The Shabbos Parsha Sedra this Shabbos is Parashas Devarim , where Devarim Deuteronomy is the Fifth And Last Book Of HaShem's Holy Torah And This Parsha Is The First Sedra In This Fifth Book Of HaShem's Holy Torah . This Parsha falls on the Shabbos before Tisha B ' Av and so , the Haftorah is also a Lament for us , the third Haftorah of Lament between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B' Av . The Haftorah is in Yeshayahu Isaiah 1 : 1 - 27 . This Parsha of Devarim Carries through the centuries from Moshe Rabbeinu who spoke This Book Of HaShem's Holy Torah to all of our Jewish people , a most beautiful show of Moshe's love For HaShem and for his Jewish people with a plea of love that we keep All Of HaShem's Commandments , so This Book Of HaShem's Holy Torah Is so vital to us as a Jewish people , especially with the coming of Tisha B'Av , where all our people need to remember HaShem's Love For us And How we Need To Keep HaShem's Commandments And Always Trust That HaShem Knows Best And That we are To Always Stay Close To HaShem And HaShem's Commandments . The whole Book of Devarim - Deuteronomy was spoken by Moshe to the Children of Israel in the last 37 days of Moshe's life , starting on the 1st of Shevat and Moshe ended just before he passed away on the 7th of Adar . So the whole Book of Devarim was Moshe's parting message From HaShem , Reiterating HaShem's Laws , Given at the time that we Jews were , for a year , at Har Sinai , And Also Those Laws Given By HaShem To Moshe , In The Holy Tent Of Meeting . In this Parsha Sedra , Moshe starts out with a rebuke to us which he means totally out of Love For HaShem And for us , knowing he ( Moshe ) would not be with us when we would enter the Land , Moshe wanted his last words at that time to us , From HaShem , to remain with us , when Moshe would depart . We read a few Parshas ago , how Bilaam spoke only The Words That HaShem Let him speak , And HaShem Put In Bilaam's mouth , praises for our people , out of the mouth of Bilaam our enemy , yet out of the holy mouth of Moshe who loved us , HaShem Put the start of Moshe's Speech , as a rebuke . Why was this so , for our beloved Moshe to rebuke us quietly and for Bilaam to praise us ? For our enemy to end up praising us , is A Total Miracle From HaShem and even for Bilaam our worst enemy to praise us , that sets the stage for lesser enemies to have to acknowledge us . In the case of a rebuke , had it come from Bilaam , it would not have been well - meaning and could have harmed us negatively Chas Ve Shalom , but from Moshe who always meant us well in love , it would be just like a Parent rebuking their child out of love for their welfare to get that child on the True and Proper Path in order for that child to better themselves . HaShem Starts Out The Parsha , By Saying That the words of Moshe was to " El Kol Yisrael , " - " To all of Israel , " for all of Israel was to come out and listen to Moshe Speaking , Men , Women and Children . Children were also mentioned , for it is in our children that the future rests . HaShem Miraculously Increased The Volume Of Moshe's Voice so that it would carry and be heard throughout the Camp and all who listened could understand it the same as the one next to them , in the same way , even though each person had their own levels of understanding different things . This was just like At The Giving By HaShem Of The Ten Commandments On Har Sinai , Where HaShem Spoke The Commandments To each person in their own way of understanding it , so that each person would end up with the same understanding that every other person would have . I refer To When HaShem First Started Speaking The Commandments In A Single Space Of Time All At Once All The Ten Commandments ( Something Only HaShem Could Do ) , And Then HaShem Directly Spoke The First Two Commandments Directly To the people and the people expired and had to be revived and thereafter begged Moshe to relate the rest of The Commandments to them lest they expire again . HaShem Had done this So As To Ensure That The Fear Of HaShem Remains With us So That we Can Be In Awe Of HaShem , And Follow HaShem , for our own benefit in Creation . So here , when Moshe Spoke in Devarim , Relating HaShem's Words , HaShem Again Performed The Miracle Of us all understanding The Words , with the same understanding as everyone else , even though we all had different levels of comprehension . The first word of The Parsha is " Eileh " - " These . " If we take the Gematriah of the word " Eileh , " it comes to 1 + 30 + 5 = 36 and if we take this number 36 and re-translate it into Hebrew Gematriah letter placings in the order of the Hebrew Alphabet , we get a ' 30 and a 6 ' and the Hebrew Letters that have the values of 30 and 6 are the Hebrew letters ' Lamed - L ' and ' Vav - V ' and putting this together , we get the Hebrew word ' Leiv ' - ' which means ' Heart , ' thus " Eileh " - " These " words that Moshe spoke to all of Israel , were words spoken from Moshe's Ever Special And Very Holy Heart To the people's ' hearts , to keep forever within our hearts . ' When we speak to a person's heart and not just to their mouth , the message is more penetrating and shows more that we are truly concerned for the other person's heart and welfare and speak out of total caring for them . This Was The Love Of HaShem and this was the love of Moshe . Moshe speaks to them " on the other side of the Jordan , " for Moshe was not permitted then to enter into the Land . Our Rabbonim teach us that in Moshiach's time , Moshe will return to lead that generation that passed away during our journey from Mitzrayim to Canaan , into Eretz Yisroel , so that generation , will finally get to come home into Israel . But this Parsha talks of Moshe speaking to them from " the other side of the Jordan , concerning the Wilderness , " which means still in the Wilderness , so why would Moshe be referred to as speaking to them " Bamidbar , " - " Concerning the Wilderness ? " The Wilderness , beside that it was where they physically were , has a deeper meaning and that is also that to be holy and religious and Follow HaShem Wholeheartedly , one is to make oneself like a Wilderness , which is open and empty and ownerless , suggesting total openness and selflessness and humility In Listening To HaShem , and putting one's own wants aside , being like an empty vessel with no selfish thoughts and being totally accepting In Trust and Faith Of What HaShem Wants And Tells us To Do , being forever humble and Following HaShem's Will Only , always knowing that we know so little and that we humbly have so much to learn , no matter how much we study . Torah Was Given By HaShem In a Wilderness that is ownerless to also show That All Of HaShem's Creation has a task and duty To Follow HaShem and that as a Wilderness is ownerless And Owned Only By HaShem , So Is Torah Owned By HaShem and we are all obligated to Follow and Keep It . Also within the word " Bamidbar , " is the word " ' Devor' im , " which refers to Speaking , for when we Humble ourselves To And Before HaShem , And Listen To HaShem as we would do in a Wilderness , we can Truly Hear HaShem Speaking To us when we make ourselves small and humble and open to receive , just like a " Bamidbar , " - a " Wilderness . ' Dovid Ha Melech knew that he could Come Close To HaShem by spending time alone , sometimes for days or even weeks by himself , just by going into a desert alone ( which is like a Bamidbar - Wilderness ) and so Dovid ha Melech King David would sometimes do that , going into the humble quietude of the desert To Speak With HaShem . The Parsha Also Says , that Moshe spoke " Ba' Aravah , " - " In the Aravah , " though some of our Rabbis refer these names to places there , other Rabbonim go deeper , where ' Ervah ' can refer to a ' responsibility ' ( Zilberman Hebrew Dictionary ) , for it was in this place's vicinity that some of our people did not hold to the responsibility of believing In HaShem , for it was near here that the spies went into the Land and very sadly ( at this time of Tisha B' Av ) , brought back a false report of the Land which caused an uproar and brought us Tisha B' Av , for it was then that the spies caused the people to cry in their tents for nothing , due to lack of Emunah and Bitachon Faith and Trust In HaShem and lack of Appreciation For All That HaShem Had Done For us and so , from then on , through the generations at this time of the year , we have suffered and cried for a reason , for it was at this time that we lost both our Beis Ha Mikdashim , our Holy Temples . It was at this time that we suffered through the centuries , with pogroms in Russia , Bogdan Chmielnitzky and his Massacres in the Ukraine and throughout Poland , the Final Solution , by the germans , Crusades across Europe and England , mass murders of our people throughout Europe , the fall of Betar in Roman times , the Spanish Inquisition under queen isabella and duke ferdinand and their grand inquisitor thomas de torquemada and their horrific tortures and quemaderas burnings at the stake and our being put into ghettos in Venezzia and Italy and their burning of our holy books and so many other very sad happenings to our people at this time . May we all learn to have Emunah Faith In HaShem , Bitachon Trust In HaShem and may we all learn To Follow HaShem's Torah Faithfully and so , turn this day of Tisha B'Av of heartache and tragedy , into a time of rejoicing happiness , with the coming Redemption in Moshiach's time . Going back to the word " Erev , " this word ' Erev ' also refers to ' Evening , ' a time of darkening before the light , where in this vicinity , the people sadly doubted HaShem and then had to return back to the Wilderness for many years ( like the ' dark ' ) and only after many years ( almost 40 years ) , could they only then enter Eretz Yisrael ( the Light ) . That too is just like this present period of darkness and Galut , just before The Light Of HaShem Comes In Moshiach's time . The words , " Opposite the Sea of Reeds , " Was Where HaShem Split the waters , but the word written is " Suf " not " Yam Suf , " for the word ' Sof ' also means ' end , ' for the people had finally reached the end of their journey through the Wilderness and were about to finally enter into Eretz Yisroel . HaShem's Holy Torah Then Mentions " Bein Paran U ' Vein Tofel , " for it was in the vicinity of this area of Paran , where the Spies left from , when they