The master key for Avodas Hashem

The Midrash Rabbah says the Torah was given through fire, water and the desert, yet the pasuk in Parshas Bamidbar mentions only the desert. Why list all three, and how do we learn about the other two from one word? The Ramchal's warning about how the yetzer hara can twist good into bad explains what the desert adds that fire and water cannot. A man whose company just went bankrupt walks into the most important interview of his life during Sefiras HaOmer, unshaven, with one halacha he could bend just this once.