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.

Naso 5785
Bamidbar/Shavuos 5785
Behar-Bechukosai 5785
Emor 5785
Achrei Mos Kedoshim 5785

Naso 5785

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This week's e-Parsha Bamidbar - Special for Shavuos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN-ZlLprvNI.

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This week is Parshas Naso, Number 4:22 - 7:89. The priestly blessings appear in Naso. These blessings: "May Hashem bless you and give you peace…" are said in the singular. There can be no blessing unless the Jewish people are united as one. This is alluded to in our daily prayers, "Bless us all as one." When is there blessing? When we are all as one.

The Alter Rebbe, first Lubavitcher Rebbe, writes that such feeling of unity can only be accomplished when one considers the soul essential and the body and physical mere trappings. Our primary existence is, after all, our soul and not our body. One who places primary concern on physical attributes can only achieve a feeling of connection to another person based on physical attributes. When that physical attraction is no longer relevant - discord ensues.

The idea of the priestly blessings is not to attain new things but to acquire those things already appropriated for us. It was once described to me that the Priestly blessings are like a spiritual roto-rooter. Hashem wants to bestow blessing, something however, is blocking those blessing from coming down to us. The Priestly blessings open the channels and allow the blessings to flow.

This is one of the connections of this week's Parsha with the preceding holiday of Shavuos. Shavous marks the giving of the Torah. It is the day that Jews began relating to the spiritual. The process started when the Almighty declared his existence on Sinai. That was only the beginning. We are now to take that awareness and bring it down to practical application. That is where the Priestly blessing helps.

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Shavuos marked the yarhtzeit of the Baal Shem Tov.

A chosid decided to move to Israel - the holy land. Before his departure, he stopped in Mezhibuzh to receive the brocha of his Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov. As part of the preparation for the private audience, the chosid went to the mikvah. While he was in the water, he saw a vision of a road. He was walking on the road to Jerusalem. He made his way to the Temple mount, up the slope to the Temple, into the Temple and finally into the Holy of Holies. There he saw the Holy Ark. With great trepidation, he opened the ark only to find it empty. He wondered, "Where are the luchos - the tablets that Moshe brought down the mountain?" To which he heard a response, "The luchos are in Mezhibuzh with the Baal Shem

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