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Draft edition

By Rabbi Shalom Landau.

Questions from the essays

A Soul at Peace

Talks on the inner life

This is an English rendering of the Hebrew sefer בשלום נפשי by Rabbi Shalom Landau. It is written in plain, simple English so that every Jewish reader, with or without a background in Torah study, can read it. Nothing has been added to the author’s words and nothing has been left out; only the language has changed. The Name is written “Hashem.” Verses of the Torah and sayings of our Sages appear in the text in English. The footnotes give each source and its original Hebrew. A short glossary at the end lists key Hebrew words and their English renderings. Each essay closes with “Putting It into Practice”: one practical step to take into the week.

The Person and His Mission

Your Mission in the World

  1. The Vitality That Comes from Your Mission
  2. Light a Candle in the Window
  3. A Channel, Not a Pit
  4. The Building Before the Rain
  5. Appointed Again, Every Morning
  6. The Crown That Is Yours Alone
  7. Your Own Share in the Torah
  8. I Am a Jew
  9. Leaving the Desert: The Two Stages of Serving Hashem
  10. Four Signs That You Have Found Your Mission
  11. Your Mission: Where Real Self-Worth Comes From
  12. Why Hashem Needs Every Single Jew
  13. The Inner Temple That Was Never Destroyed
  14. The Power of a Holy Leader’s Will
  15. Go Back to Your Cave
  16. The Singer Who Stood at the Gate
  17. Why a Great Soul Feels Unfulfilled
  18. Bread and Purpose
  19. Like the Light of Dawn
  20. A World Built on Kindness

Light Out of the Darkness

  1. The Darkness That Points to the Light
  2. The Hanukkah Light That Sits Low
  3. Darkness Was Made to Give Way to Light
  4. Judah Went Down: Where Kingship Begins
  5. The Alarm Clock of Exile
  6. Dry Land in the Middle of the Sea
  7. Laban’s War on Distinctions
  8. Mount Sinai and the Hatred of the Nations
  9. Seeking Hashem From Right Where You Are
  10. When I Sit in Darkness, Hashem Is My Light

Worth Before Achievement

  1. Sabbath Rest and the Worth of Simply Being
  2. Your Worth Comes Before What You Get Done
  3. Who Are You?
  4. Creating Yourself
  5. Exiled for Lack of Awareness
  6. Gold Doesn’t Need a Shelf
  7. The Mud on Your Shoes
  8. My Covenant of Peace
  9. The Wisdom That Rises Above the Pattern
  10. When Opposites Live Together Inside You
  11. Simply Existing, and Chasing the Wind
  12. Deep Waters: The Answer Already in Your Heart
  13. Missing a False Self
  14. On Chasing and Becoming
  15. Death and Life Are in Your Words
  16. Where There Are No People
  17. Open My Eyes
  18. The Poll Is Not the Election

A Mind of Your Own

  1. Like Grasshoppers in Our Own Eyes
  2. The Mirror and the Map
  3. I Made You Walk Upright
  4. The Test of Truth
  5. Who Holds the Hammer? On Trusting in People
  6. Your Mind: Written in Hashem’s Handwriting
  7. True North Does Not Move
  8. The Face Beneath the Mask
  9. Truthful Lips, Lying Tongue
  10. Truth Springs Up from the Earth
  11. The Quiet Voice of the Wise
  12. Hatred Comes from Below
  13. The Limits of Self-Love
  14. Serving Without Waiting for a Reward
  15. Why Understanding Is Worth More Than Wisdom
  16. When Everyone Can Win an Argument: Truth in the Generation Before the Messiah
  17. Hungry for Hashem’s Word in an Age of Endless Information
  18. Your Voice in Their World

The Eye That Sees

  1. The Light That Comes as a Free Gift
  2. A Tight Place or a Window of Light
  3. See What Is Placed Before You
  4. The Look That Builds Your World
  5. Saying the Words: “In Memory of the Exodus”
  6. You Give Life to Them All
  7. Becoming a Receiver for Hashem’s Infinite Light
  8. Giving My Heart: Learning to Watch Your Own Mind
  9. The Cloud That Covers the Heart

