By Tzvi Freeman Dr. David Barlow of Boston U is known for making patients feel uneasy. If you try to take off your jacket in his office, he stops you and tells you to keep it on. The last thing he wants is for you to feel cool and relaxed when you’re sitting with him. He’s happy to see you […]

By Tzvi Freeman It was one of those brutal winter mornings for this West Coast kid in Brooklyn, not so much for the stormy weather as for the struggle to sleep in a dormitory where the Israeli contingent had deemed that night party night. A small group of us had cut a deal with Rabbi Yoel Kahn, teacher supreme of […]

By Tzvi Freeman It was one of one of those grand summits in the journey through life, when the entire landscape is set before you in ultra-high definition. Suddenly, you know where you are, where you are going and what you have to do to get there. I upgraded my iPhone. It was hard. I wanted the new one. But […]

How did Rebbetzin Sara Leah Overlander affect your life? Share your story below. To donate to the Sara Leah Memorial Fund click here

By Tzvi Freeman In the beginning, G‑d created everything out of nothing. He could have decided to make everything out of something, but He knew that nothing is better material than something. Because something is already whatever something is, but nothing can become anything. That’s why, at least as far as this universe is concerned, the only way to become a […]

By Tzvi Freeman The history of the world, the Talmud tells us, comprises six eras of one thousand years each. In his commentary on Genesis, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides) describes a unique theme for each millennium, corresponding to the themes of the six days in which the world was created. By this account, we entered the sixth and final day […]

By Tzvi Freeman There are two ways to ask for something. One is to kvetch. The other is a little more sophisticated. Here’s a high-level example: I’m working at home on what turns out to be one of those summer days when there’s no school, no camp, and nothing for the kids to do. Printer runs out of ink. My chance […]

By Tzvi Freeman If you were to create a world, the first thing you would need to master is tsimtsum. Tsimtsum is a way of being present in your absence. Get that one down, along with creating something out of nothing, and everything else is a piece of cake. Tsimtsum literally means “reduction.” For a Kabbalist, a tsimtsum is a reduction […]

By Rabbi Moshe Bryski In the days of communism’s fierce grip on the Soviet Union, there lived a Chasidic Jew named Reb Mendel Futerfas. Reb Mendel repeatedly put his life at risk with his efforts to promote Jewish education behind the Iron Curtain, and for some 14 years was incarcerated in prisons and labor camps for his “crime” of teaching Torah. […]

By Tzvi Freeman Nowadays it’s a motorbike. Back then it was a fast horse. So this teenage kid pulls up to the shul on his speedy white horse, ties it to a post and swaggers in for a talk with the rabbi. The Big Rabbi. RabbiSchneur Zalman of Liadi. Just so he can get his parents off his back. “Hi rabbi! Watzup?” He […]