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The Poles were also fearful that the Jews who had returned to Kielce would reclaim their prewar houses and businesses.

Even if you see that he is completely wicked, you must search and seek the little bit of good in him, wherein he is not wicked...

Bilaam was a man with great gifts, a genuine prophet, compared by the Sages to Moses himself, yet an evil-doer mentioned in the Mishnah as one denied a share in the world to come.

Yabia means speech that flows from the depths of one’s heart … or speaking continuously, non-stop, like an ever-flowing spring.

Hashem, who gives us life every second is constantly waiting to hear our appreciation for all He does for us.

We are approaching the period of the year that has been previously doomed for disaster. But this does not have to continue.

I thought you were a different patient when you called. I can’t fit you in today.

Moses intervenes on Miriam’s behalf with simple eloquence in the shortest prayer on record with five words: ‘Please, G-d, heal her now.’

A person who pesters another and unrelentingly tries to convince him of something is called misarev (Nedarim 8:7), because he refuses to give up on changing the other person’s mind.

From the time the Jewish people cried out to Moshe Rabbeinu in the desert after the meraglim – spies – came back from the land of Israel, complaining for nothing, we, the children from all generation thereafter, have been crying during these months every year.

The doctor was too casual for a report as startling as the one he gave over.

Notwithstanding the war that was raging during those two years, the Rebbe simply picked up the conversation where they had left off!

Moses represents the birth of a new kind of leadership. That is what Korach and his followers did not understand. Many of us do not understand it still.

The poshea is not one who tries to rebel but is rather one whose indolence shows that he does not care about the result of his actions.

The events are so close to one another and each event is so tremendous and upsetting, that one has to be absolutely blind not to see that there is a cry from above, from Hashem, to His children begging them to listen.

There are many kiruv agencies... but I’m not sure any of their methods is more effective than that restaurant owner with the big white beard who made secular children believe that there was nothing sweeter than bringing Mashiach.

The women who stood up to the decree of 1854 and continued to cover their hair as before did not encounter this problem when the draft was decreed in 1874. Not one of their sons was drafted.

On board were 769 refugees bound for Palestine. This should have been a voyage of just a few days, but due to engine trouble, the boat headed to Istanbul for repair.

The antidote to fear, both of failure and success, lies in the passage with which the parsha ends: the command of tzitzit

According to the explanation that dag means “male fish” while dagah means “female fish,” it is hard to understand why the Jews in Egypt would have specifically eaten female fish and why the Plague of Blood would have only killed female fish.

When tragedy strikes, our moral and halakhic duty is to transcend the natural, and scrutinize our own actions by looking at ourselves in our own mirror, and not the actions of the others seen through the window, so that a desired change may hopefully come.

Hashem promises and does not immediately fulfill them. Only once a person has bitachon is he deserving of the fulfillment of the promises.

The Rav, who had enjoyed the clear Torah reading expressed his wonder at the beautiful job. He also asked what brought the boy to the hospital over Shabbos.

Power works by division, influence by multiplication. Power, in other words, is a zero-sum game: the more you share, the less you have.

Rabbi Marcus argues that at the core of “taninim” (sea-monsters – see Genesis 1:21) is the word “nun.” In offering this explanation, Rabbi Marcus explicitly rejects scholarly speculation that “taninim” is a Sanskrit loanword.

It is written that in the days of the final redemption, the events that will take place in the world, and with the Jewish people especially, will happen so quickly that one event will barely finish when the next will already be there waiting to unfold.

Four times every Shabbos, while they were growing up, each child (and now grandchildren as well) are referred to by their full name. This turned out to be an especially good idea for several of our grandchildren who were known only by their second name.

In the Torah, God summons His special people, Israel, to take the first steps towards what might eventually become a truly egalitarian society – or to put it more precisely, a society in which dignity, kavod, does not depend on power or wealth or an accident of birth.

Not only does G-d strengthen those who are tired, He also energizes those who are completely exhausted.

What could David do? He wanted to help out a fellow Jew but he had waited for this opportunity all year, had scrimped and saved.