Adam Simon

Here we go. Last post. I really can’t believe it’s here, that it has actually been 60 days and that each and every day we shared some Torah together…well here we go, let’s make it count. You might wonder why we are making such a big deal about NCSY at 60. You might think that

King Solomon tells us (Proverbs 27:21), “מַצְרֵף לַכֶּסֶף, וְכוּר לַזָּהָב; וְאִישׁ, לְפִי מַהֲלָלוֹ – the refining pot shows us what silver really is, the furnace shows us for gold, but a person’s true colors are shown by what they praise.” We can learn a lot about a person based upon what they feel is important.

Whoa…it’s almost the last day. I guess this better be good. We have spent the last few days preparing for the imminent end of this blog – today is perhaps the most important preparation for that. When parents raises a child from childhood to adulthood they must do many things to get them there. The Talmud spells out three things

Wow, I can’t believe it’s almost over…as we mentioned yesterday, as we get closer to the end of our summer together we have to start getting ready for life outside of this blog. So today we are going to talk about one of the most important secrets to keeping the inspiration and growth going. (There are

Sadly, after today, there are only 4 more days in our journey together…it’s time to start getting ready for what’s coming. The Talmud tells us (Tamid 32a), “איזהו חכם? הרואה את הנולד – Who is wise? One who see what’s coming.” but elsewhere (Pirkei Avot 4:1) we are told, “איזה הוא חכם? הלמד מכל אדם – Who

Toward the end of the summer we read Parshat Shoftim, in which the Jewish people are commanded to appoint judges and guards at their gates – “ שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים, תִּתֶּן-לְךָ בְּכָל-שְׁעָרֶיךָ – You should appoint judges and guards at all your gates”. Whenever the Torah uses the word לְךָ, which literally means ‘for you’, it means

No, this isn’t a shameless plug for, the now Kosher, Gatorade (although, I’m sure that the proceeds from it becoming Kosher do help in paying my bills…). But it is a shameless plug for staying healthy. The Torah tells us (Exodus 4:9), “רַק הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ וּשְׁמֹר נַפְשְׁךָ מְאֹד – Protect yourself, guard your life a

During the summer, we observe Tisha Be’av, our Jewish national day of mourning for all our tragedies, and the days leading up to this day are also marked with a certain amount of sadness. The days leading up to Tisha Be’av mirror the days of mourning after a person loses a loved one. But they

On a recent camping trip with my students they challenged me to find a Torah message with the next song that came up on the playlist. I accepted. Once I heard the melancholy guitar rift of “Friend is a Four Letter Word” come on, I knew it would be a Cake walk (pun intended). You see, the

Whoa! What is going on here? Didn’t I write, just yesterday, about being honest, and now I am telling all of you to lie as a way of connecting to your Jewish Heritage? What’s the deal with that?! Well, you see, there are some conditions on the lying that I am talking about. As we have