BALAK IS THE name of the parsha, but it is really about Bilaam. Except for the last few verses, the entire parsha is about him, as if Moshe Rabbeinu and the Jewish People went on vacation for a week. If the point is how God turned Bilaam’s curses into blessings to protect the Jewish nation, couldn’t that have been done in one aliyah?

Not every son has the merit to have a father as a mentor, and fourteen years after my father’s passing, I am as just as grateful, if not more, for all my father taught me and helped me to accomplish, b”H. May my father’s Neshamah have aliyah after aliyah, and may he be a meilitz…

WE’VVE PROBABLY ALL met someone like Korach in our lives, and come across Dasans and Avirams. If you’re a humble person, you might find yourself repulsed by them, and find yourself wondering, “Don’t they see what they look like? Don’t they hear what they sound like?”

THERE IS SOME disagreement regarding when Yisro left the Jewish camp for his home country, Midian. Some say it was prior to the giving of Torah and some say it was after, but no one says that he was around for the incident of the spies. And for all we know, that’s why he actually left, something Moshe Rabbeinu begged him not to do. 

The Menorah is interesting for a number of reasons. In particular, the Menorah is a source of light, but we do not light it for the light: