Rabbi Alexander Sender Schorr was a direct descendant of Rabbi Yosef Bechor Schorr of Orleans, one of the most famous of the French Tosafists. At a young age he was already appointed Chief Justice of the Rabbinic Court in the town of Hovniv which is directly outside of Lviv, Ukraine.
He authored the classic work on the laws of ritual slaughter called Simlah Chadashah, as well as a deeper commentary on those laws called Tevu'ot Shor.
The Simlah Chadashah has been reprinted more than one hundred times, and is the most widely used book to learn the laws of shechitah (ritual slaughter). Rabbi Alexander Sender Schorr passed away in the town of Zhovkva on the 27th of Shevat in the year 5497 (1737).
The Baal Shem Tov described life as a spiral staircase, constantly deflecting away from your target in order to attain it.
In Yiddish it’s called a “swindling staircase.” Some wise chassidim have pointed out a connection: Life swindles you into believing you are going in circles when really you are traveling higher each day.
This is the way of every true and lasting ascent: Just as you’re making some progress upward, you see yourself falling away and stumbling in the dark.
If you could see the whole picture, how all things resolve in the end, you would see how those periods of darkness and failure are truly steps higher and yet higher.
They must be. Because we did not create life.
G‑d did. And for Him, there are no failures—