Of all the interesting and stimulating accounts in this week’s double portion of Hukkat-Balak, none is more well-known and challenging as the description of Moses’ and Aaron’s punishment that would prevent them from entering the land of Israel.  Says the Torah: Read more...

Recent studies of the Jewish population have confirmed what common sense already intuited: We are less and less different from the people around us. Our children attend the same preschools, the same public and private schools, the same dance classes or Scout troops and the same high schools. On the weekends, they participate in the same athletic teams and they hang out at the same malls. When they select a college, their standards are pretty much the same standards as everyone else’s, and their choice of professions doesn’t differ much from that of our neighbors either. Read more...

One of the sad realities of life in the suburbs is that every neighborhood looks just like every other neighborhood: If it's not a home, it's a mall.  If it's not a mall, it's a shopping center.  Everything we build in the burbs is beautiful, clean, and lacking personality.  Spatial distinctions, where one city ends and the next one begins, are visible only on maps or signs, because, frankly, they all look alike.  The same malls, homes, developments, and roads impose a deadening sameness over the vast tracts of American space. Read more...

In one of the most gripping scenes in the Torah, the Gentile prophet Bilaam has been summoned to curse the assembled Israelites on behalf of Balak, the King of Edom. Protesting that he can only say what he is instructed by God, Bilaam nonetheless ascends the heights of a nearby mountain, to get a commanding view of Israel - all the better to curse them. Each time he attempts to curse the people, and each time he is overwhelmed by God's mandate to bless. Finally, in a moment of personal envy and hope, Bilaam blurts out, "Let me die the death of the righteous. May my fate be like theirs!" Read more...

Careers of public figures take on a life of their own, ebbing and flowing with shifts in public opinion and the latest values. One Jewish figure whose popularity is at an all-time high is the prophet Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. While featured prominently in the Torah, Miriam's claim to fame always paled in the face of her more visible brothers. After all, Aaron was the first Kohen Gadol, the link between the Jewish people and their religion, and Moses was the intimate friend of God, transmitting sacred teachings to the people. Read more...