יום שישי, כ״ו חשוון תשפ״זFriday, November 6, 2026
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What are the individual contributions of each Hebrew tribe to Israel's national collective?
What is the way of all the world? Naturally, we live and then, after a while, we die, leaving this world behind.
When the wicked Bilaam asked a request for himself, he said, “May my soul die the death of the righteous and may my Afterlife be like theirs.” Even the wicked Bilaam knew the reality of the Afterlife.
What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man. -Edmund Burke
What is that great good that is accrued in Gan Eden? The Ramban notes that if one would collect all the physical enjoyments of a lifetime, it would not compare to one minute of pleasure and satisfaction in the World-to-Come.
If we analyze them closely, we begin to realize that Yaakov wasn't simply blessing his children, he was showing each of them their unique purpose, their unique mission.
The alchemy of teshuva: Turning lead into GOLD.
Did Yosef use the famine to bring his family down to Egypt in hopes of implementing an alternative approach to the Hebrew mission in the Diaspora?
We know from our great tzaddikim that it is beneficial and meaningful to stare at the lights of the menorah. One of the reasons is because it helps us to actualize in our minds the reality of the afterlife.
On a national scale, one day, we will see how centuries of tragedy were actually bringing us closer and closer to our ultimate destination, similarly, on a personal level, the same is true for each of us;
Yaakov Avinu wanted to see what kind of life Yosef was living, and he knew that if he saw Yosef face to face he would immediately know whether his spiritual being still lived.
Rav Amiel invokes the verse from our haftara in a discussion of the nature of chosenness, which he understands as a unique burden placed upon the people of Israel. A set of responsibilities as opposed to privilege.
All they knew about her was that she was an older immigrant from the former Soviet Union. And then they discovered who she was: Ruth Alexandrovich, the famous prisoner of Zion.
They sing a little, eat a little something, but fail to see what the holiday is teaching us: It's about the power of individuals and the power of faith.
The Mishkan is the blueprint for the Jewish home.
There’s a temptation for earthly leaders to believe that events unfold as a result of their decisions, the exercise of their power.
Nowadays every home has its own menorah, some with one for every person in the household, to dispel the darkness of each individual – big or small, rich or poor, religious or not yet religious, highly intelligent or unlearned.
Did Yosef seek to transform Egypt into a civilization built on Hebrew values that would repair the world?
It is the job of the G-d-fearing person to combat the blinding attempts of the yetzer hara at every turn of our life.
The most important of life's battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of the soul. -David O. McKay
This wanton disregard for the welfare of others is the epitome of chamas for which the world was already destroyed once and, the navi is warning, for which Israel will yet be exiled from her land.
Why does the Torah find it necessary to tell us that they bought shoes with the money, ostensibly a trivial detail?
Several days ago, Eliyahu told a friend that after years in the army, in yeshiva, and in agriculture, he felt that when working at the Kotel he was completely living his dream.
As internal conflict over the Hebrew clan's direction leads to tragic consequences for Yosef and Yehuda, each must discover his own messianic potential.
Our Sages tell us that if a person performs mitzvos and does good deeds he will merit to be escorted day and night by angels who guard him.
This Torah portion offers us a yearly reminder: We need to check if people in the public eye are everything they seem to be
When we are tired, do we still push ourselves to get up early and join a minyan, or do we succumb to temptation and say our prayers quickly at home before dashing off to work?
As Yaakov returns back home to his land, he and his family are met with new challenges that ultimately transform them into the nation of Israel.
Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. -Matthew Arnold
Esav is the last of all the nations to come into the world. He is a pretender. He uses his strength and deception to humiliate and to conquer others, but in the end he is just a bully.
She said, were she not more righteous than me, she wouldn’t be privileged to have so many children.
Every physical action affects the spiritual realm, creating cosmic ripple effects; The same is true of the physical world. Every action creates a corresponding reaction in the spiritual world. In essence, our physical world is like an upside-down puppet show
After 80 years, I finally know who I am and who my family members are, he said yesterday when he met his cousin in the city of Modi'in.
Before becoming Israel, Yaakov had to first spend several years in exile learning to be more like Esav.
