Imagine the fourth quarter of a championship game. Your star player is running down the court, ready to take the game-winning shot … and suddenly he stops at half-court. He simply has no energy left. The coach runs over, furious: "What happened?" The player answers: "I'm out of gas. I wasn't conditioned properly." The coach would be shocked. "How did we get to this point? We practiced all season. How did we forget conditioning?" This isn't just a sports analogy. It is playing

Labor Day: What Kind of Work Are We Doing on Ourselves? The purpose of Labor Day is “to honor and celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers.” That got me thinking about the word labor itself. Labor means work. In Judaism, we have a fascinating relationship with work. On Shabbos Kodesh, we refrain from melachah—creative, productive work. We stop and recognize that HaShem runs the world, not us. But during the week, there is plenty of work to do. Of

Shalom Friends, I'll admit, when I was in high school, I wanted to lift weights to look strong and take my shirt off at the beach. Now, many years later, I have a different perspective on life, shaped by my desire to live according to my religious values. But nonetheless, I still lift weights now, after taking a break of about 25 years. In fact, I lift weights probably six days a week now. So is it the same? Am I still doing this "take your shirt off" motion? What am I do

Imagine you wake up one morning and realize that the things you used to do without thinking suddenly aren’t so easy. Your pants are tighter. You’re tired in the middle of the day. Carrying groceries feels heavier. You get winded walking up the stairs, and when you stand up after sitting for a while, your body feels stiff. None of these things happened overnight, but somehow, little by little, they became your new normal. At what point do you decide that you don’t want this to

One of the interesting things about working from home is that you can be incredibly busy all day and, at the same time, barely move. You sit down in the morning, start answering emails, jump on a Zoom, take a few phone calls, get some work done, and suddenly it’s 4:00 in the afternoon. You may have accomplished a tremendous amount professionally, but physically you’ve barely left your chair. When you work in an office, there are a lot of little movements that happen without e

There is a Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah that says that if someone blows a shofar in a pit, cistern, or barrel, and you hear the echo rather than the actual sound of the shofar, you have not fulfilled the mitzvah. The Gemara elaborates on the circumstances and whether the person can distinguish the actual sound, but the basic idea is powerful: hearing an echo is not the same as hearing the pure sound of the shofar itself. I was thinking about this especially during the weeks leadi

Friends, when you look at this picture, you see a relatively clean parking lot. But a few hours earlier, when I arrived at shul, it looked very different. There were probably 10–15 dirty plates, with leftover food, scattered around the parking lot. I saw the mess and thought to myself: I’m here to learn. I’m not cleaning this up. In fact, it barely even occurred to me that I should clean it. I figured I would call the office and someone else would take care of it. And then I

The Gemara at the end of Maseches Gittin says: דאמר רבי אלעזר כל המגרש אשתו ראשונה אפילו מזבח מוריד עליו דמעות, שנאמר: וזאת שנית תעשו כסות דמעה את מזבח ה׳ בכי ואנקה, מאין עוד פנות אל המנחה ולקחת רצון מידכם. ואמרתם על מה? על כי ה׳ העיד בינך ובין אשת נעוריך אשר אתה בגדתה בה, והיא חברתך ואשת בריתך. Rabbi Elazar teaches that when a man divorces his first wife, even the Mizbeach sheds tears. Think about what that means. The place where we bring our korbanos to Hashem is crying. Th

Friends, Baruch Hashem, we are once again at Parshas Shoftim. There is a Rashi in this week’s parsha that I can say, in a very real way, contributed to my life being saved on September 11, 2001. The Torah describes the Jewish people preparing to go out to battle. I have to imagine that going to war is terrifying. You don’t know what you’re going to face. You don’t know if you’ll return. You don’t know if you’ll ever see your loved ones again. And in that moment, the Kohen add

I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that we're meant to take care of our health. And even if, for the sake of argument, HaShem had never explicitly told us to do so, common sense alone would tell us that good health is a prerequisite for virtually every other mitzvah. The healthier you are, the more energy you have to learn Torah, the better you can concentrate during tefillah, and the more productive you are at work, which may enable you to give more tzedakah. The more energy yo

Our members have completed 55,000 classes and burned 10 million calories. It still seems a little crazy to me — because it started with a few people snickering at a guy teaching jump rope on the side. At the time, I was working in the business office of a day school. I had picked up jump rope simply to get healthier, saw real results, and figured maybe I could help a few other people do the same. People were confused. What is this? What are you doing? I never imagined it woul

First and foremost, thank you to HaShem for giving me the time to learn His Torah, and a huge thank you to my wife and family for all their love and support. I'd like to discuss the third Mishnah of the fourth perek of Maseches Middos. The Mishnah talks about the stones used for the Mizbayach and the ramp, and where they were taken from. It then talks a bit more about the plastering of the stones. But then it gets to the iron. Specifically, why was iron forbidden to touch the

Lessons from the Korban Tamid Baruch HaShem, through my Daily Learning of Mishnayos, I just finished Maseches Tamid: the masechta that describes the daily Korban Tamid brought every morning and every afternoon in the Beis Hamikdash. One of the tragedies we commemorate on Shivah Asar B’Tamuz is the cessation of the Korban Tamid. The fact that Chazal included this among the reasons for the fast tells us something important. This wasn’t just another korban. It was the korban of

This is something I’ve thought about many times, but a recent shiur from Rabbi Efrem Goldberg gave me another opportunity to reflect on it deeply. As many of you know, HaShem saved my life on 9/11. I was on the 79th floor of the World Trade Center and left the floor just 17 minutes before the plane hit. To this day, after every Shemoneh Esrei, I thank HaShem for saving me physically that day — and spiritually as well. I was already on the path to becoming religious beforehand

Shabbos is really the only day of the week that I get the opportunity to walk around town and observe people of all different ages. Being that I work in health and fitness, it’s hard not to notice how differently people age depending on their health, mobility, and fitness level. I see people my age. I see people 10, 15, 20 years older. Some are walking quickly and comfortably. Some are moving slowly. Some are struggling. Some are walking with canes. And it always makes me thi

Growing up not religious, many weddings I attended felt centered around the guests having a good time while the bride and groom hosted the event. One of the beautiful things about a Jewish wedding is that it’s really the opposite. The guests are there to bring simcha to the chosson and kallah. Their joy becomes our mission. Through dancing, singing, celebrating, and simply showing up with a full heart, we participate in the great mitzvah of משמח חתן וכלה — bringing happiness

A little over a year ago, when I began the process of donating a kidney, I never thought there was any connection between that decision and surviving 9/11. That changed during the medical screening process. As I met with doctors to ensure I was physically, emotionally, and mentally prepared, something clicked. I realized that while I can never truly repay Hashem for saving my life on 9/11, maybe this was an opportunity to give life to someone else. For 25 years, I’ve been liv

Turning Back the Clock Baruch HaShem, we just passed 50,000 classes completed by our members! Today, we offer classes that include jump rope, weights, stability ball, pelvic work, Pilates, and more. But 50,000 classes ago, it was just jump roping—with breaks. No bodyweight. No weights. Just a rope. I think it may have gotten boring for some people before we expanded. I don’t blame them. But now I realize something important: people need a dedicated jump rope/cardio day to giv

How resistance training builds confidence you can use everywhere Friends, I want to talk today about an idea connected to using weights. I am not going to focus on all the usual benefits we already know, like building strength, protecting joints and bones, improving balance and posture, boosting metabolism, and supporting long term health and mobility. What I do want to talk about is something else.How weights can affect your confidence. Confidence is a real outcome of stren