went to go and spy out the Land , before they came back and we had to wander till the end of 40 years , also a reminder of this period of the year which became Tisha B'Av , May HaShem Come Soon In our days . Within the word " Paran , " is the word ' Pur ' - which refers to ' casting lots , ' like in the happening of Purim , for it was the wicked Haman who cast lots and it was in Paran , when the spies also caused a debate among the people ( like casting lots to decide either way ) whether they should enter the land or fear what the spies came and told them from tent to tent . Could this be why later in time , at the happening of Purim , we had to suffer anguish , at the ' Pur ' - ' Lot ' that Haman cast every day till the date of Purim in Adar . Just a thought . The word " Tophel " is mentioned as is " Lavan , " where Rashi explains that the word ' Tiflus , ' means ' calumny , ' which means ' false and malicious defamation ' ( Everyday dictionary - Patterson ) , which is what happened by the Spies there in that region and the reference to " Lavan - " - which means ' white , ' can be a reference to the Mannah and perhaps how some were ungrateful for This Holy Food From HaShem , That HaShem In HaShem's Love Every Morning , Would Let The Mannah Fall For us , With Such Great Care And Love , That HaShem Would Prepare For us , With His Love On Top Of A Blanket Tray Of Dew . The mention of " Hazeroth " is also a deep reference to rebellion , for it was in and near Hazeroth that Korach's rebellion took place and it was also there that Miryam was stricken with Leprosy for Loshon Horah . The reference to " Di - zahav , " which means ' a mass and abundance of gold , ' can also be a reference to the Chait Ha Eigel - The Golden Calf , so within Moshe's words , was a rebuke , but meant for Positive and Holy Reasons . HaShem's Holy Torah Here Also Mentions That this place is also eleven days from Chorev , which is the place of Har Sinai , where the place before The Ten Commandments were given there , was called ' Sin'a ' which means ' thornbushes , ' for the place was usually quite dry there and had many thornbushes and as we know , It Was There That HaShem Appeared To Moshe Within the thornbush , again a symbol of Humility and that no matter how much suffering our people face , HaShem Will Always Be Within us And Help us . The place ' Sin'a ' had a Hebrew Letter ' Yud ' added to the name , After The Ten Commandments Were Given There , to make the Name " Sinai , " for the Hebrew Letter ' Yud ' is 10 Gematrically and so , the name of the place became " Sinai , " Where HaShem Gave HaShem's Ten Commandments On Har Sinai , the most Humble of Mountains , that stayed spiritually in the background feeling itself unworthy Of HaShem Coming Down Upon It , when ( as Dovid Ha Melech said in Tehillim - Psalms ) the other mountains came skipping like rams to be the ones chosen , but Humble Har Sinai Was Chosen Instead . The mention of Kadesh Barnea is a reference to the Spies that were sent off from the area and also the area where Moshe and Aharon were judged not to be able to go into the Land , at the Waters of Strife . So Moshe even humbly brings up his own error and thus is humbly rebuking himself too . How Beautiful and Humble and Holy was our beloved Moshe . Everything In HaShem's Holy Torah Has Deeper Meanings and as our Sages say , each word and connotation has 70 deeper meanings . The Parsha of Devarim , as I mentioned , starts out Moshe's Speech to the whole of the Children of Israel . As HaShem Says , in verse 3 of this Sedra's first chapter , all that Moshe Spoke , Was According To The Word Of HaShem . Moshe refers to our dwelling at and around Har Sinai and how after the year of being there , HaShem Tells us to leave . Moshe then refers to the appointment of Judges and then Moshe refers to the incident of the Spies and the sad result of our rebellion , which we still suffer today , which took place on Tisha B' Av , which is to sadly coming up just after Shabbos , if the Redemption has not happened yet . May It Come Soon In Our Days . Moshe then refers to the incident of what happened to him with regards to water from the rock and how he and Aharon were not permitted to enter the Land , so Moshe Again Humbly rebukes himself . Moshe also refers to those who , after the incident of the Spies , still wanted to enter the Land and were told ' No , ' but they did not listen and were smitten . Moshe then Speaks of us coming toward Canaan and what happened with us when we wanted to enter the areas of Eisav , Moav and Ammon . Moshe Speaks of the conquest of Sichon and Og ( who had an iron bed , to the measurements of that man , who had even lived in Avraham's time and further back in the time of Noach through the Mabul , where Noach had made for him outside a special little platform for him to stand on and little roof covering to cover him and little widow door opening through which Noach had fed him every day ) , Og's bed being of iron , as nothing less could hold his heavy large tall weight and frame ) and how the two and a half Tribes of Israel , Reuvein , Gad and half the Tribe of Manasseh , would take their territory on the other side of the Jordan . The Parsha ends with Moshe talking of the command to Yehoshua Joshua for what to do When HaShem Has Yehoshua lead us over the Jordan And How HaShem Will Be With us And Wage War For us , Against our enemies and the nations of Canaan , when we enter into the Land . So Ends The Parsha . The very fact that the Parsha is called " Devarim " - " Words , " Shows That These Are The Words Of HaShem . Within the word " Devarim " is the word " Daber " - " which means " Speak , " for within This Book Of The Holy Torah And Within Every Single Word Within HaShem's Holy Torah , HaShem Is Reaching Out To us And " Speaking " To us , Just As HaShem Is Pleading With us today and every day , To Follow HaShem . HaShem Wishes every year and every day that we would all change And Follow HaShem's Laws and so , avert the coming Tisha B'Av and so , bring on The Final Redemption . HaShem Says Very Clearly Here In This Parsha That HaShem Speaks To Moshe and the Sedra Says Clearly That These Words Are Spoken " to all Israel , " which does not just mean for then , but for all time , today and beyond . HaShem Was Thus Speaking to the Jews then and , with the reference to that this is spoken to " all Israel , " this also means to every Jew - all Israel - all Jews , past , present and into the future , HaShem Is Still Speaking These Words To them and to us . HaShem's Words Are Eternal , And Penetrate Through Time And Space and nothing can stop Them and so , HaShem's Words Carry Through The Centuries . Not only That , But HaShem Is Still Speaking To us Today , Tomorrow And In Days Still To Come , Forever . The Word " Devorim " In This Sedra , Is Written As " HaDevarim , " For It Is HaShem Who Speaks These Words To All Israel . If we would only stop our physical pursuits of no long lasting value and sit in Peace , we Would Hear HaShem's Melody Of Words Singing Sweet And Beautiful Words of Love Within us . HaShem Speaks To us All The Time . Sometimes when we are learning A Mishna or A Gemorrah or One Of The Taryag Mitzvos ( 613 Mitzvos Of The Jew ) or A Verse In HaShem's Holy Torah Or Tanach , and we stop and wonder about understanding something we have just read and we Suddenly from within our soul , Get An Explanation , like A Flash Of Light Of Illumination , we can know That That Flash Of Light Of Illumination , Answering us , Is HaShem " Devarim " - " Speaking " To us And Giving us Clarity On That Something That we wondered About . HaShem May Have Given That Answer To us At The Moment when we asked or May Have Even Given us The Answer , Right Back At The Beginning Of HaShem's Creation , Or Maybe HaShem Gave us The Answer At The Time we Received The Ten Commandments On Har Sinai , For HaShem Knew that we would , at a later time in Creation , ask that very question or wonder about that very thing . How Wonderful Is HaShem . HaShem Has Been With us All Along , And HaShem Has Carried us And Stood By us , Throughout Time , Not Just At The Beginning Of Creation , But HaShem In His Love , Carries us From day To day And From generation To generation , Never Leaving us , But " Devarim " - " Speaking HaShem's Words To us Every Day And Giving us Those Words Of Holy Torah And Comfort , Exactly When we Need It And Exactly When we Need To Grow And Climb Higher In Holiness , Getting Ever Closer To HaShem And HaShem's Love And HaShem's Care . HaShem Is Within Every Breath That we take That HaShem Gives us And Within Every Ray Of HaShem's Sunlight That HaShem Created For us And For Creation , And HaShem Is Within Every Song Of HaShem's Creation That Is all Around us . All that we need to do , is to Listen and step away from the physical mundane things around us And Focus On What Is True Long - Lasting Value , And That Is HaShem And HaShem's Holy Torah True , HaShem's Holy Pathway To Shamayim - Heaven , HaShem's Waiting Love That Surrounds us Always , Wherever we are and Wherever we go . So let us Truly Open ourselves Up To HaShem's Love And Listen And Obey HaShem With Love , Listening To HaShem's Beautiful " Devarim " - " Words And Speaking " Love . I wish Forever Everlasting Beloved HaShem With Beautiful And Forever Deepest Love , A Sweet And Peaceful Shabbos Kodesh With Endless Love And Endless Closeness and to all my fellow Jews and to all of Creation , A Sweet And Peaceful Shabbos Kodesh with love and to my fellow Jews , should Tisha B'Av Still Come , A Meaningful Fast to all my fellow Jews . May all of my fellow Jews and all of Creation , Return To HaShem's Commandments Of HaShem's Holy Torah With Love . Blessed Holy Sabbath With Love To HaShem And HaShem's Creation .

