Balak

Parashat Balak: The angel’s sword

The donkey, Joshua, and King David all see the sword שְׁלוּפָה (unsheathed) in the angel’s hand. Bil’am, too, sees the sword שְׁלֻפָה (unsheathed) in the angel’s hand.

Summer vacation's greatest challenge: Building a goodly tent

Our home is what has characterized us, more than anything else, for several thousand years.

Eretz Yisrael in the parsha: How goodly are your tents, Jacob..

Young religious Zionist Torah scholars explain the vese|: How goodly are your tents, Jacob....

Balak / Bilam and his talking donkey: It's not a fairy tale*

The talking donkey is one mysterious event out of the many in our world.

Balak: Learning mussar from a donkey

Are the donkey's words important enough to take up room in the Torah? Why?

Balak: Welcome back, Diaspora shul-goers

The double parashah which communities in exile will read this week, Chukkat-Balak, can happen only in exile, never in Israel.

Balak: A shlemiel

Jewish tradition does not often create aphorisms in vain. Here is the story of the first shlemiel.

'How goodly are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings, Israel'

Jacob (Ya'akov) and Israel (Yisrael) are not alternative names, but two levels of approach to the same mission. Which level are we on today?

Did Balak know of the blessings granted Abraham?

\Israel’s enemies today are as disparate as the Amorites, Moab, Midian, Aram, Canaanites and Philistines -and will have the same fate.

Balak: Who needs an anti-Semite's compliments?

The Talmud teaches us that from the words of blessing from the mouth of Bilaam, we can determine what his true intent was: Poison candy.

Heard the one about the donkey who laughed at the prophet?

Parashat Balak is indisputably the most hilarious parashah in the entire Torah.

Balak and Korach: Who not to be

The names of parshiot and people’s names define their essence.and interestinly, two are named after doomed characters.

The hidden meaning of the Bilam story

In the Bilam story, the Israelites were rescued from a danger they knew nothing about by a deliverance they knew nothing about.