Throughout the glacial period other activities were in progress, but the action of the ice overshadowed all other phenomena in the northern latitudes. In the face of this challenge, 500,000 years ago, during the fifth advance of the ice, a new development accelerated the course of human evolution. Suddenly and in one generation the six colored race…

In this shiur, delivered via zoom to the Chizzuk Mission, Rav Burg explores the deeper dimension of the Ushpizin in these chaotic times. When the Ushpizin share in our pain then we can know the joy of Succos.

In this shiur, delivered in Tomer Devorah, Rav Burg explains (based on a Torah from the Tzemach Tzedek) how we can make meaningful and lasting change. Only when we recognize that the truest version of ourselves never participated in our Aveiros can we deeply regret our mistakes and make real changes.…

In this shiur, delivered in Darchei Binah, Rav Burg explains Reb Zusias five aspects of Teshuva and the inner symmetry of Teshuva. To realign with Hashem we must live wholeheartedly, purposefully, lovingly, oriented towards a meaningful destination and with dignity.

Snow began to fall on the once highly elevated northeastern part of North America, and it continued to fall until it had attained a depth of 20,000 feet. Two million years ago the first North American glacier started its southern advance. The ice age was then in the making, and this glacier consumed nearly one million years in its advance from, and…

In this shiur, delivered in Tomer Devorah, Rav Burg explains (based on a Sicha from the Lubavitcher Rebbe) how Hashem relates to us through various channels. Miracles overwhelm us. The natural world reveals Hashem but we remain a distinct entity. Only through Torah can we truly become one with Hashem. Through Torah we can learn the will and wisdom …

In this shiur, delivered in Ba'er Miriam, Rav Burg explains how Moshe Rabbeinu addresses the fears of Klal Yisrael after they heard the Klalos. When we realize that we are a fundamental part of the Klal, that we each make a unique contribution and that no Jew in truth is higher than any other we gain a deep sense of being firmly planted in the grou…

During the almost two years of his Mediterranean journey, Jesus made great advances in his human task of mastering the material and mortal mind, and his indwelling Adjuster made great progress in the ascension and spiritual conquest of this same human intellect. By the end of the tour, Jesus virtually knew—with all human certainty—that he was a Son…

In this shiur, delivered in the Lubat home in Neve Shamir, Rav Burg explains the inner nature of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We don't just want Hashem to forgive us so we can have a good year, we want Hashem to restore us to the way things were. On Rosh Hashanah every molecule of creation returns to its source, to its purpose. We return to our mi…

In this shiur, delivered at Mevaseret Mishmar, Rav Burg explains how Vidui Maaser is the true confession. Only when we know our own greatness can we acknowledge our sins with healthy guilt and not toxic shame.

In this shiur, the first shiur of the year in Tomer Devorah, Rav Burg explores the Machlokes as to when we begin to be obligated in the Mitzvah of Bikkurim. According to the Gemara it is from the time we settle Eretz Yisrael. According to the Sifri it is from when we first enter the land. Based on a Torah from the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt"l, Rav Burg e…

In this shiur, the first shiur of the year in Ba'er Miriam, Rav Burg explains how Klal Yisrael became a nation on the day that they expressed their frustration with Moshe Rabbeinu for writing a special Sefer Torah for Shevet Levi. When we take personal responsibility for our relationship with Hashem, when we own the mission of Klal Yisrael, we move…

By apparent chance, Jesus met a wealthy traveler and his son, a young man about seventeen years of age. These travelers hailed from India, and being on their way to visit Rome and various other points on the Mediterranean, they had arranged to arrive in Jerusalem during the Passover, hoping to find someone whom they could engage as interpreter for …

In this shiur, delivered in Mevaseret at the first Mishmar of the year, Rav Burg speaks about Teshuva not as an accounting of our sins but as crying out for a relationship with Hashem. However, in order to do so, we must remove our garments of captivity - a surface orientated way of seeing the world. Only when we live focused on the essence can we …

By the end of A.D. 20, the Son of Man had made every preparation for detaching himself permanently from the Nazareth home; and this was not easy for him to do. Jesus naturally loved his people; he loved his family, and this natural affection had been tremendously augmented by his extraordinary devotion to them. The more fully we bestow ourselves up…

The children were always welcome at the repair shop. Jesus provided sand, blocks, and stones by the side of the shop, and bevies of youngsters flocked there to amuse themselves. When they tired of their play, the more intrepid ones would peek into the shop, and if its keeper were not busy, they would make bold to go in and say, “Uncle Joshua, come …

Throughout his ministry to mankind, Jesus sought to not bring any undue influence to bear upon his family or others which would lead them to believe in him against their honest convictions. He always refused to take undue or unfair advantage of the human mind. He did not want men to believe in him unless their hearts were responsive to the spiritua…

In this short shiur, based on a Torah from the Shvilei Pinchas, Rav Burg explains the inner connection between Yaakov Avinu and the Beis HaMikdash. Through our Torah and Teffilah, we turn our Shuls and Yeshivas into the building blocks of the third Beis HaMikdash.

