Parsha

Procrastination is opportunity's natural assassin. -Victor Kiam

Unfortunately, Yiftach would become a key participant in perhaps the bloodiest and most infamous civil war in Israel: that between Menashe and Ephraim.

Why did Hashem tell Moshe to take the staff if He wanted Moshe to speak to the rock? Why open a possibility for Moshe to sin?

In the Torah portions that we are currently reading, it is noted time and again that as soon as the people arrived at a new place, they immediately erected the Mishkan, the people's spiritual center and beating heart.

Communicating the Jewish people's deepest aspirations can often serve to raise morale & strengthen Israel’s position on the battlefield.

Any positive steps taken in matters of spirituality result in success – perhaps even in a different place or at a different time.

It is worth understanding why Korach’s argument against Moshe was found to be utterly without merit while Shmuel’s is held up as the apogee of righteousness.

The Rokei’ach teaches us that the author of Aleinu is none other than our great leader Yehoshua.

Korach cynically recruited the tribe of Reuven to join his “coup” against Moshe and Aharon, claiming that it was the right of the bechor, Reuven, to work in the Mishkan – not Aharon and the Kohanim.

We are acknowledging that Hashem is our Boss, not just when we’re in the synagogue but when we leave shul and go to our workplaces or to our homes.

Rust consumes iron and envy consumes itself. -Danish proverb

After all, summer vacation is not a vacation from values or from anything that is important to us. It's a vacation from school alone.

Our equality doesn't result from being created identical but rather from the fact that we each have equally crucial functions and important roles to play as part of Israel's greater historic mission.

The problem with the Meraglim was not having doubts, being concerned, or having insecurities. 

Just as a slave would have a seal on his clothing identifying him as such, the tzitzis distinguish us as servants of Hashem (Tosfos).

The mitzvah of hafrashat challah is from the written Torah, and like all the mitzvot related to the Land of Israel, applies only in Eretz Yisrael and only when the majority of Am Yisrael resides there.

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. -Charles Caleb Colton

The spies that led Israel to national catastrophe mistakenly thought that the value of preserving life overrides the commandment to free Eretz Yisrael.

Anger, says Rashi, causes a person to err. It causes a person to forget their learning. It is extremely harmful to the body and it also causes the brain to be put on ‘pause.’

The most important question in life is how do we manage time, particularly the two months of vacation.

Some suggest “cholent” comes from the French chaud ("hot") and lent ("slow"). The opposite of cholent is “nonchalant,” which means cold and disinterested.

For the first time since making his decision to keep Shabbos, Uri became a little ambivalent. Yet, when it was time for him to close the shop for Shabbos, he resolutely requested all the shoppers to finish up and check out their purchases so he could go home.

Chazal say that the Menorah is a blessing of spirituality. It represents the light of the Torah.

Shimshon is a tragic, and ultimately tragically flawed, character.

Rav Avidgor Miller points out that the Hebrew word for anger, kaas, contains the same letters as the Hebrew word ‘eches,’ which means poison.

Through Israel's returns home and national rebirth, we have already seen sparks of prophecy return.

­Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold and have escaped, not from one master, but from many. -Plato

We need to pay attention to our bodies. We speak about values and Torah but ignore the fact that the body is the tool upon which values and Torah depend.

Rabbeinu Yonah (Gerondi), most famously known for his Sefer Shaarei Teshuvah, writes how worthy is the individual who observes the protective restraints that were instituted to guard the fulfillment of the mitzvos, over and above his actual performance of the mitzvah itself.

If you have been settled in Eretz Yisrael already for four or more generations and your farm is producing steadily, blessed by Divine abundance, you begin to take it for granted.