Of Mice Traps and Men

One who reads the Megillah out of sequence has not fulfilled his obligation. (Megillah 17A) The Sefas Emes asks, “Why is “Purim” not called “Pur”?” Why is it called plural- Purim for lots and not lot in the singular since Haman is described as having cast a “pur” to reckon the most favorable day to [...]

On Davening as a BT

Davening is the place where the BT can feel vindicated. Park for a moment the speed factor: that is keeping up or better yet catching up with the Minyan. In the private sense, I think most BT’s tend to take the Avodah- the job of it seriously and are shocked and outraged when in the [...]

A Knowing Heart

And Moshe said so to the children of Israel, and they did not listen to Moshe because of “shortness of breath” and the difficulty of the work. (Shemos 6:9) Because of shortness of breath and the difficulty of the work: not because they didn’t believe in HASHEM and his prophecy, but they just couldn’t pay [...]

The Battle of Our Lives

When you go out to war against your enemy…(Devarim 21:10) The Torah only speaks versus the yetzer hara- the negative inclination(Rashi) While still an unmarried yeshiva man I started learning with a friend the classic ethical work Mesilas Yesharim- The Path of the Just by Moshe Chaim Luzzato. Right before the semester was to end [...]

Kinah for Tisha B’Av

Woe to us on this bitter day! We have what to cry about! Woe for all the heads without Tefillin After 3700 years from Avraham Avinu After having survived Holocausts and Inquisitions… Jewish boys and girls blunder In the darkness that plagues our generation And go lost by the millions With visions of isms and [...]

Feeling Human Beings

HASHEM said to Moshe, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the land; it shall become lice throughout the land of Egypt.’” (Shemos 8:12) Say to Aaron: This plague was not initiated by Moshe for the soil did not deserve to be stricken by Moshe because it protected him when [...]

Not Good Enough

And Yaakov remained alone and a man wrestled with him until break of dawn. And he saw that he could not defeat him so he grabbed him in the hollow of his thigh and he dislocated the hollow of Yaakov’s thigh with his wrestling with him. And he said, “Send me because the dawn has [...]

Meaning and Purpose: A Good Beginning

(B’reishis) In the beginning of G-d having created the heavens and the earth- (Breishis 1:1) (Reishis) The beginning of wisdom is fear of HASHEM! (Tehillim 110:11) We know the Torah is not a book of cosmology for the curious but rather a book of instruction. What can we learn from the Torah’s first words? The [...]

The Heart Really Matters

Why do we read the Book of Ruth on Shevuos? One answer is that Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David who was born on Shevuos and 70 years later died on Shevuos. Still, what does King David have to do with Shevuos in particular? Our sages tell us that “the king is the heart [...]

Where Are You?

And it was as they took them out that one said, “Flee for your life! Do not look behind you or stop anywhere in all the plain Flee to the mountain lest you be swept away!”…….Now HASHEM had caused sulfur and fire to rain upon Sodom and Gomorrah, from HASHEM, out of heaven. He overturned [...]

Looking for Our Brothers

A few years back I found out something about myself that surprised and amazed me. It was Erev Yom Kippur and a colleague of mine, we’ll call him Zalman, and I were on our way to Williams College (a small liberal arts school in western Massachusetts). We were going to meet with some college students [...]

And Straight Again!

I stumbled upon a list of aphorisms and one-liners from one of the premier Baalei Musar-Masters of Ethical Teachings, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, also known as the Alter from Kelm. One phrase made me chuckle at first but I realized it wasn’t and couldn’t be a joke so I highlighted it and parked it in [...]

The Blessed Present

See I place before you today blessing and curse… (Devarim 11:26) All the days of the impoverished (of the mind) are bad while the one with a good heart- (mind) is always drinking. (Mishle’ 15:15) Why is it often so hard to see the blessing? Why do we tend to obsess with -“what’s wrong with [...]

Rabbi Label Lam: Pesach – A Question of Four – mp3

Click on this link to listen to Rabbi Label Lam: Pesach – A Question of Four. (To download the file to your computer, click with the right mouse button on the link and select Save Target As)

Ten Commandments of Parenting

Rabbi Lam recently gave a shiur on the Ten Commandments of Parenting in Toronto. Click on this link to listen to Rabbi Lam on Ten Commandments of Parenting. (To download the file to your computer, click with the right mouse button on the link and select Save Target As)

Rabbi Label Lam on Personal Growth Lessons from Tu B’Shevat

Tonight begins Tu B’Shevat and Rabbi Label Lam gave a wonderful Drasha earlier this month where he looked at the Mishna in Pirkei Avos which states “Rabbi Yaakov said, one who is walking along the road and is studying [Torah], and then interrupts his studies and says, ‘How beautiful is this tree! How beautiful is [...]

Jumpstarting New Beginnings

Hey, long time no blog. I realized what the word blog means. It means you stick your head through a cardboard wall and there’s a bunch of people on the other side who revel in throwing wet sponges at your head. No one gets hurt (we hope). It may generate some fun…and here we hope [...]

Dealing with Parents

Don’t use me as an example. My case is exceptional. My parents after many years became Shomer Shabbos in-spite of me and more because of my wife and children. Children can have that kind of impact on relatives. I witnessed an irreligious grandfather, a holocaust survivor, being told by his little five year old frum [...]

Label Lam – Reflections on Main Problems for Baale’ Teshuva

I’m concerned that someone might be left with the false impression that I think that the biggest problem facing Balale’ Teshuva is that we most often don’t get the punch lines for Yiddish jokes. It’s a little deeper than that. I can remember as a Yeshiva student singing with the other guys on Friday Night [...]

The Biggest Problem Facing Baale’ Teshuvah

Let’s begin with “Boruch HASHEM! There is a world of goodness that each of us has to be grateful for…There is not a “but” or “however” on the other side of that declaration. It is pure and simple, not a party line, not an invitation for “cynicism”, which I always suspect comes from the word [...]

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