Our Parsha this Shabbos is a Double Parsha of Mattos - Masei and also Rosh Chodesh Av and so we also add to the Torah reading of these two Parashas Bamidbar Numbers 30 : 2 - 36 : 13 , the portion mentioning Rosh Chodesh in Bamidbar Numbers 28 : 9 - 15 and the Haftorah for this Shabbos is Yirmeyahu Jeremiah 2 : 4 - 28 ; 3 : 4 ( for Ashkenazim ) ; 4 : 1 - 2 ( for Sephardim and Yeshayahu Isaiah 66 : 1 and 66 : 23 for Rosh Chodesh ), where the portion in Yirmeyahu relates to the theme of these Three Weeks of Mourning that we are in right now between the Seventeenth of Tammuz , when we wronged HaShem at the Chait Ha'Eigel , the Golden Calf and The Holy Tablets were smashed and these three weeks carry on until Tisha B ' Av , when the spies brought a negative report of the Gift of The Holy Land and we could not enter the land at that time and had to wonder for almost forty years in the Wilderness . The last Parsha Spoke of the Offerings for the Festivals and this Parsha of Mattos starts teaching about Vows and Oaths . When discussing Vows and Oaths , what actually is the difference between a ' Neder ' - a ' Vow ' and a ' Sh'vuah ' - an ' Oath ? ' Both Vows and Oaths deal with us talking of or stating that we will either do or not do something , but a ' Neder , ' a ' Vow ' refers more to an obligation that one makes over an object , whereas a ' Sh'vuah , ' an Oath , ' refers more to do with an obligation one makes over oneself . What is interesting is that a ' Vow ' - ' Neder , ' brings about a new condition for an object , whereas , a ' Sh'vuah ' - an ' Oath ' brings about a new condition for oneself . So if one says that from now on , one will no longer eat a specific food , then one brings about a new condition and law upon oneself , for that specific food and so that specific food now becomes forbidden , as it takes on a new forbidden status . This is a ' Neder . ' But if one has sworn that one will go and partake of a certain food , then one has placed an obligation upon oneself and not the food and so , this is a ' Sh'vuah ' - an ' Oath . ' This opportunity to obligate oneself to a law that one takes upon oneself that never existed before one made it , is a way to make a Law that becomes binding upon oneself , That HaShem Never Commanded and so if one breaks that which is uttered out of one's own mouth , something one has taken upon oneself to do or not to do , one can be punished with lashes for not fulfilling it . This is one reason That HaShem Does Not Like us to make Vows or Oaths . Only HaShem Is The One And Only Creator Who Makes Laws . As HaShem Says , to the one who made this prohibition upon himself , " he shall not desecrate his word ; according to whatever comes from his mouth shall he do . " So our word must be straight-forward and honest and we must uphold our word about things we say we will do and not break it or take it lightly . Speech is very powerful . With HaShem's Words , HaShem Created Creation . As our Rabbonim say , better not to Vow , then Vow and not do what we Vowed , Chas Ve Shalom . When one makes a Vow or Oath in which one was not sure of all the facts at the time of making it , our Rabbonim allow it to be annulled in front of three learned sages or men of learned standing . This is one of the reasons Why HaShem Put the section of Vows and Oaths in the Sedra called " Mattos , " - " Tribes , " as the heads of a Tribe who were men of high standing , could be approached to try and annul the Vow . But HaShem Takes the subject of Vows very seriously And HaShem Does Not Want us to Vow or make Oaths . Our Sages tell of the story of King Tzidkiyahu , one of the captives of king Nebuchadnezzar of Bavel , where Tzidkiyahu once walked in on Nebuchadnezzar breaking one of the Noachide Laws to the Gentiles , where he was eating the limb of a living rabbit . Nebuchadnezzar had Tzidkiyahu Vow that he would not tell anyone about what he saw , but after vowing , some time later , Tzidkiyahu went to the Sages of the time and had his Vow annulled and this subsequently came out and got to the ears of Nebuchadnezzar , who approached the Sages at that time and asked them to expound their Holy Torah . When the Sages came to the part of Vows and Oaths , he knew they had annulled Tzidkiyahu's Vow and he then had them tied with their hair tied to horses tails and had them pulled from one city , the City of Yerushalayim , to another city , the City of Lud ( Midrash Says - Bamidbar - Rabbi M Weissman ) , till they died . Why Did HaShem Allow this to take place ? Because HaShem Does Not Like Vows and Oaths Made . Why would this be so Hurtful To HaShem ? The answer is very understandable . Only HaShem Can Make Laws And Obligations For us . It is not for us to add to or to take away from The Holy Laws That HaShem Put Upon us . HaShem Knows What Laws we need And HaShem Knows Exactly What To Command us to do and it is not for us to add to or subtract from that , by putting upon ourselves restrictions That HaShem Never Did and thus wrongly restricting ourselves from The Goodness That HaShem Made For us to enjoy , That HaShem Never Forbade of us to partake of . HaShem's Laws Are Totally Complete And They Are All That we need for living In HaShem's Creation . When we make Vows or Oaths , we are adding Laws That HaShem Has Not Put Upon us and as I mentioned , HaShem Knows All the Laws we need . We should not make out that we know better by adding more obligations upon ourselves , Then HaShem Already Has Done . This Is HaShem's Creation , not ours and we have no right to limit ourselves on things That HaShem Has Already Allowed us to have and partake of . HaShem's Holy Torah Then explains the Case of , if a woman makes a Vow and her Father in his home hears it and he is silent about it , then her Vow stands upon her . But if her Father restrained her on the day of his hearing it , then it shall not stand And HaShem Will Forgive her . If she is married , then her husband can revoke it if he heard it but if he was silent , then her words stand . A Widow or Divorcee who has no husband , her words stand . Thus one should rather not make Vows or Oaths at all . HaShem Kindly Thus Gives the woman an opportunity to release herself from the Vow , that a man does not have . HaShem Then Commands Moshe that we are to take vengeance against the Midianites and thereafter , Moshe would be gathered unto his people . What a Tzaddik was Moshe who was able to put his own feelings aside of knowing that after this battle he would pass away , yet he still Honoured HaShem's Wish with alacrity and love and did not delay , where he could have delayed this battle and lived longer , yet he did not , but organized straight away for the battle In Honour Of HaShem . Moshe took a thousand from each Tribe , only men of righteousness , who had not taken part in falling to the idol worship of baal and he organized the army ready for battle . Pinchas , who we read about in the previous Parsha , made Peace Between HaShem And the people , when Pinchas took action and stopped the Plague after the incident caused by Bilaam , when Bilaam arranged for the Midyanite females to try and entice the men of Israel and try to get them to worship the idol baal and we also read how Pinchas stepped up and took action against Cozbi the Midyanite daughter of a leader of Midyan when she was taken into the tent of the leader of Simeon , and Pinchas courageously got up and speared them both , and by his action , stayed the Plague . Pinchas was also the son of Aharon's son Elazar and so , was Holy Pinchas the grandson of Aharon . Pinchas was put in charge of the campaign , a most Holy man and Moshe gave him the Tzitz , the Head - Plate to use against Bilaam . They killed the five kings of Midyan , including Cozbi's Father , where Cozbi was the woman who had come into the camp of Israel and gone into the tent of the head of Simeon , when they both committed an outrage in the Camp . Pinchas met Bilaam , who had returned to Midyan to fetch his money for helping Midyan with his idea to catch our men with the incident of the Midianite women . Bilaam's greed was his downfall , for he ended up facing Pinchas and Bilaam flew into the air . Pinchas pointed the Holy Tzitz at him and he fell down and Pinchas slew him . The Children of Israel took the Midyanite women captive and their young children , cattle , flocks and spoils , they also took . They brought it to Moshe and Elazar the Kohein and to the camp of the Children of Israel . Moshe was upset with them that they had let the women of Midyan live , the immoral women who had led Israel to sin . The Midyanite women , according to Rashi ( Midrash Says Bamidbar - Rabbi M Weissman ) , were marched before the Tzitz and all those who had known a man , their face took on a greenish glow and they were slain . Elazar was then given the Kashering Laws of utensils , and the spoils of battle were also divided . In the battle against Midyan , Reuvein and Gad had accumulated much cattle and they desired to rather take their portion of Land on the East side of the Jordan . Moshe was upset with them that they were doing a similar action to what the spies had done before , for by their action and request , they might put off the rest of Israel from wanting to enter the Land and that they were shunning The Land That HaShem Wanted To Give them In Israel . But they assured Moshe that they would join in the battle at the fore-front of Battle when Israel went in to conquer the Land , leaving their wives and children on the East side of the Jordan . And no doubt , they did exactly that in Yehoshuah's time , leaving their families for 14 years during the conquest . Though Moshe felt that they should take What HaShem Wants To Give them in the Holy Land . How interesting it was , that in later years when Israel was conquered , the land that they chose on the East side of the Jordan , was the first to be attacked . Manasseh had not asked to be there , but afterwards volunteered for half their Tribe to also settle on the East Bank of the Jordan . Our Rabbonim suggest that this took place , with half the Tribe of Manasseh joining them , so as to keep the other two Tribes in a much Holier state , for the Tribe of Manasseh was at the time , Great Torah Scholars . This is where the Sedra of Mattos ends . The Sedra of Masei begins by telling of the " Masei " - the " Journeys " of the Children of Israel from Egypt to Israel . The word " Masei " means " Journeys . " We might ask Why HaShem Would Put the list of our " Journeys " Place - By - Place , of our people from Mitzrayim to Canaan , In The Holy Torah ? This Was , Among HaShem's Other Reasons , To Show A Great Love That HaShem Has For us , For HaShem Had Moshe write down every place we went through , just like if a Father and son had travelled together and so to the Father who deeply loves his son , every place that they spent together in closeness , would have emotional meaning . Also , these places were mostly uninhabitable And So HaShem Was Showing us That HaShem Was With us All Along , Watching Over us And Protecting us , for had it not been For HaShem Helping us And