Aruch Hashulchan

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 14, Sermon 26: Avoid Heresy, Even More Than Sin! Sermon 26, the last one in the book (although not of this series, since I’ve taken them out of that order), is more big-picture than we’ve seen until now. While we’ve seen indications that Aruch HaShulchan was addressing a populace losing ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermon 24: Earning Compassion The Proper Place of Law and Kindness This sermon opens with two sources that seem to denigrate the letter of the law. R. Yochanan, in Baba Metzia 30b, attributed the destruction of Jerusalem to Jews’ having insisted on strict construction and application of the law, and in Bereshit 18;19, Hashem expects/hopes that ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 13, Sermon 21 and 22: Redirecting Misguided Efforts I have been trying to order the sermons of Aruch HaShulchan’s that I present in as close to a thematic order as possible. Sermons 21 and 22 both work to convince the audience that they are investing their financial and religious energies ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Week 12, Sermon 8: Finding Our Way Back to Being Hashem’s Beloved Who Makes the First Move Aruch HaShulchan’s Sermon 8 starts by noting that Shir HaShirim twice speaks of the mutual love between the dod and the narrator—2;16 says “dodi li va-ani lo, my beloved is to me and I to him,” and in 6;3, ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Week 11, Sermon 25 and 2: Torah Study and Building a Faithful Jewish People Sermon 25: Making It About Torah Study Rain and Dew Aruch HaShulchan explains his opening source earlier than he has in the previous sermons we’ve seen. He notes that Moshe Rabbenu opens Ha’azinu—after calling on heaven and earth to hear his words—by ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 10, Sermon 10: Avoiding the Futile by Focusing On Our Purpose The Purpose is the Point Aruch HaShulchan opens this sermon [after the introductory question; since he doesn’t get back to that question for a while, I’m going to leave it until then, and see if it helps with the clarity ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 9, Sermon 12: What the Yetzer Hara Really Wants The yetzer hara, the evil inclination, has seven names, according to R. Avera in Sukkah 52a, who then offers verses that show figures of Tanach who used each of those seven. Aruch HaShulchan explains that we always call it, ra, bad ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 8, Sermon 16: Torah as the Cure to Our Ills One of the challenges of Aruch HaShulchan’s sermons [this was characteristic of traditional sermonizing] is that he does not telegraph where he’s heading. The style assumes that readers [and listeners] were willing to go along for the ride, for a ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 7, Sermon 3: Find a Better Life! Around the same time as R. Epstein was giving the sermons we’re studying here, R. Yisrael Meir HaKohen was publishing a book called Chafetz Chayyim, based on the verse in Tehillim that calls out to those who want life, telling them to guard ...

by R. Gidon Rothstein Sermons of the Aruch HaShulchan, Week 6, Sermon 7: Holding On to Our Self-Confidence and to Membership in the Jewish People This is the last of the sermons not labeled as either for Shabbat HaGadol or Shabbat Shuvah, but it takes up a theme we’ve seen and will see, Torah’s effect on the Jewish people. He ...