Mendy Herson

As someone who struggles with "Blackberry on the Brain," and with the difficulty of being truly present whilst feeling torn in multiple directions, my friend's words struck a chord. How DOES one become "present"?

We instinctively associate the pursuit of beauty with the pursuit of movie star glamour. So we denigrate it as vanity. But is that what beauty is? Could there conceivably be a place for beauty in a refined, holy life?

King Solomon, author of Proverbs, speaks of the gullible fool. Then our venerable Sages, in their homiletic compilation known as the Midrash, interpret that verse to refer to…MOSES?

What if I'm so bent on being honest that I consistently find fault in my own actions? What if I find myself claiming too much "credit" for collective miscalculations and blunders? In a strange way, being hard on yourself can make you feel good...

Darkness doesn’t necessarily mean evil; it means the absence of light. When life’s meaning seems inscrutable, when I’m running from task to task oblivious to the need for meaning, that’s called darkness.

Yes, crises seem to be at the center of our holiday experiences. Even in our personal lives, we may notice how emergencies give us a jarring wake-up call, prompting us to ask G‑d for assistance. But what about the other days?

In the immortal words of the famous first century sage Hillel: "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?..." In other words: I need to look after myself; who else should? So where's the problem with selfishness? For that, we need to consider the r...

Think about it: our behavior is our feedback to G‑d, our response to His gift of life, as clouds are earth's feedback (in the form of vapor) to the warmth of the sun...

Once I've made a mistake, can it ever be retroactively un-done?

Think about your deepest wish. I don't mean an ice cream sundae or new shoes; I mean something that strikes at your very core. How would you feel if someone made this wish a reality? Well, that's how G‑d feels when we live right...