Sublime

Not only is simchah important because it reflects the truth. When a person is b’simchah, this, itself, causes the disguise to be abandoned and prompts the good and the blessing to emerge to the surface.

the point of it all – the sacrifices, the purity laws, the holiness codes, all of it – is to come close to God. We are being trained, throughout Leviticus, to see the ultimate Oneness that underlies the dizzyingly manifold nature of our existence.

We are thus obligated to affirm our own worth.33 “Just as a person believes in God,” the Hasidic master Rabbi Zadok Ha-Kohen of Lublin (1823–1900) teaches, “one must also34 believe in oneself.”35 How we see ourselves profoundly shapes who and what we become.

The evil inclination bites a person again and again. Repeatedly it tempts him and tries to lead him on. One may refuse to listen and turn away. Even so it comes back and bites him a second time, a third, a fourth and more. But if one is absolutely determined, obstinately refusing to bow to it in any way, then eventually the evil inclination will ju

the chassid thought, “What is more important: my spiritual experience on Yom Kippur or the fact that I can get this family out of the dungeon earlier?” He did not have to think long. His entire life was directed towards others, not to himself.

a hyperliteral reading of the rabbinic dictum that the wicked are called “dead” even in their lives, whereas the righteous are called “living” even in their deaths.

The best time to seclude yourself to pray is at night, when everyone is asleep. Ideally you should go to a place outside the city and follow a solitary path somewhere that people don’t go even in the day-time. Empty your heart and your whole consciousness of all your involvements in the everyday world. Then work to nullify all of your character tra