Everyone I know who has been married for a bit has had a rough week with their spouse and thought: are we okay? Not necessarily a dramatic fight or a crisis. Just… a distance, where the connection felt thin, where you did your own thing and didn’t quite show up the way you know you should. When Friday night comes with Shabbos candles and a meal together, somehow we remember: we’re solid. That rough week didn’t define us. It was a moment, not our marriage. This week’s parsha, Naso, contains one of the most puzzling passages in the Torah: the laws of the sotah, a woman suspected of being unfaithful. But betrayal isn’t only in marriage, so why does the Torah make such a big deal specifically about a married woman? Betrayal is wrong, but why focus on betrayal in marriage specifically? Because the Jewish people are, in the deepest sense, married to Hashem. Not metaphorically, not poetically. This is the actual spiritual reality. Hashem is the husband. We are the wife. The Torah is our ketubah. The mitzvos are the way we show up for each other every day. Practically, this means every single thing we do carries the weight of that relationship. A kind word, a mitzvah done with joy, a moment of honest prayer, these are acts within an intimate relationship. But so is every stumble. When a married person slips up, even in a small way, it lands differently than if they were single. Not because G-d is keeping score differently, but because the bond is deeper. Even a minor lapse in our relationship with Hashem, something we might brush off as inconsequential, carries spiritual weight precisely because of how close we are. And yet, the sotah, even if she entered a questionable situation, is not declared impure. She may well be entirely innocent. And the moment the process is complete, the Torah says she will be cleared and will conceive. This is relevant to us because even in our most compromised moments, the bond isn’t broken. The inner spark of every soul, the pintele Yid, the Divine spark within, cannot be given to another. Hashem promised: “My glory I will not give to another.” That connection is permanent, even when we’ve temporarily acted like someone who forgot who they’re married to. A rough week doesn’t end a good marriage. It’s an invitation to come back closer. You might be in a season of feeling close to Hashem, where praying feels alive, Shabbos feels holy, and the mitzvos feel meaningful. Or you might be in a season where it all feels distant. You’re going through the motions. You haven’t really prayed with intention in longer than you’d like to admit. The connection feels shaky. Either way, the marriage is still there. Hashem hasn’t filed for divorce. The ketubah is still in effect. The only question is: what are you going to do to show up for it this week? Light the Shabbos candles. Make Kiddush. Come to shul. Do one mitzvah today with the awareness that you’re not just checking a box, you’re tending to the most important relationship of your life. Good Shabbos, Rabbi Kushi Schusterman P.S. When the sotah is cleared, the Talmud says she gives birth with greater ease and to children of greater spiritual quality than before. In other words, returning to the relationship with full heart doesn’t just restore what was, it creates something even more beautiful. That’s the power of coming home.
Rabbi's Blog
Every marriage has its moments
Don’t Just Inherit It
Have you ever met someone who keeps every Jewish law perfectly, but you can tell they’ve never thought for themselves? Have you ever met someone who questions everything, who finds new meaning in every text, who makes Torah feel alive, yet you sense they’re building on quicksand?
Shavuos is essentially the Jewish answer to this tension.
The Gemara tells a remarkable story. Moses ascends to heaven and finds G-d tying tiny crowns onto the letters of the Torah. Moses asks: why the decorations? G-d answers: there will be a man, named Akiva ben Yosef, who will derive mountains of Jewish law from every single one of these crowns.
Moses says: show him to me.
He’s transported forward in time and sits in Rabbi Akiva’s class. He didn’t understand what was being taught. Moses, who received the Torah directly from G-d, couldn’t follow the class?! Moses was sad, “His strength waned”.
A student asks Rabbi Akiva: where does this law come from? Rabbi Akiva answers: it’s a halacha transmitted to Moses from Sinai.
Moses’ mind was put at ease.
Since Torah tells us that Moses was the most humble person who ever lived, this can’t be about ego. Something much deeper is going on.
