Online Torah Classes with Rabbi Mendy Goldberg

EIKEV

Your Protector and Gaurdian

As Moshe continues his conversation with the Jewish people entering the Land of Israel, he reminds them of many mitzvot they will need to observe. Mezuzah is the one mitzvah mentioned twice, once last week and once this week, each time paired with the reward of long life.

But what exactly is a mezuzah? Is it an amulet? A good luck charm? And what about the idea that a mezuzah gives us a better connection to God and protects us from harm?

If you would like to purchase, check or have your mezuzah placed please reach out to me at [email protected] or 631-698-4000

VAESCHANAN

Are My Prayers Being Answered?

Why did Moshe pray 515 times to enter the Land of Israel when it was clear Hashem was not answering him - and where did all those unanswered prayers go? Why continue praying for redemption after two thousand years of silence?

DEVARIM

Who Are You, To Criticize?

Moses, after forty years of loving, patient leadership over Israel, suddenly delivers harsh rebukes in his final speeches in Deuteronomy, something he never did before, even when the people sinned gravely (the Golden Calf, the spies, constant complaints) and were sentenced to wander the desert for forty years.

Normally partings involve reconciliation, not harsh words, and if Moses had these grievances all along, why did he wait forty years to voice them?

Five weeks before his death, Moses gathered all Israel and revealed a new side of himself: no longer just "the one who loved Israel" who never rebuked them, but now the one who remembers everything, reproves them, and warns them, about the human weaknesses that led to their past failures, so they can avoid repeating them.

MATOS- MASEI

Can't We All Get Along?

This weeks Torah reading contains a striking anomaly: the Torah records the precise date of Aharon's death - the first of Av -even though his passing was already described in Parashas Chukas without any date.

The Rebbe explains this is deliberate: the Torah wants us to encounter Aharon's yahrtzeit at the moment we read this parashah, which always falls around Rosh Chodesh Av. The message is urgent -because the cause of the Beis Hamikdash’s destruction, baseless hatred, is the exact disease that Aharon's life was the cure for.

Aharon was defined by a relentless, boundary-crossing pursuit of unity. He would visit quarreling parties separately, tell each one that the other was heartbroken and ashamed, and dissolve the hatred between them. More strikingly, he would greet known sinners warmly and publicly -well beyond what halacha requires -because he understood that a person is always greater than his worst behavior. As the Tanya puts it: both responses are simultaneously true -hatred toward the evil in a person, and love toward the divine spark that remains within him.

PINCHUS

The Mystery of Elijah the Prophet

Pinchas and Elijah the Prophet are the same person - the only individual in history to conquer death and live forever in this world. The Torah's promise of a "covenant of peace" to Pinchas is understood by our Sages on multiple levels, the deepest being that Pinchas himself became Elijah, the eternal herald of the Redemption reading supported by his otherwise-possible lifespan across hundreds of years in Tanach.

CHUKAS - BALAKAnger Management

The Torah portion deals with two central themes: the sin of "Water of Complaint" and the Red Heifer. The central message is that anger reflects a lack of faith, one who truly believes in Divine Providence does not lose control, knowing that everything is guided from Above toward a good purpose. Moses's sin, according to Maimonides, was anger itself, while the Maharal teaches that anger and lack of faith are essentially one and the same thing. The portion of the Red Heifer appears before the deaths of Miriam and Aaron as a comforting introduction, teaching that the deaths of the righteous bring atonement and that life continues in a different form, just as the heifer's ashes mix with living waters.

KORACH

When Jealousy is a Good Thing.

Jealousy is not an evil impulse to be suppressed, but rather a powerful engine that needs proper direction. Using Korach as the central example, we see how a person of immense potential and spiritual gifts can fail when he tries to become someone else rather than channeling his unique strengths into his own role. Korach's tragedy was not that he felt jealous of Moses and Aaron, but that his jealousy turned outward and destructive, becoming an "all or nothing" force that sought to tear others down rather than build himself up.

SHELACH

This week we receive a deeply meaningful lesson from the sin of the spies. The unforgivable mistake of the spies was not the fear itself. The challenge of conquering the Land is genuinely daunting - no one knows this better than we do, to this very day. The essential sin was that their fears about the Land reflected what was already happening inside them. Long before the Land threatened them, they had already turned against it - they simply did not want it. And for that they were punished: for their rejection of the Promised Land.

BAHALOTECHA

Is Retirement an Option?

Summer is upon us, and with it a season of rest for some.

Nevertheless, a Jew needs to live in constant upward motion. He must break into new territory, advance beyond himself, and move the world toward a better place. Rather than going with the flow and waiting for miracles to happen, a Jew pushes against the current and expands the boundaries of his influence.

NASO

How the "Great" have fallen

Life is one big escape act, with the "evil inclination"acting as the world's most sophisticated smuggler. Despite our best morning intentions, we find ourselves exhausted within hours, outsmarted by our own inner adversary that prevents us from completing even a single task properly.

Every couple of months, we witness another public scandal — someone who built a magnificent career through hard work, only to lose everything in one moment of surrender to impulse, a kind of suicide in slow motion.

This brings us back to the oldest question in human history, dating to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: how do intelligent people fall into self-destructive behavior, and where exactly is their reason in that critical moment?

Understanding the enemy — its tactics, its whispers, its traps — is of paramount importance, because if we can recognize these patterns, we can highlight them the moment they surface in our consciousness.