Jesus’ twenty-second year of life was one of several years during which his brothers and sisters were facing the trials and tribulations peculiar to the problems and readjustments of adolescence. Jesus then had brothers and sisters ranging in ages from seven to eighteen, and he was kept busy helping them to adjust themselves to the new awakenings o…

In this shiur, delivered at the final Mishmar of NCSY Kollel, Rav Burg explains (based on a Torah from the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt"l) the inner nature of Golus. Once we understand that Hashem has only turned away from us in order to deepen our relationship we can develop our resilience as we journey through the last moments of this painful exile.…

As Jesus of Nazareth entered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and continued to live, a normal and average human life on earth. Of his human nature he was never in doubt; it was self-evident and always present in his consciousness. But of his divine nature there was always room for doubt and conjecture, at least this was true ri…

In this shiur, delivered worldwide On Tisha B'Av to the Chizzuk Mission, Rav Burg explores the relationship between Shlomo HaMelech, Yirmiyahu and Moshe Rabbeinu. While Shlomo HaMelech and Moshe Rabbeinu were on the 49th level of understanding, through mourning the loss of the Beis HaMikdash Yirmiyahu reveals to us the fiftieth dimension and thus t…

In this shiur, delivered on Tisha B'Av in NCSY Kollel, Rav Burg explains the nature of walls. Walls ought designed to protect our dignity. But when we live with a scarcity mentality, a mentality of fear, we build walls that imprison us from ourselves and from others. When we build healthy walls that protect our dignity and invite each other in, the…

In this shiur, delivered in NCSY Kollel (Mishmar), Rav Burg explains how Torah transformed Moshe Rabbeinu's ability to speak. Specifically before Tisha B'Av we must learn the Torah of seventy languages so that we can discover Godliness in exile.

As he approached his twentieth birthday, Jesus depended more and more upon the ultimate guidance of his heavenly Father, while he assumed the fatherly role of guiding and directing the children of his earth family. He was becoming experienced in the skillful wresting of victory from the very jaws of defeat; he was learning how to transform the diff…

In this shiur, delivered at Mishmar in NCSY Kollel, Rav Burg explains how the final story of Sefer Bamidbar is the climax of the story of how brothers and sisters make peace. The entire Torah can be seen as a story of avoiding the hard conversations and the strife that follows. If we are going to bring Mashiach we need to put our real feelings on t…

Rebecca lived for only one purpose—to await the hour when Jesus, to her, the greatest man who ever lived would begin his career as a teacher of living truth. And she followed him devotedly through his eventful years of public labor, being present that day when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem; and she stood by the side of Mary on that fateful an…

In this shiur, delivered on NCSY Kollel during Mishmar, Rav Burg explains how Hashem calls out to us through our desires. When we know our desires we know our mission and our talents but will we say Naar Anochi and run away from our mission or will we step up to the task and actualize our potential?

In this shiur, delivered in Neve Shamir, Rav Burg explains the inner dimension of the five events that occurred on Shiva Asar B'Tammuz and how each event is another stage in the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash. When we understand each stage of destruction, we also understand how we can rebuild.

On Saturday afternoon, December 3, A.D. 12, death for the second time struck at the Nazareth family. Little Amos, their baby brother, died after a week’s illness with a high fever. After passing through this time of sorrow with her first-born son as her only support, Mary at last and in the fullest sense recognized Jesus as the real head of the fam…

In this shiur, delivered in NCSY Michlelet, Rav Burg explains why of all people, it is Bilaam HaRasha who transmits the prophecy about the coming of Mashiach. Only when we bring Hashem into the lowest dimensions of our world, when the world is completely transformed into a Dirah B'Tachtonim will we merit the coming of Mashiach.…

In this shiur, delivered to NCSY Kollel for the first Mishmar of the summer, Rav Burg explains how we can make meaning and lasting changes in our lives. When we change our core belief system we change our focus and our narratives which leads to new emotions and new actions.