The Mishna uses two Hebrew words to describe two kinds of people: a bor and a be’er. A bor is a cistern, it holds water put in from the outside. A be’er is a well, it generates water from within. Both contain water. However, only the well is alive.
Rabbi Akiva didn’t learn to read until he was 40. He then became the greatest be’er of his generation, a living spring of Torah insight. How? Because even his most creative, mind-bending interpretations were ultimately rooted in what Moses received at Sinai. The creativity and novelty were real for the foundation was unshakable.
G-d wants that from each of us. Not just to carry Torah but to live it. Wrestle with it. Ask what it’s actually saying to you, in your life, right now.
However, creativity without a solid Torah foundation is not everlasting.
When we only go by what feels right, what resonates, what seems meaningful in the moment, we’re not discovering truth. We’re just hearing our own voice echo back at us. The ego is very good at disguising itself as spiritual insight.
That’s not be’er. That’s still just a bor being filled with your own thoughts instead of anyone else’s.
What kept Rabbi Akiva’s genius honest? The same thing that reassured Moses: a transmission, a chain, a foundation that doesn’t shift based on how you’re feeling that day. Moses was worried that maybe Akiva was just making things up until he realized Akiva traced everything back to the same source. Real creativity in Judaism isn’t about replacing the foundation. It’s about going deeper into it.
You are meant to question, push, explore, and find new meaning. But every time you do, you check: does this connect? Is there a Sinai at the root of this?
Practically, this means two things.
First: don’t coast. Ask questions. Figure out what the Torah is actually saying to you, now. If a mitzvah feels hollow, that’s not a reason to drop it, it’s an invitation to go deeper.
Second: keep coming back to the foundation. When you feel strongly that something is spiritually true, run it against the tradition. Not to suppress your insight, but to verify it. The best insights always hold up.
Be a be’er. Find your own water. Discover your own depths.
And make sure you know where Sinai is.
Chag Sameach and Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman
You are greater than you imagine
Yesterday, Harford Chabad hosted the regional Kinus (a gathering of Chabad Rabbis from across the MD, VA, PA, NJ, DC and DE region).
A video of the Rebbe talking about what one is capable of achieving was shown. He said that what has been accomplished so far is "pale in comparison with what is truly possible". Not a criticism, more of a challenge and a statement of belief in us. The possibilities, he said, are much greater than we imagine.
The Torah portion this week speaks directly to this, beginning with Hashem commanding Moshe to count the Jewish people; tribe by tribe, person by person. In the census of the Jewish people, the greatest scholar and the simplest person both register as "one."
Counting seems to be about quantity, not quality. If counting minimizes everything unique about a person: their character, their achievements, and their journey, why count?
Perhaps that is the point! The fact that every Jew counts as exactly one, no more and no less, is a statement of equal, infinite worth. On a soul level there is no hierarchy. The essential Divine spark in the most righteous person and in the one who is just beginning to find their way (or hasn't even begun yet) is the identical spark.
The mission is not to evaluate where each Jew stands spiritually, rather it is to bring as many people as possible to engage in their relationship with Hashem. When you increase the number of people connected, the quality and depth follow naturally. What we have accomplished so far pales in comparison with what is truly possible! There is more to do, we cannot rest!
I ended the day with two simultaneous feelings: gratitude and discomfort.
Gratitude for everything that our community has built here. For the people who have walked through our doors and for the families who have connected with their soul identity and their Judaism. Grateful for a community that has grown in ways I could not have predicted.
As well, I felt productive discomfort. The Rebbe was not saying "great job, take a break". He was saying: look at the gap between where we are and where we could be. That gap is your responsibility and on every one of us.
The Jew who has not yet had a real Shabbos experience. The family that has thought about connecting and hasn't yet made it happen. The one who hasn’t thought about Judaism since going to Hebrew school twenty (Thirty? Forty?) years ago. Each of these individuals is a one in the count of the Jewish people. We need each and every one to make our community whole.
