יום רביעי, ט״ז תמוז תשפ״וWednesday, July 1, 2026
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Rabbi Yitzchak Sprung is the Rabbi of United Orthodox Synagogues in Houston, Texas (UOS). Visit his Facebook page or UOSH.org to learn about his amazing community. Find Rabbi Sprung’s podcast, the Parsha Pick-Me-Up, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Fasting is an expression of closeness – achieved or desired. And when we think about it, isn't that really the point of all of our own fasts as well?
These days are meant to be days of reflection and introspection, not only days of sadness, nostalgia, and appreciation.
It is interesting to note that the structure of the book does not lend itself to the idea that gaining our freedom or leaving Egypt is the main point. We leave Egypt at the end of Parshat Bo, in just three weeks, at what would have been a reasonable conclusion to the book.
When a loved one passes, we don’t wish we could trade them for someone else, even if an illness took them from us in a horrible way or much too soon. Only because we cannot isolate pain from pleasure, love, and meaning is it true that we would not trade away our suffering.
A lesson here appears on a national level, where we see that we will get further through strength and success than through patience for abuse. But how to apply such thinking is best left to strategists and political thinkers.
While it is true that Hashem is referred to as the G-d of the Land of Israel specifically at times (2 Kings 17:26, 2 Chron. 32:19), it is not immediately clear why Ramban thinks this notion is being highlighted here instead of some plainer explanation of the text.
Even in mercy, we so often suffer. As much as we may always count on divine mercy, the divine calculus remains beyond our ken and we have been visited by destruction all too often.
Avraham had complete trust in G-d. But he did not have complete trust in himself. G-d, after all, does not change, fail, or sin. But people do.
While corruption was more widespread and perhaps fundamental, the formal case against the generation of the flood was formulated on the basis of something they – and Noach, in particular – could understand: they were hurting each other.
Why should we think that the nations of the world will be convinced when we prove our ownership through reference to the Torah? As it stands, so many people either do not believe in G-d or in His interest in the affairs of human beings. So why should they be compelled by this argument?
A common custom is to wear a gartel either in accordance with the last approach or because it signifies the differentiation between what is higher and lower about people.
I am not saying I know exactly how Israel should or should not act, what the day after plan should be, which leaders or parties know best, or so on.
We do not respond to catastrophe with questions of why and we do not think of calamities gone by in order to be sad. We respond as best as we can.
Noah’s logic is solid. If something is good for neither material nor for spiritual reasons, does it have a purpose?
What of the journalists who write not about Kfir, not about Ariel, not about their mother, not about the hostages who sit in terror, but only about how the next dead, injured, or kidnapped Israeli effectively endangers the ceasefire. What of the people who tore down posters of two little red headed children, of babies, and then felt righteous?
When we say Shema we do not declare our faith as much as instruct our faith. Listen, Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One! We simultaneously declare it aloud and actively listen, accepting this as true in our hearts.
What is a Jew? A person in a covenant of love with G-d. We should therefore enjoy and pursue our covenant of love, just as we enjoy and pursue the person we love the most in the world.
...our relationship with G-d is anything but impersonal. Like a marriage, it takes body and soul, words and actions, commitments, failures, and fixing.
The family should belong in the picture at home, not at the Temple. Why reverse it?
And so, Ismael Haniyeh wished to wipe Israel off the face of the map. Yet, thank G-d, someone out there did not cooperate. How should we feel following the death of this Hamas leader?
Yes, he looks rather ridiculous as he makes one poor decision after another, and that is rather the point.
Innocence and naivete must be left behind. How can we hope to recapture them? Some things cannot be undone, only lived with.
Korach and his group were fighting with each other at the same time that they were fighting with Moshe and Aharon.
Most of us find ourselves squarely in the category of Rabbi Akiva’s students and the angels. Yet, Rabbi Akiva had such a remarkable and unshakable trust in G-d that he not only recited Shema but relished the opportunity even then.
Despite the fact that G-d could redeem the Children of Israel without a human agent, He chooses not to. He waits for us, waiting for us to step up, volunteer, and lead.
And what of ourselves? Have we remembered how rare and invaluable our own time on this earth is? Have we let ourselves forget the things that really matter? Have we slipped, become less, made our accomplishments less significant?
The classroom and home are not places from breaking down personalities only in order to build them up to specification. It is in these gentler spaces that seeds are planted, shoots watered, sunned, and sheltered in turn, where tall trees are eventually to be found and enjoyed.
It’s better that you not make a promise than to promise and then not pay.
How is it possible for G-d to command us lo tachmod, that we must not enviously covet? Do we not covet in the way that Alice cries, so that it is quite beyond us? How could Hashem raise such an unreasonable expectation and foist it upon us?
In fact, the Torah is filled with these sorts of fail-safes – plans to keep us from failure when failure is on the table, ways to make us less likely to fall prey to certain errors or sins.
Reuven may seem a little silly until we consider that we are all Reuven at some time or another.
The Creation narrative features a growing sense of order, sense, balance, and harmony. Creation begins in wild mixture, chaos, and darkness but G-d creates light and distills it from darkness.
The Torah is ambiguous regarding who, exactly, is right in this story. Did, indeed, the brothers go too far? Did Yaakov face a battle shortly thereafter, as one midrash indicates? Were they both right on some level?
Rashi suggests here that while Yaakov has faith that G-d will bring him back in one piece and that his children will inherit the land promised to his fathers, he does not know whether all of his children will be worthy of this promise.
