יום רביעי, כ״ג תמוז תשפ״וWednesday, July 8, 2026
Follow Us
The Malbim defines Judges as those who govern the laws of jurisprudence between man and his fellow, while the Advisors are those who give us counsel to succeed in our relationship with Hashem.
According to Rashi, it is the will of Hashem that the nations residing in the land of Israel when the people of Israel cross the river be banished and eradicated.
At each stop the Jews learned another lesson about how to rid themselves of their Egyptian ways.
Although men are also obligated to do so, this mitzvah is primarily incumbent on women and they are given preference in performing it. Sarah was the first woman in history to perform this mitzvah.
Sinning, while purporting to do something positive, is hypocrisy par excellence.
In fact, our sages tell us that Pinchas did not concern himself at all with his physical needs. Rather he served Hashem with truth and sincerity, only heeding the spiritual benefit in his life.
The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. -William Shakespeare
How surprised I was when he answered with a flourish that the most important blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei is T’kah b’shofar gadol l’cheiruseinu, our bracha that we beseech Hashem to initiate the final Redemption!
A true pursuer of peace/completeness is one who identifies the obstacles to HaShem’s Ideal for this world and works passionately to remove them.
The Korban Sotah in Marah removed all doubts from the minds of Bnei Yisrael regarding the integrity of their families.
It is of interest, say the Sages, that Moshe’s request for a new leader immediately follows the inheritance of the daughters of Tzlofchad.
When our own spiritual striving is met by the support of Hashem through His love for us, then we enter into His house.
The connection between Bilaam and the Shema Yisrael prayer.
While Moav & Midian championed a separation of 'religion' & state, Israel’s mission demands that spiritual ideals be materialized on a national level so that our Torah’s values be fully expressed on earth.
The concept of “Beshert" in life
With this in mind, let us contrast two iconic figures in the Torah, both with donkey-related incidents.
We start the blessing asking Hashem to bless us with a profitable good year... Why are we praying for this every day when the Gemara teaches us -Mezonasov shel adam kitzuvin lo mei’Rosh Hashana – The livelihood of the person is fixed on the New Year and sealed on Yom Kippur.
There are many other halachos in Shulchan Aruch concerning the Evil Eye. We do not count people for a minyan, for example; and two brothers, or a son and a father, should not be called up consecutively to the Torah for an aliyah.
People can be cruel to people they perceive as different. A sense of difference can be easily translated into a malignant moral hierarchy.
Perhaps you are familiar with this question: “If a tree fell in the forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound?” Or, in today’s terms: “If two girls went to the mall but didn’t take a selfie, did they really go? ״ In other words, did something that was never publicized nor […]
The coal pans of the rebels were used for the altar.
It would seem that this is an appropriate week to distance ourselves from Korach's path and put an end to all lingering controversy and strife.
Communicating the Jewish people's deepest aspirations can often serve to raise morale & strengthen Israel’s position on the battlefield.
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?
It is the presence of humility that determines whether one merits leadership of the Jewish Nation; and, if one becomes arrogant after he assumes leadership, Hashem removes him from that position.
Remember, every time you open your mouth to talk, your mind walks out and parades up and down the words. -Edwin H. Stuart
By Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo
Depression is one of the worst conditions a human being may suffer. There are several reasons for the occurrence of depression. One that is very common results from feeling that life is meaningless. Combined with the fact that nobody can escape death, some people experience life as very painful. They do not suffer from anything […]
We add Ki sihilaseinu Attah – For You are our praise. Rab Yechezkel Abramsky, zt”l, zy”a, explains that we are clarifying that we understand our deliverance from sickness ultimately comes from Hashem. The doctor is only His agent.
Shmuel overcome his baser nature and his worldly urges in order to fully devote himself to leading Israel in purity and doing the will of Hashem.
Am Yisrael accused Moshe of murdering Korach and his followers by instructing them to offer a Ketoret offering outside the Mishkan, knowing full well what the consequences of such an action would be.
He would praise me even for grades that were not so good. He wanted me to feel good and successful even if I did not receive a hundred percent.