The Work of the Heart

Out of the Narrow Place

  1. The Egypt in Your Mind
  2. The Exile Inside Us
  3. Healing or Subscription?
  4. Hope in Hashem: I Will Yet Thank Him
  5. The Fear of Peace
  6. The Comfort Zone of Sadness
  7. What I Feared Has Come to Me
  8. The Comfort of the Victim’s Chair
  9. Bound to the Past
  10. Getting Egypt Out of You
  11. When You Eat from the Work of Your Hands
  12. The Day Hashem Made

Falling and Rising

  1. What Is Missing Cannot Be Counted
  2. Walking Among Those Who Stand
  3. The Greater the Person, the Greater the Battle
  4. Carried on Eagles’ Wings
  5. Seven Times He Falls, and Rises
  6. Hashem Is My Light
  7. The Hidden Arrogance in Regret
  8. Turning Sins into Merits
  9. Building Worlds and Taking Them Down
  10. Don’t Look Back
  11. The Wholeness in What Is Missing
  12. Open the Right Gate for Me
  13. When Obstacles Are the Whole Point
  14. Seven Times He Falls, and Rises
  15. Choose Life
  16. Seven Times He Falls, and Rises
  17. Living on the Edge
  18. A Time to Break Down and a Time to Build
  19. When Searching Keeps You from Choosing
  20. Bringing Inspiration Down into Action

Ownership

  1. After the Blow: Taking Ownership
  2. Say Little, Do Much
  3. Responsibility Is Life
  4. Breaking the Habit
  5. “The Woman You Gave Me”
  6. Choose Life
  7. It Is Not in Heaven
  8. The Danger of a Promise

The Strength of Calm and Silence

  1. Awe That Leads to Love
  2. The Wisdom of Holding Back Your Words
  3. The Net of Flattery
  4. Two Ears and One Mouth
  5. The Fool Spends All His Spirit
  6. Guard Your Heart
  7. The Strength of Self-Mastery and a Steady Mind
  8. Leading with Your Words
  9. The Fool Who Only Wants to Speak His Mind
  10. Don’t Answer a Fool on His Terms
  11. Your Inner Accounting Is Your Reality

Truth and Ego

  1. The “I” Within Us
  2. “My Own Strength,” Dressed in Holiness
  3. Wise in His Own Eyes
  4. Why the Scoffer Runs from the Wise
  5. Faithful Are the Wounds of a Friend
  6. The Heart That Plows
  7. Give to the Wise, and He Grows Wiser
  8. Hunger and the Hidden Good
  9. Do Not Judge Your Friend Until You Reach His Place
  10. Woe to Those Who Call Evil Good
  11. The Measure You Use
  12. Truth in the Heart
  13. Made Upright

Trust and Livelihood

Trust and Prayer

  1. Rejoice in All the Good
  2. The Power of Thanks to Bring Down the Good
  3. New Every Morning
  4. Cast Your Burden on Hashem
  5. The Blessing Hidden Inside the Pressure
  6. Bending Yourself, Not the World
  7. Cast Your Burden on Hashem
  8. Listening to Your Prayer
  9. Hope in Hashem, and Our Limits
  10. The People Were Like Complainers
  11. Why It Is Never Enough

The Vessel for Blessing

  1. When Wealth Harms Its Owner
  2. The Blessing of a Good Eye
  3. The Poor Will Never Disappear
  4. Wealth: A Mirror of the Inner Self
  5. Don’t Be Afraid When a Man Grows Rich
  6. Why the Wise Don’t Always Have Bread
  7. You Open Your Hand
  8. Open Wide, and I Will Fill It
  9. Calm Inside: The First Reward
  10. A Calm Mind and the Flow of Blessing
  11. Money Goes to Money
  12. Half of What You Long For
  13. Walk with the Wise
  14. Where There Is No Vision