Yaakov and Esav each had a name from the ethical approach, a name that they chose for themselves through their actions.
All of this would be true even if it were not so that a general education is required for gaining an appreciation of G-d’s wisdom, philosophy, ethics, and laws.
Repentance is not the cause of tension in our lives; it is the soothing balm.
This is not a celebration and in no way does this indicate that what has happened is something good or desired.
It is fascinating to consider that, though He looks at us always, He does not seem too often to intervene, He does not punish or reward us in obvious ways.
It is of interest, say the Sages, that Moshe’s request for a new leader immediately follows the inheritance of the daughters of Tzlofchad.
Notwithstanding the traditional and formidable complexity of this idea, a sense of zealousness in the simplest sense seems to connote a demand for relationships and obligations to be honored.
People can be cruel to people they perceive as different. A sense of difference can be easily translated into a malignant moral hierarchy.
Korach and his group may be cynical, but they make good claims. Indeed, every member of the Jewish people is holy! Is that not so?
When we are alone, when we have a chance at peace and quiet, we can take in the world, organize it, organize our minds, experience the lovely and reassuring peace of being in control. But when someone else enters the scene, all of that comes to an end.
Pathways to Their Hearts is the logical fruit of Rav Rabinovich’s unique personality, pen, and work. It is everything you might expect from the rosh yeshiva: Optimistic and patient, full of simple faith and intellectual curiosity.
No doubt every one of us would follow the details of a Divine command directed specifically at us – does Aharon deserve to be singled out for this?
When we think of people who, in a healthy state, go through radical changes and stages, we know of whom we think, and it is not the middle aged or retirees.
Indeed, we are sympathetic to the creative, original, strong, rebellious heroes who did not accept the status quo, who followed the rebellious artists Delacroix and Courbet, and forged their own path forward. We benefit from them to this day, as a visit to art museums in cities around the world will demonstrate.
The meaning of a kingdom of priests is that each community has a leader which is most honored in it, and serves as its exemplar that people in that community follow, and they find the straight path through him.
Sometimes, it is not we who grasp a concept or experience; rather, some concept or experience grasps us.
Such a filtering process is necessary but, as you may have noted, it is purely negative. It filters out but it does not tell us what to bring in. What should we, in fact, hold dear? How shall we make use of our time? Who will we choose to be with?
The guest list will be carefully curated, since the korban can only be slaughtered on behalf of its specific group.
If there was a fire already upon the altar that descended from heaven, we must ask why there is a commandment to add a flame of our own to it in the first place.
Every vessel or item is only prepared once it has its final piece, a concept we know well from the prohibition to complete labors on Shabbat.
The consideration the needs of the people of Israel are to be a focal point when the kohen gadol approaches G-d.
In fact, the Hebrew slave must be allowed to continue in his chosen career, whether that be investment banking or phlebotomy.
This terror seems to accompany the fact that Yeshayahu senses that he is to be sent on an important mission and, in fact, waits hopefully to be asked.
Our job, as the Jewish people, is to live up to G-d’s instructions and vision and show the rest of the world how to do so as well.
A good shmooze reveals ourselves to others and reveals others to us; it is a learning experience.
Sheep and cattle want to eat; they want to spend time outside and with their young. But can it really be said that they wish to worship G-d?
Consider: Pharaoh is stubborn, cruel, and difficult in every meeting. He claims not to know G-d, he increases the cruelty of his slavery when he is asked for mercy, he ignores the overwhelming and awe-inducing nature of each miraculous event, and he ignores the pleading of his more moderate advisers.
What is the major theme of this book? Why does it not conclude with the major event that changed all of history, the revelation at Sinai?
Yaakov Avinu answers him honestly. In truth, there is no positive secret to his old age. He is not as old as he looks, and his life has not been a pleasant one.
We live in a time when to declare ourselves rooted in the past is countercultural, even difficult for people to understand.
It is often difficult and painful for us to admit fault, to take responsibility for our failures, to see ourselves or our prior behaviors as guilty.
Remarkably – and frankly, rather shockingly – Yehuda shows the exact same type of favoritism to one of his sons that his father had shown to Yosef!
We have read recently, in these very pages, about the difficulties facing our broader community and about the difficulties in raising our children to stay along our straight, upright, and revealed path.
The Torah emphasizes three times that Yaakov sees things associated with Lavan, “his mother’s brother.” Why?
Despite Yitzchak’s financial and even familial successes, such alienation, disappointment, and betrayal must have been immensely painful for him.
If Yitzchak perceived that Yaakov was in front of him, it is only because Yaakov’s voice expressed his unique personality.
We go to shul, we say the words, but we do not actually experience what prayer could and should be because we are too atomized, individualized, and emotionally armored.
We are not necessarily good. How can we become so? Only through that unique wisdom we begin to study anew this week.
For many of us, these memories offer a feeling we badly wish we could recapture. If only we could feel so carefree, so happy, so young, so innocent, so simple and wholesome.
Their primary goal, above all else, is to raise future chassidim. This is what they want, it is what they seek, it shapes what they emphasize and what they do not, and it shapes the educational risks they are willing to take and those they are not.
Less sublime, however, is the phenomenon of bagels and lox Judaism, when these foods become a stand-in for being Jewish as a whole.
Would that we could sweat out impatience, addictions, anger, and our many other self-destructive behaviors that leave us worse off, closed off, and far off the mark!
What are they really about? To make us look respectable (Bechor Shor)? Separate us from paganism (Ralbag)?
June 26, 2026 