Watching over us , we would never have survived . Each place we travelled through had something Spiritual about it that would test us in different ways . What people do in a place , gives that place a certain essence of that thing that has been done there . So each place brought its own test upon us . This shows and teaches us how careful we need to be in our own lives and how we have to behave , as we have the power as people , to put into our physical surroundings , a positive or negative holy or unholy , honest or thieving , peaceful or aggressive essence , into our surroundings , depending on how we as people behave there , and this essence that we leave in a place , can be a Yetzer Horah ( Bad Inclination ) or a Yetzer Tov ( Good Inclination ) to those that live in that place or that come to that place afterwards . We need to always keep the Spiritual Air Clean and Pure and Holy , wherever we are or wherever we go . Seeing as we were about to enter into the Land of Israel , HaShem Then In HaShem's Holy Torah , Defines the boundaries of Eretz Yisrael . HaShem Teaches of the " Ir Miklas , " - the " City of Refuge , " where an inadvertent unintentional Murderer could flee to and he would have to stay there till the death of the Kohein Gadol . No purposeful Murderer could take refuge in this place . There were to be six cities of Refuge . Three on one side of the Jordan and three on the other side of the Jordan . The Cities of Refuge were to be within the 48 cities of the Holy Levites , whose Cities were among the other Tribes Territories . How different Is HaShem's Laws from the laws of man , where in man's secular World , if a man commits an unintentional murder , he is sent off to prison with other undesirables and cannot grow Spiritually , but in the case of Jewish Law , this man is put into a place among Holy people , where he can grow Spiritually and attain higher Spiritual levels to lead him to The Right and Correct Path . Should he have been under a Rabbi when he committed his act , then that Rabbi and family also goes into the City of Refuge , for it showed something lacking in the teacher , if the student was not holy enough and the circumstance of the happening ended in such a negative action . If the unintentional murderer would ever leave this City before he was allowed to , then the " Goel Hadam , " the " Avenger of the blood , " a close relative of the victim had the right to slay him . Our Rabbis teach us that if there was no close relative , then the court would appoint one in this role as the " Goel Hadam . " For an intentional murderer , he is to be killed , for we must remove the evil from our midst . The Parsha ends with the Tribal Marriages that each Tribe is to marry within their own Tribe so that Tribal Lands remain within the Tribes that they were apportioned to , By HaShem and this portion was in reference to the very holy daughters of Tzelafchad of the Tribe of Joseph who married within their Tribe . The Sedra and the Book of Bamidbar Numbers ends with the words , " These are the Commandments and the Ordinances That HaShem Commanded Through Moshe to the Children of Israel in the Plains of Moav , at the Jordan , by Jericho . " ' Chazak Chazak Venitchazeik , ' - ' Be strong Be strong and may we be strengthened , ' as we say at the end of every Book Of The Holy Torah Of HaShem . So ends the Sedras and so ends the Book of Bamidbar Numbers , The Fourth Book Of The Holy Torah . In the Book of Devarim Deuteronomy 4 : 2 in the Torah it states very clearly , " You shall not add to the word that I Command you , nor shall you subtract from it , to observe the Commandments of HaShem , your G-D , that I Command you . " HaShem's Torah Is Complete . It Is Peace . The Hebrew word for ' Complete , ' is ' Shaleim ' and the Hebrew word for ' Peace , ' is ' Shalom . ' So The Complete Torah , Is Complete Peace And The Path To Peace . Torah Is Totally Perfect In It's Entirety , As HaShem Gave It . It does not need anything added to It or subtracted from It . It is Perfect Just As It Is , Just As HaShem Wrote It And Gave It To us . HaShem Made It Alone In His Oneness And So It Is Perfect As A Path To Bring us To Total Holiness . We are not to add to HaShem's Torah in any way or subtract from HaShem's Torah in any way , Chas Ve Shalom . It Is Perfect And Peaceful And Complete As It Is . When we make our own Vows and Oaths and laws upon ourselves That HaShem Never Commanded us to do , we are adding to The Torah Chas Ve Shalom . This is so wrong .HaShem Has Permitted us to partake of certain things , and when we limit ourselves of these things , we are , Chas Ve Shalom , adding more Than HaShem Commanded Or Forbade . We are saying then to HaShem that we think we , Chas Ve Shalom , know better and that we think we can , Chas Ve Shalom , go and make up our own laws on ourselves , Chas Ve Shalom . HaShem Is Supreme And So Are HaShem's Laws . Who are we to think that we know better . We are minute in HaShem's Universe or Universes and we know so very little . HaShem's Laws are the only Guideline we will ever need to get us To HaShem . Our own laws will not do that at all . The same goes with anyone thinking that they can add more books to the Tanach Bible . This is the same Sin , For HaShem Tells us Clearly That we are Not to add to HaShem's Torah Or Subtract From It - Devarim Deuteronomy 4 : 2 . Doing so , is Avodah Zorah Idol Worship , as this is adding or subtracting to HaShem's Torah And Laws . HaShem's Torah Laws Are Complete As They Are . There is One Holy Torah ( from Bereishis to Devarim ) and One Tanach ( Bereishis to Malachi ) and no one is allowed to add to it in any way or make up laws that are not deep within The Holy Torah From HaShem . HaShem's Holy Torah Is Complete As It Is , As It Was Written , As HaShem Wrote It And Gave It To us Through Moshe In It's Holy Hebrew . Any additions made to It , are not from HaShem G-D , but are wrongly from man , For G-D Said " NO ADDING TO IT . " Any new concept that goes against What Is Written In HaShem's Holy Torah , is a total forbidden Sin and a Breaking Of HaShem's Commandment of Devarim 4 : 2 . The same goes for anyone who wants to remove any Law , Chas Ve Shalom . HaShem Said Clearly That we must not subtract from it . To even say that one Law of HaShem should Chas Ve Shalom not be kept anymore in the Strictness Commanded By HaShem To Moshe And us Forever , Is Breaking HaShem's Commandments , as it is subtracting From HaShem's Laws , Which HaShem in Devarim 4 : 2 Commanded us Not To Ever Do . We Jews are to Keep HaShem's Holy Shabbos Eternally , As HaShem Commands Shabbos To Be Kept , With It's 39 Melachos In All Their Holiness . We are to keep The Holy Torah as strictly today as we did in Moshe's time , for to lessen on even a single Law , is to break This Commandment Of G-D . G-D's Laws are for us and for our children forever and will not be abolished , as it clearly states in Devarim Deuteronomy 12 : 28 and 29 : 28 and over and over again , HaShem Tells us That HaShem's Laws Are Forever And Eternal - Bereishis Genesis 17 : 1 - 14 about circumcision ; Pesach - Shemos Exodus 12 : 14 - 17 ; Shabbos - Shemos Exodus 31 : 12 - 17 ; Tzitzis - Bamidbar Numbers 15 : 38 ; Yom Kippur - Vayikra Leviticus 23 : 27 - 31 ; Succos - Vayikra Leviticus 23 : 41 and many other examples Of How HaShem's Laws Are Forever And Do Not Change And Are To Be Kept Forever . Dovid Hamelech who wrote Tehillim Psalms , wrote in Psalm 119 , a most beautiful rendition To HaShem's Torah And HaShem's Laws and how beautiful They Are and how They Are To Be Kept Forever , Never Changing . So we are never to change HaShem's Laws and we are never to add to Them and we are never to subtract from Them in any way . They Are totally Perfect And Complete As They Are . We are to avoid making Vows and Oaths and any obligation we want to put on ourselves , That HaShem Did Not Command . HaShem Travelled With us at every point in our Journey from Mitzrayim to Eretz Yisroel And Still Travels With us every step that we take now , Hoping That We Stay On HaShem's Path And Follow HaShem's Holy And Beautiful Laws And Commandments . HaShem Is Always With us and we must always Be With HaShem too , In Keeping Every Torah Commandment That HaShem Commanded In HaShem's Holy Torah , Just As HaShem Commanded Moshe . HaShem Gave us A Complete Torah So That we Will Be ' Complete , ' for we can only be Complete And Perfect If we Keep HaShem's Holy Torah . HaShem Said to Avraham , " I Am El Shaddai ; walk before Me and be perfect . I Will Set My Covenant ( My Torah ) between Me and you , and I will increase you most exceedingly . " How Clear That Is , That we are To Keep HaShem's Torah As HaShem Gave it , Forever And Eternally And Walk With HaShem In Completeness And Peace And Perfection And Oneness , Always And Eternally Close To HaShem Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu HaShem The Holy One Blessed Be He . At this time of the year , during these Three Weeks of Mourning between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B'Av , as we approach Tisha B'Av , we all as Jews need to put our own wants aside and Come Close To HaShem , Through Love , In Keeping All Of HaShem's Commandments . Closeness With HaShem , Is our Path To Life . Closeness With HaShem , Is our Destination In Life . Closeness With HaShem , Is Life . Let us all , these very Holy Days , take proper accounting of ourselves , as Parashas Masei took accounting of our Journeys Toward Holiness And The Holiness Of The Holy Land and as Parashas Mattos did , remind us to be leaders of our own Path Towards HaShem And HaShem's Holiness , and let us all become who we are all meant to be , Holy And Loving And Obedient Followers Of HaShem Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu HaShem The Holy One Blessed Be He . I wish Forever Most Beloved HaShem With Faithful And Sweetest And Deepest Eternal And Forever Everlasting Love , A Most Special And Beautiful Shabbos Kodesh And Chodesh Tov With Everlasting Forever Faithful Deepest Love and to all my fellow Jews and to all of Creation , a Most Special and Beautiful Shabbos Kodesh And Chodesh Tov Av with love .

