Yeshivat Nesher Hagadol

THE REAL MIRACLE OF CHANUKAH By Rav Ari Fuld zt"l This D'var Torah about Chanukah has been adapted from Ari Fuld's Grill and Torah D'var Torah that he gave on Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, the 23rd of Kislev 5777.  I want to talk to you a little bit about the spiritual meaning of Chanukah. Many people have gotten mixed up and make false assumptions about Chanukah, believing it is just a Jewish Xmas. That's a huge mistake. First of all, Chanukah existed long before the Christian holiday, but also, the ideas behind it, our traditions for it and what the message is, are really completely and totally different. As we all know, Chanukah comes out on the 25th day of the month of Kislev. Again, it might be a coincidence that the Christian holiday comes out on the 25th of December, but as I said, Chanukah existed long before the Christian holiday. I'm repeating myself, only because I want to get this incorrect idea out of people's heads, that some...

Under the Black Hat Yesterday I had the most fascinating miscommunication. Some of you might laugh at me, but it's really a powerful testimony as to the disparity between Israel and the US. The daughter of a good friend was giving me a ride in New York. She mentioned that her son attends  yeshivah ketana . And I was utterly shocked. After all, she had a Master's degree and she was a college graduate from a family that places a very high regard on academic excellence and secular education. How could she be entirely depriving her son of any kind of secular education? I mentioned something in this regard, and now it was her turn to be surprised. She had no idea what I was talking about. Of course her son receives a secular education! To a very high level, no less. The school does all the State examinations, and participates in science fairs, etc., etc. And her son will eventually proceed to college and to a professional career. It was at this point that it dawned on me that...

(Photo Courtesy of Circus Tent Blog)

Parshas Vayeira Cheshvan 5780 Based on the Torah of our Rosh HaYeshiva HaRav Yochanan Zweig Weekly Insights Printer Friendly Format   Click Here This week's Insights is sponsored in memory of Mina Bas Yitzchak Isaac . "May her Neshama have an Aliya!"   To Sponsor an Issue of Insights  Click Here     That Healing Feeling To him Hashem appeared, in the plains of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day. He lifted his eyes and saw three men standing before him... (18:1-2) ...

Why Abraham? That is the question that haunts us when we read the opening of this week’s parsha. Here is the key figure in the story of our faith, the father of our nation, the hero of monotheism, held holy not only by Jews but by Christians and Muslims also. Yet there seems to be nothing in the Torah’s description of his early life to give us a hint as to why he was singled out to be the person to whom God said, “I will make you into a great nation … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This is surpassingly strange. The Torah leaves us in no doubt as to why God chose Noah: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generations; Noah walked with God.” It also gives us a clear indication as to why God chose Moses. We see him as a young man, both in Egypt and Midian, intervening whenever he saw injustice, whoever perpetrated it and whoever it was perpetrated against. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you...

                      Parshas Bereishis Tishrei 5780 Based on the Torah of our Rosh HaYeshiva HaRav Yochanan Zweig Weekly Insights Printer Friendly Format   Click Here This week's Insights is dedicated in memory of in loving memory of R' Moshe Chaim Berkowitz z'l - the visionary for whom our Yeshiva is named. "May his Neshama have an Aliya!"   To Sponsor an Issue of Insights  Click Here    Death Becomes Us "Hashem Elokim created man from the soil of the earth" (2:7). Rashi (ad loc) quotes the Midrash ( Tanchuma ,  Pekudei : 3), which explains that Hashem gathered soil from all four corners of the earth to create man so that, regardless of where a person should die, the earth would absorb him in burial. This is a highly perplexing statement. Ostensibly, one of the functions of the ear...