vital information: Fwd: Torat Imecha Haftorah: Korach

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Fwd: Torat Imecha Haftorah: Korach

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: The OU Women's Initiative <ouwomen@ounetwork.org>
Date: Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 7:01 AM
Subject: Torat Imecha Haftorah: Korach
To: <agentemes4@gmail.com>

Torat Imecha Haftorah is dedicated as a zechus that all those waiting should find their zivug hagun soon and with ease.

Chukat - Balak

Mrs. Michal Horowitz

Listen Now

Mrs. Michal Horowitz is a Torah teacher whose shiurim reach audiences worldwide. She teaches weekly in her Five Towns, NY, community and lectures nationally and internationally. A longtime presenter for the OU Women’s Initiative, she inaugurated the Torat Imecha Nach Yomi program. In September 2023, she was invited by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to serve as the first female scholar to keynote the Annual Pre-Yamim Noraim Conference for the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. She is the author of Abled: Living With a Disability, a Torah View (Mosaica Press, 2025) and lives in Woodmere, NY, with her family.

Dvar Haftorah

OU Women's Initiative

Founding Director

Rebbetzin Dr.

Adina Shmidman

Haftarat Chukat

The Story We Must Tell

Shoftim 11:1-33

The haftorah of Chukas presents one of the longest speeches in Sefer Shoftim. Before Yiftach wages war against Bnei Amon, he recounts the history of the Jewish people in remarkable detail. He reviews the travels through the desert, the requests made peacefully to Edom and Moav, the confrontation with Sichon and the eventual settlement of the land. At first glance, the speech feels almost excessive. Why revisit events that took place three hundred years earlier?

The Abarbanel explains that Yiftach was doing far more than reviewing historical facts. He was establishing the moral legitimacy of Klal Yisrael’s presence in the land. Yiftach wanted to make clear that the Jewish people were not a nation of violence or conquest. Bnei Yisrael had requested passage peacefully. They avoided unnecessary conflict. The land under dispute had already been conquered from Ammon by Sichon before Israel ever fought for it. For the Abarbanel, this speech is fundamentally about moral clarity.

Yiftach understands that a nation must know how to tell its story truthfully and confidently. If a people loses clarity about its own history, others will define that history in its place. The Malbim develops this further. He notes that although Yiftach was introduced as a “גבור חיל,” a mighty warrior, he does not begin with battle. He begins with words, trying to provide explanation and explicit memory. Only after attempting diplomacy and historical clarification does war become unavoidable.

There is something profoundly significant about this sequence. Yiftach recognizes that strength alone cannot sustain a nation. A people also needs memory to understand where it came from, what it stands for and the principles that shaped its journey. Perhaps that is why the speech reaches back centuries. Jewish history in Tanach is never treated as distant or irrelevant. The past remains alive because it defines identity in the present. Memory is not nostalgia, it is responsibility. A nation that remembers its story preserves not only its past, but its moral compass for the future.

In many ways, this feels deeply contemporary. We are living in a moment when history itself is contested, simplified and rewritten with startling speed. The haftorah reminds us that memory is not passive. It requires transmission, clarity and responsibility. Yiftach teaches that telling our story is not merely an act of self-defense. It is an affirmation of who we are, where we came from and the values that continue to guide us forward.

Haftarat Balak

What Does Hashem Seek from You?

Micha 5:6-6:8

The Gemara in Sukkah (49b) offers a surprising interpretation of Micha’s famous words, והצנע לכת עם אלקיך, walk humbly with your G-d. The Gemara explains that this refers specifically to two mitzvos: הכנסת כלה, accompanying a bride to her wedding, and הוצאת המת, escorting the dead to burial.

At first glance, the examples seem puzzling. These are not private mitzvos. Weddings are public celebrations and funerals are communal moments. Why, then, does the Gemara choose these mitzvos to illustrate the idea of “walking humbly”?

The Gemara answers that if mitzvos that are typically performed publicly must be approached with humility and dignity, then certainly the quieter and more private areas of religious life require modesty and inwardness. But perhaps the Gemara is teaching something even deeper. Micha’s passuk itself describes a progression, beautifully developed by the Malbim.

The passuk begins with עשׂות משפט, doing what is right and just. This is the realm of obligation, fairness and principle. It then moves to אהבת חסד, not simply performing kindness, but loving kindness, cultivating a heart naturally drawn toward compassion and generosity. Finally, Micha concludes with והצנע לכת עם אלקיך, the inward spiritual posture of a person who walks humbly before Hashem.

The progression moves steadily inward from action, to character, to spiritual identity. And it is precisely that final level that becomes most difficult in moments that could easily become performative. A wedding can become about spectacle. A funeral can become about social presence. Even mitzvos themselves can subtly become opportunities for recognition or display. Micha therefore reminds us that true avodas Hashem is not only what we do publicly, but how we carry ourselves within those moments.

Perhaps that is also why the Gemara specifically chooses these two mitzvos. הכנסת כלה accompanies a person at the beginning of their journey as a couple, while הוצאת המת accompanies a person at the end of life. At both of these profound life touchpoints, moments of joy and moments of loss, Micha teaches the same lesson: greatness is found not in noise, visibility or performance, but in the quiet ability to walk humbly with Hashem.

This message feels especially resonant in a world that constantly encourages visibility and self-presentation. Micha offers a very different model of spiritual greatness: not the need to project importance, but the steady work of living with integrity, cultivating kindness, and walking humbly with Hashem.