It was the enmity of the brothers to Yosef and their selling him as a slave, that was the primary cause for their descent to Egypt and being forced into slavery by the cruel Pharaoh.
Such is the power of tears that it has the ability to transform worlds and to create a new essence of blessing and abundance, no matter who is crying.
A vow is fixed and unalterable determination to do a thing, when such a determination is related to something noble which can only uplift the man who makes the resolve. -Mahatma Gandhi
When we come through for others, when we ask how we can help, when we make the difference for them, we bring a piece of heaven down here to earth. Through our actions we build an actual stairway to heaven.
Just as Yaakov tended the sheep of Lavan, guiding and guarding them so he could win the hand of Rachel, so Hashem protects his offspring until the end of time.
The partnership that could have-should have-been
Why would Yaakov want to leave the environment of the womb, a place where a celestial angel teaches the fetus all of the Torah?
How do the character traits of Esav and Yaakov find expression in the rival civilizations they produced?
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game. -Henry Ward Beecher
Abarbanel describes some of the spiritual depths to which the inhabitants of Yerushalayim had sunk at this twilight of prophecy. Those who should have been the leaders, the best among us, had become the worst.
The young man said, ‘I don’t want to listen to any mussar; it doesn’t interest me. Just leave me alone!’
The physical is not an end in itself- it is meant to serve as a vehicle for transcendent, spiritual, conscious living. This is the battle we face on a daily basis, a battle of perception.
Of Sarah we know that her beauty, as legendary as it was, was only one small fragment of her greatness.
Rabbi Sacks once said that he lectured hundreds of times a year, met thousands of people every month, and spoke constantly with people of every type throughout the world. Which question, do you suppose, was he asked most often?
Perhaps even more perplexing is the fact that we are taught that the only way to earn entry into the rarified grave of the Meoras HaMachpelah is to be one of the elite few who died by misa b’nashika, through the kiss of Hashem.
Long before Jerusalem was mentioned in the biblical text, Hebron was embedded as a site of pilgrimage for sacred memory.
Only a woman whose being was suffused with the characteristic of chesed would be a suitable wife for Yitzchak, and that was not a quality that could be discerned with a miracle.
Avraham was burying his wife, facing the death of his life’s partner, there was a deeper layer here. He was also planting the seeds for their eternal connection.
Following her death, Sarah's powerful legacy continued to influence Avraham and play a major role in their family's development into a nation.
When a Jew of any age or condition begins his day with tefillin, he takes the two most important forces in life and points them in the right direction.
If we are expected to pray for someone and we neglect to do so, we are robbing them of something that is rightfully theirs.
When judging others, Avraham Avinu did not compare the status of the tzaddik to himself. Rather, he expanded the definition of a tzaddik.
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding. -Francis Bacon
How often do we create mental cages of our own? How often do we allow other people's opinions of us to become our reality?
Obviously, we need to understand what drove the mistakes we made and feel remorseful for them, but we cannot and must not ruminate on them.
A story is told in the Gemara (Shabbat 53b) of a man whose wife died, leaving him an infant son. The man was too poor to afford a wet nurse to feed his baby, so he miraculously grew breasts and nursed the baby himself.
Abraham was shown that his test was not only about his own faith…. By this test, G-d created the means for Abraham’s descendants to survive all adversity.
What can the dynamics between Yitzḥak and Yishmael in Parshat Vayeira teach us about Israel’s ideal relationship with the Muslim world?
While there is plenty of room for cooperation and interaction with other larger cultures, it is important for the Jewish people to remember that a key role God wants it to play is to often stand on the other side and follow our own path.
We are accustomed to talk about our difficulties and hardships, but not to share our deliverance from them.
When a person knows his destination, then as he comes closer the journey becomes easier…But when has no idea when his journey will end, it is more difficult, and he therefore merits reward for every step that he takes on this journey.
Yeshayahu is anticipating the future destruction and exile and is trying fruitlessly to inspire the people of his generation to return to Hashem before it’s too late.
It would seem that the crimes of idolatry and immorality are more heinous than theft, yet the generation would have escaped destruction if their sins had only been between man and G-d.
Lot recognized the dangers of Sodom, but he thought he had the inner strength and conviction to overcome all the sin and negativity that defined that place.
