לחם חן — Lechem Chein

Earlier this week I spent an embarrassing amount of time planning our family’s summer vacation. I genuinely enjoy this part. Comparing locations. Reading reviews. Finding the perfect Airbnb or hotel or campsite. Looking at hiking trails. Figuring out whether the four-year-old would enjoy one place more than another, or whether the older boys would get bored. Deciding whether it’s worth spending a little more for a nicer place, a bit more privacy, or a better view. Before long I had more browser tabs open than I could count. The funny part was that every new tab made me less certain, not more.  There were simply too many good options. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I caught myself smiling. This wasn’t really about planning a summer getaway. This was just… me. I’ve noticed the same pattern showing up in lots of places.  It’s rarely the bad ideas that overwhelm me. It’s the good ones. A new book or podcast someone recommends, an article I’d like to write, a program I’d like...

Sunday night I attended a farbrengen in honor of Yud-Beis and Yud-Gimmel Tammuz, celebrating the Frierdiker Rebbe's release from prison. Over the past few years, this group’s farbrengens have gravitated toward a different style. Instead of inviting one or two people to headline the evening—which can feel more like a lecture—someone introduces a theme and then we simply go around the table. Each person has a chance to share whatever that topic stirs in them. Stories. Questions. Struggles. Reflections. Every so often we pause for a niggun, and then someone else picks up the thread. I don't know if that's exactly what farbrengens looked like in the shtetls of old, but I'd like to imagine they felt something like this. Since we were gathering to celebrate the Frierdiker Rebbe's release, I suggested we spend some time exploring a simple question: What does freedom actually mean? After that, though, the floor wasn't mine anymore. That's when the farbrengen really ...

Beha’aloscha was a month ago. At least, that’s when we read it. Apparently it wasn’t finished with me yet. Which, when you think about it, is actually rather fitting. You see, it's the parsha that introduces Pesach Sheni—the second chance that comes exactly one month after the first. Of all the parshiyos to come back to late, this might be the only one where “a month later” isn’t a mistake. It’s built into the Torah itself. When I finished Sefer Vayikra, I made a conscious decision to stop forcing myself to publish something every week . The writing had started as “whenever something felt alive enough to share,” and somewhere along the way it quietly became another obligation. I wanted to return to the original rhythm. Baruch Hashem, that hasn’t meant becoming less engaged. If anything, it’s meant becoming more alive. The processing has continued. Sometimes it becomes an article. Sometimes it becomes a conversation. And sometimes it simply becomes life. So when Beha’aloscha arrived...

Last year, during Parshas Balak, I published a letter to camp staff about connection vs. discipline. It included a postscript—a memory from twenty years ago I’d almost left out entirely—about a staff member who slapped me across the face one night before lights out.  I was fourteen. At the time, I assumed that writing it down had closed the chapter. The story had been told. The lesson had been extracted and shared. Whatever needed to be processed had been processed. Apparently not. Last week, I came across an article that unexpectedly brought the memory rushing back to the surface. The article wasn’t about camp, and it certainly wasn’t about me. But it was written by someone whose last name I associated with that story. As I read it, I found myself thinking about something I’ve been wrestling with a lot over the past year and a half. Much of my recent work has involved revisiting old stories about myself. Stories about who I am. Stories about where I struggle. Stories about things...

This past weekend, I attended an Ahdama Brotherhood retreat. The premise of the weekend was simple, though far from easy: to slow down long enough to remember who you are underneath all the stories, reactions, and patterns you’ve accumulated over the years. Over the last year and a half, I’ve spent a lot of time doing that kind of work—paying attention to the things that trigger me, asking uncomfortable questions, and sitting in the places where I still have room to grow. Most of that work has happened alone or 1 on 1. That’s not a bad thing, as some internal sorting can only be done in isolation, but there was something profoundly different about this weekend. Sitting in that circle, I found myself hearing pieces of my own story in places I didn’t expect. It wasn't because everyone else’s life looked like mine; in many cases, our struggles and histories weren't even close. Yet, I kept recognizing parts of myself. I’d watch a reaction I understood immediately, or a pattern I’d...

