ESSAYS| 2015

ESSAYSss| English

When Inspiration Eludes

by Ari Kasowitz

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest How should one approach the problem of Judaism that appears unexciting? At times we are inspired and excited to be Jews and Chassidim, but at other times even simple tasks seem impossible. As an artist with artist friends, I hear the word ‘Inspiration’ thrown around a lot, with a capital I. Inspiration

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Reimagining Your Script

by Leah Miller

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest When a careless driver smashes into your $35,000 car, you become filled with rage. All the thousands of words of Chassidus you have learned flee your mind instantaneously, leaving no residue. You’re fixated on the wellbeing of your car. You’re furious. Why is it that at times like these you lose faith

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Changing Perceptions With Experiential Knowledge

by Zev Bannett

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest How can I create meaningful change in my life and become the person I always wished I could be? We all have aspects of ourselves we don’t like, that we wish we could remove, or at least improve, enabling us to become better, different, more successful, more effective. How do we accomplish

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The Potency Of Thought

by Batya Levitan

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest Learning Chassidus can be very intimidating. One could view Chassidus as a foreign language, a foreign way of thinking. What does Chassidus have to do with my everyday struggles? One can think that only the privileged few Holy Saints — disengaged from the world — can actually master the concepts in Chassidus

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Choosing Life In A World Preoccupied With Death

by Avi Kamman

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest An Application of Chassidus-Based Mindfulness “I put before your today life and death…choose life.” — Deuteronomy 30:15 and 30:19 “We are going to win because they love life, and we love death.” — Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, 20041 The Torah is called “Toras Chayim”, “a teaching for living”. Originating with

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Pain And Suffering

by Mirel Deitsch

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest Can you go on with your life when hit over the head with tragedy? Can a mother who lost her child go on to be a functional human being? Can a man whose entire business is lost leaving him penniless still function as the leader of his family? Can a girl who

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Responding To Suffering

by Osher Gutnick

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest How does God expect us to respond to suffering? According to the Chassidic doctrine of hashgacha pratis, it would seem that everything that happens to us is the will of God, and, by extension, a good thing. But is this really so? The following essay explores the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings to shed

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Getting Through Grief By Choosing Joy

by Yael Hanover

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest In my lifetime, I have met dozens of people who have ceased to acknowledge G-d’s existence because a benevolent G-d wouldn’t allow certain things to happen. Dead kids, war, the Holocaust, bad politicians, hangnails, you name it. If there was a G-d, these things would never happen. For a while, I was

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Overcoming Extreme Depression

by Akiva Greenbaum

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest The purpose of this essay is to address a challenge which many people have, and I hope to offer a possible solution based on Chassidic teachings. The subject I am addressing is the issue of extreme depression. For the purpose of this article, I am defining depression as the point when a

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Recognizing Your Elements

by Miriam Yerushalmi

Essays 2015

MyLife Essay Contest Living in a world of temptation we are inundated with countless assaults on our responsibility as ethical, moral and productive human beings. Our economy, media and society sends us subliminal messages that make us want more of everything. When we are done overspending, we are faced with countering the lures of social

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