Parasha Bamidbar (In the Wilderness): Hearing His Voice in the Wilderness

May 23, 2014 The opening words of Parasha Bamidbar emphasize that God spoke to Moses in Bamidbar Sinai, or the wilderness/ desert of Sinai. God chose to speak to him in a land of stinging scorpions and spiders, a dry and thirsty land where water is scarce and the scorching sun beats down mercilessly upon the endless sand. We can understand from this, then, that a spiritual wilderness experience can be the time when God speaks to us and is, therefore, a valuable time of growth in our relationship with the Lord, who is the true source of nourishment and Living Water. We see this connection in the Hebrew words for desert (midbar מדבר ) and speak (m’daber מדבר), which have the exact same letters.

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Parasha Bamidbar (In the Wilderness): Does God Ordain Suffering?

May 10, 2013 It's often during the wilderness times of our lives that God speaks to our hearts. God might take us through periods of suffering—even anguish of heart, soul, and body—not only to identify with God’s pain over sin, but also so that we may identify with the pain of others.

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Parasha Bamidbar (In the Wilderness): Does God Ordain Suffering?

May 25, 2012 The Haftarah (prophetic portion) promises that God will allure Israel, bring her back to the Land, and that the relationship between God and Israel would be, once again, like a healthy marriage. To understand the themes of marriage, betrayal and redemption in Hosea, we must understand Hosea’s situation. God instructed him to take a harlot for a wife—a woman who was seemingly destined to be unfaithful to him. The rabbis, in fact, believe that Hosea’s resulting domestic tragedy was actually ordained by God

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