Passing of the great Chassidic leader and advocate for the Jewish people, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (1740-1809). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was a close disciple of the second leader of the Chassidic movement, Rabbi DovBer, the Maggid of Mezritch. He is best known for his love for every Jew and his impassioned words of advocacy on their behalf before the Almighty.
Link: Kol Nidrei; more on R. Levi Yitzchak
Tishrei 25th is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Moshe Sofer of Pressburg (1762-1839), known as "Chatam Sofer" after his work of Rabbinic responsa. Rabbi Moshe was an outstanding Halachic authority and community leader, and was at the forefront of the battle to preserve the integrity of traditional Judaism in the face of the various "reformist" movements of his time.
As long as everything is going smoothly and you are doing everything right, every step is going to be predictable, as though you’re following a script.
You go to school, you please your teachers, you graduate college and get a nice job. Nothing new. Nothing radical.
But with one failure along the way, one little crash in the system, and entirely new possibilities open up. Now you get to turn life around, all on your own.
The human universe through which our lives travel is so fragile. Perhaps it is intentionally so. Perhaps it is a great gift from our Creator, so that just as He created a world out of nothing, so we will create surprise and wonder out of the messes in our lives.
So that we can share in that most essential divine power: The power to recreate our own selves.