Don't be deterred by undesirable qualities (as long as they do not pose a risk to others) or circumstances. What matters is the essential Jewish soul. That soul is precious beyond measure in every single one. The Rebbe shows us that every individual is precious and our potential to actually reach each and every one is realistic. He encourages us to succeed beyond our wildest imagination.
Let's prove him right!
Here is my challenge and statement of belief for you. Shavuos, the holiday when we relive the giving of the Torah, is approaching on May 22. The Torah tells us about that moment: every single Jew had to be present. The Talmud says that if even one of the Jewish people had been missing, G-d would not have given the Torah! That means the Torah belongs to each and every one of us.
This year, before Shavuos arrives, reach out to one person in your life who wouldn't celebrate otherwise. Invite them to be counted. One text or phone call saying ‘come join me’. Check harfordchabad.org/shavuos for this year's events and times. If you are out of town, join one of my fellow rabbis at a Chabad near your destination at www.HarfordChabad.org/centers.
Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman
This is the video they showed of the Rebbe Talking
What Mt. Sinai and My Zeidy have in common
My grandfather, Mordechai Schusterman, passed away in 1995. This Shabbos is his yahrtzeit. He ended off his will with the following:
"The one request I have of my children and grandchildren is that they should not be haughty." (In Yiddish: ניט בלאזן פון זיך don't blow hot air about yourself).
This week's Torah portion, Parshas Behar, opens with a seemingly odd detail. G-d gives Moshe the laws of Shemita, the Sabbatical year, and the Torah goes out of its way to tell us that this happened on Mount Sinai.
Rashi, the classic commentator, asks; All the Torah's laws were given at Sinai, why mention it specifically here?
Sinai itself is teaching us something.
Mount Sinai was the lowest of all the mountains. When the Torah was about to be given, every mountain showed up before Hashem with its credentials. Mt. Tabor said: I'm the tallest. Mt. Carmel said: I helped split the Red Sea. And little Sinai? It just stood there. Hashem chose Sinai. Not despite its smallness, but because of what that smallness represents. Mount Sinai wasn't a valley or flat ground; it was elevated above the terrain around it. It had genuine height and real qualities.
The Rebbe points out that the other mountains weren't wrong to see themselves as elevated. The problem was that they came to G-d boasting about them. "Look at me. Look at what I've got. Give me the Torah because of my greatness."
True bitul, true humble self-awareness, doesn't mean you don't know your own worth. Rav Yosef in the Talmud said, "Do not teach that humility has ceased, for I am here." He knew he was humble, and he said so out loud and fascinatingly that's not a contradiction. Knowing your qualities while not being driven by them, that's the real thing.
The Torah describes Moshe as "more humble than any person on the face of the earth." And yet Moshe knew he was the one chosen to receive the Torah. He knew his greatness.
How did he hold both?
He understood that his gifts came from Above. If Hashem had given those same qualities to someone else, that person might have done more with them. His humility wasn't false modesty; it was an accurate accounting of where greatness actually comes from.
And because of that humility, he became the vessel through whom the Torah was given to the world.
My grandfather wasn't a Rabbi; he was a printer and worked hard. He also merited to read the Torah for the Rebbe in 770 for close to 39 years. He knew struggle and hard times. And yet, the single ask he put in his will was: don't be haughty.
That's Mount Sinai.
Humbleness is the prerequisite for receiving the Torah. (Shavuot is coming up in two weeks www.harfordchabad.org/shavuot)
Is there a relationship in your life where your ego is in the way? A conversation you haven't had because it would require admitting you were wrong? A person you've been looking down on, even subtly?
Sinai teaches that the way up is actually down. That the vessel for the greatest thing in the world, the Torah itself, was the smallest mountain. My grandfather, who lived that lesson in his own modest, devoted life, left it as the only inheritance that really matters.
Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Kushi Schusterman
P.S. Rabbi Heschel is giving a class in Pirkei Avos, Ethics of our Fathers, every Shabbos morning at 9:15 am between now and Shavuos. It's the ultimate guide to the nurturing very qualities my grandfather was talking about. Come join and learn with us.