Posts Tagged: Balak
We Don’t Always Need to Be in the Room to Make a Difference
This week, I listened to a riveting episode of The Rest is History, the ever-excellent podcast hosted by Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland. This one...
Shabbat Balak: What the Torah Teaches Us About Waging a Moral War
In our current section of the Torah, as the tribe of Israel makes its way towards the Promised Land, they encounter three very different situations...
The Power of Prophecy
Three people are called prophets in the Torah — Abraham, Miriam, and Moses. And yet Moses, the greatest of them all, is usually referred to...
The Hidden Meaning of the Bilam Story: The Power of Love
Many questions have rightly been asked about the story of Balak and Bilam and the would-be curses that turned into blessings. Was Bilam a true...
In Judaism, Religion and Nationhood Coincide
The year is 1933. Two Jews are sitting in a Viennese coffee house, reading the news. One is reading the local Jewish paper, the other...
Parsha Balak: Assimilation Won’t Solve Antisemitism
This is an extraordinary moment in Jewish history for good and not-so-good reasons. For the first time in almost 4,000 years, we have simultaneously sovereignty and...
A People That Dwells Alone
One of the most profound and influential comments ever made about Jewish destiny was made by the pagan prophet Bilaam in this week’s parsha: As I...
We Ignore Iran’s Words and Actions at Our Deathly Peril
This week marked the first anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal. Last year at around this time, many of us were engaged in the effort...
What Makes God Laugh
There is an old saying that what makes God laugh is hearing our plans for the future. However, if Tanakh is our guide, what makes God...
The Jewish People Need Not Dwell Alone
In the course of blessing the Jewish people, Bilaam uttered words that have come to be seem by many as an encapsulation Jewish history: How can I curse...
Leadership and Loyalty
Is leadership a set of skills, the ability to summon and command power? Or does it have an essentially moral dimension also? Can a bad...
What Judaism Says About the Dangers of Facebook
I recently attended a panel session at Limmud Oz in Australia entitled "Is Facebook good for the Jews?" The panel - all experienced media professionals...
The Hardest Word to Hear
The story of Bilaam, the pagan prophet, begins with a bewildering set of non-sequiturs - a sequence of events that seems to have no...