Our equality doesn't result from being created identical but rather from the fact that we each have equally crucial functions and important roles to play as part of Israel's greater historic mission.
By A.I. Golem
Parshat Korach reminds us to remain vigilant against those who manipulate democratic ideals for personal gain.
When a person maintains clarity of mind and the Torah is the basis of his rationale, the Evil Inclination will not be able to mislead him to go against the will of Hashem...
The Maharal says that Hashem deliberately waited until after Miriam was punished for speaking lashon hara so that the spies would be given an opportunity to take to heart what befell that tzadeket and to draw the proper conclusions for their own conduct.
The heights by great men reached and kept / Were not obtained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept / Were toiling upward in the night. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Had Moshe been allowed to enter Eretz Yisrael, he would have immediately built the Temple. If that would have happened, G-d would not have been able to vent his anger by destroying the Temple that Moshe built and He would instead have destroyed the Jews.
In general, the smarter way to pray, is in anticipation, before we have a problem.
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.
As a result of eating from this tree of disparate parts, Adam and Chava themselves became split into disparate parts, the physical and the spiritual, and were no longer the integral unit that Hashem had intended.
Moshe begs Yitro to not leave Am Yisrael.
The Zera Shimshon elaborates that Aharon and Miriam reckoned that Moshe Rabbeinu was deemed worthy of ascending to Heaven because of the collective merit of all of the Jewish People – it was not necessarily because of his own personal merit.
The spies that led Israel to national catastrophe mistakenly thought that the value of preserving life overrides the commandment to free Eretz Yisrael.
We cap off this request by pleading that Hashem should do it lema’an Sh’mecha, for the sake of Your Name. This refers to His Name of Shalom, Peace. Please Hashem, for the sake of Peace, remove the friction between me and others.
This is not to say that there is no such thing as a wrong turn. Though we can even learn from a mistaken path, we have good reason to want to avoid it.
The more you depend on forces outside yourself, the more you are dominated by them. -Harold Sherman
The author of the essay asserts that David HaMelech had this mizmor in the shape of a menorah inscribed on his shield that he carried into war, and his enemies fled before him.
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?
The minhag of washing the Cohen's hands for Birkat Kohanim is not arbitrary.
Through Israel's returns home and national rebirth, we have already seen sparks of prophecy return.
Each of the leaders of the tribes brings a gift which is identical to the gifts of every other one. The Torah relates the gift of each and every tribe in detail, in spite of the fact that they are all the same.
A person should walk in the ways of Hashem and accord mercy and kindness to people and other members of Creation.
It would seem to me that the controversy centers on why we should say ‘please’ or ‘now’ just by this blessing and not by the other requests in our Shemone Esrei, such as to forgive us, or to cure us.
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.
According to our Sages there are seven layers in Heaven (this is where the expression seventh heaven comes from). The fifth layer is called Ma'on, and it is from this layer that simcha originates.
Throughout life, a Jew is to always stand strong in the face of challenges and to choose to climb the mountain of Hashem.
We are asked to make Kiddush over wine and we are told that wine can make one wise (Yoma 76b). But enjoying anything in moderation requires self-control and sometimes, when that becomes too difficult, the only way out is to deny oneself the pleasure altogether.
That HaShem forgoes His Honor for the sake of making peace between man and wife comes to teach us the importance of humbling our own egos for the sake of making our relationships work.
R’ David opens his remarks on Shavuot by examining the word Anochi that he identifies with the essence of truth – the secret code revealing His G-dliness, the nexus of His inscrutable justice.
Why do some many people behave in such a paradoxical way? The answer is simple. When a spouse or a parent compliments their mate or their child, the act is about the other person.
A people's army is necessary for Israel to fulfill the Divine commandment of sovereignty over our land.
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living. -Jean Jacques Rousseau
There is no question that the nations of the world can trace their lineage; rather, their association with it is tenuous. They are not especially proud of their ancestors, and each succeeding generation believes they are wiser and more progressive than those who preceded them.
