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.

ONE OF THE greatest gifts you can give a person is inspiration. And though giving gifts on Chanukah is not really our thing, the holiday of Chanukah itself is the gift of inspiration. The chayn in Chanukah and the Menorah of Chanukah tell you that.

The Tablets are the handiwork of God, and the writing was God’s writing charus—engraved—on the Tablets. Don’t read “charus,” but “cheirus”—freedom—because there is no freer person than one who engages in Torah study. (Pirkei Avos 6:2)

THE DESERT IS an unforgiving place, unless God is leading you through it with great miracles. To most of the world, a desert is a symbol of death because little grows there and even less may survive.

LAST THURSDAY I got to shul a little bit early for Minchah and was learning when I overheard a conversation taking place a few rows behind me. Three men were speaking, one of whom was a Holocaust survivor I personally know.