Shows / Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shiurim and Divrei Chizzuk from our Mashpia Rav Mordechai Burg
Episodes
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Vayera — How Do You Face a Shattered World Without Losing Yourself?
What happens when you look at the devastation in front of you and realize that something you cared deeply about is gone? How do you let yourself feel that pain…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Vayera – He Touched Heaven. Then He Came Back for Those Still on Earth.
Avraham comes down from the Akeidah after an encounter with Hashem that we can barely begin to imagine. Waiting below are Yishmael and Eliezer, who couldn’t…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Vayera - When Running Away Runs in the Family
You walk away, and the tension eases. But what happens when leaving becomes the only way you know how to cope? And what do your children learn from watching…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
The 17th of Cheshvan - When You're Afraid of What You Need Most
What happens when the very thing we need most becomes the thing we are most afraid of? When someone has been deeply hurt in a relationship, the desire for…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Vayeira - Why We Hold On to What’s Destroying Us When We Know We Need To Walk Away
Why do we hold on to things that are destroying us, even when we know we need to walk away? When Lot was rescued from Sedom, the Torah tells us that he…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Lech Lecha: There's a You the World Hasn't Met Yet
What happens to a person who grows up feeling that certain parts of who they are are simply unacceptable? Over time, we learn which parts of ourselves earn…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Lech Lecha - You Did Everything I Asked. So Why Do I Feel So Alone?
Sarah gives Hagar to Avraham as a wife. But when Hagar becomes pregnant and begins humiliating Sarah, Sarah turns to Avraham and declares, "Chamasi alecha" —…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Cheshvan - The Last Jew
In this shmooze, delivered at Mevaseret Mishmar, Rav Burg explains one of the most extraordinary expressions of Ahavas Yisrael found in Chazal. Eretz Yisrael…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Cheshvan - The Stories We Tell Ourselves When Hashem Feels Absent
After the extraordinary spiritual heights of Tishrei, Cheshvan arrives with an unsettling silence. The Yomim Tovim are over, the inspiration begins to fade…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Cheshvan - When the Music Stops: Who Are You Without the Inspiration?
What happens when the inspiration fades? When the music of Tishrei stops, the Yomim Noraim are behind us, and the spiritual energy that carried us through the…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Bereishis - The First Murder: When Someone Else's Existence Becomes Unbearable
What happens when another person's success makes us feel like a failure? Why can someone else's significance threaten our own sense of worth? And how does our…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Bereishis - Help I Have Fallen And I Can't Get Up!
In this shmooze, delivered at the first Mevaseret Mishmar of the Zman, Rav Burg explains that the problem was not that Adam HaRishon sinned but that he his…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Hoshana Rabba - Yearning For An Embodied Relationship With Hashem
The soul is always searching for home. We spend so much of our lives trying to get closer to Hashem. We seek inspiration, clarity, healing, spiritual…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Succos - Safe Enough to Look Up
What does it mean that the sukkah is described by the Baalei Chassidus as Hashem’s embrace? Delivered at the Mesorah Simchas Beis Hashoeva, in this short…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Succos - Yes But Do You Still Love Me? The Embrace of the Sukkah After Yom Kippur
If the Ananei HaKavod first surrounded the Jewish people when they left Mitzrayim, why do we celebrate Sukkos in Tishrei? The Gra explains that Sukkos…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Succos - When You Find Yourself, There’s Room for Everyone
Why is it sometimes so difficult to make room for someone who is different from us? Given to NCSY 4G advisors as part of their chinuch development, in this…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Yom Kippur - No Jew Left Behind: The Yom Kippur that Ronnie Greenwald z"l Spent in the Lobby
Right before Kol Nidrei, we make a startling declaration: we permit ourselves to daven together with the transgressors. Chazal go even further and teach that a…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Yom Kippur - The 955th Gate
What happens when it feels like the door has closed? Acher hears a Bas Kol say, “Return, wayward children, except for Acher.” Neilah itself is the moment when…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Aseres Yemei Teshuva - Inviting In Your Unwanted Guests: An IFS Approach to Teshuva
We often imagine Yom Kippur as a massive cleaning operation. Get rid of the jealousy, anger, shame, and desires we would rather not admit to. Make the house…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Rosh Hashana - The Satan Knows What You Did But He Doesn’t Know You.
