This week’s parsha is Parshas Vaeira. The Kli Yakar’s commentary on this parsha teaches of the four expressions of redemption, four levels of suffering, and four levels of personal growth. How can we bring these ancient lessons from our people’s time in Egypt into our lives? In the video above, Rabbi Shapiro explains how the thought of Pesach during the…
In the video above, Rabbi Shapiro discusses the nature of Heaven and the Garden of Eden and why the cemetery is a metaphor for the afterlife.
Good Yom Tov. I’ll be honest—I didn’t have a drasha until yesterday. Thank God for ChatGPT. Just kidding! Every Disney movie has a moment where they try to make you cry. Who could forget Bambi’s mother getting shot. Or Dumbo’s mom getting locked up. Let’s play with these kids deepest fears right? Well, one that was on the outside less…
By Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro I’ve always wondered why the first “request” blessing in the Amidah meditation is the prayer asking Hashem for wisdom. There are so many things we could ask for, why are wisdom and insight the first things we ask for every time we pray? David Kowarski, one of my most interesting congregants, often sends me texts letting…
By Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro Two neighbors were fighting over a financial dispute. They couldn’t reach an agreement, so they took their case to the local rabbi. The rabbi heard the first litigant’s case, nodded his head and said, “You’re right.” The second litigant then stated his case. The rabbi heard him out, nodded again and said, “You’re also right.” The…
Dr. Morton Maimon Mower, a noted American cardiologist and co-inventor of the Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator — a device that detects when a heart beats too rapidly or inefficiently and delivers a shock to produce a normal rhythm — died of cancer on Monday, Apr. 25, in Denver. He was 89. “As a medical inventor, his innovations restarted the hearts…
As an artist, Ann Kibel Schwartz enjoys experimentation, with different types of artistic mediums, which can go as far as creating art that attempts to escape from the very frame she has set it in. “I have a number of pieces that I did over the years that are trying to reach out beyond the frame,” Schwartz said when describing…