Insights

The narrow strait is not a roadblock; on the contrary, it is a mechanism for increased productivity. Hydraulic power plants, rockets and garden hoses employ it...

Why the obsession over an ancient Jerusalemite structure? Does the lack of a Holy Temple leave any of us feeling a gaping hole in our lives?

"There is nothing as whole as a broken heart" goes one chassidic saying. "Depression is not a sin; but what depression does, no sin can do" declaims another.

If G-d regrets the creation of galut (exile) every day, why are we still in exile? How could galut exist, even as a concept, without G-d’s continued desire that it be?

Had the Temple not been initially constructed with the knowledge of, and the provision for, what was to happen on the ninth of Av, no mortal could have moved a single stone from its place.

Without a doubt, we have experienced tremendous hardship and pain throughout our history—more so perhaps than other nations. But Jewish history is anything but tragic...

A sin can only be rectified if the guilty person recognizes his guilt. We suffer most from our "unknown" mistakes.

If joy is the revelation and expansion of the soul, then sorrow is a soul's concealment and contraction. In sorrow the soul retreats, silencing all outward expression, shriveling to its narrowest sliver of selfhood...

The stick, it can be said, is a piece of tree that has paid the price of leaving home. The stick, it can also be said, is one who has reaped the rewards of leaving home...

Can a Jew be faulted for failing to constantly search for his Father and yearning for the Redemption? Whose fault is it after all?

What happens when all the pain and torment, all the sins and sorrows of a 4,000-year-old people are squeezed into a space of three weeks?

The kabbalah of the Three Weeks: a buried seed of goodness, a 21-day almond-wood, walls that protect and walls that imprison, the pregnant Tet, and a cosmic birth that puts history to rights

What do a garden hose nuzzle, a rocket, a hydraulic power plant, a shofar, and this article have in common? They all operate on the Pinch Principle

The “vessel” of life is too small right now to receive and perceive this new increment of good (and G-d). It must stretch beyond itself to accommodate the new light which is forcing its way in.

What remains of the destroyed Temple to be held as "collateral"? What is the debt whose payment will trigger the Temple's return to us?

What do we do when a bad dream becomes too horrible to bear? We make ourselves wake up, and all the impossible predicaments and disturbing contradictions disappear as if they never were

We have our own state; so why do we still mourn our exile on Tishah B'Av?

Jews never had history. We have memory. History can become a book, a museum, and forgotten antiquities. Memory is alive. And memory guarantees our future

Jewish history is comprised of two segments: pre and post Temple destruction. The first era is marked by miracles and constant divine intervention; the second by suffering and Divine concealment.

After we grieve or cry we leave the world of sorrow and move into the world of action, doing whatever possible to create a better tomorrow.