Last week’s Torah portion ended with a dramatic cliffhanger. A plague was in progress, punishing the Israelites for worshipping the false gods. Despite earlier prohibitions and the snare of idolatry, ...

Our portion of Matot opens with God’s vengeance against Midian, an avowed enemy of the Israelites who had joined Balak, the king of Moab, in the hiring of Balaam to curse Israel. The Midianites also ...

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“An Israelite man came and took [for blatant sexual activity] a Midianite woman, in public, in the sight of Moses and all the Israelites. And when Pinchas saw it ...

We ended last week’s parasha with the Jewish nation crying as quasi-leaders sinned publicly with Midianite women, who had come into our camp at the Moabites’ behest. We would have no rest from these ...

There are stories of violence in the Torah that are difficult to read. The orgy of the Golden Calf in Parashat Ki Tisa (Exodus Chapter 32) ends with the killing of three thousand participants. The ...

In the aftermath of the episode of Zimri and the Midianite women, Hashem struck down 24,000 Jews. Yet immediately afterward, Hashem reaffirmed his tremendous love for Israel. Rabbi Avigdor Miller, ...

Chapter 25 The Lord has made it abundantly clear that He dislikes sexual misbehavior, loathes intermarriage, and despises idol worship. What happens when you combine all three of His favorite sins?

In light of Midian’s centrality in the Ba’al Peor story and its aftermath in this week’s parsha, it pays to remember the unusual place this nation has in the formative experiences of the Jewish people ...

The first commandment, which says God is the only God, that He is the God of the Children of Israel whom He brought out of Egypt; that we must worship no other gods and obey His laws, precedes, in ...