Wealth and Peace of Mind

  1. The Borrower Is a Slave to the Lender
  2. The Pressure That Shows Who You Really Are
  3. Riches You Never Get to Use
  4. Whoever Loves Money Never Has Enough
  5. The Rich Man and the Landowner
  6. The Price of Freedom
  7. What Money Can Buy, and What It Can’t
  8. The Bread of Worry, and the Freedom Money Should Buy
  9. The One Who Rushes to Get Rich
  10. Holy Work in a Material World
  11. What Is It All For? Money, and the Way We Serve Hashem
  12. When Others Do Your Work
  13. Why Spend Money on What Is Not Bread?

Giving Charity

  1. Money Is Meant to Move
  2. Who Owns Whom? On Being the Master of Your Money
  3. How Charity Opens the Gates of Light
  4. The Power of the Half
  5. The Coin That Comes Before the Blow
  6. Give to Every Outstretched Hand
  7. Open Your Hand: The Eighth Day of Hanukkah
  8. Making a Vessel to Hold the Blessing
  9. How Charity Makes Salvation Grow
  10. Strengthen Him
  11. The Soul Is Hashem’s Candle

Courage and Success

  1. You Are the Miracle
  2. The Bread Does Not Go to the Wise
  3. Against the Current
  4. Seven Times He Falls, and Rises
  5. The Fence of Silence
  6. I Believed, Therefore I Spoke
  7. A Closed Door or a Solid Wall?
  8. Look Up and Count the Stars
  9. The Power of Certainty and Trust
  10. Growing Brighter, Until Full Day
  11. Wisdom Is Given to the Wise
  12. With Willing Hands
  13. The End Is Better Than the Beginning
  14. The Hunger That Moves Us
  15. The Roadblocks We Build Ourselves

Time

  1. The Plans of the Diligent
  2. The Day Is Short, the Work Is Great
  3. Teach Us to Count Our Days
  4. The Seat Is Never Empty
  5. When Pressure Shows You What Really Matters
  6. Why Do We Ask for More Life?

The Home

The Husband: Pillar of the Home

  1. The King Who Gives
  2. A World Built on Kindness
  3. Building the Man, Building the Home
  4. The Husband Who Stands Firm
  5. A Man’s Strength: Between Power and Presence
  6. Leading, Not Ruling
  7. Her Husband Is Known at the Gates
  8. Your Trust Is in Hashem, and Your Home’s Trust Is in You
  9. The Power to Lift Up, Not to Fall In
  10. The Broken Circle
  11. Leading by Planting a Seed
  12. Building the Complete Chariot
  13. Like an Apple Tree in the Forest
  14. Better Than a Mighty Warrior
  15. Better a Simple Meal, with Love
  16. The Power of Choice: Making Hashem Our King

The Wife: Respect and Understanding

  1. Listen to Her Voice, Not Her Words
  2. The Sun That Melts and the Sun That Hardens
  3. Becoming One, Not Matching
  4. A Helper, or Against Him?
  5. Man from the Earth, Woman from the Man
  6. Not a Partner, but a Completion
  7. Her Husband Trusts in Her
  8. The Manufacturer’s Instructions
  9. The Power of Longing
  10. Her Longing and His Rule
  11. Love as Strong as Death
  12. A Helper Who Stands Opposite You

Building the Marriage

  1. A Woman of Strength: Her Husband’s Crown
  2. When Your “Yes” Is True
  3. Being Right or Being Close
  4. Running from Honor
  5. A Time to Be Silent, a Time to Speak
  6. Love Means Giving
  7. Things That Are Built, Not Given
  8. Each Person and His Own Battle: What Love Can and Cannot Do
  9. When Love Argues
  10. Knowing and Letting Go: How a Marriage Is Built
  11. What It Truly Means to “Do His Will”
  12. Erasing the Past, Turning a New Page
  13. A Bond That Lasts
  14. Healing, Not Dependence
  15. Married to a Dream, or to a Real Person?
  16. As Water Reflects a Face
  17. Free for His Home
  18. Belief That Builds
  19. The Whisper That Separates Close Ones
  20. Like Grasshoppers in Our Own Eyes
  21. A Gentle Answer Turns Away Anger
  22. Better the End Than the Beginning
  23. Whatever Your Hand Finds to Do
  24. I Am My Beloved’s: Building What Is Truly Yours

