Take heed the warnings. Pay attention. In this parsha the corrupt immoral King Balak wants to destroy the Hebrew immigrants. He calls on Bilaam, a prophet and magician, to verbally condemn the tribes in their tents below, which he wants to do but he cannot as Hashem only lets him speak words of praise alluding…
The challenge for even the greatest leaders is to transcend their egos and emotional reactions. What is truly amazing about Jewish history is we admit the frailties of our greatest of prophets. Here Moses was facing scoffers and complainers, for once his beloved sister Miriam, who had recently died, a rock associated with her that…
This week’s story is about a power-driven self-absorbed megalomaniac. In his effort to overthrow the just leadership and undermine the society he convinces followers, but their arrogance ends up in their own destruction by fire from the bottom and in his case being sucked into the earth. Sometimes the punishments of the past would be…
The danger of believing lies. A problem then and a problem now. The Midrash speaks of the spies who came to discover the nature of Canaan and then lied about what they saw to scare the people from advancing into what was to be their homeland. One of their lies was that there were giants,…
Appreciation. Gratitude. Warning. Wonder. Themes in this weeks parsha. The Hebrews were provided food each morning on the journey toward Israel. Called manna, it dropped like dew from the sky. It seems to have looked like coriander, but if you appreciated the miracle, it tasted like whatever you wanted; but if you were not grateful and…
This parsha contains the famed priestly blessing – delivered by the Kohanim with their fingers parted (here the hands have the divisions and colors of the four worlds spoken of in Kabbalah) – so that the transference of blessing is through them. The midrash tells of a traveler lost in the desert, out of water. And suddenly…
As we begin this next book of the Torah the question gets asked: Why did Hashem give the Torah in the wilderness. There certainly seem more impressive sites to choose. What about the Red Sea? But when Hashem approached, it fled, for at its edge were deified idols. How about the mountains? But they too skipped away…
This parsha is split between the blessings and the curses. Blessings for following the ethics of Torah and curses for abandoning it. The metaphor of Torah versus the sword. Living a life of peace and kindness or besieged by a life of violence and cruelty. One Midrash speaks of the meeting of the conqueror Alexander the Great…
This parsha among many issues deals with fraud and usuary and the Midrash brings up the story of prophet Ezekiel and the raising of the dry bones in the Dura valley. These slayed members of the tribe of Ephraim (whose color is green) were brought back to life, their bones rising and covered with sinews and…