Torah

And Hashem said to Avram, “Go for yourself from your land, from your birth place, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”

– B’reishis 12:1

It is said that the renowned Chassidic mashpia, R’ Dovid Horodoker zt”l, wept when Czar Nicholas II was overthrown during the Russian Revolution of 1917. “Why do you shed tears over the fall of a tyrant?” he was asked. “I weep,” replied the holy chasid, “because a great mashal in Chassidus is gone.”

“You shall count for yourselves – from the morrow of the rest day (Pesach), from the day when you bring the omer (a measure of volume) of the waving – seven weeks, they shall be complete. Until the morrow of the seventh week you shall count, fifty days…” (Leviticus 23:15-16)

The Gemara recounts how the Sages told R’ Zeira, “One should always reject with the left hand and embrace with the right” (Sota 47b). R’ Zeira, however, preferred to focus on the sin, not the sinner.

Although the mitzvah of teshuvah can be done at any time of the year, the practice is most associated with Aseres Yemei Teshuvah—the Ten Days of Repentance. The Rambam writes in Mishneh Torah that Aseres Yemei Teshuvah is an auspicious time for repentance: “Although repentance and prayer are always effective, they are even more effective during Aseres Yemei Teshuvah when they are accepted immediately.”

There was once a man who went through all the tribulations of Siberia together with the famed Maggid, R’ Yaakov Galinsky shlit”a. After their freedom, he found out that he was the only survivor of his family and was alone in the world. He was broken and saw no reason to live. R’ Yaakov felt that he needed some chizuk to strengthen his resolve and brought him to the home of the Chazon Ish, R’ Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz zt”l.