent to the solar energy that reaches the Earth over the course of seventy years. If this is true for the limited creation that is the sun, how much more so is it true for Hashem, the Source of all creation?
No one can ever block your manifestation of light. Once you discover and embrace your own unique light, nothing or no one can diminish it. When I am triggered by envy, even in subtle ways, I try to pause and ask myself, with compassion, “How can I return to alignment with my Source?” Once you are aligned, you never again compare yourself to anyone.
Consider the horse that approaches a water hole. As it reaches the water, it begins to angrily paw at the surface with its hooves. It isn’t until the water is muddied that the horse drinks. Why? Because when the water is still, the horse sees its own reflection and believes another horse has come to drink its water. The horse kicks and paws, trying to chase away the “intruder.”
But once the water is muddied, the reflection disappears, and the horse is left alone to drink peacefully. What the horse doesn’t realize is that the reflection it saw was merely a reflection of its own insecurity. It also fails to understand that G-d has provided enough water for all the horses.
Our world champions competition and conflict. But as Jews, we see ourselves and one another as a candle. “Ner Hashem nishmas adam—The candle of G-d is the soul of man” (Mishlei 20:27). When one flame is lit alongside another, there is no winner or loser; only more light in the world.
When you and I step fully into our unique expression of G-d, there is no winner or loser. There is simply more light.
Rabbi Ephraim Eliyahu Shapiro
The Chronic Complainer
A woman goes to her hairdresser before an upcoming trip to Rome. Naturally, she wants to have her hair done before she travels. The hairdresser asks, “Where are you going?”
“To Rome,” the woman replies. “Rome?” the hairdresser scoffs. “What a filthy place. Why would you go there? And how are you getting there?” she continues. “Continental Airlines,” says the woman. “Continental?” the hairdresser rolls her eyes. “Tight as a sardine can.”
“Where are you staying?” The woman names the hotel. “That place? It's a half-star dive. You’ll regret it.” “And why exactly are you going?” the hairdresser presses. “I don’t know,” the woman says. “Maybe I’ll get to see the Pope.” “The Pope? Sure. You and twelve billion other people,” the hairdresser snaps. “Good luck with that miserable trip of yours.”
This inner voice—the unrelenting critic—is what the sages refer to as the nargan, the chronic fault-finder.
A month later, the woman returns and once again takes a seat in the hairdresser’s chair.
“Well?” the hairdresser sneers. “How was it?” “Rome?” says the woman, beaming. “It was incredible. The people were warm, welcoming—it was a dream.” The hairdresser nearly has a coronary. “And Continental?” “Actually,” the woman says, “they saw us at the gate and bumped us from economy to first class. No extra charge.”
The hairdresser looks like she might faint. “And that run-down hotel?” she asks, grasping for something negative. “Oh, when we arrived, our room wasn’t ready. So they upgraded us to the presidential suite—completely complimentary.”
The hairdresser is now practically unglued.
“And the Pope? Surely you didn’t actually see the Pope…” “Funny you should ask,” the woman says with a smile. “We were waiting in line with millions of others when a guard suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘The Pope would like to speak with you.’ So I went in.”
“The Pope actually spoke to you?” the hairdresser gasps. “Yes,” the woman says. “He leaned in close and whispered, ‘Thank you for coming. It’s so lovely to meet you. But I must ask—who did your hair? It’s dreadful.’”
That is the nirgan, the complainer—the inner hairdresser. The voice that always finds fault, always drags down, always mocks or undermines.
There is no place for the hairdresser-like syndrome in our closest relationships—not between husband and wife, not between siblings, not between friends. If we allow that critical spirit to dominate, we turn beauty into bitterness, and joy into sarcasm. A life lived with love must silence the complainer.


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