The Shabbos Sedra this Shabbos is Parashas Pinchas . In this Sedra , we continue on from the previous Parsha where Pinchas , For The Sake Of HaShem And his Rebbe Moshe , took courage and went into the Camp of Simeon and pierced both the leader of Simeon , Zimri ben Salu and the Midianitess Cozbi daughter of Zur ( Balak ) , who was " the head of the peoples of a father's house in Midyan , " when the Midianite females were used , at the idea of the wicked Bilaam , when he could not get HaShem Angry with us and so he formulated this plan of using these women to entice our men to idol worship so as to try and get HaShem Angry with us . Zimri had brought this Midianitess woman past Moshe's Tent and had taken her into his own tent to be with her . HaShem's Anger Had Flared Up At the actions of those who had let their Yetzer Horahs win in this deceitful guise to catch our men And So HaShem Sent a Plague . When Pinchas courageously went into the Camp of Simeon , putting his own life at risk and piercing both Zimri and Cozbi In Honour Of HaShem and Moshe his teacher , the Plague stopped . Thus Pinchas had saved Israel From HaShem's Wrath . In fact this Cozbi , the Midianitess , was actually sent to try and entice Moshe , but he would not have anything to do with this woman at all and so , Zimri came and took Cozbi himself and brought her into his own tent . Pinchas was the son of Elazar , Aharon's son and thus Pinchas was Aharon's holy grandson . With Pinchas' courageous action , he had stopped the Plague that had already killed 24 000 . How interesting that this is the same amount of people that died in the time of Rabbi Akiva's followers that were his students , that we remember during the Omer Period , between Pesach and Rosh Chodesh Sivan . But did the people thank Pinchas for saving them ? No , they did not . They complained and accused him of committing murder in killing the leader of Simeon . In fact , they even said that Pinchas is ' the grandson of one who fattened calves sacrificed to idols . ' Where did they so wrongly get such a terrible insult from ? Pinchas' Father , as I mentioned , was Elazar the son of Aharon and Elazar had , like Moshe , married one of Yisro's daughters . Yisro was a former priest of Midyan and he had also been known as " Putiel , " where ' Puti-eil ' means ' one fattened for a god . ' This was where the people got their horrible insult from , but Pinchas was a very Holy man . How interesting that it was Pinchas whose Mother was originally a Midianite , that it was him who was the one to stand totally against their unholy harlotry and Avodah Zorah idol worship and stop the Plague . This is true Holiness . This is where our Parsha comes in . Because Pinchas had turned back HaShem's Wrath Away From the Children of Israel when he had zealously avenged HaShem , among the sinners and so , HaShem Did Not Consume the Children of Israel . HaShem Said To Moshe That HaShem Gives Pinchas , HaShem's Covenant Of Peace , for Pinchas had made Peace Between HaShem And Israel and so , would Pinchas Be Forever Blessed , as the Harbinger Of Peace and this meant too that Pinchas would be Blessed with a very long life and could possibly have returned as the very Holy Navi Prophet Eliyahu Elijah , the subject of the usual Haftorah for this Sedra when this Sedra is read before the 17th of Tammuz , but this year as in most years , Parashas Pinchas is read after the 17th of Tammuz , and so we read as the Haftorah , Yirmeyahu Jeremiah 1 : 1 - 2 : 3 . It was Eliyahu Ha Navi who also brought Peace Between HaShem and the people when he stood on Mount Carmel and had the people choose to either Follow HaShem Faithfully , or take the wrong path and go down with the followers of the idol baal , the same baal that the Midianites in the time of Pinchas had been enticed to prostate themselves to and defecate to , which was their way of following their sickening false idol . Elijah had stood up For HaShem , when the followers of baal were taught a lesson . This same soul of Pinchas that could have been Elijah , will be the Harbinger of Moshiach , a time of total peace , which is what will be in Moshiach's time , where he will return at The End Of Days , as it says near the end of the book of Malachi , where he will announce Moshiach's True Coming and again make peace in families , by turning " the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers . " It is very interesting that in the Chumash , there is a sign above the Yud in Pinchas' name in this Sedra Bamidbar Numbers 25 : 10 and a sign above the Vav in the word " Shalom " in this Parsha in Bamidbar Numbers 25 : 12 and if you add the Yud and Vav Gematrically , it comes to 10 + 6 = 16 and 1 + 6 = 7 , the number of Moshiach , where Eliyahu Ha Navi , will come before Moshiach as the Harbinger of Moshiach , who will usher in Eternal Peace , where that word " Shalom " in this discussion means " Peace " with Pinchas who may have been Eliyahu Ha Navi , who is the Prophet who ushers in and so anoints Moshiach , where these two words here are connected by the same sign above them . Pinchas was also one of the two spies , with Kaleiv , whom Yehoshuah Joshua sent into Yericho Jericho to spy out and they were both saved by Rachav . Pinchas was still alive well into the time of the Children of Israel living in Israel And HaShem Gave Pinchas His Blessing Of Protection . Due to Midyan's actions , who not only tried to attack us physically , but went even further and tried to separate us from HaShem Spiritually by getting us to sin , So Did HaShem Instruct Moshe That we were to " Harass and Smite " them , which meant a continuing mind set against them and to destroy them in war . It was in this war that Bilaam , who had started the idea of the Midianite women trying to entice us away from HaShem , and though he had left the area , returned there out of greed for money and this time it got him killed , for Bilaam was killed by Pinchas himself , in such a majestic battle between Pinchas and Bilaam , as the Midrash describes . HaShem Then Asks For a census to be taken . This is just before we come to the Land and so , the main purpose of this census was for distribution by lot of the Land . The Levites again were counted separately . It was after this census to do with the Land , that the daughters of Tzelafchad , from the family Tribe of Manasseh came before Moshe . Apportioning of Tribal Land , was to go to the sons and here , Tzelafchad was no longer , for he had passed away in his own Aveirah . The Rabbonim say that this was either as one of the people who had still wanted to go into the land after the incident of the Spies , that were killed when Moshe warned them not to go , or the Rabbis feel , he could have been the one gathering on the Shabbos . Tzelafchad had no sons but only five daughters Machlah , Noah , Hoglah , Milkah and Tirtzah . They had remained unmarried , being very holy and chose to wait , even till they were in their 40's , rather than to just marry anyone . By their holy ways , they chose to put their own needs aside , to rather wait for holy partners and offspring . They first approached the leader of tens to ask if they could inherit , for there were no sons , but the leader of tens could not answer . They had to bring the same query to the leader of fifties and then the leader of hundreds and then thousands right up the line , but none could give an answer and so the matter finally came before Moshe himself , for they did not want their Father's inheritance to be lost within their Tribe . Some of our Rabbis feel that Moshe knew the answer to this but humbly bowed To HaShem's Wisdom . Other Rabbinical opinions say that because Moshe had once said , " all difficult matters bring to me , " he was made to forget the answer to this and so , he Approached HaShem . This is the same with Dovid Ha Melech , who also was made to forget something , in fact two points and had to approach Achitophel , when David incorrectly put the Ark on a humble wagon , from which the incident took place where it was caught by Uzzah . Also , where David incorrectly counted the men . So here Moshe brought the claim of Tzelafchad's daughters Before HaShem . HaShem Merciful , Fair In Judgement And Beautiful , Said That the daughters of Tzelafchad speak properly and that where there are no sons , then the inheritance will pass over to his daughters . Thus in honour of these holy women , the daughters of Tzelafchad , this Law was given , Even Though HaShem Had Made this Law before Creation . Tzelafchad's daughters married holy men from their own Tribe and so was their inheritance kept within their Tribe . This showed That HaShem Had Forgiven Tzelafchad , for his family line was still allowed a portion of the Land and so , Moshe thought that maybe HaShem Might Forgive Moshe too And Allow him entry into the Land and so did Moshe again request Of HaShem , if he could enter the Holy Land But HaShem Said No . Moshe then asked to go up the Mountain of Abarim and see the Land That HaShem Would Give To the Children of Israel . Moshe's reason for seeing the Land from afar was so that he would put his Holy Blessings upon it . Holy Moshe again put himself second And HaShem and our people first , when he straight away asked for a Holy successor that would be a ' Man ' in other words Holy and Worthy In Holiness , one who could be called a Mensch , a Man of honour , Totally Following HaShem , going out before his people and coming in , always remaining Holy , wherever he would find himself . Moshe Asked for a man who would " go out before them and come in before them , " a leader like him , who would not just sit at home and let his troops go off to war , but one like Moshe , who would also go into battle with his people , like Dovid Ha Melech did . Also , a man that " goes out before them and comes in before them " is one who speaks for them To HaShem , standing before them to gain compassion for them and forgiveness for them if needs be , just as beloved Moshe did so often for us . One who can stand before them , going out and coming in before them , is as one who can stand before them as a shining example of Torah Mitzvos , to teach and lead them by Holy Example , one who Emulates HaShem , that can stand Before HaShem , for them as a most Holy man . And so , HaShem Told Moshe to take Yehoshuah Joshua ," a man in whom there is Spirit , " which means a man who has earned The Keeping Of HaShem's Spirit Within him . HaShem Asked Moshe to stand Yehoshuah ( a man who every morning and evening would arrange the benches for studying and praying , the whole of the forty years in the Wilderness ) before Elazar the Kohein ( Aharon's son ) and before the entire assembly and command him