Learning From Reb Usher Freund zt"l

1. Who Was Reb Usher?

2.  Pain is an Invitation

Why do some people with endless hardship live in serenity, while others crumble under far less?
What if it’s not the circumstances causing pain, but how we think about them?

Dive into the inner world of Rav Asher, who teaches that most suffering doesn’t come from reality. Rather, it comes from the imagination. Our own thoughts become our enemy. But once we learn to trace our strength not to our ego, but to the Ein, to the place of nothingness where only Hashem is real, we begin to live. 

This is more than emotional healing. It’s spiritual realignment. It’s shifting from self-pity to divine support, from illusion to Emunah. This shiur might change the way you wake up in the morning and how you relate to your entire life.

3. The Pain Isn’t Real. But Emunah Is

Is our suffering divine punishment, or is it something deeper?

Join Rav Shlomo in unpacking a soul-stirring 1971 letter from Reb Usher Freund zt”l that redefines how we view pain, failure, and confusion. With brutal honesty and infinite compassion, Reb Usher teaches that the deepest afflictions in life are not punishments. Rather, they are the very vehicles through which we connect to Hashem.

Rav Shlomo explores the inner wars with the yetzer hara, the moments when we feel too broken to pray, and the radical emunah that God isn’t pushing us away, but pulling us closer. This Torah is for the heart of anyone who's ever suffered and still dared to hold on.

In this shiur:

Why we must stop trying to explain our suffering

The hidden kindness in our most bitter battles

How personal pain is the gateway to collective redemption

The difference between divine help and divine partnership

Rav Shlomo Katz, Reb Usher Freund, Emunah, Suffering in Judaism, Pain and Tikkun, Jewish Philosophy, Yetzer Hara, Hashem’s Love, Tzaddikim, Torah of the Heart, Soul Work, Bitachon, Tikkun HaNefesh, Redemption

4. My Pain is My Tikkun

What if the pain in your life wasn’t a punishment, but a tap on the shoulder from Heaven?

Join Rav Shlomo Katz and the Shirat David chevra as we dive deep into a 1971 letter from Reb Asher Freund zt”l, revealing the hidden invitation behind our struggles. Drawing from Reb Usher’s piercing insights, we learn that real emunah means believing not only that things will work out, but that the very obstacles we face are themselves part of Divine hashgacha. The suffering isn’t a glitch in the plan.....it is the plan. Not to break us, but to bring us back.

Through Torah, stories, and soul, Rav Shlomo opens a powerful door to understanding the voice of Hashem in a world gone mad. This is the Torah of now.

In this shiur:

Why pain is often the loudest voice of Divine love

The trap of “calculating” our suffering—and how it cuts us off from real connection

The difference between numbing emunah and living emunah

Reb Asher’s life-altering teaching: “It’s not about correction—it’s about connection.

5. Feeling the Tap on the Shoulder

Rav Shlomo Katz and the chevra of Shirat David learn a fierce, yet compassionate, letter from Reb Usher Freund on what to do precisely when, in holy moments, the mind floods with מחשבות זרות—blurry, intrusive, and confusing thoughts. Instead of spiraling into self-hatred, Reb Usher reframes them as invitations to ביטול/אין: not “I am garbage,” but “I’m held and that my strength is borrowed Light.” 

We explore how recognizing our true value as receivers gives us real contro, not over what thoughts appear, but over how we respond. With Tehillim’s “הוציאה ממסגר נפשי,” the image of the loyal בהמה to its master, and Avraham’s “ואנכי עפר ואפר,” the shiur charts a path to turn rent-free thoughts into rent-paid growth.

Topics include:

- Why bad thoughts show up in good places—and why that doesn’t define you.
- “Control” redefined: not stopping thoughts, but steering response.
- Living with thoughts vs. warring with them; tasting ביטול without falling into ייאוש.
- “בהמות הייתי עמך”: learning holy surrender from a loyal animal to its Master.
- “הוציאה ממסגר נפשי”: escaping the hamster-wheel mind.
-Avraham’s “ואנכי עפר ואפר” as the gateway to deepest strength.
- Turning confusion into clarity: from rent-free to rent-due.

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13. The Gifts that Emerge from Confusing Thoughts

Rav Shlomo Katz