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March 25, 2024 – 8:50 pm | Comments Off on Why We Must Resist The Cease Fire Resolution38 views

Tzav: Fighting Evil
We are surrounded by evil; every so often, it rears its ugly head as it did on Simchat Torah—the October 7 massacre. Pure evil raped Jewish mothers, burned Jewish babies alive, mutilated their fathers, and beheaded their neighbors. Pure evil burned loving couples clinging to each other, to …

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Articles by Lazer Gurkow

A Shabbat Fast

July 30, 2022 – 11:52 pm | Comments Off on A Shabbat Fast899 views
fast-innerstream.ca

It is forbidden to fast on Shabbat. In fact, if we fast on Shabbat (even with halachic sanction) we must fast on a different day to atone for fasting on Shabbat. This is why the fast of Tishah Be’av—the ninth of Av, is postponed when it falls on Shabbat —as …

Life Journeys

July 23, 2022 – 11:52 pm | Comments Off on Life Journeys994 views
journeys

We are all on a journey, the journey of life. Although our journeys are similar in many ways, each journey is unique. Have you ever wondered what makes my journey different from yours? What seminal event occurred in our nascent years that made me embark on a different path from …

Fasting And Passover

July 16, 2022 – 11:54 pm | Comments Off on Fasting And Passover855 views
passover-innerstream.ca

What do the seventeenth of Tamuz, the ninth of Av, and the first day of Passover have in common? They always fall on the same day of the week.
How does that make any sense? The first day of Passover represents the redemption of our ancestors from Egypt that sparked their …

A Shlemiel

July 9, 2022 – 11:39 pm | Comments Off on A Shlemiel828 views
shlemiel-innerstream.ca

A shlemiel is a clumsy person who always stumbles and unwittingly finds his way into mishaps. It is Yiddish slang that is meant to be a play on the word shlimazel, another Yiddish aphorism. Shlimazel is a compound of two Hebrew words, shelo-mazel, without luck. A luckless person who always …

The Whip

July 5, 2022 – 9:35 am | Comments Off on The Whip843 views
whip-innerstream.ca

The whip is usually an instrument of punishment, but it can also be a gift. Teachers of old used the whip to administer corporeal punishment. However, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, once wrote about a teacher that was beloved by his students. This teacher never used the …

A Rebel in The Torah

June 26, 2022 – 6:00 pm | Comments Off on A Rebel in The Torah798 views
rebel-innerstream.ca

Korach was a rebel. Not just any rebel, but one who rebelled against the preeminent Jewish leader, Moses. Yet rather than living in infamy, an entire Parshah of the Torah is dedicated to him and even named after him. Why, couldn’t we find a better name for this Parshah? Must …

My Business With G-d

June 22, 2022 – 11:24 am | Comments Off on My Business With G-d1,925 views
talit-innerstream.ca

Every morning before I don my talit, I contemplate my business for the day. By tradition, I separate out each of the thirty-two strings that constitute the tzitzit—fringes on my talit. The purpose is to ensure that they are not entangled or knotted and that they are all intact. However, …

Off The Derech

June 11, 2022 – 11:37 pm | Comments Off on Off The Derech1,001 views
off-the-derech-innerstream.ca

Off the derech means literally off the path. It is a common adage in observant circles to describe people who were once observant but had since taken a different path. It is so common that it has its own acronym in our acronym crazed days, OTD. It is not intended …