before their eyes , placing some of his ( Moshe's ) majesty upon him , which was for Moshe , who was like a candle that does not lose any of it's light by lighting other candles , but only increases the light surrounding things not a decreasing of his light , ( Moshe's majesty ) Given By HaShem , For Moshe's Humble Holy Actions . But it will be Elazar the Kohein whom he shall stand before , in inquiring when needed and was allowed , the judgement of the Urim and Tumim Before HaShem , where At HaShem's Word shall they come in , he and all the Children of Israel . HaShem Had Only Asked Moshe to place one hand upon Yehoshuah , but Moshe in total selflessness , that he would be giving up his own leadership , still selflessly and in an act of total selfless giving , placed both his hands on Yehoshuah " and commanded him As HaShem Had Spoken Through Moshe . " HaShem Then Speaks To Moshe About the Tamid Daily Offerings to be made two a day , one in the morning and one in the afternoon , which today is our Davening times . HaShem Also Discusses the Mussaf Additional Offerings for the Shabbos Mussaf and the offerings and libations of Rosh Chodesh New Moon , Pesach , Shavuos , Rosh HaShanah , Yom Kippur , Succos and Shemini Atzeres . HaShem's Holy Torah Also Teaches Of The Laws Within these Festivals . Shemini Atzeres is looked upon as an extra festival , for us Jews alone , to stay as a special guest one more day With HaShem , Where HaShem Likes us to stay Close and not leave , where during the previous days of Succos we made offerings for the 70 nations , where each day of Succos we offered a certain amount of bulls which , at the end of the Succos Festival ends up totalling 70 , the exact amount of Nations in the World , thus the nations that killed us through the centuries , were actually hurting themselves , where they were stopping us making offerings on their behalf . We also notice that during the time of Succos , the amount of lambs offered daily never diminished , which represented us as lambs to the World's treatment of us , showing that no matter what the nations do to us , we will survive , unlike the amount of bulls offered which diminished every day of the Festival during the days of the Succos Festival , which represented the other nations , showing that they can diminish but we never will . The Parsha ends With HaShem Saying In HaShem's Torah , " Moshe said to the Children of Israel according to everything that HaShem Had Commanded Moshe . " As I mentioned earlier , the Haftorah for this Sedra when this Parsha is read before the 17th of Tammuz , speaks of Eliyahu Ha Navi , who stands up to Ach'av Ahab and Izevel Jezebel and against idol worship , when Eliyahu Ha Navi deals with the false prophets , just as Pinchas dealt with the attempt to entice Israel to idolatry , when Pinchas killed the leader of Simeon and Balak's daughter Cozbi and So Was Pinchas Given HaShem's Brocha Of Peace just as Eliyahu Ha Navi , known for fighting against idol worship , was also known as the Prophet of Peace and is , as I mentioned earlier , to be the Harbinger of Peace at The End of Days , with Eliyahu Ha Navi being the one to anoint Mashiach . Our Rabbonim also have put forward that Pinchas either may be the same person as Eliyahu , for Pinchas was given longevity , or the same soul as Eliyahu Ha Navi , a man who stands against idol worship and falsity and who puts his own life on the line to stand up for and assure Faithfulness For HaShem . In this Parsha of Pinchas in the Holy Torah , we note that within Pinchas' name , the letter Yud is made smaller than the other letters around it In The Torah Scroll . This can show , That HaShem , Whose Name can also start with a Yud , was so taken by Pinchas' action on His Behalf , That Even HaShem Felt Humbled by this beautiful zealous action of Faithfulness and Love By Pinchas . And So , HaShem Made the letter Of His Name smaller than the other letters around it , in the name of Pinchas . Also , In Making The Letter Yud Of HaShem's Name smaller , HaShem Thus Highlights Within Pinchas' name , By Making it another size compared to the letters around it , A Show Of How Pinchas Truly Took HaShem And HaShem's Will Within him , so wherever Pinchas would go , he would carry HaShem Within him and also that whatever action Pinchas would make , Would Be For The Love Of And Sake Of HaShem And For The Honour Of HaShem . The True Actions Of A Very Holy Tzaddik . With the Yud smaller , it almost makes it look like the word ' Panchas , ' where that can be made into two words ' Paneh ' and ' Chasah , ' where ' Paneh ' - means ' Face ' and can Refer To The Face Of HaShem and the word ' Chasah ' ( Zilberman dictionary ) that means ' Trust or Shelter , ' thus showing that Pinchas' action , Showed Total Trust In HaShem And Taking Total Shelter In HaShem and thus Standing In Holiness and earning the right to Stand Before HaShem's Most Beautiful Face . Such an action For HaShem's Honour , Is Truly one of Love and Holiness . When we put our own feelings aside , Doing Only As HaShem Commands And Wills us To Do , we Fulfil HaShem's Torah And HaShem's Wish For Creation . Such an Action Of Trust In HaShem , Certainly Brings us Closer To HaShem . This Closeness To HaShem Brings us Into The ' Shelter ' Of His Wings And Ever Loving Care And HaShem Shows us His Love And Turns His ' Face ' Toward us In His Everlasting Love . This is exactly what happened with Pinchas , who Was Blessed By HaShem and Pinchas was made a Kohein . The Kohanim are constantly Doing HaShem's Service And bringing Peace , via the Offerings , Between HaShem And us . The Kohanim were brought into The Priesthood , from Aharon and his sons but here , Pinchas earned the right of being a Priest by his very action that brought Peace Between HaShem And us , even though Pinchas was a descendant of the Priestly Line Of Aharon , through Aharon's son Elazar , and Bringing Peace Between HaShem and us is what the Kohanim did every day , by the Offerings that they did For HaShem and our people . Pinchas on his own , stood up amid the congregation and took it upon himself to do the right thing For HaShem And for us . Such an action is certainly One Of Very Great Holiness . So should we all be , even if we are the only ones who , among others that are doing wrong , stand up and do the right thing . This is similar to the action of Noach who alone , stood against an entire World of wrong and Faithfully Followed HaShem . There is still so much wrong that people do in this World . We must , even if we stand alone , as Hillel said in Pirkei Avos 2 : 6 ( Artscroll Siddur ) , ' and in a place where there are no leaders , strive to be a leader , ' so be like Pinchas who stood up alone to do what needed to be done , And Work For HaShem , In Correcting The World And Leading It To Holiness . As Hillel said in Pirkei Avos 1 : 12 ( Artscroll Siddur ) , ' Be among the disciples of Aharon , loving peace and pursuing peace , loving people , and bringing them closer to The Torah , ' and so as Hillel taught , we must work to bring people closer to The Torah . ' That is what a Kohein does , for they were our Teachers Of The Holy Torah . This is what Pinchas did and so , in standing up alone and correcting what was wrong around him , so must we stand up and correct , According To HaShem's Commandments , what is wrong around us , even if we are standing alone , this is what we must do . We are all Agents and Malachim Messengers Of HaShem . We all have this obligation to Correct the World . If we see something in this World that is wrong According To HaShem's Commandments , something being done by people in this World , that does not go according to The Holy Torah , then we Must Stand Up and Correct it . If we see others not following HaShem's Holy Torah , then we must Stand Up and Correct it . If we do not feel we know enough to do that , then we are obligated to learn all that we can In HaShem's Holy Torah , so that we can be leaders among others who are drifting aimlessly in the wind with no direction , for Teaching and Guiding them In HaShem's Holy Torah Mitzvos , will certainly help them find The Way To HaShem . It does not matter what some others might think of you . What matters most , Is What HaShem Thinks Of you . That Is What Is The Most Important . That Is What Counts . So go out there Under The Shelter Of HaShem , In Trust Of HaShem and make this World a Better Holier Place Where Only HaShem Is Followed And Where Only HaShem's Laws Are Followed . That Is your Task . That Is your Path . That Is your way for others . That Is who you were Made To be . That Is who is Pinchas . That Is True Peace And Commitment To HaShem . That Is True Faith And Love In HaShem Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu HaShem The Holy One Blessed Be He . I wish Ever Most Forever Beloved HaShem With The Most Deepest Eternal And Forever Beautiful And Sweet And Special Love , A Most Special And Sweet And Beautiful Shabbos Kodesh With All my Love and to all of my fellow Jews and to all of Creation , A Most Special And Sweet And Beautiful Shabbos Kodesh with love .