One school of thought is that Shavuos is the yahrzeit of Dovid HaMelech. Therefore, we lein Megillas Rus which reveals to us the wonderful beginnings of Dovid HaMelech.
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 Sages mistakenly interpreted this refusal as an egotistically motivated desire to maintain a monopoly, and they summarily fired the entire Garmu family.
Indeed, the only way to be convinced that our existence depends on G-d's help and not solely on our own efforts, is to try it out.
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai told his students that everything depends on the affability between us. Love and unity and affability are the foundation of everything.
Israel's deep spiritual connection to our homeland – like the connection of the soul to the body – transcends all rational human understandings.
Israel must organize its society in such a way that reflects Hebrew values while transcending the friction between conflicting economic models.
First, gird yourself with the middah of bitachon; then you can do good. Fidelity and devotion to Hashem are foundations upon which a person can build his life.
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.
It would seem to me that the word slach points to the former opinion – that it is a total forgiveness, since it is the same letters as the word chasal, which means to ‘finish completely.’
Originally, before its modern association with Sefirat HaOmer, Pirkei Avot consisted of only five chapters. This is why, for example, the Rambam’s commentary only addresses the first five. In this spirit there are also, of course, five books of the Torah.
Being different from others not for the sake of Hashem is simply supercilious haughtiness.
Pesach Sheni constitutes the first Hebrew festival established 'from below' & sets the precedent for all the holidays that would later fill the month of Iyar.
What Giannis and Frum Influencers Got Wrong
Other things may change us, but we start and end with family. -Anthony Brandt
The awareness that Israel is the national expression of HaShem in this world and that our conduct is a direct reflection of His Divine Ideal should fill us with a deep sense of tremendous responsibility.
Sometimes, it is not we who grasp a concept or experience; rather, some concept or experience grasps us.
One doesn’t die from a question
A person's self-perception is a strong factor in his ability to succeed in Torah study and the performance of mitzvos.
We need specially to ask Hashem to assist us in our Torah efforts for there is nothing that the yeitzer hara, the evil inclination, tries to stop us from accomplishing more than the study of Torah.
The origin of the bagel is older than you think...
I once went on a group tour of Mount Herzl and happened to meet Miriam Peretz there. She lost two sons to war and, turning to our group, spoke as follows: Stones and living water are not just meant as customs. They incorporate a perspective that we must take with us as we venture forth from this holy day.
What the Torah is telling us is that there are two roads that lead to sin and one can never be sure which path one took.
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?
In reality, man’s purpose in this world is to do the will of Hashem by learning Torah and performing mitzvos, and the Talmud (Sanhedrin 90a) states that All of the Jewish people have a share in the world-to-come.
Yaras Daas writes that one should also have in mind for the Torah success of their children, their descendants and their disciples.
The Segula is Israel's inner Divine light planted within the collective Hebrew soul and revealed in human history through the Jewish people.
Every mitzvah is like a faucet that, when opened, releases Divine blessing into our world and elevates it to a level beyond where it previously existed.
Because when you reduce humanity to its essence, there is only the naked will and the Torah which complements it, so that man becomes a spiritual being, an enlightened consciousness.
We face Holocaust denial, ignorance, and forgetfulness, as well as claims that the Holocaust was not a unique or particularly anti-Jewish event. It is therefore more important than ever not only to remember what happened, but to make a commitment never to forget.
While it is unfortunate that even observant Diaspora Jews can be corrupted by the moral values of their host countries, the greater tragedy is that they are not living up to their full potential in life.
Teaching a bigger Torah would not only succeed in bringing back more disconnected Jews but also in advancing the Hebrew mission of illuminating the world with the light of HaShem’s Truth.
If you want to understand the origin of something, search for the first time it is mentioned in the Torah.
Hashem’s manifestations of holiness serve as a model for how we can be holy.
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them. -William Hazlitt
Our commentaries say that if a person has animosity in their heart towards another, it would actually be better to be open and tell them about it rather than to harbor ill feelings and transgress this prohibition.
July 3, 2026 
