Meaningful Life Skills with Rabbi Simon Jacobson

Where does heaven meet earth? Can we rise and transcend our physical limitations and social distancing? is it possible to fuse matter and spirit? Can a mortal creature experience immortality? Can a finite being touch infinity? Do we have the ability to unite with the divine in our homes as we do in our synagogues? An event took place 3332 years ago, which changed the world forever and contains the...

Quarantine has challenged us in so many different ways. What are you like when you can't go to work, school, ballparks, theaters, restaurants, vacation spots and all your regular destinations? What part of us emerges when we don't have our usual outlets? In times like this, one of the most important questions to ask yourself is this: When your physical movements are limited, what happens to your s...

Subscribe to the Meaningful Life Center YouTube Channel for more  🔔 https://www.youtube.com/meaningfullif...  Quarantine does strange things to people. It can bring out the best or the worst in us. For many of us, being locked down at home has evoked a new appreciation of our loved ones, strengthened bonds and connections, revealed new strengths and creativity. But sadly, for others it...

Quarantine is exposing us like never before. Stripped of so many of our otherwise conventional support systems -- our workplaces, our social circles, our cafes, restaurants, theaters, stadiums, our travel plans and vacations -- we are left now to our bare internal resources searching for stimulation. Just a few months ago, we could avail ourselves of endless places and outlets to escape feeling al...

Among the many challenges we face today, one of the most important is: How to speak to our children? What should we be telling them when so much of what we relied on has been disrupted? How do we provide security and reassure our children, both emotionally and psychologically, amid a climate of fear and uncertainty? In this time of crisis and upheaval we actually have an unprecedented opportunity...

Just a few months ago very few of us were concerned with the question of how to balance our work life and our home life. Even if we were concerned, we didn't do much about it. The conflicts and tensions between our vocations and our homes, between our careers and our families, were usually "resolved" (or better said: unresolved) through either denial, compartmentalization, compromising our homes i...

Security is a vital need in every person's life. Children need secure homes, dependable parents and reliable schedules to grow into self-confident adults. Adults spend their lives building security for themselves and their families. Virtually every aspect of a wholesome and successful life requires solid and unwavering foundations, like a deeply rooted tree. But what happens when our conventional...

Today's global pandemic has upended people's entire realities. Whatever we thought was real and reliable just a few weeks ago, has now been destabilized and stripped away from us. Our schedules, our jobs, our economy, our plans, our vacations, our children's routines -- virtually every aspect of our lives is no longer what it was. And what will tomorrow bring? When our pre-existing realities are n...

The unprecedented global Coronavirus pandemic - Covin-19 - is effecting literally every person on earth, and disrupting every sector and industry. We turn to the medical community and our political leaders to do whatever they can to contain and ultimately eradicate the disease, as well as mitigate its economic and other effects on our lives. But how do we address the emotional and psychological to...

Often, to appreciate a gift, we need to imagine what life would be like without it. What would our lives be like without joy? Without happiness? Even with the capacity for joy life can be quite difficult. Devoid of any joy, it would simply be unfathomable to imagine how unbearable existence would be.  But if joy is such a necessity, why is it at times so difficult to access? Is there anything...

Can every one be happy? The way some people describe their negativity and even hopelessness, you would think that not everybody is blessed with the capacity to be happy? But that is not true. Happiness seems to be inherent to the human condition. Look at children. They are naturally happy people. Buoyant and enthusiastic. So then, how do happy children become sad adults? When and how do they lose...

Happiness is as elusive as it is cherished. We all want to be happy. Joyous people are healthier and more productive. And yet, it seems so challenging to find inner joy, especially in trying circumstances. Is there a formula for happiness? Perhaps we have to begin with the questions: What exactly is happiness? And how can we acquire it? John Stuart Mill famously said: "Ask yourself whether you are...

