The Motivation Congregation Podcast

Excuses can sound smart, compassionate, even responsible, until you realize they’re costing you your life. As Elul arrives and Rosh Hashanah gets closer, we challenge the most common habit we all share: explaining away the gap between what we hoped to do and what we actually did. We bring it back to a simple, uncomfortable question we’ll all face: what did we do with the time, talents, energy, and money we were given this past year? We also push back on the popular idea that modern life makes s

You’re told to mourn the Beis HaMikdash, but you’ve never seen it. So what are you actually supposed to feel during the Nine Days and on Tisha B’Av, and how do you get there without faking it? We sit down with Rabbi Don Jarashow to chase an honest answer: mourning isn’t a mood you either have or don’t have; it’s sensitivity you can practice. We talk about why the classic Nine Days customs (less music, fewer pleasures, pulling back from comfort) aren’t meant to make you miserable. They’re meant

A crying mother is mourning her young son next door to Rabban Gamliel, and he can’t stop crying with her. It goes so far that his students worry for his health. That midrash is the doorway we use to talk about the Three Weeks, the destruction of Jerusalem, and why the loss of the Beit HaMikdash is not only national history but a personal wound that still reshapes Jewish life. We explore what it means to live with a Torah that includes 613 mitzvot when so many are tied to the Temple service, Koh