ChabadThink

Chabad is a cognitive approach that has faith in the divine spark within each of us, and empowers us to find that spark and fan its flames. Not through coercion, not through guilt or tirades from the pulpit, nor by promises of instant enlightenment does Chabad reach the Jew, but by facilitating each one in his or her own path.

There’s something you brought to the world that the world didn’t give you. It’s the only thing that makes you real.

There’s a beast inside all of us. You’ve got to meet it eye to eye, in its own den.

Just as we invoke the existence of a force of gravity to explain things falling and an electromagnetic force to explain a host of otherwise very mysterious phenomena, so we invoke the existence of a soul-force to explain our inner experience of being alive, conscious, and self-directed.

He’s in the heavens, and He’s here on earth. He’s in the ethereal world of the philosopher, and He’s in the pragmatic world of the trucker speeding down Interstate 86. He’s in the putrid world of the worker digging out the city sewers down the street, and He’s in the aroma of the garlic our cook was now sprinkling on the chickens for tonight’s dinner. None of this could exist if He were not there. So, He’s certainly in your field of vision. Why can’t I see Him?

We intuitively think of matter as something very static, just sitting there. It’s strange to think of matter as a tune being played by a string. What if our entire reality is just that?

All that exists emerges out of G‑d’s desire to love and be loved. All that we do is an act within that drama. There is nothing else.

Instead of asking whether there’s such a thing as a miracle, let’s ask if there’s such a thing as nature. Who is this Mother Nature anyways?

If matter is made almost entirely of empty space, why can’t my hand go through it? The answer is more mystifying than the question, and leads to some profound implications about our reality.

Ultimately, matter is the thing that matters the most. Because the experience of matter is the most profound expression of creativity in the creation.

It is the height of human audacity to assume that we are fantastic instances of consciousness that have somehow emerged out of a dumb universe—much like the teenager who can’t understand how such a bright guy like me came from parents who have no brains.

If G‑d is not to be a dangerous idea, G‑d must be good. But that would seem to be a small G‑d, a defined G‑d, limited by the parameters of goodness. How can we believe in a G‑d that contains all of existence and yet believe that His goodness is real and absolute? There is only one solution, but it is a very strange and radical solution...

We all need failure. Failure, you see, is the only way you can fall out of the script.

When a maamar is spoken, something new and vital has entered the world. How are we to approach the maamar? How much of it are we capable of understanding? How is it meant to change us, and our world?

The very substance of the cosmos continually oscillates between a state of being and not-being. This oscillation, say the chassidic masters, is the primal source of Time.