Raising Children

  1. Blunting His Teeth
  2. What an Inheritance Really Is
  3. The Left Hand Pushes Away, the Right Hand Draws Near
  4. A Lamp of Hashem
  5. Parenting That Gives
  6. Breaking the Man-Made Bells
  7. Standing Tall as a Man
  8. Don’t Carry Your Own Soul Into Your Child
  9. Teach a Child According to His Own Way
  10. Holding Back: The Deepest Kind of Giving
  11. Teaching Your Children, at Home and on the Road
  12. Jacob’s Last Words: The Secret of Rebuke
  13. The Builder and the Manager: On Raising Children
  14. Believe in Them
  15. Like Arrows in the Hand of a Warrior
  16. The Air of the Home
  17. Serving Hashem with Joy

Between You and Others

Between You and Others

  1. The Real Boundary
  2. Right There with Him in His Pain
  3. If I Am Not for Myself, Who Will Be?
  4. The Power of the First Step
  5. The Master on the Swing
  6. Lend an Ear, Bring Hearts Close
  7. The Torah Scholar Who Strikes Back Like a Snake
  8. Correct a Wise Person, and He Will Love You
  9. The First Story Always Sounds Right
  10. A Friend at All Times
  11. When the Voice Turns Sweet, Do Not Believe It
  12. The Boundary That Tells One Love from Another
  13. One Face Outside, Another Inside
  14. The Friction That Helps
  15. Giving Like a King
  16. There Was a King in Jeshurun
  17. The Word “Blessed”: The Work of Choosing

The Sabbath and the Festivals

The Sabbath: Source of Blessing

  1. The Sabbath, Source of Blessing
  2. Sabbath Rest in the Middle of Worry
  3. Six Days of Work, Then the Seventh
  4. The Source and the Channel
  5. Selling Your Work for the Sabbath
  6. A Partner in Creation
  7. The Sabbath Power That Holds the World Together
  8. The Sabbath: Where Blessing Begins
  9. Putting Down the Tools: Why We Stop Working on the Sabbath
  10. Honoring the Torah from Within

The Sabbath: Meeting Yourself

  1. The Creative Mind and the Sabbath
  2. The Holiness of Time
  3. Fenced In Like a Rose
  4. Finding the Sabbath
  5. Rest That Comes from Love
  6. The Boundaries and the Soul of the Holy Sabbath
  7. The Sabbath Is Leaving Egypt
  8. Afraid of the Sabbath? Come Home, My Soul
  9. All Your Work Is Done
  10. When the Hiding Stops
  11. Why We Wish Each Other a Peaceful Sabbath
  12. Which Is Real Life: The Sabbath or the Week?
  13. Blessed Is Hashem, Day by Day
  14. Keeping the Sabbath, Remembering the Sabbath
  15. The True Life of the Sabbath
  16. A Taste of the World to Come
  17. The Sabbath: A Taste of the World to Come

The Festivals

  1. The Seal of Hanukkah’s Last Day
  2. Light and Grace on the Seventh Candle of Hanukkah
  3. The Fifth Candle: The Light That Turns Darkness Around
  4. The Fourth Candle: The Healing in Waiting
  5. The Second Candle: Turning Judgment into Mercy
  6. The King’s Meal: The Festival Hut
  7. “These Are Your Gods”: A Cry of Longing
  8. The Sound of a Coronation
  9. Crown the King, Don’t Confess: The Work of the New Year
  10. Every Tear Finds Its Way Home
  11. The King in the Field and the Power of Your Choice
  12. The Holy King
  13. A Crowd for the King, and a Private Room with Him
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