Emuna Beams

People think that they can have a life of fun and games with no responsibility or accountability and then expect to earn a first-class seat with all the amenities up in Heaven. It doesn't work that way...

Who doesn't get knocked down every so often - financially, physically, emotionally or spiritually? Life is full of setbacks but there's no law that we have to stay down. In this encouraging podcast, we learn how to fly back on our feet.
 

We have no idea what we're accomplishing on Seder night. Our sages tell us that it's Hashem's favorite night of the year. The entire Passover Seder is about gratitude. There's an individual message for everyone in the family as well as our guests. No one is left out.

Rebbe Nachman teaches that being happy always is a tremendous mitzvah. Therefore, each of us must make every effort to avoid sadness and depression at all costs. What's more, the core cause of all illness is a breakdown of one's joy. Passover is a fantastic opportunity to recover our joy, and therefore our health.

The most important of Rebbe Nachman's teachings is about hitbodedut, personal prayer, one's intimate private conversations with the Creator. Discourse 25 of Part II deals with this vital subject. We learn that each of us has the priceless birthright of our own personal relationship with Him. This is an asset greater than anything, which only a fortunate few take advantage of.

The Pascal sacrifice, the Tenth and final plague and the Exodus of Egypt are the subjects of this lesson, the third of our "Story of Passover" series. The events took place 3,337 years ago in the Hebrew year of 2448 (1312 BCE), and it's a story of emuna that continues on to this very day.

Could you believe that a brilliant investment banker would be gullible enough to sell his twenty million-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills for a mere thousendth of its value? Listen to today's podcast, which exposes the sly methods of the Yetzer Hara, the evil inclination, who is capable of getting any unsuspecting person to sell his or her priceless soul for a pittance...

We do a great job in guarding our homes on Passover from chametz. But what about our hearts? Shouldn't we be guarding them against all kinds of non-kosher emotions like hate and jealousy?

In our concluding lesson of Torah 55, we learn a beautiful upward spiral. The more we enhance emuna, the better we pray. The better we pray, the closer we get to Hashem. The closer we get to Hashem, the more we become purified. That way, even a person outside the Land of Israel can attain the aspect of the Land of Israel, which is a special holiness.

Welcome to part 2 of our "Story of Passover" series. In this lesson, we learn how the Almighty chose Moses as the leader of Israel. He sends Moses on a fateful mission to Egypt. There, Moses has a series of dramatic confrontations with Pharaoh, which culminate in the Ten Plagues.

How do we overcome evil when all the odds are against us? Rebbe Nachman teaches us all about the cogent spiritual weapons at our disposal, especially prayer and the merit of our holy patriarchs.

Welcome to our 4-part series on the story of Passover. This series of lessons aspires to give us a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Passover holiday. The more the story of Passover becomes alive in our hearts, the more meaningful our observance and celebration of the holiday, especially Seder night. Our first lesson presents the series of events that led up to Passover, and specifically, how the Israelites became slaves in Egypt.