Massei—The Path We Travel
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on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
A country is in mourning, the world in shock. Once again we are witness to the depravity of one single person . . .
Destroying food, clothes, springs of water, or anything else that could be of benefit is out of bounds, even if they have no owner.
The forty-two journeys in the journey of life, and havens for inadvertent murderers, plus what it all means.
Our forty-year desert sojourn is a metaphor for our long national history of wandering. It also infuses us with hope and purpose.
Encountering my old friend, I saw that it wasn’t too late, that one could leave religious life and survive, even appear to thrive.
Even though we may have reached our destination, we should always be cognizant of the path which brought us there.
What is the function of spiritual leadership? To inspire, to guide? This week’s Torah reading adds a further dimension . . .
On the spiritual plane, there also exist six “cities of refuge” for the spiritual “murderer” . . .
I was still in the same pose, clueless to his disappointment. And that’s when it hit me. I had been clueless all along . . .
Before the grief had a chance to set in, the accusations began. How can she, even in the safest neighborhood, let her child walk alone?
“Those who have a prominent position in the society have a greater responsibility to strengthen the moral fabric of the society by example and precept . . .”
With shock and disbelief, we were made to digest news that escaped even the wildest realms of our imagination: our baby had a disease that was “incompatible with life.”
I pay my taxes, I am friendly to people around me, and I am charitable to those less fortunate. Doesn’t that make me a good person?
There is one person in my synagogue whom I feel the need to rebuke. Are there any sources in Jewish law that I can show him?
Had the Temple not been initially constructed with the provision for what was to occur on the ninth of Av, no mortal could have moved a single stone from its place.
Then we ask the million-dollar question: “Are you Jewish?” She tells us that she is not...
what does this story say for the allure of the unknown, for airs of mystery, for random acts of kindness, for what I am doing here? I just want to shut the door and go back to bed.
One morning, when Paul was seven, I received a stat call to the emergency room . . . “Oh G‑d,” I pleaded in my thoughts, “Please, not this one. Not him.”
“If your Bible says that you must follow the majority,” argued the king, “then you should forsake Judaism and believe as we do!”
The kind deed he had done was able to reach him forty-five years later, and it breathed a renewed enthusiasm into him for his daily life . . .
In his heart, the chassid felt resentful. How could a tzaddik request so much money for a blessing?
In Torah, we mirror on earth that which G‑d performs on every plane of reality.
If so, since the Torah prohibits dislocating even a single stone of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, how could it be that G‑d brought the entire structure to ruins?
For it would certainly be absurd to imagine that the Assyrians or the Romans ha...
