Rabbi's Blog

Have you ever done something good, put yourself out there, and walked away sure that you accomplished absolutely nothing? You made the call, showed up, said the thing, and got silence back. No thank you, no visible change, nothing. And you thought: well, that was a waste.

This week’s parsha, Vaeschanan, opens with Moshe setting aside cities of refuge. If someone accidentally killed a person, they could flee there and be safe. The Torah is very particular about the roads to these cities: they had to be kept in perfect repair, wide and clear, and at every single crossroads there had to be a sign reading “Refuge, Refuge,” pointing the way.

Picture the world before Waze. You’re on foot, in unfamiliar terrain, and your life depends on getting to the right place quickly. A signpost at the crossroads is everything.

There are two kinds of signs. The stone marker, or regular street sign; it stands in one spot, and it only helps the person who happens to stop and read it. And then there’s a living sign; a human being who stands at the crossroads and actively calls out to travelers, “This way. Go right. That’s where safety is.” (Like the people waving signs “50% off”.)

Our job is to be the second kind.

Not to sit in our own quiet, refined spiritual corner reading our own signposts, but to go out to where other people are standing at their crossroads, unsure which way to turn, and show them the way. To be a living sign that moves, not a rock that waits.

Now here’s the part that speaks to that feeling of “I accomplished nothing.”

The Rebbe, in a talk, describes rabbinical students who would travel from town to town to meet with local Jews. Some of them would come home convinced they had wasted their time. They spent hours on the road, knocked on doors, and as far as they could tell, nothing happened.

Similar to the law of searching for chametz before Passover. You turn the whole house upside down looking for it. Even if you find no chametz at all, the blessing you made was still a real blessing. You did exactly what was asked of you. The mitzvah was fulfilled completely, whether or not you have a crumb to show for it.

Results are not the measuring stick. The showing up and putting in effort is.

The Rebbe Rashab gave an ironclad promise: “There is a real assurance that effort to spread Torah and mitzvos is never expended in vain.” Never. Not once. You may have accomplished something enormous and simply not be aware of it. The effect ripples out in ways you’ll never trace.

Here is a great example about those rabbinical students: A person is sitting at home and glances out the window. He sees a young man with a beard hurrying by. And suddenly he remembers: his own father had a beard like that. He remembers his father telling him, “Every morning when you wake up, say Modeh Ani. Before you go to sleep, say Shema Yisrael.” And right there, at the window, he says the words again and something in him wakes up.

The young man walking by never knew. He’d probably have told you the walk accomplished nothing.

This is not just a nice thought; it changes how we live. Because the moment you believe your impact depends on seeing the results, you stop trying when results don’t show up. You get discouraged and conclude you’re not making a difference and you sit back down.

However, if you actually internalize that the doing is the accomplishment, you become unstoppable. You make the call without needing the call back. You extend the invitation without needing the yes. You do the good deed and trust that the ripples are real even in the silence.

Do one good thing where you’re fairly sure you won’t see a result. Invite the person who probably won’t come. Reach out to the old friend who might not reply. Put up the mezuzah, say the extra prayer, share the word of Torah, without waiting to find out if it “worked.”

You are a living signpost standing at somebody’s crossroads. You may never know that they turned the right way because of you.

Do it anyway. It’s never wasted.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Kushi Schusterman

What's more meaningful to a marriage: a candlelit anniversary dinner or a husband quietly doing the dishes on a random Tuesday night?

We'd all say the dinner. It's romantic, elevated and feels like love. But let’s be honest: nothing says "I see you and I care about you" quite like someone doing the thing they really don't want to do. Whether it’s the dishes, the diapers, or the garbage that is being done with no applause and nothing in it for them. The candlelit dinner is beautiful. The garbage is love.

This week we begin reading the fifth book of the Torah, Devarim, Deuteronomy. The first four books were spoken by G-d directly through Moshe, word for word, no filter. Devarim, Moshe says "on his own." It's still Torah, still holy, and still divine. However, now it's been absorbed into a human mind and repackaged in human words.

