Eyes Open Wide Are your eyes open? Do you really see what is going on? Some background material for this week’s Parsha, Balak: The wicked man Bilam travels on his female donkey to curse the Jews. G-d told Bilam not to go, but he went anyway. As he travelled, the donkey saw an Angel standing…
This week is the story of the spies who brought back a bad report on the Land of Israel.
How do you feel when something is cancelled, thereby removing an obligation you had?
Someone didn’t want to listen to Moses in this week’s parsha – and it didn’t’ work out well for him!
From the time Moses is born until the end of the Torah, he is mentioned in each and every Parsha. Except this one. Why is that?
The Arizal (Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi 1534– July 25, 1572) was in Tzefas, Israel, when a student came to him. “I want to learn Torah.” said the student. But when the Arizal questioned him, he learned that the student had never studied Torah before as he was a morano and had hidden his Jewish identity since…
In this week’s parsha, G-d says that we should afflict neither the widows nor the orphans, and then G-d says that His anger will blaze against anyone who does. But there is a catch.
Yisro (Jethro), the high priest of the land of Midian, and father-in-law to Moses, heard something. Actually, the entire world heard the same thing. But there was a big difference between the two:
Around three million Jews are in the desert. It is just over a week after their exodus from Egypt. And they are hungry. Very hungry. The way they satiate themselves becomes a paradigm for future generations of Jews.
In this week’s parsha, “Va’eira”, G-d hardens the heart of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh refuses to let the Jews leave. Is G-d playing “fair” with Pharaoh?
