Bemidbar

The beginning of this week's Torah portion of Matot focuses on certain important details pertaining to the laws of vows and oaths. A Torah-mandated oath is one by which one forbids himself to engage in one or more otherwise permitted activities. This leads us to ask a very fundamental question...

Can freedom and order coexist in the human sphere? Can there be a society which is both free and just at the same time?

To preserve tradition and at the same time defend those others condemn is the difficult, necessary task of religious leadership in an unreligious age.

The main story in this week's Torah portion is how G-d blessed Pinhas for stabbing to death two public sinners, in his zeal to protect G-d's name from desecration. This blessing is particularly noteworthy, for the Torah specifically mentions that Pinhas was the grandson of man-of-peace par excellence Aharon HaKohen. Do peace and zeal truly come together?

An artist may be able to create without knowing how to teach others how to create. That doesn't make him less of an artist. But even if an artist is not a great teacher, given a pupil of spirit, that pupil will flourish with very little instruction. Yehoshua's was like the Moon. Because he was 'a man of spirit', he shone from the inspiration of his teacher Moshe.

The majority are good. The minority are evil. Stay away from the "Bilams" and "Bilamism"; get closer to Moses our Teacher.

A harsh conflict, which reached its apex with the sale of Yosef, split the family of Yaakov. Between the two leaders of their respective mothers’ parts of the family, Yehuda and Yosef.

We generally relate to a ‘revelation of Eliyahu' as a profound moment in which Eliyahu the Prophet himself appears to us with a message. But is this really so? What is the personal and communal revelation of Eliyahu to all Jews of the world?

The battle against antisemitism can be won, but it will not be if Jews believe that we are destined to be alone. That is Bilaam’s curse, not God’s blessing.