Mile High Torah

Published on Aish.com as The Smartest Kid in the Room I can’t recall a single instance in all of my school years where I actually studied. My second grade teacher used to call me “Minimum Menachem” because I coasted through school without putting in any effort at all. My teachers got especially frustrated when I would scan a test and if I didn’t know the answer to every single question I would hand it back blank. At the time, I couldn’t tell you why I was doing it, but as an adult I now understand what I was doing. I went through life with my teachers telling me that I was smart. This well-meaning praise was actually creating and reinforcing a fixed mindset. Getting a ‘B’ or ‘C’ tarnishes that title – I am not really that bright after all. A blank test on the other hand just means I have an attitude problem. It doesn’t challenge my status as smartest kid in the room. When I went to study in Yeshiva I entered a strange environment. There were no grades, no class r...

Trying to understand women is like trying to smell the color 9. Anyone who has ever been in a serious relationship can relate. My wife sent me an article the other day and she prefaced by saying “please read, don’t worry about the title.” I continued to read the title… SHE DIVORCED ME BECAUSE I LEFT DISHES BY THE SINK The article describes the epiphany a guy had after he realized that he doesn’t need to understand  why  his wife wants something. He just needed to be able to recognize, that because its important to her, it needs to be important to him. That’s what a relationship is all about. When I do what I know is important to my wife, even if it makes absolutely no sense to me, I am telling her “I love you and I care about you and the things that are important to you.” She’s not upset about the dish being left on the counter or the coat on the banister, she’s hurt because I am telling her that I don’t respect, honor and love her. ...

While studying in the famed Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem for five years, I had the incredible opportunity, together with a small group of 5 or 6 of my friends, to have a private audience with the greatest person I have ever met,  Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel . I say this was an incredible opportunity and not a unique opportunity because the Rosh Hayishiva (Dean of the Yeshiva) had these types of gatherings regularly with probably hundreds of students every week. By the time I arrived at the Yeshiva and began attending these sessions in Rabbi Finkel’s modest home, he was in a very advanced stage of his 28 year battle with parkinson’s disease. He chose to not allow himself to be medicated because of the way the drugs would interfere with his mind and take away from his Torah study. Because of this, he would sway back and forth constantly. Many mornings he spoke with us lying down on a bed in his living room. It was very difficult to hear what he was saying, although one ...

Written by Darren Finke: You might be reading this post on your device in a coffee shop or favorite hangout spot. There may be commotion around you, or you may be reading it in silence. You are engrossed in whatever activity you were doing before you came across this. You’re in your thoughts. You might even think you’re alone, and no one is watching you.  Even when you physically are alone, you are not truly by yourself. Last November, I had the great fortune to join the Men’s JWRP trip to Israel . While in Jerusalem,  an incredible lone solider, Sgt.  Menachem Samel , introduced our group to the concept of hashgacha pratis  (“HP” for short). HP means divine providence; it is the Almighty’s involvement in our lives. Whether we realize it or not, he is orchestrating everything around us. There are no coincidences. The lone solider told us an amazing story of HP in action. This brave soldier and his military unit were in a conflict in the West Bank, holed u...

Have you ever seen someone do something nice, like help an old lady across the street, and then shout “ Hey, it’s a free country !”? I doubt it, because usually when someone says “Its a free country” they are acting like a jerk. America is a country that was built on the idea that everyone is “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” In this great land, we fight to uphold freedom at almost all cost. But all to often, we lose sight of what freedom really means. We tend to define freedom as that which I am allowed to do. I am free to speak. I am free to vote. I am free to bear arms (let's leave that one on the side for right now.) I contrast to this freedom to, Judaism emphasizes a far greater aspect of freedom: Freedom from. Real freedom is the ability to become free from that which is holding me back from greatness. Redemption means to leave the state of being controlled, to become independent of any external attachments. I am free from so...