Back in 1996, Rabbi Finman was asked to speak to the niece of one of his students. After spending many hours answering her questions, the woman gave Rabbi Finman her e-mail address. Rabbi Finman wrote the woman a note and included in it a short insight into that week's Parsha and a short Chasidic story.

Realizing that this was something no one was yet doing,, Rabbi Finman sent the missive to his mailing list of about 30 people. Requests from recipients friends came pouring in. The next week Rabbi Finman sent the e-Parsha to 100 people. Within a year more than 2000 people were receiving it. Today, more than 14,000 receive the e-Parsha weekly and the requests keep coming in.

Shlach 5785
Behalosicha 5785
Naso 5785
Bamidbar/Shavuos 5785
Behar-Bechukosai 5785

Shlach 5785

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This week's YouParsha Shlach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HztVvEbkqdY The Names of the Spies

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The mitzvah of taking Challah is discussed in Parshas Shlach - Numbers 13 -16. Any dough of 5 pounds or more requires that some of that dough be given to a Cohen as a dough offering to G'd. The suggested offering was 1/24 but usually it was just a pinch. Why would a Cohen waste his time going from house to house collecting pinches of dough? It would be more cost effective just to bake bread himself.

The Challah was an offering to Hashem - not to the Cohen (obviously the Cohen was Hashem's representative in all things holy). By giving away the dough offering, not only was the offering made holy but also the entire dough was made holy (how could one give away 1/24 without the other 23/24?). The Cohen had the obligation (with power comes responsibility) to facilitate the elevation of even the most mundane - bread.

Hashem made Adam by gathering together dirt from around the earth, mixing it with water and kneading it. Humans are G'd's dough. There are over seven billion humans, 14 million are Jewish. The Jews are the humans' "Challah". As Challah, our job is not only to make ourselves holy, but to make sure the rest of the world achieves holiness.

One could ask, dough that is ritually impure (like today) is burned and not given to a Cohen. Jews are also ritually impure - should we not be exempt from being the Humans' challa. The main thing that makes us challah is our soul which is described as a divine fire. Fire never becomes impure. The Jewish people never lose their purpose.

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The Rebbe hosted a group of Hillel directors for a private audience during the early 1960's. One of the questions posed to the Rebbe was," Why didn't the Lubavitcher movement choose to go to Israel instead of the U.S.?" The Rebbe responded, "The Lubavitcher movement came to the U.S. in 1940, when the British Mandate was in full power. If you have a certain amount of energy and it is your intention to use it to a maximum of efficiency, you must apply it where it can be used to maximum efficiency. There was more possibility to help more people in Brooklyn than in Tel Aviv. The real reason my father-in-law chose Brooklyn is that he wanted a place where he could influence a great number of students and this can be done more easily in Brooklyn than in Baltimore or Chicago.

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