The Satan has heard the shofar for thousands of years. Why should hearing it once more leave him confused? In this shiur, delivered at Mevaseret Mishmar, Rav…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Rosh Hashana - No More Hiding: How to Own What You Did Without Losing Who You Are
Why does Adam HaRishon hide after he sins—and why, when Hashem confronts him, does he immediately blame Chavah and even Hashem? Because once an aveirah feels…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Nitzavim - Are You Dating or Auditioning? Where Real Attraction Comes From
Dating has a strange way of pulling us out of ourselves. Instead of meeting the person across from us, we begin watching ourselves through their eyes: Am I…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Nitzavim - You Don’t Need to Become More Jewish. You Need to Become More Yourself.
Most of us assume that Yiddishkeit is something being asked of us from the outside. And when it feels difficult, we take that difficulty as proof that it is…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Rosh Hashana - This Year The Shofar Is Silent. Your Soul Is Not.
This year, the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, and the shofar will not be blown. For many of us, especially after October 7, that silence feels…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
🔥 🔥🔥 Elul Fabrengen With Chaim Ghoori and Rav Burg 🔥 🔥 🔥
At this Motzai Shabbos Fabrengen at the Robinson home in Cedharhurst, Chaim Ghoori sang the most beautiful music and Rav Burg shared Divrei Chizuk on Teshuva…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Ki Teitzei - You Have No Idea Who You’re Talking About
Why does the Torah command us to remember Miriam’s aveira? Miriam loved Moshe. She helped raise him, risked her life to save him, and never intended to demean…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shoftim - Who Are The Judges Sitting At Your Gates?
Shoftim The Torah commands us to appoint judges and officers at our gates. The Shelah hears something deeply personal in those words. A person has seven…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Elul - Wearing The Crown Of Imperfection
We often imagine teshuvah as going backward—to the person we were before we failed, became cynical, or compromised something inside ourselves. But if teshuvah…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Re’eh: The Life You Don’t Know You’re Choosing
Most of us think we are making choices. Often, we are repeating patterns we learned so long ago that we have stopped calling them patterns and started calling…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Eikev - The One Thing Hashem Asks of You: When Yiras Shamayim Becomes Natural
Everything is in the hands of Heaven—except yiras Shamayim. But why is fear of Heaven the one thing Hashem cannot give us? And if yirah is Hashem’s greatest…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Tu B'Av: After the Rupture: A Six-Step Path to Repairing Klal Yisrael
After a Tisha B’Av shmooze about making room for one another, a close friend asked the question that slogans about achdus often avoid: What do we do when the…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Tisha B'Av - Is There Room For Me?
Massive charred beams from the destruction of the First Beis HaMikdash were recently uncovered in Ir David—preserved beneath melted plaster for thousands of…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Tisha B'Av - Kinnah 16 - When Titus Defeats Hashem and Jewish Children Sing
Titus enters the Kodesh HaKodashim, desecrates everything sacred, and walks away untouched. The Roman armies tear through the Beis HaMikdash while the angels…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Tisha B'Av - An IFS approach to Rachel Imeinu And Redeeming Our Exiled Pain
Why is Rachel Imeinu buried on the road—outside Chevron, the resting place of the Avos and Imahos? And why is it specifically her weeping that brings Klal…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Tisha B'Av - When the Beis HaMikdash Falls, Where Does Hashem Go?
