“Master of the Universe, You know very well that our desire is to perform Your will. What prevents us? The ‘yeast in the dough’ (yetzer hara) and the oppression of nations. It should be Your will to save us from them in order to do Your laws with a complete heart.” (Brochos 17a)

EVIL BALAK. RIGHTEOUS Rus. Polar opposites. One tried to destroy the Jewish people, the other joined them. One was the antithesis of Moshiach, and the other was his ancestor. Ironically, the former was the reason for the latter, as the Gemora states: As a reward for the forty-two offerings that Balak, king of Moav, brought,…

THE WINK GIVES it away. Maybe you were supposed to see it, maybe you weren’t. But if it was at someone else while they were telling you something, you have to wonder if they’re pulling your leg.

THE BRAIN IS a most wonderful and awesome creation, capable of more things than we know or use it for. It is one of my greatest fascinations in life, which some have told me in the past is because I was missing mine. They have even credited me with first using artificial intelligence. And those are my close friends.

WHEN I CHOSE to make aliyah, I was still single and it had little to do with this week’s parsha. Even though I could not have imagined living in Eretz Yisroel for the rest of my life just a year earlier, after one year of yeshivah here, I realized there is no better, no easier place to be a Jew. I just felt so at home, and if it could happen to me, it could happen to just about any Jew.