This newsletter is not dead, and work has not ceased on upcoming posts. In fact, the thing about Mount Sinai, the one that was next according to that incredibly optimistic schedule I published near the beginning of 2023 (this series of posts was meant to be finished by Shavuot last year), is at around the 3500-word mark. I will complete it soon, and then the next one, and then the next one. The adrift year, the annus horribilis 2023, feels like it’s finally receding, and I am tinkering on beautiful things to fill the future.

We are now in the month of Adar, the Jewish month of joy. To that end, I wish to share one of this newsletter's current inspirations. It is a wonderful short essay by Robert Louis Stevenson called “The Lantern-Bearers.” It, like all my recent writing, is about how “no man lives in the external truth.” It contends that “to miss the joy is to miss all.” And in case you don’t want to read it yourself, I’ve read it for you.

Love,

Tzvi

Episode ten of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode nine of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode eight of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode seven of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode six of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode five of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode four of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Episode three of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

Here it is, episode two of “Repentance w/Tzvi”.

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d in the Jewish fashion

Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Yours,

Tzvi

It’s been forever. But I had an idea!

Idea: "Repentance with Tzvi", one minute per day Elul vlog (until September 18) on the joys and subtleties of returning to G-d on the Jewish fashion

So here it is. Listen in audio form like the regular podcast, or check out the video below. Feel free to share, subscribe, and, most importantly, enjoy.

Wishing you a good month,

Tzvi

I write to you from the cold of winter, which surely parallels the cold detachment of worldly intellect. True, the mind is powerful enough to know that it cannot know everything, but in general, when not acting as a vessel for faith, the rational intellect is a teribly dangerous tool, able to find multiplicity in any unity, ego in any humility, separation in any togetherness.

Trying to fill the emptiness of human existence with the rational intellect is like trying to fix cracked ceramic with an axe. Our emptiness comes from our apartness from the infinite, the true Fullness of Being. It is the mind that led the very first idolators to sanctify this apartness, and it is by understanding the limits of the mind that we can and must mend it.

Stay warm out there,

Tzvi

P.S. Apologies for the lower audio quality in this one; it was recorded without the aid of my usual equipment.

P.P.S. If you enjoy this podcast, dear listener, please subscribe and share with others who’d enjoy it.

Has the whole world gone mad?

Let me start over: The whole world is mad, as the Jews have often suspected. But has the illness grown so severe that the Jews themselves have started accepting it?

Left and right, Jews bequeath Jewish identity upon gentiles and deny it to their brothers and sisters. I don’t like it one bit. Not just because the reasons are pathetic, obvious, bald attempts at squaring an ancient and noble tribe with young and faddish tribes. Even worse than declaring Jews to be non-Jews (or vice versa) for bad reasons is declaring it for any reason.

Chassidus, as usual, diagnosed the problem long before its basest manifestations had a chance to arise. The Alter Rebbe teaches us at the very beginning of the holy Tanya: A Jew is a Jew by virtue of the inscrutable and sacred nature of the Divine, and not by virtue of any earthly allegiance or cause. When you muck about with Jewish identity, it’s His borders you cross. The very cognizance of this fact is G-d whispering our own names in our ears, that we may shake off the slumber of exile and become whom He has made us to be.

Stirred, not shaken,

Tzvi

P.S. As always, if you enjoy this podcast, please like, share, and subscribe!

P.P.S. We have bumper music now! Let me know what you think.

It’s been a while! First, I was on vacation. And then, I wasn’t. But that’s neither here nor there. Just like the purpose of our universe’s creation.

We’re not here to pick a side, nor to pretend that the sides are not separate, but rather to unite them. This is one of the central themes of the central Chassidic holiday, Yud Tes Kislev, that we celebrate this week. The infinite and the finite, faith and intellect, are to be brought together. This is the reason G-d said “Let there be light,” the reason we are here on earth.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe and share!

L’chaim,

Tzvi

It’s hard to zero in on what the soul is, despite being a soul. So much of our lives are spent pulling away from ourselves, investing our energies in things patently external to us, and, usually, in the aspects of those things external to them.

Before we get into deep forms of worship in which we negate our own being, perhaps we can start simply, as Abraham did, thinking about the being underlying all being. This will set up a solid center position, from which we can tic-tac-toe across and down to the end of Abraham’s story as a perfect suprarational vessel for G-dliness.

XOXO,

Tzvi

I hope the Fall finds you well! I myself have spiritually scraped my knee, which reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago that I decided to record for you. The Chassidic Masters teach that unity is a most fundamental principle in fixing this universe and represents the ultimate goal, the messianic truth underlying all reality. It is worth dwelling then, for an occasional moment, on the apartness G-d has placed into our world, on the separation we have within us the ability to overcome.

I like to think it was just such questions that brought the first Chassidim to the Baal Shem Tov’s door…

Good Shabbos,

Tzvi

For the third episode of this little enterprise, I present to you something truly different — a discussion on the nature of different-ness. This is an episode I recorded freestyle, as it were, with a little preparation but no notes or rigid structure. It’s longer than if I was reading an essay. As always, I yearn for your comments. Is this better than when I simply read pre-written material?

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe and share.

Be holy, and until next time,

Tzvi

We have here another episode connected with the holiday of Sukkos. The connection this time is less explicit. It doesn’t talk about the Lulav or the Sukkah or even the book of Koheles. No, this episode is connected with Sukkos because for some reason this time of year I always feel like writing an essay on a teaching of the holy Baal Shem Tov. Something about the fresh fall air, the dew on the schach in the morning, the sun through the trees…it makes me think about the founder of Chassidus as a small child, wandering the backwoods of the Ukraine and Poland, fearing nothing but G-d alone.

That is really one of the two themes of the BeShT’s teachings: Love every Jew as yourself, and fear nothing but G-d. The latter underlies today’s recording, which seeks to show how, with a grounding in meaning, Chassidus can help us elevate even the meaningless, and we struggle to see it because our grounding is in meaninglessness. The former, I hope you feel in my sincerest wishes to you for a joyous and sincere Shmini Atzeres and Simchas Torah.

Please don’t forget to forward this to all your friends and perhaps even your enemies who you still like deep down. It’s free to sign up, and new types of content, all sorts of things you’ve never heard before, are just over the horizon.

All the best to you and yours,

Tzvi

P.S. Did you know signed copies of my book are available through my website? It’s true!

Ladies and gentlemen, your prayers are answered.

I am opening here on Substack a space for audio recordings on my usual topics: Judaism, the world, &c. Some of these recordings will be audio version of essays I have already written and that appear in my book. Others will be entirely new material, scripted and unscripted.

As time goes on, I have many ideas for new types of recurring content I would like to try. All of them will be accessible, as many of you have requested, through podcast apps such as iTunes, Stitcher, &c.

If you enjoy what you hear here, please sign up for future releases and share this with others.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know — I would like to build this into something you really enjoy and benefit from.

Our inaugural episode here is a recording of an essay I wrote a few years back called “On the Mysteries of King Solomon and Koheles”. It’s appropriate for the holiday of Sukkos that starts tonight. The text can be found on my website and, in slightly improved form, in my book.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful, joyous festival of booths,

Tzvi