Rabbi's Blog - Harford Chabad

You don't have to be ready

Thursday, October 22, 2026 - 11:14 AM

You don't have to be ready "We think relationships are built on understanding. The Torah's first words to Abraham say otherwise."

If you ask most people what holds a marriage together, they will tell you some version of “love” or “really knowing each other”.

A greater truth might be that a marriage is built on the things you actually do for each other, day after day, long before you fully understand why.

Strange as it sounds, that's the secret of the Jewish connection to Hashem. The Torah hints to this message in the introduction to the very first Jew.

This week's portion, Lech Lecha, opens with G-d's call to Abraham: “Go out from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house." The commentator Ramban noticed something odd: When introducing Noah, the Torah told us he was "a righteous man", while Abraham gets no introduction at all. No mention of being righteous", of him smashing idols, nor about teaching the world about one G-d. Just a straight command: go. And he went. Why doesn’t the founder of the Jewish people get an introduction?

That silence is actually the point. The Torah leaves out Abraham's résumé on purpose. The foundation of a Jew's bond with G-d was never his own greatness, how much he understood, or how spiritual he felt. It's something far simpler: G-d asked, and he went.

Everyone else arrives at G‑d from the bottom up. They reason their way to Him and then act. A Jew is the reverse: G‑d reached down and chose us first, so the bond is carried in the doing.

The foundation of the relationship is doing what the other asks.

G-d asks of Abraham to "leave your land". The word for land, eretz, shares a root with ratzon, will. He also says “from your father's house", referring to the comfortable logic of your own mind. Even Abraham, already spiritual and devoted to Hashem, is told to break out of his mold. Real connection begins the moment I do what G-d wants not because it moves me or makes sense to me, but only because He wants it.

We often say: first let me understand more, believe more, feel ready to connect, and then I'll begin. But at Sinai, our ancestors said it in the opposite order: na'aseh v'nishma, "we will do, and then we will understand."

You don't master swimming on dry land and only then get in the water. You get in. The doing isn't a reward, it's the doorway to understanding.

Don't wait to feel spiritually ready. Pick one thing; a blessing before you eat, a few coins in a tzedakah box (or the app here), a line of Shema before bed, checking the mezuzah on your door, the Tuesday course on key concepts from kabbalah and how they come together to answer some of life’s biggest questions, and do it.

Not because you've worked out exactly why, or even how. As Nike says “Just do it”.

Take that single step. Take it because Hashem asked. That is how Abraham began. It's the foundation of any relationship, including our relationship with Hashem. It not just how we keep the relationship intact, it’s how we make the relationship alive.

Wishing you and your family a wonderful Shabbos,

Rabbi Kushi Schusterman

Did you know? The Zohar knew about AI

Thursday, October 15, 2026 - 9:52 PM

When you get a text from me, how do you know I wrote it? You don't. It might have been me and it might have been my AI agent.

This week a friend sat in my office, worried. He'd been reading the headlines about AI. "Rabbi, is this the beginning of the end?" As it happens, I'd just been learning a talk of the Rebbe on this week's Torah portion, Noach, which answered his question.

The Torah describes the flood: "In the six hundredth year of Noach's life… all the wellsprings of the great deep burst open, and the windows of heaven were opened."

The Zohar reads this as a prophecy. In the six hundredth year of the sixth millennium, the windows of wisdom above and the wellsprings of wisdom below will burst open. Their purpose is to prepare the world for the seventh millennium, the era of Moshiach.

As Chassidic thought began to proliferate, the world began to change at a dizzying speed. First the railroad and the telegraph and then electricity, the telephone and radio. Later came the internet and now there's AI.

I understand why Chassidic thought prepares the world for Moshiach, however, what does the train have to do with it?

”Everything Hashem created, He created for His glory”. That includes secular knowledge! Science isn't competing with Torah; it's catching up to it.

The Rebbe once applied this to a broken air conditioner in 770. Disappointed in the building managers, he asked why did G-d create air conditioning? Clearly so that people can sit comfortably and learn Torah, and then he suggested that it needs to be fixed!

Here are a few examples.

Radio • A class given in one room travels to the ends of the earth. The waves fill the air even where nobody has tuned in. That is a small preview of Moshiach's era; when "the world will be filled with the knowledge of G-d as the waters cover the sea." Today you can stream a Torah class on your phone at any hour, from anywhere.

The video call • If a human being can see and hear someone across the globe instantly, it becomes much easier to feel what Pirkei Avos means by "an eye that sees and an ear that hears." Nothing we do is unseen.

Physics • The table and the chair look like two different things. Science tells us both are atoms and ultimately just mass and energy. The more we discover, the more the world looks like one thing. Science is slowly telling the story Chassidus has always told: Hashem is One, and all the world's variety flows from that Oneness.

Let me carry it one step further.

The Rambam writes that in the days of Moshiach "the occupation of the entire world will be only to know G-d." I used to wonder who would do the cooking, the paperwork, the inventory, or the bookkeeping?

I don't wonder anymore. More and more of that work is being done by machines, agents, robots etc. What will we do with all that free time? Learn Torah, connect with Hashem and spend quality time with each other.

So is AI dangerous? Anything powerful can be misused. People said the world was ending when the printing press arrived, and again with the factory and the internet. The danger has always been people, not the tools. Only a human being has true free choice. A machine does what it's told.