This week, I finally had a hard conversation that I had been avoiding for a very long time. It wasn't that the facts of the situation had suddenly changed. What changed was that I finally reached a point where I got more tired of hiding a struggle than I was afraid of being honest about it. I realized it’s healthier to just live in reality than to keep staying on autopilot out of fear of how I'll be seen. And something surprising happened: reality turned out to be much softer than the script fear had written in my head. It didn’t magically solve everything or wipe away the work left to do, but it was human. It was met with warmth and straightforwardness. And it made me think of this week’s parsha, Shelach. When the spies return from the land, they deliver a report that breaks the nation's spirit. But there is one specific line that maps out exactly how fear operates: וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and...

I was learning Shaar HaBitachon Wednesday afternoon when someone in the group stopped at a line from the Baal Shem Tov (Fellig Edition p. 119-120). The teaching says that a person should ensure that no day goes by without fulfilling a Torah commandment.  He asked: what’s the chiddush? A person wakes up, says Modeh Ani, washes negel vasser, puts on tefillin. Obviously they’re doing something. My first reaction was: not every Jew does even one mitzva every day. There are lots of non religious people, and the Baal Shem Tov likely wasn’t making statements only for the people in the room with him. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that wasn’t actually the Baal Shem Tov’s point. What struck me was that the Baal Shem Tov wasn’t describing a deficiency in the mitzvah. He was describing a difference in the person. Two people can do the exact same thing and have completely different experiences of it. One is present. One is on autopilot. The action may be identical, but o...

What Am I Ready to Receive? A Shavuos Reflection on נעשה ונשמע Lately, I’ve been realizing how much of my life I can spend in my head. Thinking through things. Analyzing them. Preparing for them. Running every possible outcome before I take one step forward. What if this happens? What if I’m wrong? What if I don’t understand enough yet? What if I’m not ready? For a long time, that kind of thinking helped me. It helped me survive. It helped me stay ahead of things. It gave me the feeling that if I could just understand enough, prepare enough, and predict enough, I would be safe. But there is a point where thinking stops being clarity and starts becoming a cage. The mind keeps circling, not because it is finding truth, but because it is afraid to move. Everyone has their own version of this. For some people it is overthinking. For others it is staying busy, staying useful, staying in control, staying numb, or staying one step removed from the thing itself. Most of us know some version of...

Last week, I wrote about ending the weekly rhythm so the walking could begin. This week, I got a small taste of what that actually means. Not in some huge way. More like the annoying kind, where last week’s nice idea suddenly wanted a real-life application. I know I can’t carry everything. I know that. I know being responsible doesn’t mean I need to be the landing place for every question, every problem, every unclear thing that no one knows what to do with. I know asking for help matters. I know structure matters. I know all of that. But knowing it is not the same as doing it. This week, some of that had to move from idea into action. I had to actually name where I was being pulled too thin. Not just vaguely say, “I need more support,” and hope that somehow made things lighter. Support needs a shape. Otherwise it just becomes another thing to manage. That is where Bamidbar met me. The Levi’im are not just told to carry the Mishkan. They are divided by family, and each family is given ...

Two months ago, I felt like I was done. The weekly process of sitting with the Parsha long enough to find myself somewhere inside it, and then trying to turn that into something honest enough to share, had me ready to close up shop. But I decided to stick it out until the end of this Sefer, closing the loop on a weekly rhythm that really began last Bamidbar . I’m glad I did. If I had stopped then, I would have missed the buildup of these last few weeks. The themes we’ve explored recently—learning the inner avodah of the korbanos , how to wait ,  how to distinguish what belongs , and how to integrate “peak moments” into daily life —gave me the language for where I’m going now. It turns out the Torah saves some of the most important lessons about stopping, and about what comes after, for this week’s Parshiyos. That feels fitting, because right after Vayikra closes, the Torah begins preparing the people to move again. Behar: The Bravery of the Rest In Parshas Behar, we learn about She...

I spent this past Shabbos on a Shabbaton, and as I drove home Sunday afternoon, I felt that familiar, heavy shift. It’s that “after” feeling we all know too well. Whether it’s a vacation, a meaningful Yom Tov, or a personal breakthrough, there are moments where the world finally makes sense. You feel present, aligned, and remarkably clear about what actually matters. But then the car door shuts, the phone pings, and you’re back. You’re back to the schedule, the overflowing inbox, and the steady hum of regular life. Almost immediately, that clarity starts to fade. Not a sudden crash—just a slow leak. Our instinct is to freeze-frame that inspiration, to keep the fire burning at that same 100% intensity. But the fire always settles, and we end up feeling like we’ve failed because we couldn’t stay “there.” But maybe we aren’t supposed to stay there. This tension is exactly what we find in Parshas Emor.  The Torah takes us into that headspace by laying out the calendar: מוֹעֲדֵי ה׳ אֲשֶ...

