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Recent Posts
- Learning about the Torah’s perspective
- The Perfect Present
- The Owner
- Body-Soul
- Yom Kippur and the Spiritual Smorgasbord
- Audio classes now available
- Remembrance and Asking the Right Question – the Holocaust and Purim
- Sudden Tragedies, Fear of Heaven and The deaths of the righteous
- Definitions of Maturity: The Torah and the Nickelodean Street
- The non-blessing blessing
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Author Archives: Rabbi Ephraim D. Becker
The Ingredients of Mussar: Critical Thinking, Self Help and Torah
`That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone. `When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.’ Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking … Continue reading
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The Difference between Mussar and Self-Improvement
What is the difference between Mussar and other forms of personal growth? I’ve been asked any number of times how Mussar differs from Covey, Pransky, Positive Psychology and a host of other self-improvement programs and concepts. You may find yourself … Continue reading
Posted in Introduction
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A Chanukah Gift
Permit me to share with you my paraphrase of a Chanukah thought expressed best by the legendary Mirer Rosh Yeshiva (Dean of the Mir Torah Academy, transplanted from Lithuania to Jerusalem and NY) Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz (1902-1978) in his collection of discourses entitled Sichos … Continue reading
Posted in Mussar
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Home Runs and Torah Do Not Meet
My apologies to those who are not familiar with baseball; hopefully the message will be clear even to those who do not share that childhood experience with me. Legend has it (I’ve not seen it confirmed anywhere) that baseball great … Continue reading
Mussar and the Force of Gravity
Human beings have always attempted to push against the limits imposed on them by their nature, but we seem to have few tools for doing so when the nature we are dealing with is internal. We try to build buildings … Continue reading
Posted in Introduction, Mussar
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On the Road to Bitachon
There is an ideal called Bitachon which, loosely translated, means ‘assurance drawn from HaShem’, and is associated with tranquility and freedom from anxiety or anger. Anxiety and anger are preoccupying states of mind which drain precious resources from one’s service since one’s … Continue reading
Posted in Bitachon, Mussar, Prayer
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