by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Jul 2, 2021 | Lifeline
What can one person accomplish against a mob? This question is sadly relevant today, and this week’s parsha (reading) provides the answer. At the end of last week’s reading, after the evil prophet Bilaam failed to curse the Jews, he advised the Midianite...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | May 14, 2021 | Lifeline
This Shabbos we will read the first words of Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers. Then, on Sunday night, we will celebrate the holiday of Shavuos, the time of the giving of the Torah. The holiday is called Shavuos in the Torah, literally “weeks,” as the Torah...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | May 7, 2021 | Lifeline
The second of our two readings this week is Bechukosai: “If you will go in my decrees, and guard my commandments, and do them” [Lev. 26:3]. A decree is something that government, or in this case HaShem [G-d] in the Torah, tells us to do, which we are...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Feb 19, 2021 | Lifeline
Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin zt”l was in Polish Lithuania at a time when rabbinic schools were suffering from extreme poverty. In his book Oznaim L’Torah (and reprinted in Yalkut Lekach Tov), he relates that he accompanied a delegation of senior rabbis to Warsaw...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Jan 29, 2021 | Lifeline
After crossing the Sea of Reeds, the Jewish People found themselves in an inhospitable desert. For 40 years, they ate a miraculous food called Mann, or Manna. Yet we read that G-d also provided both quail and water. Why was it necessary for them to eat food whose...