The Parsha Sedra this Shabbos is Parashas Balak . In the previous Parsha , HaShem Helped the Children Of Israel defeat the Giants Og and Sichon . These giants were the protectors of Moav and with their defeat , Moav seeing Israel approaching , were very worried that seeing as Israel were able to conquer their Giant protectors , Israel would surely do the same to them . In order to try and overcome this problem the Moabites decided to appoint Balak as their King . Balak was not even a Moabite but partly from Midyan . Moav and Midyan were not allies , but these two nations decided to work together to help each other handle the oncoming threat of our Jewish nation advancing towards them . Balak was himself a warrior and he also delved into the negative Tum'a arts of magic and he knew where to curse a person from . Balak in this Parsha is named " Balak ben Tzippor " ( " ben " meaning " son of Tzippor " ) where his Father too was also into negative Tum'a ( impure ) magic . Balak had this title " ben Tzippor " , as tzippor is a bird , as Balak used to catch live birds , skin them and put their tongues into a made up copy of a bird and say certain incantations of negative Tum'a Impurities that would , after a few days , cause the bird to speak and tell of future events . It happened on a certain occasion , that this made up bird that Balak had done , flew away and returned to Balak one day with a sudden burst of fire coming at it out of the sky and singing its tail . Balak knew that he would have to get help , as the on coming threat that was put to him about Israel being on the way , showed that defeat was inevitable for the Moabites . Balak sent emissaries to Midyan , remembering that he had heard that our leader Moshe had grown up there and Balak hoped to find out his weakness . The emissaries returned , telling him that our power is in our mouths of Prayer To HaShem , Who Saves us when we call out To Him , so Balak decided that the answer was to hurt us by mouth , which brought him to the conclusion that we needed cursing by mouth to defeat us . Balak remembered a man called Bilaam who had prophesied that Balak would become King one day and that Bilaam was known as a man for hire to curse enemies and that his curses would come true . Bilaam was the grandson of Lavan , where Lavan was the brother of Rivka and the Father of Rachel , Leah , Bilhah and Zilpah , our Fore - Mothers and so Lavan put the hatred he had for Yaakov , who was their husband , into his children and it came down to his grandson and fellow evil magician Bilaam , who also delved into and used the negative powers of Tum'a , Bilaam being a great friend and counsellor of the Egyptian Pharaohs . Bilaam had a deep hatred for the Jewish people . Bilaam was one of Pharaoh's advisors in Egypt as one of the three advisors ,with Iyov Job and Yisro Jethro . It was Bilaam as one of these three , that had wanted and advised Pharaoh to kill little Moshe when Moshe had sat on Pharaoh's throne and put on his crown as a game in Egypt as a child , when Moshe was tested with the hot coal . It was Bilaam who had advised Pharaoh to throw our Jewish boys into the Nile . It was Bilaam , who had advised Pharaoh to bathe in the blood of the Jewish children , when Pharaoh had gotten leprous sores From HaShem . This was the same Bilaam who the nations were given as a prophet , so that the nations could never say about us Jews , that had they ever gotten a prophet like Moshe they too would have become high and holier , for they had Bilaam as their prophet . It was this same Bilaam that had put an evil spell around Egypt's borders to prevent the Jews from running away from slavery and leaving Egypt , which was called ' Mitzrayim , ' - ' Egypt , ' where this word means ' Borders . ' Thus Bilaam was the negative Tum'a prophet to Moshe's Holy Kedusha Prophet , each choosing their opposite paths to travel spiritually . The Haftorah for this Parsha is in Micha 5 : 6 - 6 : 8 , which is very suitable for the Sedra , for it also mentions Bilaam and Balak . Bilaam had a certain ability and that was to know the exact time to curse someone , relying on HaShem's Anger for a person at that moment . This moment was usually just after midday when the Sun was high in the sky and starting to wane . The Reason That HaShem Would Get Angry at that time was when the Sun was high in the Sky , it was then that people used to worship it as a deity , thus making HaShem Angry At the nations doing Idol Worship at that moment . Bilaam would know the time to curse and putting that together with Balak , who knew from where to curse , the two of them would be a formidable enemy . As I mentioned earlier , Bilaam had originally put a curse and border holding spell around Egypt so that the Jews would be prevented from ever leaving and now it was apparent that this spell had been broken . Bilaam knew Of HaShem and accounted HaShem As G-D . So when Balak sent emissaries to Bilaam , Bilaam first asked the elders that had been sent , to spend the night there to see What HaShem Would Respond , in the meantime , Bilaam , being a man who was completely impure , hoped to have his way with these men , as he would have with his poor donkey . HaShem Appeared to Bilaam , not in the Clear Way That HaShem Appears to Moshe and warned Bilaam not to go and curse Israel , For By HaShem , we as a nation are Blessed . So Bilaam sent the officers back to Balak , who kept sending more emissaries of higher ranks with silver and gold to persuade Bilaam to change his mind . Bilaam responded that even if Balak gave his household full of riches ( thus hinting that Balak should offer more than just his household full of riches ) , that Bilaam could not transgress The Word Of HaShem , even though Bilaam would have wanted to . Again Bilaam had them stay there the night also hoping to have his way with them and hoping to still be able to go and curse us , But Again HaShem Warned him And Told him That he may only go if and only if he speaks As HaShem Commands . The next morning , Bilaam saddled his own she - donkey ( unusual as he usually had his servants do that ) , showing his eagerness to go and curse our people , yet our Fore-Father Avraham also saddled his donkey himself when he was on the way to the Akeidah with his son ready to eagerly fulfil HaShem's Word , showing how Avraham was Holy and opposite to Bilaam and so , Avraham's Actions then stood as a shining Action And So HaShem Allowed Avraham's action to go toward covering us for this incident of Bilaam . In Bilaam's heart , he still hoped to curse the Jews and so , HaShem's Anger Flared Up because Bilaam was going for that reason . So HaShem Sent an Angel to impede him . This Angel Of HaShem was none other then Satan , who is not what people think , but an Angel who comes to sometimes impede and put an opposition in our paths , to make sure that we deserve The Good That HaShem Lavishes On us . The she - donkey saw the Angel Of HaShem , even though Bilaam did not and she turned away from the road and went into the field . Bilaam hit his she-donkey to turn it back onto the road . Again the Angel Of HaShem stood in the path . The she - donkey saw the Angel Of HaShem and pressed against a wall , thus pressing and injuring Bilaam's leg against the wall . This wall place was actually a reminder to Bilaam for it was the very mound that his grandfather Lavan and our Forefather Yaakov had set up , so as never to go against each other and here was Lavan's descendant Bilaam , going against that agreement . Bilaam was only born due to Yaakov's presence there at the time which brought HaShem's Blessings so that Lavan could have sons , for Lavan had no sons before Yaakov had come there and here was the son of one of those sons , Bilaam , now wanting to curse us , for he would not even have been born had it not been for HaShem , Through our Fore-Father Yaakov , Bringing HaShem's Blessings To Lavan To Allow Lavan to have sons . Bilaam ignored the place and this agreement and again hit his she - donkey . The Angel Of HaShem went again further up and stood in a narrow place where no movement could take place either right or left and now the she-donkey lay down and did not move . Bilaam again hit her . HaShem Performed A Miracle , One That Was Created Near The Beginning Of Creation On The Eve Of Shabbos At Twilight , this talking she donkey ( as Pirkei Avos 5 : 8 teaches us ) and the she-donkey spoke up against Bilaam in front of and to the embarrassment of Bilaam's servants and all that were around him . No matter how Bilaam tried to talk her down , she showed wisdom beyond his attempted lies . The she-donkey acknowledged how Bilaam would use her for other purposes , to the embarrassment of Bilaam and showed how close they were , for the she-donkey was forced to submit to such a vile man doing such vile things . It was Bilaam who was the first in history , to open up gambling houses and places of paid prostitution . These three occasions that the she - donkey veered from or disobeyed Bilaam , our Rabbis say , was also due to the Holiness of our Holy Three Fore-Fathers Avraham , Yitzchak and Yaakov . HaShem Then Uncovered Bilaam's eyes and he saw the Angel Of HaShem . The Angel spoke to Bilaam and even referred to the fact that he , the Angel , had to kill the she - donkey or else it would have become an object to be wrongly sadly worshiped . Again the Angel instructs Bilaam to go and say Only As HaShem Commands . When Bilaam finally met Balak , Balak had set up a fake city scene to show lots of people , to try and get sympathy from Bilaam of how many people would suffer if Israel would attack . Bilaam expected a bigger welcome , but Balak sent him only a measly portion to eat and kept the best for himself , so Bilaam decided that he would have Balak set up repeated altars with lots of offerings , so Balak would have to use what Balak did not want to spare on Bilaam for a welcome meal . Bilaam again reiterated That Only What HaShem Says , can he ( Bilaam ) say and that he cannot transgress HaShem's Wish . We notice that each time they went to a separate place , Bilaam has Balak set up seven altars with seven bulls and seven rams three times . Bilaam chose this number specifically , for he wanted to try and bribe HaShem , by offering seven false intentioned gifts to try and counteract seven holy men from our people - Moshe , Aharon , Avraham , Yitzchak , Yaakov , Yosef and Adam . HaShem Is All Wise and so , Bilaam's attempts were turned on his own head . We notice how it says That HaShem " Happened on Bilaam , " - " Vayikar , " Where HaShem Did Not Actually Want To Communicate With Bilaam , But Did So out of necessity , unlike with Moshe , which has the same word " Vayikra , " but with an Alef at the end , in the book of Vayikra Leviticus 1 : 1 , made smaller in a Torah Scroll , Showing How HaShem Wants To Communicate With the righteous Moshe Rabbeinu . Moshe was so humble that he felt that he deserved the same word as was spoken to Bilaam and so Moshe wanted to leave out the Alef all together from this word . So HaShem , To Show Moshe's beautiful humility for all time , Compromised With Moshe And Allowed Moshe to write the Alef smaller . Bilaam , instead of cursing us , blesses us , Thanks To HaShem . By Bilaam's words in each of the four times he speaks , one can see what he really wanted to say , things as a negative wish , But HaShem Turned everything he wanted to say , To A Positive Blessing From HaShem . Bilaam ends up blessing us and angering Balak . Balak decides to go to another place to find a vantage point to hopefully find iniquity in us Jews from there , But Again HaShem Turns it Into A Blessing and Bilaam speaks his second words of blessing to us . Bilaam realized our Tznius and family purity and how