By the age of sixteen Jesus had acquired the full growth of his human intellect, not the full experience of human thinking but the fullness of capacity for such intellectual development. He possessed a keen and analytical mind, a kind and sympathetic disposition, a somewhat fluctuating but aggressive temperament, all of which were becoming organize…

With the close of this fifteenth year Jesus completed the traversal of that dangerous and difficult period in human existence, that time of transition between the more complacent years of childhood and the consciousness of approaching manhood with its increased responsibilities and opportunities for the acquirement of advanced experience in the dev…

The adolescent Jesus’ profound periods of meditation, his frequent journeys to the hilltop for prayer, and the many strange ideas which he advanced from time to time, thoroughly alarmed his mother. Sometimes she thought the lad was beside himself, and then she would steady her fears, remembering that he was, after all, a child of promise and in som…

It was during the calendar year of his fifteenth birthday that Jesus first formulated the prayer which he subsequently taught to his apostles, and which to many has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Also during that year, Jesus found a passage in the so-called Book of Enoch which influenced him in the later adoption of the term “Son of Man” as a…

Of all Jesus’ earth-life experiences, the fourteenth and fifteenth years were the most crucial. These two years, after he began to be self-conscious of divinity and destiny, and before he achieved a large measure of communication with his indwelling Adjuster, were the most trying of his eventful life on Urantia. It is this period of two years which…

Jesus, leaving Jerusalem with his parents, paused on the brow of Olivet; he raised his staff aloft and, quivering from head to foot under the surging of intense emotion, said: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and the people thereof, what slaves you are—subservient to the Roman yoke and victims of your own traditions—but I will return to cleanse yonder temp…

In this shiur, delivered in the Feder home in Lawrence, Rav Burg discusses (based on a Torah from the Nesivos Shalom and from the Kedushas Levi) the inner connection between the Omer and Bris Milah and why we don't make a shehecheyanu on the Mitzvah of the Omer. While seeing Hashem in the miraculous can jump start a relationship we have only learne…

In this shiur, delivered at the first ever Chizzuk Mission shiur in Los Angeles, Rav Burg discusses why the Torah was given first to women and then afterwards to the men. Only when our children are first given the space to discover who they are can they become something even greater. Even when we are acting in a masculine fashion and putting our im…

In a very amazing way Jesus participated in the temple discussions but always in a manner consistent with his youth. Sometimes his pointed questions were somewhat embarrassing to the learned teachers of the Jewish law, but he evinced such a spirit of candid fairness, coupled with an evident hunger for knowledge, that the majority of the temple teac…

In this shiur, delivered in the Valley in Los Angeles, Rav Burg discusses the inner nature of the Mitzvah of Yibum. Our responsibility in this world is to restore the name of Hashem which has been hidden since creation. When Avraham Avinu took on the responsibility of his brother's legacy in a completely selfless fashion he made himself into the pe…

In this shiur, delivered to the Chizzuk Mission on zoom, Rav Burg explores the true nature of Torah and why the nations of the world were afraid to accept the Torah. With a fixed mindset and the fear of change they were unable to let go of who they were in order to become something more. When we engage Torah it allows us to transform into our trues…

In this shiur, delivered in Sharfmans, Rav Burg explains the paradox of accepting the Torah with both humility and pride. The Torah was given on the smallest mountain which indicates that we must accept the Torah with humility and yet the Torah was also given on a mountain which indicates that their must be an element of pride as well. Rav Burg exp…

On the second episode of “Conversations” in Yeshivat Mevaseret, Akiva Schanzer and Eli Schuckman sat down with Rav Burg to discuss healthy attachment within a home and the community at large. They discussed how to create an environment in the home where a child feels safe, believing that no matter the circumstance every kid deserves a shot, and man…

In this shiur, delivered in Ba'er Miriam, Rav Burg explains (based on a Sicha from the Lubavitcher Rebbe) the inner nature of a Heter Iska. As mere mortals we cannot create a relationship with Hashem. Hashem must initiate a relationship with us and then we can participate in said relationship. And yet, the relationship must be meaningful not only t…

In this shiur, delivered in Tomer Devorah (last shiur of the year), Rav Burg explains how Shemita and Yovel rectify the sin of Kayin and Hevel. As one journeys through the story of Kayin and Hevel to Lemech and his wives and four children and finally to Shes and his ultimate descendant Noach it becomes clear that the narrative is about the loss of …

Again and again, during the Passover week, his parents would find Jesus sitting off by himself with his youthful head in his hands, profoundly thinking. They had never seen him behave like this, and not knowing how much he was confused in mind and troubled in spirit by the experience through which he was passing, they were sorely perplexed; they di…

In this shiur, delivered in Darchei Binah, Rav Burg explains how the nature of Torah is that it changes us. Only through Torah can we move from animal to Godly and therefore Torah must play a central role in our lives. The challenge of Torah is visualizing ourselves at Kabbalas HaTorah. It is difficult to believe that we are truly capable of change…

In this shiur, the final shiur of the year in Sharfmans, Rav Burg explores (based on a sicha from the Lubavitcher Rebbe) why the Eved Canaani is able to eat from the Terumah of the Kohen as opposed to the Eved Ivri and how this Halacha relates to our lives. When we are in complete submission to Hashem we are allowed to eat from the fruits of this w…