Why the change? Because this generation was about to leave the desert.

In the desert, everything was handed to them. Food fell from the sky, their clothing never wore out, their protection came from clouds of glory. It was a spiritual paradise and the Rebbe says, it was also a little selfish. It felt amazing, yet it didn't actually connect them to G-d's essence. It was the candlelit dinner.

The moment they crossed into the Land of Israel, everything changed. Now they had to plant, build, work, and deal with the physical world and its mess. And that, not the desert, is where the real connection lives. Making the ordinary, stubborn, and physical world into a home for G-d is the whole point. That's the garbage, and that's the love.

Devarim comes to us via Moshe filtering G-d’s words instead of repeating what G-d said, because the job now is to bring the highest things all the way down into real, everyday life. If you can only feel it in the desert, you haven't really brought it home yet.

Here's a line I heard: "If I'm spiritual in shul but not a mentch on the street, was I ever really spiritual in shul?" The proof of a spiritual life isn't the beautiful moment in the synagogue. It's the person you are in the parking lot afterward.

Take one ordinary, un-spiritual, slightly annoying task that you'd rather skip, and do it. On purpose, as an act of connection, not meditation, not the perfect prayer. The dishes, that's how you connect to G-d’s essence.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Kushi Schusterman

Ever wanted to just be left alone? Just... a quiet corner of life where you don't have to fight anyone’s battles, where you can tend to your own flock, keep your own routine, and let the rest of the world sort itself out.

That's what the tribes of Reuven and Gad asked for in this week's parsha, Matot. The land on the east bank of the Jordan was perfect grazing land for their large herds of sheep and cattle. They came to Moshe with a request: let us stay here and settle our families.

Moshe's reaction was fierce. "Your brothers are going to go to war and you're going to sit here?" And then he goes on to accuse them of discouraging the entire nation and of repeating the sin of the spies, who talked the Jewish people out of entering the Land in the first place.

Reuven and Gad never said they wouldn't fight. They never said Israel wasn't worth conquering. They just wanted to live somewhere quiet. Why does Moshe treat that like treason?

Because of what it reveals underneath.

The spies didn't want to enter the Land either. Not because they doubted G-d, but because life in the desert was, spiritually speaking, easy. Manna fell from the sky. Clothes never wore out. Every day was just Torah; no mortgage, no meetings, no marketplace. Why trade that for a land where you have to plow fields or run a business?

Reuven and Gad wanted the same thing, just with sheep instead of manna. Stay out here, stay simple, stay untouched by the noise of building a society. Let everyone else go do the complicated, physical, sometimes-messy work of settling the Land.

And here's the part that hits closest to home: that instinct isn't wrong. There's a real place in Jewish life for people to learn Torah full-time, undistracted by the marketplace. That's why Yissachar and Zevulun made their famous deal. Yissachar would learn and Zevulun would work and support him, and they'd split the reward. Torah scholars and working people need each other. Masters of Torah, masters of good deeds and both are essential.

But here's what Moshe would not accept: doing it in your own bubble, cut off, uninvolved, unintegrated with everyone else engaged in building the world around you.

Once Reuven and Gad said, "We will cross over and fight alongside our brothers," Moshe didn't argue anymore. He let them stay. Not because their preference changed, but because their posture did. They were no longer opting out. They were showing up for the war and choosing their corner of the map afterward.

Where in your life have you built a quiet corner to avoid the noise? A busy schedule that doesn’t make room for someone who needs you. Maybe it's a spiritual routine so private that nobody else benefits from it. Perhaps it's simply easier to stay on your side of the river.

It's not that quiet and private are wrong. It's that Hashem doesn't want your Jewishness parked on the sidelines. He wants it in the game, transforming the actual, physical, occasionally inconvenient world you and I live in.

A mission for this week: find one place where you've been standing on the sidelines (a person, a cause, a mitzvah) and cross the river. Show up for it, even if your sheep are perfectly happy where they are.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Kushi Schusterman