So a message you receive might be less valuable, because you don't know if it came from a human or a machine. Sitting across the table and spending time together, in person, is worth more today than it was two years ago. AI lowered the value of a message but raised the value of being present. Maybe that’s why it’s called ‘present’.

Those wellsprings, in the times of Noah, came to destroy. The wellsprings today are here to build and raise us up toward Torah and toward each other.

If technology is giving you more time, take that "extra hour" and make sure to use it by learning something with us at www.HarfordChabad.org/Education or sit down with someone, no phone on the table, and just be present.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Kushi Schusterman

The Juggle is Real

Thursday, October 8, 2026 - 6:44 PM

Nothing here is on autopilot

Your phone screen looks perfectly still right now. It isn't. It's redrawing itself dozens of times a second. If the refresh stopped, the picture wouldn't freeze. It would just be gone. It seems constant, but really, it's a flipbook.

I used to think the world works differently. Hashem built it once, a long time ago, wound it up, and now it runs on its own; the laws of nature, the economy's ups and downs, the doctors with their metrics, the businesses with their bottom line, etc. Our job is to manage as best we can inside the machine.

Chabad Chassidus says that the words "Let there be" never stopped being spoken. They are holding up the sky right now. The world isn't on autopilot. It is being refreshed.

Most of us carry a quiet assumption that the "real world" and our Jewish life are competing. Spirituality is for Shabbos and the rest of the week belongs to the market, the commute, and of course the inbox. Bringing Hashem into the hours that pay the bills can feel unrealistic, even impossible. After all, the world has its own rules.

Simchat Torah was also homecoming weekend for some of the kids. Hoping we could show the kids that the fun part of Judaism matters just as much as the serious part, I texted parents to bring their kids. "It's always a challenge to find the balance living a secular life when there's so many things going on" was an honest response I received.

The juggle is real. I replied that my job is to be the spiritual personal trainer, always encouraging a little more. No pressure:)

I've been thinking about the word "balance" ever since. Balance pictures two weights on opposite sides of a scale, so that every hour given to one side is taken from the other.

But consider where the world comes from. The same Torah that says "let there be light" and "six days you shall work" also says "I am the L-rd your G-d," along with all 613 mitzvos. The world can't truly stand in the way of the mitzvos because both come from the same source. They aren't on two sides of a scale; they are one life.

A person who lives with this awareness lives a G-dly secular life. Walking down the street or in the middle of a business deal, they say a verse from Tehillim or share something they learned in Torah. A single good deed can tip the entire world to the side of merit. When you know the world is Hashem's, your one deed doesn't only change you. It changes all of creation.

The messages we impart are what our kids see.

The Chabad Rebbes had a well-known saying about this week: the way a person sets himself up on Shabbos Bereishis, is the way his whole year goes. So how do we "set ourselves up" this Shabbos?

Pick one moment each day this week. Modeh Ani (here is a pdf) when you wake up is a perfect start. It literally thanks Hashem for returning your soul to you fresh. In that moment, remind yourself that Hashem just made this day new, on purpose, for you.

Come start the Torah from the very beginning with us this Shabbos.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Kushi Schusterman

Closed on purpose

Thursday, October 1, 2026 - 2:56 PM

A couple of weeks ago I told you that on the second day of Rosh Hashanah we struggled to get a minyan. I'll admit that it stayed with me more than I let on. You stand counting heads, eight, nine... and doing the math on whether the Torah comes out of the ark. Then this week, in a group chat with some fellow Chabad rabbis, I read something that put my counting in perspective. Several of them serve in far-flung places, the kind of town where the nearest Jewish neighbor is a mile away. They already know they won't have a minyan this Simchas Torah. Even the chance of it being tight is slim. Without a minyan, you can't read from the Torah publicly. On the day of the year devoted entirely to celebrating the Torah, their Torah will stay closed. And they aren't sad about it. They ARE excited. Planning the dancing, the l'chaim, the kids up on shoulders, the full party! To Paraphrase: “We are celebrating the Torah that is ours; our heritage, our inheritance, even if we can’t read it.” Here's a detail about Simchas Torah that most people miss. Even in the most packed shul in the world, when dancing, the Torah is closed. It's rolled tight and wrapped in its cover. Not one word gets read during hakafos. We just dance hugging it, holding it, or kissing it as we circle the bimah with it. If Simchas Torah were about how much Torah we understand, the scholar would dance the most and the rest of us would stand along the wall and watch. An open scroll shows the gap between who knows and who doesn't. A closed scroll makes that difference disappear. The Rabbi and the person who never learned the alef beis celebrate the Torah in the same way. What we celebrate isn't that we know Torah, it’s that it is ours. Most of us carry some quiet disqualification around. I don't read Hebrew, I’m not observant, I don't keep enough, when I know more, I'll get more involved, I’m a “reform” Jew, I’m unaffiliated …. etc. My colleagues in those remote towns are answering without saying a word: you don't have to be able to read the Torah to celebrate and dance with it. Here's what turned my own counting around. Those rabbis would give a lot for what we have here in Harford County: a pretty regular minyan. To be able to open the Torah and read from it on a Shabbos. That's a blessing, not a given. Let's hold it tight and dance on Saturday night! In addition, come by Sunday morning as we celebrate the yearly completion reading. This Shabbos is Shemini Atzeres, with Yizkor during morning services. See the full weekend schedule and RSVP at harfordchabad.org/sukkot. Come hold it with us, no reading required :) Good Shabbos and gut yom tov, Rabbi Kushi Schusterman