Rav Yosef Shaul Nathanson was a brilliant gaon and a giant in Torah. He was also a tremendous masmid who learned around the clock, eating and sleeping just enough to keep him going. When he was a young man of marriageable age, there was no dearth of shidduch offers that

The holy Shaagas Aryeh had a shamash who served him devotedly for many years. However, he was an elderly man, and soon the time came for him to depart from the world. When the Shaagas Aryeh was notified that his faithful shamash was on his deathbed, he immediately went to

Benny was finishing up his final year of high school, and the exciting occasion of his upcoming graduation was nearing. A Jewish American teenager in a yeshiva day school, he was looking forward to the graduation present that his parents would surely grant him. Many of his friends were getting

The holy Rav Chaim ben Atar, famously known as the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh, was born in the city of Sali, Morocco in the year 5454 (1694 CE). He was a tremendous tzaddik and talmid chacham who authored commentaries on Chumash, Gemara, and Shulchan Aruch. He also possessed ruach hakodesh. The

This story is from the Gemara in Gittin, daf 68a When Shlomo Hamelech wanted to build the Bais Hamikdash, he ran into a problem. The Halacha is that the stones used to build the Bais Hamikdash may not be cut using a metal blade, but it was impossible to build

Rav Chatzel Miletzky (later of Yerushalayim) was sixteen years old when war tore through Europe in a wave of devastation, destruction, and death. Young Chaikel skirted danger and looked fear in the eye, yet he never allowed the fear of human threat overcome his fear of Heaven. Following are three

The Apta Rav was known to say over the following story on Pesach. R’ Shaya and R’ Shaya were uncle and nephew. Having both been named for the same relative, they shared the same name, and although the uncle was at least a decade older than his nephew, they looked

Rav Moshe Galanty, a disciple and successor of the Bais Yosef, was a gadol hador who lived in Tzefas.  He was intimately familiar with all aspects of Torah, including Kabbalah, and was well-versed in the seven wisdoms of the world. While over the centuries, the world has produced great astronomers

Meir was sixteen years old when his world came crashing down. Living in a Polish shtetl in the nineteenth century, life was difficult, but routine, until the day his father was driven out of the town. A career thief who stole for a living from the other Jews in the

Rav Shalom Schwadron was of the greatest maggidim of the previous generation. He would travel around the world and give fiery shmuessen that inspired and uplifted and spurred Yidden to change for the better. I merited to have a personal relationship with Rav Shalom, and I heard the following story