ESSAYS| 2020
ESSAYSss| Finalists
Light: A Series
Creative 2020 / Finalists“Let there be light,” from the beginning, before I began, there it started. An aspiration. A space, It fell and broke, Into darkness, Fragments, Light. They told me there are pieces of light, in small places if searched for. They told me, light couldn’t always fit within the vessel. Words, never a true expression of
The Passionate Life – Adding Vitality and Joy into Your Every Day
Essays 2020 / FinalistsIntroduction: Passion. A flame. A fire. Leaping higher and higher. Growing in its intensity. Bursting forth. The intense joy. The fervor. His walk is a dance. His tunes uplift. His pure and simple elation is infectious. This is a chassid. What we’ll explore What sets the chassid apart? What is this passion and joy? I
Music, Bitachon, and Mental Health
Essays 2020 / FinalistsWhat’s the issue: anxiety and negative thoughts limit us Anxiety can come up about many different aspects of our life: our self-image, our relationship with others, our material situations, our feelings about our place in the world, even our thoughts about what direction society at large is heading. Not only is anxiety found more commonly
Diving Through Dimensions
Creative 2020 / FinalistsA Lesson Plan geared for 6th-8th Graders This lesson covers the concepts of the 4 worlds (or dimensions)- Atzilus, Briah, Yetzirah and Asiya, Seder Hishtalshlus (the “cause and effect” funnel-like system with which G-d creates the world) and Tzimtzum (how G-d contracts His light to create the various dimensions with different levels of G-dliness revealed
STOP THE TRAIN!!!
Essays 2020 / FinalistsStop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about it! Doesn’t feel too easy, huh? We all struggle with the “Don’t Think About the Pink Elephant” challenge. We feel that we are a slave to our thoughts, the onslaught of anxieties, distractions, a constant whirlwind of noise. No matter how much we tell
Loving the World Like We Love Ourselves
Essays 2020 / FinalistsEnvironmentalism has become a taboo subject, used as a political bargaining chip that alienates people from both sides of the aisle. At the same time, people in general seem to be further and further removed from the natural world, disconnected from it in an extreme way. This essay seeks to address our relationship with the
Purposeful Living
Essays 2020 / FinalistsAs the old saying goes “Knowing the cause is half the solution”. At the root of some of the most widespread phenomena that plague the 20th century, Jewish psychologist Victor Frankl believed that there lay a fundamental, underlying cause. Frankl coined the term ‘existential vacuum’(1) to account for many modern troubles such as boredom ,
Elevated Sleep
Essays 2020 / FinalistsIn today’s culture of instant gratification and perpetual motion, society has come to dislike open spaces of time, unfilled with stimulation. We have come to crave constant action and stimulation. In a world where the focus is on achievement, people are often resisting the action of nothing, of simply creating space and pause. With the
Marriage Demystified by the Mystics
Essays 2020 / Finalists“I’m not attracted to my husband”, shared a wife. “Why isn’t Taharas hamishpacha working it’s magic in our relationship? The laws of family purity are supposed to create the perfect framework for passion in a marriage. What is missing for us?” “Why doesn’t my husband take initiative to care for our children?” wondered another. “I