The One Thing I Ask

Written over the course of a year punctuated by escalating terrorism and global turmoil, this compilation of fifty-one Divrei Torah asks the reader to confront challenging questions. —What do I truly believe? —How should I best fashion my conduct? —Why does our world seem so random and unfair? —What does Torah Judaism ask of me? —How can I find meaning in my life? “The one thing I ask,” King David says in the book of Tehillim, “is to be close to God.” This single thought, central to the very existence of a Torah Jew, permeates every chapter of Tehillim. With these Divrei Torah, one for each week of the Jewish calendar, the author unpacks the wisdom of Tehillim, seamlessly integrating this wisdom with the weekly Torah portion. This is the author’s second book of Divrei Torah. In his first book—Back to the Beginning—he probed the lessons that can be derived from the Holy Torah. In this second book, the author digs even deeper, tackling head-on the most frustrating and troubling elements of the world as we experience it, frankly articulating the questions we ask ourselves as we navigate a world that often seems random and distressingly unfair, using the light of our Holy Torah to guide us and illuminate the dark “places” in which we sometimes find ourselves.