What Is the Practical and Personal Significance of Yud Shevat? How Does Basi L’Gani Describe the Purpose of Our Lives (In the First 10 Chapters), and the Treasures We Are Given to Fulfill This Purpose (In the Last 10 Chapters)? What Should Be the Main Focus of Our Avodah in Shevat? Why Does this Parsha Combine Both the End of the Exile and the Beginning of the Redemption? Why Did the Exodus Begin With the Mitzvah of Establishing a Lunar-Based Calendar?
MyLife: Chassidus Applied Episode 577 with Rabbi Simon Jacobson
Sunday, January 18, 2026 / 29 Teves 5786 – 8:00-9:00PM ET
Podcast YouTube Chassidusapplied.com
The topics in this week’s 577th episode of the highly acclaimed MyLife: Chassidus Applied series, with Rabbi Simon Jacobson, will include:
Rosh Chodesh Shevat
- What is the significance of this month and what should be the main focus of our avodah in this time?
- What do we learn from the mazal of Shevat – bucket (d’li)?
- What does the word Shevat mean?
Bo
- What lessons do we learn from living with the times, with this week’s Torah parsha?
- Why does this parsha combine both the end of the exile and the beginning of the redemption?
- Why does it mean that during the plague of darkness there was “light among the Jews”?
- Why did that light not dispel the surrounding darkness?
- Why did Pharoah survive the plague of the first-born?
- Why did the exodus begin with the mitzvah of HaChodesh Hazeh Lochem, establishing a lunar based calendar, and why was this the first commandment in Torah?
- What was the significance of offering the Pascal Lamb and what was the process?
- How can we benefit today from the fact that the Jews left Egypt with great wealth?
Vaeirah
- What is the story behind the maamar of the Alter Rebbe called “Der Frumer Vaeirah”? Follow-up
Yud Shevat/Basi L’Gani
- What is the significance of this day in practical and personal terms?
- How does Basi L’Gani describe the purpose of our lives (in the first 10 chapters), and the treasures we are given to fulfill this purpose (in the last 10 chapters)?
- What is a summary and chiddush of this year’s chapter 16 of Basi L’Gani?
- Why are all sevenths beloved, when the number eight represents a higher, transcendent level?
MyLife: Chassidus Applied is a weekly video webcast candidly answering questions from the public about all life matters and challenges, covering the entire spectrum of human experience.
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MyLife demonstrates how Chassidus provides us with a comprehensive blueprint of the human psyche as a microcosm of the cosmos, and offers us all the guidance we need to live the healthiest possible life and build nurturing homes and families, bringing up the healthiest possible children, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. MyLife is brought to you by the Meaningful Life Center as a public service, free of charge.
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