Meaningful Life Skills with Rabbi Simon Jacobson

Life is a journey. In fact, the great mystic the Baal Shem Tov teaches that each of us travels through 42 distinct journeys in the course of our lives. The 42 journeys the Jewish people traversed in the wilderness, as recorded in the Torah, are not merely ancient history; they are a map of the human soul and a mirror of our own life's voyage.
Every stage, every twist and turn, every ascent and descent, every triumph and setback is part of a larger choreography. When you begin to see your life not as a series of disconnected events but as a purposeful journey, patterns begin to develop and it starts to make sense. The challenges do not disappear, but your ability to navigate them is transformed. You recognize that every step, every encounter, and every obstacle carries within it an opportunity for growth and discovery.
In Part Two of our seven-part series, The 42 Journeys of Life, we continue the expedition. Having explored the first five journeys—the formative years in which our identity begins to take shape—we now enter journeys six through twelve, where we begin to develop the tools to confront adversity and discover our inner strength.
Please join Rabbi Simon Jacobson for Part Two: The Forces That Try to Break You Before You Become You—an exploration of the early challenges that test us, shape us, and ultimately reveal who we are meant to become.

In the second year [of the Exodus], on the 20th of the second month, the cloud rose from the Tabernacle of Testimony. The Israelites thus began their travels, [moving on] from the Sinai Desert [until] the cloud came to rest in the Paran Desert. This was the first journey at G-d’s word through Moses (this week’s Torah portion – 10:11-14)
Thus began the 13th of the 42 journeys through the wilderness. After the Jewish people camped at Sinai on the first of Sivan 2448, they remained there for close to a year (exactly 10 days less than 12 months), until the 20th of Iyar 2449, when the cloud rose, signifying the time to move on.
After the Torah elaborates on the events that transpired from the time the Jews arrived at Sinai on the first of Sivan 2448 (in the chapter Yisro in the book of Exodus), through the building and erection of the Temple on the first of Nissan 2449 (the latter chapters of Exodus), through the entire book of Leviticus and the first two and a half chapters of Numbers, the Torah resumes the story and begins to relate the series of journeys traveled by the Jewish people in the wilderness. The rising of the cloud in this week’s portion is essentially continuing the story where it was left off at the end of Exodus, when the cloud first descended on the Tabernacle.
As we now begin to read the story of the long and tedious journey, we bring you the first installment of a new series from Rabbi Jacobson, that outlines the psycho-spiritual 42 journeys that each of us go through in our own lives.

Jack, Charles, and Henry — three successful business colleagues — go out on a rowing trip. One is a financier, another a high-tech executive, and the third a prominent attorney. As they row across the water, Jack suddenly falls out of the boat.
Charles and Henry panic. They stretch out their hands and cry, “Jack, give me your hand! Give me your hand!” But Jack doesn’t respond.
Then Charles changes his words. “Take my hand!” Immediately Jack grabs hold, and they pull him to safety.
Henry turns to Charles, puzzled. Charles smiles and says, “You have to understand — Jack doesn’t know how to give. He only knows how to take.”
And that raises a profound question for each of us: Are we takers, or are we givers?
It’s not an easy question. We live in a world driven by survival, competition, and self-interest. We are conditioned to believe that the more we take, the more secure and successful we become.
But perhaps the opposite is true.
Perhaps the tragedy of being a taker is not only what it does to others — but what it does to us. Because when you only take, you never truly discover who you are.
Giving is not weakness. Giving is the ultimate expression of strength. It is the way we actualize our deepest potential. A giver is not defined by what they lack, but by what they possess within — the ability to contribute, to nurture, to illuminate, to transform. The more you give, the more you become.
Please join Rabbi Simon Jacobson in this vital discussion and discover: How do we move from being consumers of life to creators of life? From takers to givers?
And that makes all the difference. That change of attitude and direction -- from the inside out, instead of the outside in -- changes everything.

Do you believe in love that lasts forever?
It’s a beautiful idea—the language of films and novels. We all long to find that one person we can love endlessly. But is that truth, or is it just a dream? After all, everything in this physical world changes. It ages, it fades, it comes and goes.
So what makes love different? Why would love be the exception?
This is not just a philosophical question—it shapes everything. The choices we make, the commitments we’re willing to fight for. If everything is temporary, how deeply do we invest? Why give ourselves fully to something that won’t last?
And yet, we can’t let go of the idea. Something in us insists that love can be eternal.
So is it real—or is it illusion?
The answer depends on one thing: what do you mean by love?

In trying to take the pulse of our times, one senses a deep tension in the air — both personally and globally. It’s a strange paradox. On one hand, humanity is experiencing unprecedented prosperity, technological breakthroughs, breathtaking advances in AI, longer life expectancy, and medical miracles once unimaginable. Each day seems to unveil another revelation.
And yet, beneath it all hangs a cloud of uncertainty.
Perhaps it became most acute during COVID in 2020, but the tremors began even earlier — rapid technological change, political upheaval, social disruption, a world shifting beneath our feet. We are living through an age defined by one word: disruption. And disruption unsettles the human spirit.
Because human beings long for stability. We want to know where we stand. We seek coordinates, direction, predictability. When so much feels unknown, anxiety quietly settles beneath the surface: What will tomorrow bring? What kind of world are we handing to our children?
And so the question becomes: How do we navigate in such times? How do we remain balanced and grounded when the world around us feels increasingly unstable?
This is not merely a personal struggle. It affects our families, our communities, and the global human family.
Please join Rabbi Simon Jacobson in exploring timeless wisdom and immortal tools that have guided human beings through uncertainty, upheaval, and crisis for generations. Discover the method to living with strength in unstable times.