Why does the Gemara single out Mincha as the tefillah that needs extra care, and why was Eliyahu answered on Har HaCarmel specifically at Mincha? Shacharis is the first thing we do in the morning and the longest davening, so what is so special about a tefillah in the middle of the day? This week starts with Yitzchak going out to the field toward evening and the Tur's answer. A hidden gem in Eshes Chayil, which we say every week around the Shabbos table, ties right into the answer. Then comes a true story Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein zt"l told about his father: a lunch meeting with Milton Petrie, and the twenty-five minutes he spent away from the table.

What does it mean to bow to the dust on your feet? Of all the idols in the ancient world, why would anyone worship that? This question is raised and answered by the Maharal, but in this episode we will share with you a game-changing concept by Rav Moshe Shapiro, zt"l. Then we meet a man from Radin who was fired every Friday for two years rather than break Shabbos, until the war came. Listen for what his wife did before dawn, and ask yourself which of your values you live by and which ones you use.

Ammon and Moav did not come out to meet us with bread and water. Amalek attacked us in cold blood, and we are commanded to erase their memory. So why does the Torah bar a convert from Moav from marrying into Klal Yisrael forever, while a sincere convert from Amalek may marry right in, and the descendants of Haman himself learned Torah in Bnei Brak?

The answer turns on where a nation's failing actually lives, and it changes what you think is fixable about yourself.

I also tell the story of a woman who waited two days outside a Berlin office in the late 1930s. She was told the visas were finished. Everyone in that line heard the same words. What she said before she walked away is the reason her great grandchildren are alive.