not a single tent's opening or window of ours faced a neighbouring husband and wife's tent , for pure modesty , so no evil eye could be put upon us . Bilaam hoped to catch HaShem's Moment of Anger , But For our sakes , HaShem Chose Not To Sit in Judgement that day . By the end of the second words of Bilaam , Balak was so angry with Bilaam that he hit Bilaam in the eye, making him lose an eye and that is why Bilaam then refers to himself as the one with the open ' eye ' ( singular ) , for that is how the evil people see things around them and covet others , by looking with a half closed wrong perspective as Bilaam chose to do by choosing to see things around him through his evil negative impure character . So Did HaShem Return that on him . HaShem The One And Only True Judge And Creator . The third time Bilaam speaks , he talks of future prophecies of what we Jews Israel will do to different enemies in the future , like Amalek and the Kittim . Bilaam even speaks of The End Of Days and Mashiach in his prophecies and reminds the World That HaShem Is Not A Man ( Numbers 23 : 19 ) . Again Balak gets angry and hits him . Bilaam reminds Balak that he cannot go against HaShem's Wish . Automatically , Bilaam suddenly goes into his fourth prophecy and tells Balak what we will do to his people at The End Of Days , thus reminding him that we Jews Israel have no intention at that time to attack Moav in that day and generation , but only in the far distant future . Bilaam then leaves but not before he helps to set up a trap for Israel that may bring on HaShem's Wrath upon us on purpose , seeing that he could not find another way to get HaShem to be upset with us . At times in our history , Bilaam's intended negativity against us has carried and hit us at times , like the 42 aggressive youths killed in Elisha the Prophet's time , when they came out at Elisha , for Bilaam offered in this Sedra 42 animals as offerings . We need to thus ensure that we remain Close To HaShem's Laws and keep family purity and modesty and always be of a Holy Pure Physical and Spiritual character , for Tznius Purity keeps negativity away . Thank You HaShem . A market got set up on the border near the Israelite camp , with wares to sell and inside each tent was a young lady set to trap the young men of our people . Even Bilaam's daughter was set up to try and entice Moshe and with her , Balak's daughter too , also to try and catch Moshe , yet she ( Balak's daughter named Cozbi bas Tzur , where Tzur was a name some gave Balak before Midyan asked for his help as ' Tzur ' has the same letters as the Hebrew word ' Tzureir , ' which means ' foe or enemy , ' as Balak was thought of , by his own Midyanim before they needed his help and called him ) Cozbi ended up with Zimri , leader of the Tribe of Simeon . The place they chose for this was Shittim , a place known at the time for an air of immorality . HaShem Already Had , prior to this , Taken into account the sin that would be committed there And HaShem Had Already Prepared something that would help us atone for this sin and that was the wood used in the construction of the Holy Place in the Wilderness , wood from Shittim . Once the Israelite men would be browsing in the market , they would be tricked into going and looking inside the tents of the markets , where the young girls ( a mixture of Moabites and Midianites , Moavim and Midyanim ) were waiting to ply them with drink and apparent friendliness ( at that time , the prohibition of drinking foreign wine was not yet in force ) . The result was that these women got some of them to drink and eat with them and then end up paying homage to the idol by relieving themselves in front of it , which was the way that these people worshiped their idol . HaShem's Anger Flared And HaShem Instructed Moshe to kill them , those who had done this . Moshe asked HaShem how to know who was guilty And HaShem Revealed the guilty ones , By Removing from above them the Clouds Of Glory and so the sun shone brightly on the guilty ones , Thus Does HaShem Instruct That they be hanged against the sun . The Leader of the Tribe of Simeon , Zimri ben Salu , managed to persuade Cozbi , daughter of Balak , who was meant to entice Moshe , to come with Zimri into his tent , in the direct view of Moshe . Moshe was so stunned that he could not even respond . Sitting near him was Aharon's relative Pinchas , who could not take this affront To HaShem and his Rebbe Moshe and asked Moshe what he should do , for a child of Israel who cohabits with a gentile woman and especially one who is an idol worshiper , the punishment is that he will be killed by zealots . Moshe responded that ' what he states , may he go and fulfil it . ' Pinchas picked up Moshe's spear and followed Zimri to the tent and pierced them both , causing to halt , the plague That HaShem Had Sent . 24 000 people fell that day , the same amount of our people that died as Rabbi Akiva's students later on in history . Pinchas Was now Covered And Protected By HaShem for his action in saving The Honour Of HaShem and his Rebbe Moshe . A very Holy man was Pinchas . It is here where the Parsha ends . In this Parsha , evil Balak calls on evil Bilaam to come and put an ' Ayin Horah ' - ' An Evil Eye , ' on innocent nation Israel . But instead of Bilaam cursing us , HaShem Sees To It That we get Blessed instead . Just As HaShem Turned the wicked plot of these two evil men Balak and Bilaam against them on their own heads , Turning the curses into Blessings , So Did HaShem Turn haman's evil schemes against him , Making his plan come back down on his own evil head . How Beautiful And Caring And Faithful Is HaShem And HaShem's Love For HaShem's Jewish People Israel . We notice that in referring to the ' Ayin Horah , ' - ' Evil Eye , ' we note that only one eye is mentioned . Don't people usually have two eyes . So why only mention a single eye as an Evil Eye ? The answer to this is that those who curse and wish harm on others , are only looking at part of the picture and that makes them jealous . They are not looking clearly , as if with both their eyes open . They are thus viewing a distorted view of reality , seeing only the things that they want to see and not the full picture about the person whom they covet , who may also have their problems too as do we all have . This is why Bilaam ended up with one eye , as punishment for his self - chosen distorted view of his own jealous reality , which is certainly not a reality at all . Only HaShem Sees All , Viewing All Facets Of a situation , as if with many eyes , And Thus Never Can Do Negative or Evil Things , For HaShem Never Just Looks With One Eye as people who do this do with their covetous eye , for all things Belong To HaShem And HaShem Does Not Need to Covet what is already His , By HaShem Being The Creator Of All . We say that one eye looks to the Physical while the other eye looks higher to the Spiritual . Thus to look with one eye is to only see the Physical and the wants and desires of the flesh . This is the error of the ones who curse others for bad , due to their own negativity within themselves . To see the full picture , we need to open up both of our eyes , the Physical and the Spiritual that is within us , And Look On High . Look Always Toward G-D . Look Beyond what we think we see . We see so little with our limited human capabilities . Only HaShem Can See All . Only HaShem Can Truly Judge . Only HaShem Sees Creation As it truly is . All those of the nations who see the Jews in the antisemitic ugly ways that they choose to , are only looking with a ' Single - Eye , ' view . They are not able to see The Depths and Spiritual reaches of the Jew . They are not able to see beyond their own physicality and so , they call for our harm and destruction , Chas Ve Shalom , as did Bilaam and in a similar way haman , as well as all the others throughout History who so badly wanted and still want our extermination , Chas Ve Shalom . But it will never happen , as they cannot see with anything more than a single limited view , the view of the one that looks with only the one open eye , like Bilaam . At The End Of Days , the nations will open up both their eyes and realize how wrong they were all along and that all false beliefs and deified men and false physical deities that they see with only the one open physical eye, were actually untrue and never of any use . The Only True Path Is The Path Of HaShem , The Only Path With An Open View Of The Wide Deep And Holy Truth . So What HaShem Did , Was To Open Both Bilaam's Eyes to Show the True Truth and so , did Bilaam utter The True Prophecy From HaShem . The now open eye that Bilaam referred to , was the one that he never made an effort to open , so that he could see a fuller picture . HaShem Thus Opened his view and so he was able to see the Truth and Speak it . No wonder he suffered in his case , with not a full vision , for he was unholy and thus unable to stand the view of The Tinge And Glimpse Of The True Light Of HaShem's Prophecy . After these prophecies , Bilaam never again prophesies and his life thereafter got the result he had wanted for us , for he ended up being slain by the sword , just like haman got the death he had wanted for Mordechai and our people , and so will be the case with all our enemies . We are now approaching the period from the 17th of Tammuz till Tisha B'Av , the Three Weeks of Mourning , where the 17th of Tammuz was the day when sadly the Luchos Tablets were broken after the incident of the Chait Ha ' Eigel , the golden calf . This is really a time for us to all open up both our eyes , the one that sees Physicality and the one that sees far ranging Spirituality within and work toward fixing ourselves from within , to see beyond our own limited physicality , opening up both our eyes , so that we can work away our Aveirahs And Give HaShem Most Of All and others , the benefit of the doubt , for we see so little of the total picture And Only HaShem Sees All . May we all Truly Serve HaShem In Spiritual And Total Love Always And Forever . I Love You HaShem Eternally And Forever . I wish Ever Most Beautiful And Beloved HaShem With So Very Much Eternal And Forever Sweetest Love , A Very Sweet And Beautiful Shabbos Kodesh With Forever Love and to all of my fellow Jews , A Very Special And Beautiful Shabbos Kodesh with love . Shabbat Shalom to all of HaShem's Creation . May The Eternal Shabbos Kodesh Come Soon In our days .