Episode Details

Rabbi Jacobson will discuss the following topics:
 Rosh Chodesh Shevat 

• What is the significance of this month and what should be the main focus of our avodah in this time? 
• What do we learn from the mazal of Shevat – bucket (d’li)? 
• What does the word Shevat mean? 

• What lessons do we learn from living with the times, with this week’s Torah parsha? 
• Why does this parsha combine both the end of the exile and the beginning of the redemption? 
• Why does it mean that during the plague of darkness there was “light among the Jews”? 
• Why did that light not dispel the surrounding darkness? 
• Why did Pharaoh survive the plague of the firstborn? 
• Why did the exodus begin with the mitzvah of HaChodesh Hazeh Lochem, establishing a lunar based calendar, and why was this the first commandment in Torah? 
• What was the significance of offering the Pascal Lamb and what was the process? 
• How can we benefit today from the fact that the Jews left Egypt with great wealth? 

• What is the story behind the maamar of the Alter Rebbe called "Der Frumer Vaeirah”? Follow-up 

• What is the significance of this day in practical and personal terms? 
• How does Basi L’Gani describe the purpose of our lives (in the first 10 chapters), and the treasures we are given to fulfill this purpose (in the last 10 chapters)? 
• What is a summary and chiddush of this year’s chapter 16 of Basi L’Gani? 
• Why are all sevenths beloved, when the number eight represents a higher, transcendent level?   

Bo Vaeirah Yud Shevat/Basi L’Gani