There is a famous Midrash that Rav Shimshom Dovid Pincus, zt”l, brings down in the sefer Shabbos Kodesh. Rabbi Yehudah Hanasi (Rebbi) and the Emperor Antoninus were friends. Once, Rebbi invited Antoninus for a cold Shabbos afternoon meal. Antoninus found the food especially delicious despite the fact that it was cold. The next day, Rebbi invited him for another meal of warm food. Antoninus reported that he liked the Shabbos food better. Rebbe told him that the weekday foods were missing a certain seasoning called Shabbos.

  One part of the mitzva of keeping Shabbos is the “zachor” aspect, to

The most quoted saying of Rav Tzadok of Lublin is probably this one: “Just as a person has to believe (have emuna) in Hashem, so he is obligated after this to believe (have emuna) in himself, that Hashem has a relationship (shaychus) with him.” This thought is especially relevant for Pesach.

  The saying has, in a sense, two separate parts, which are tightly interconnected. We have to believe in ourselves, and we also have to believe that Hashem cares about us and what we do. Our day can be lived as though each experience is routine and of little

At the beginning of Rav Dessler’s essay on free will (Kunteras Habechira), he talks about a cigarette smoker. This person already has respiratory problems, and knows that smoking will only make him feel worse, immediately and in the long run. Yet he convinces himself that he will have only “one more” and then stop, a strategy that has never worked for him in the past and does not work now either. How does the smoker do it? By wrapping himself in a haze of willful blindness, in which state he can do what he wants and ignore repercussions.

  It