41. What Impresses You?

Rav Shlomo Katz guides us into a piercing question from the Piaseczner Rebbe: What actually impresses you? In a world that exalts brilliance, spectacle, and flash, this teaching unveils the subtle poison of the nachash: our reflex to admire talent over truth, charisma over clarity, cleverness over soul.

This shiur invites us back to a deeper kind of knowing—temimus, wholeheartedness, the quiet certainty that doesn't need applause or labels. Just as the stomach functions without fanfare, our neshama knows how to live in truth when we stop worshipping our intellect and start trusting our inner voice.

What is Bnei Machshava Tova?

Diving into the essays by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, in which the establishment of a “conscious community” is promoted and aimed at attaining spiritual growth.

Why is there a need for a “conscious community”? Could the individual not achieve this aim on his own? R. Kalonymus insists that belonging to a chavura is a precondition for self-improvement and chasidic service: “That which can be achieved by the group cannot by any means be achieved by the individual.”

The group is open to anyone seeking to draw close to God – people who have had enough of their mundane, contemptible lives of “lowly spirit”; people who are ready for uncompromising psychological and spiritual exertion.

The shiur was recorded at Shirat David (Efrat,Israel). To learn more about Shirat David and various learning opportunities:
www.shiratdavid.com, [e-mail]