Part One: Yalkut Shimoni – Iran will destroy the world Part Two: Avraham’s Disciples Part Three: Building Walls, Closing Doors Part One: Yalkut Shimoni, “Iran will destroy the world” HaShem appoints strange messengers to do His bidding. At times it is a talking donkey or an arch-evil anti-semite, like Bilam, who knows the true value

Part One: Dirty Hands Part Two: The Unity of the Red Heifer Part Three: Collective Force Part One: Dirty Hands Our parsha begins with the unfathomable ritual of para aduma, the red heifer. The completely red-haired animal is burned on Har Ha’zaytim to the east of the Temple Mount, in direct line with the Holy

Parashat Korach 5767 Part One: The Soldiers of King David Part Two: To Merit vs. To Be Chosen Part Three: Your Revolution Part One: The Soldiers of King David I recall reading that during a lull in the fighting in the Yom Kippur war, the head of one of the hesder yeshivot visited his talmidim

Part One: Living The Miracle Part Two: Larger than Life Part Three: Looking Back Part One: Living The Miracle In the wake of the tragic episode of the meraglim (spies), who roused the nation to mutiny against Eretz Yisrael and the leadership of Moshe and Aharon, there arose a group of people who declared their

Parshat Be’ha’alotcha 5767 Eight times in his commentary on Chumash, Rashi asks “lama nisma’cha” (why did the Torah choose this particular sequence of verses). He meant that since the episodes of the Torah do not always appear in their historical sequence, nor is there always a logical human explanation for mitzva B to follow mitzva

Parshiyot Bamidbar and Naso 5767 Part One: Bamidbar and Naso The names of the tribal leaders change according to the situation. So we find that their names as stated at the beginning of the book of Bamidbar are not the same names they are called when they were sent as miraglim (spies) in parashat Shelach.

Parshat Behar-Bechukotai Part One: The Tochacha, 3 Avot, and Eretz Yisrael Parshat Bechukotai contains the tochacha – the stern warning of Hashem to the Children of Israel, what would happen if we do not uphold the covenant by which Hashem relegated us to the status of His Chosen People. The tochacha is presented as a

Yom Yerushalayim 5767 Let’s take a walk down “what-could-have-been” land, and return to the time of the Six Day War. It was again the three week period between when Gamal Nassar, President of Egypt, rolled his troops into the Sinai and the preemptive strike made by Israel on the 26th of Iyar 5727 (June 5th

Part One: There are those who claim that although the basic message of aliyah to Eretz Yisrael in my writings is important, many people are distracted from the issue because I present it in a blatant and strident form. Permit to explain why I wrap the beautiful gift of aliyah in sandpaper and not in

Parshiyot Acharei – Kedoshim 5767, Memorial Day and Yom Ha’atzmaut Part One: Memorial Day (postponed this year from Sunday to Monday in order not to desecrate the Shabbat with the preparations) Words and numbers are the intellectual essence of man; the richer one’s vocabulary the more profound and extensive are his thoughts, and numbers permit us