Psychology - the study of the soul - is not a modern phenomenon. It is an inherent part of the human condition. As long as human beings have been in existence, we have been seeking and struggling to understand what makes us tick. What forces shape and define us and our behavior? How much potential do we contain? Are we intrinsically selfish or selfless? How much of our lives is controlled by pre-w...

Why be honest when we see deception everywhere we turn? We all consider truth and honesty as true virtues, and no one likes being called a liar. So why is it that so many people lie? And why is it so easy to lie? Is deception a natural part of the world order, or is it an aberration? Can we maintain our integrity and succeed in a duplicitous world? Please join Rabbi Jacobson as he, in his inimitab...

Six Revolutionary Principles that Can Transform Your Life Become a LEADER L ong Term/Mission E mpowerment/Initiative A ctualization: Potential opportunities; Action oriented D etermination/Persistence E mpathy R edemption Applied to and Impacting: Relationships・Education・Personal/Emotional Issues・Technology・Religion

Fear is one of the most powerful and misunderstood forces in our lives. It's formidable impact on virtually all our decisions, and lack of decisions, is compounded by the fact that fear is invisible and silent. You can't see or touch it. And you certainly can't measure it. Even though we feel, at times, palpable fright, most of fear's effects on our behavior cannot easily be traced to fear. We oft...

Many of us carry painful memories of hurtful experiences in our pasts. Some of these memories remain etched in our psyches, at times even haunting and disrupting our lives -- in ways that we are aware of, and often unaware of. How many of our emotional fears, insecurities and trust issues are a result of old scars? How then can we move on from these deep wounds? Can we free ourselves from the tent...

Lying at the heart of all relationships -- personal, social, professional, political -- is communication. The manner in which spouses, parents and children, neighbors, friends, co-workers, employers, employees, communities and nations speak and listen (or don't) to each other carries the key to thriving, lasting, and healthy connections. Even when there is concern and love between different people...

Ahh. Comfort zones. They sound so... comforting. Do you anyone that likes to leave their comfort zone? And yet, every form of growth is dependent on going out of comfort zones. As long as you stay safe in your predictable and conventional routines, nothing new will be born. That is why it is so difficult to change and break out of our habits and patterns. The inertia of the status quo generates en...

As we enter 2020, the third decade of the third millennium, many of us are wondering what the future holds. We are currently experiencing plenty of changes. Polarization and upheaval is in the air. The road ahead will certainly offer us many opportunities while also presenting us with many challenges. But we are often trapped by nearsightedness, in which we only see the here and now and cannot see...

As the curtain comes down on the second decade of the third millenium (2019), and we prepare to enter its third decade with the year 2020, many of us are wondering what the future holds. We are currently experiencing plenty of changes. Polarization and upheaval is in the air. The road ahead will certainly offer us many opportunities while also presenting many challenges. But we are often trapped b...

Nothing triggers our emotions like going home and seeing our parents and families. Etched in our psyches, for good or for bad, are all that we experienced in our impressionable childhood years. During this holiday season, when many of us spend time with our families, all types of feelings arise. For some, it’s a beautiful time, evoking the warmth and love of our relationships. Others, at the other...

The million dollar question: What is the secret to finding a healthy and enduring relationship? What criteria should I be looking for? How can I know if someone is compatible with me? What defines compatibility? How can I identify my true soulmate? You may be surprised to know that the mystics mapped out the soul in five dimensions, which in turn offers us a blueprint for finding your compatible s...

You would think that the aspiring soul would be seeking to become more awake and aware, to heighten its cognizance and consciousness, not to learn how to... fall asleep. Yet sleep contains fascinating secrets and mysteries of regenerating our psyches and our souls. Learning how to sleep -- and how to fall asleep -- can teach us how to become more awake and more aware. What is sleep? What happens w...

Inside each one of us there is a place in which we are all alone. Even those that love us and those we love, even those we trust and open up to, cannot fully enter that core center of our beings -- the space that defies words, expressions and definitions. After all our relationships and interactions, after all our partying and fireworks, even when we may not feel all alone, at the end of the day a...