May we all be inspired to follow in the footsteps of Avraham, and have the courage to embark on our own Lech Lecha journey,
How the leader of a universal spiritual movement learned to reorient himself to the understanding that his goals for humanity could only be achieved through the vehicle of a nation in a specific land.
Noach needed to continue to adhere to the chesed he was carrying out for the animals, and not to let up for even a moment, in order that he merit to remain alive.
Moments like a worldwide outage can and should be opportunities to consider our own relationship with technology and time
The first thing to understand in encountering our haftara is that there is no belief in millennial destruction that is axiomatic to Judaism.
Why does the Torah use the Name that connotes Divine mercy rather than Divine judgement when telling of the Creator's decision to destroy humankind? Could there be more to this story?
Let’s remember the litmus test for whether Hashem is happy with us is “If people are at ease with us, Hashem is at ease with us.” People are at ease with a gentle person!
A central question in the story of Noach is why Hashem specifically chose to destroy the world through a FLOOD. Hashem could have chosen any form of destruction, and yet, He chose water. Why?
When we examine the lives of the fathers of our nation, we see that they had to continually confront challenges and crises.
There's a hidden understanding of our Torah that has yet to reach the English-speaking Jewish world.
The Evil Inclination only comes in when there is an inviting accessible point of entry.
The process of life: The ideal is revealed, taken away, and then remains as our goal as we journey through life, trying to recreate that ideal. The KEY is to be inspired by the goal, not discouraged by the struggle.
One of the highlights of a Jewish man’s day is the public sanctification of Hashem’s Name. He does this with the answering of, “Amein, yehei shemei rabbah…” And Bereishis stands for, “Ameim, yehei shemei rabbah b’kol tefillah.”
A Jew who recognizes that he may lack merits, like the aravah, yet prays to Hashem because he has the will and desire to cling to Hashem – his prayers will be answered.
Teshuvah mei’ahava is the pure teshuvah where one regrets the transgression itself. It is this type of teshuvah that amazingly can convert a sin into an actual mitzvah.
There are unfortunately many people of Jewish extraction who believe the election of the Jews, our “chosenness,” to be a birthright or a guarantee of a sort of superiority over other nations.
You must tell yourselves: I am not my pain. I feel pain, but it alone does not define who I am.
A handful of pine-seed will cover mountains with the green majesty of forests. I too will set my face to the wind and throw my handful of seed on high. -Fiona Macleod
We have nothing to fear from our enemies if we have faith in Hashem; it is specifically the shaky and unstable sukkah that actually symbolizes Hashem’s strength and might.
Perhaps we might suggest that since this mitzvah symbolizes the Clouds of Glory that came without complaining, Hashem made it a free mitzvah to ensure that no one should complain about a mitzvah that commemorates no complaining.
We're going to talk about something that is probably one of the most practical pieces of advice for today. We're talking about handing over leadership.
It's not about if you will do what your parents ask, but how you will do it. It's not about if you will pray and keep Shabbat, but how.
In addition to one’s efforts to repent, there is the ‘essence of the day’ that atones. We don’t exactly know what the ‘essence’ is, but we know that it embodies the power of atonement.
Many wealthy people comfort themselves with the fact that they give move charity than the average person.
The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert. -Vince Lombardi
Almost always, the reason we are not willing to forgive offenses against us has almost nothing to do with the offense, and everything to do with it being done to us. Once we can internalize this, we can move to a God’s-eye perspective and forgive others more easily.
She began to weep softly as she recalled all the years that she had been happy and proud to be a giver, whereas this year she had nothing at all to give.
It goes without saying that we shouldn’t listen to other people’s secrets, nor should we pollute our ears with vulgar speech, and we shouldn’t allow gentile ballads to defile our souls.
Selichot prayers are attended by optimistic people, people who believe that it's possible to change ourselves and the world around us.
Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor. -H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
And so Moshe’s ultimate message here, according to Netziv, may be that even if the curses are fulfilled, that is no reason to abandon God.
For the remainder of Elul, as we continue to count down to Rosh Hashana, review your schedule regularly and make a conscious effort to have it reflect your values.
November 6, 2026 