What happens to our relationship with Hashem when the structure through which we experienced Him is destroyed? In this shiur, delivered to the Chizuk Mission…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Devarim - When Love Feels Like Hate: The Wound Behind Tisha B’Av
How could Klal Yisrael look at everything Hashem had done for them—the miracles of Mitzrayim, Krias Yam Suf, the mann in the desert—and conclude: “Hashem hates…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Devarim - Your Voice Is Waiting To Be Heard
When Hashem first called Moshe Rabbeinu to lead Klal Yisrael, Moshe did not merely say that speaking was difficult for him. He declared, “I am not a man of…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Masei - The Distance Is The Journey
In this shiur, delivered at the first Mishmar of NCSY Kollel, Rav Burg explains the Mashal of the King taking his son to a faraway land in order to be healed…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Matos Masei - IFS and the Yarden Within: When Protective Parts Are Afraid to Cross
In this deep psychological exploration of Parshas Matos, Rav Burg examines the request of Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven to stay on the other side of the Yarden…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Matos/Masei - The Journey After Failure
In Parshas Matos/Masei, the Torah records the forty-two journeys of Klal Yisrael through the Midbar. At first glance, the list seems like history that will…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Three Weeks - The Mourning We Don’t Feel: How to Belong to a Beis HaMikdash We Never Saw
How do we belong to a story we did not experience? In this shiur, delivered at The Space, Rav Burg explores one of the deepest challenges of the Three Weeks…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Pinchas - Surrounded by His Name: When Hashem Restores Our Identity
Why does Sefer Bamidbar begin and end with a census? And why, in Parshas Pinchas, does the Torah surround each family name with a ה and a י? Rashi explains…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Balak - Why Insecure People Become Dangerous: Bilaam, Shame, and the Need to Be Important
Bilaam was not destroyed by lack of talent, he was destroyed by insecurity. He was a prophet, a man of power, a man whose words could shape reality. But he had…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Chukas - The Golden Calf Was A Panic Attack, Now Mom Has To Clean Up The Mess
Why do Chazal connect the Parah Adumah, which purifies from tumas meis, to the sin of the Golden Calf? In this shiur, delivered in "Steve's", Rav Burg explore…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Chukas - When the Well Runs Dry: Water, Loss and the Power of Words
In this shiur, delivered in "Steve's", Rav Burg explores the moment Klal Yisrael lost Miriam and, along with her, their sense of continuity. Rav Burg delves…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
12 Lessons From The Knicks Championship Run
In 1968, after the first manned mission to orbit the moon, the Rebbe taught that even a lunar expedition contains lessons in avodas Hashem. Quoting the Baal…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
How To Say Goodbye (Final Shiur of TD)
Chazal teach that a person should not take leave of his friend through ordinary conversation, laughter, lightheadedness, or idle words, but through a dvar…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Korach - Reviving the Dead: Aharon’s Staff and the Secret of True Leadership
After Korach’s rebellion, Klal Yisrael was spiritually shattered, a generation sentenced to die in the desert, vulnerable to the false comfort of a leader who…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shelach - From Sodom to Sapphire: The Inner Meaning of Techeiles
In this shmooze, delivered at the final Mishmar of the year in Mevaseret, Rav Burg explores the inner meaning of Techeiles and why Chazal connect it…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shelach - When Fear Sounds Like Wisdom: Yehoshua, Calev, and the Yud That Wouldn’t Disappear
The Meraglim were not simple people. They were great leaders, tzaddikim, and respected voices in Klal Yisrael. And yet, the Torah reveals a moment where fear…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shelach - The Man Who Tried to Save Shabbos and Broke It
Why would Tzelafchad desecrate Shabbos for the sake of Heaven? Chazal reveal that the mekoshesh eitzim was not acting out of rebellion, but out of desperation…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Behalosecha - Leadership From Above, Leadership From Within.
Moshe Rabbeinu reaches a breaking point. The people are crying for meat, but Moshe understands that this is not really about food. Something deeper is missing…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Behalosecha - Hit Pause. Stop the Spiral.
Why does the Torah place two pesukim, surrounded by inverted nuns, right between the nation leaving Har Sinai and their next complaint? Because before a person…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shavuos - Before Torah, You Are for Sale: Rav Yosef, the Calf, and the Marketplace Inside the Soul
Rav Yosef celebrates Shavuos with a third-born calf and declares: “If not for this day, how many Yosefs would there be in the marketplace?” At first glance, it…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Shavuos - The Greeting That Opened the Door to Moshiach
Before Boaz meets Rus, before the story of David HaMelech begins, before the roots of Moshiach are planted, Megillas Rus pauses to tell us something that seems…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Yom Yerushalayim - You Did Nothing Wrong. And That's Exactly The Problem.
You can keep every rule and still miss the whole point. The Gemara says Yerushalayim was destroyed because people judged by strict Torah law and did not live…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Bamidbar - Some Growth Only Happens in Mitzrayim
Why was Shevet Levi so much smaller than the other Shevatim? The Ramban explains that Levi was not enslaved in Mitzrayim. The rest of Klal Yisrael suffered…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Bamidbar - Chinuch Is Not Education, It Is Creation.
Why does the Torah call Aharon’s sons the children of Moshe? Because Moshe taught them Torah. But Chazal are telling us something much deeper than the value of…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Bechukosai - The God Who Sees Us Truly And Doesn’t Walk Away
he promise of the Mishkan end with: “I will not be disgusted by you”? Why introduce rejection in the middle of love? Most human dysfunction begins with one…
- Nitzotzos: Inspiration to Keep Your Spark Alive with Rav Mordechai Burg
Behar - Spritual Vampires Feeding Off Human Weakness
What makes Ribis so spiritually destructive that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says the lender “loses more than he gains”? This shmooze, delivered at Mevaseret…