Michael Mantell

Dr. Michael Mantell

Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D. is a retired psychologist, best-selling author, international speaker, and a highly sought after cognitive behavioral coach whose actionable, valuable and practical work has been featured on Fox News, ABC-TV, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post. He has been teaching how Torah’s wisdom can lead to optimal living for many decades. You can follow him on Facebook and in other social media, where he has posted the #MantellDaily5 everyday for years.

His books, available on Amazon, include:

Talking Donkey Teaches Us To See the Good in One Another

Talking donkeys can teach us a great deal about who really offers blessings and curses, that is, only Hashem. And more than this, talking donkeys can teach us to inclusively, with ahavat yisroel, open our eyes and see the good in everyone else in the world. It says in the parasha three times, “And G-d opened the eyes of Bilam and he saw…” Some people, like Bilaam, may need continuous lessons to see the presence of Hashem. We benefit from similar reminders to see every other person with understanding, with the benefit of the doubt, with love, through ayin tova. Our eyes are lenses through which we see the world. Too often shmutz clouds what we see in terms of negative thinking. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Torah portion for June 19, 2021: Chukat

The Pure Red Heifer, the Parah Adumah T’mimah which we read about in this week’s parasha, Chukat, opens the door to learning about a purification process that defies rational understanding. Burn a perfectly good cow without blemish and its ashes can make those who burn it imperfect, impure, while making the impure, the imperfect, pure and perfect. What a paradox! [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

By Our Actions We Choose Blessings or Curses

As this third book of the Torah, the middle book, comes to an end, we are given nechemta, with a hopeful view of future generations. The parasha tells us, “If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them, I will give you rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage…and I will grant peace in the Land…You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you…” [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Treating everyone with compassion

When we speak words of Torah, we enhance our life, and the lives of others. To do so is a choice we make. We can surely choose not to and when we select that path, we largely create acrimony in our life and in the lives of others. While the sanctity of the Kohanim is a major theme in this week’s Torah reading, we also see another key theme in the parasha, the holiness of Shabbat, of time, and of the festivals we are blessed to enjoy. It is this latter theme that caught my attention. To be holy is freeing, expansive, liberating, to help us connect with Hashem, and properly with one another. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Extending Kavod to Others

This week’s double Torah portion, Acharei and Kedoshim, springs off the scroll with applicability to the pandemic of our times, COVID, or if you prefer, kaf, bet, dalet, KOVOD. The English letters, K, V, D, form the root of the word Kavod. What’s dignity, respect or honor have to do with these parshiot? Plenty. Kavod, ,כָּבוֹד KVD, a word of strength and importance, refers to “glory,” “respect,” “majesty,” and “honor.” Other uses of kavod can refer to wealth (Gen. 31:1, the first use of kavod in the Bible), reputation (Gen. 45:13), the quantity of something, or splendor, all of which may be summed up in the word “dignity.”  Another very important application is found in the fifth commandment, commanding us to “honor” (kavod in verb form) our fathers and mothers. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Post COVID, Become F.I.T.

Now before you think this column is about physical exercise and muscle growth, I’m talking here about another type of being “F.I.T.,” one that I’ve been writing and speaking about for many years. This F.I.T. has to do with being a “Fundamentally Independent Thinker” and requires no exercise equipment. “The link is what you think,” remember? Let’s delve into this a bit and see how being an independent thinker, not emotionally hooked into external events, can help you through the COVID-19 psychological upheaval. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Lifestyles, Michael Mantell

Recovering and allowing others to recover

We learn in this week’s reading to see the potential for extending our own community to include those ill in body, mind, or spirit, and are charged with fully welcoming them back after whatever diagnosis and treatment they receive for the “disease,” that does not, after all, alter their essential humanity. The Torah directs us to welcome and comfort the afflicted instead of solely expelling them. [Michael R. Mantell, PhD]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell

Accepting that God’s Will Is for the Good

The parasha presents us with the abrupt, heart-rending, seemingly inexplicable loss, the passing of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu. We read in the parasha (10:1-2), “And Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his pan, put fire in them, and placed incense upon it, and they brought before the Lord foreign fire, which He had not commanded them. And fire went forth from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D]

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Jewish Religion, Michael Mantell