The last few weeks have been building to now. That’s always how life goes—one journey leading into the next. In Shemini , I found the language for distinguishing —seeing the difference between what belongs in a healthy life and what is just a distraction. In Tazria–Metzora , I found the language for waiting —the discipline of sitting with a feeling without rushing to "fix" or "soothe" it. But the real challenge happens when the intensity of a 'growth moment' fades.  You’re just left with the new schedules and the new pressures of a life that has gotten fuller. That’s when the Yetzer Hara changes his tactics. He stops fighting you and starts "negotiating" with you. The Sly Fox puts on a gartel . He doesn’t ask you to throw everything away; he just suggests a "softer" version of the old habits.  He tries to walk you gently back into the blur, saying: “Maybe it’s different now, you’re not who you used to be.” “You’re stronger now; you can e...

My wife just went back to work after maternity leave. We’re adjusting again — new rhythms, less space between things. I’ve been noticing how quickly things are felt these days. When the margin is this thin, things just land harder. A sharp word or something just slightly off doesn’t just pass. It stays. It ferments. ⸻ Tazria opens right in that space. After a woman gives birth, the Torah doesn’t move straight to celebration. It moves into tumah — a period of waiting, of separation, a slow process before returning. In the wake of a shift like that, closeness doesn’t work the same way. You can’t just smooth something over and move on. What might have passed unnoticed in other times now needs to be held a little more carefully. ⸻ Straight from there, the Torah moves into tzaraas . Something appears on the skin. The instinct is to define it immediately — to name it, to fix it, to push it away. But the Torah doesn’t rush. The person is brought to the kohein . He sees it, and then, often, h...

Pesach is over. The dishes are put away. The house goes back to normal. The “festival of freedom” is already starting to feel like a memory, and the routines of the year begin to settle back in. But I’m still thinking about my own Yetzias Mitzrayim . What I’m trying to leave behind, and where I’m trying to move toward. Because the truth is, even when the external Egypt is gone, the internal ones—the habits, the patterns, the ways we check out—have a way of quietly returning. And then I see a line from tomorrow's Hayom Yom ( 24 Nissan ): לא טוב האבן מיר אלע We all have something that isn’t good. Even in the Beis Hamikdash, the Korban La’Azazel—the goat sent away—was part of the avodah.  That means the parts of us that aren’t aligned aren’t outside the system. They are part of the work itself. They aren’t outside the avodah. They are the avodah. Not everything is meant to be brought close. Some things are recognized, named, and sent away. Mir aleh.  All of us. -- That lands diff...

The Seder moves in a very clear order. Step by step. קדש, ורחץ, כרפס… A steady movement forward. But in the middle of it, we pause and name the plagues. Moments that don’t feel steady at all. Moments where something breaks. ----- I put together two short reflection pieces for this year. One follows the fifteen steps of the Seder, noticing how we move forward, one step at a time. The other sits with the ten plagues, the moments that disrupt, shift, and force something to change. You can use them on your own, or as conversation starters with family or friends. ----- They’re not meant to replace the Seder or any of the Torah shared around the table. Just something to sit alongside it, or to come back to later, when things are quieter. Download both reflections click here (print double-sided).

I had to be in New York on Monday night for a wedding. The original plan was simple, a quick trip in and out. Then my sister had a baby boy, with the bris set for Thursday, and I decided to stay instead of going back and forth. Only after looking at the calendar did I realize it would also overlap with my Zaidy’s yartzeit (7 Nissan). I hadn’t planned to be there for it, to be with family, to visit his kever. But I was. It brought me back to exactly one year ago , when I made two back to back trips to New York, first for this same sister’s wedding, and then again for Zaidy’s yartzeit. That contrast stayed with me as I thought about this week’s parsha. Parshas Tzav opens with a quiet instruction: אֵשׁ תָּמִיד תּוּקַד עַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא תִכְבֶּה A fire shall always be burning on the Mizbeach. It may not go out. Last year felt like fire. This year feels like coals. A year ago, my life felt like something was opening. There was a kind of inner fire, a sense of movement, something I could ...