Five years ago -- before Trump -- California began slapping travel bans on conservative states that passed conservative social legislation.
The Sacramento Bee noted Monday that with a new travel ban on Ohio, in response to a law allowing doctors to refuse to participate in treatments that violate their moral or religious conscience (think: abortion or gender reassignment surgery), California has now banned state-funded travel to one-third of the U.S. by population, and 72% of the states that voted for Trump.
There are all kinds of loopholes, but this really is a bizarre form of protest, one that severs official ties with much of America: just look at the Bee's map of the banned states. It is now impossible to drive cross-country from California without passing through a a banned state.
Notably, the bans have had little effect. One state, North Carolina, remains banned even though it repealed a controversial 2016 transgender bathroom law. Evidently, it is on the list simply for being North Carolina.
Not only is California showing -- again -- the intolerance of the left, but it is also contributing to the crackup of the American body politic. Being a citizen, being an adult, means learning to live with people even if you disagree with them. You don't have to accept everything they do, but the set of things that should prompt a severing of relations is really rather small.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article254625357.html
This week'd portion begins the book of Numbers. Interestingly, the Hebrew name for the book is "In the Desert," not "Numbers." The portion, which happens to be my bar mitzvah portion, focuses almost as much on the names of the princes of each tribe as the number of soldiers it fielded. It also focuses on the configuration of the tribal camps around the central Tabernacle and the Levites.
So why "Numbers" instead of "Names" or "Places"? The numbers are, to be sure, a unique feature of the opening of this Biblical book -- but they are not the focus of the rest of the narrative. The Hebrew focuses on the place where the events in the book take place, because essentially this is the narrative of the Israelites' wanderings from Egypt to Israel, across 40 years. We move from the giving of the Torah and the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus and Leviticus, to the final valediction of Moses in Deuteronomy -- Bamidbar is the story of wandering that happened in between.
The question of ...
This week's portion begins with the laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year that restores all land to its original (tribal) owners. It also explores laws of property and labor that will apply in the Land of Israel, and the laws of vows and inheritance.
The Israelites are presented -- not for the last time -- with the essential moral choice that they must face, and the rewards for choosing well, along with the consequences for choosing poorly.
We learn that doing good things will earn God's protection from enemies. That does not mean that victims of terror, God forbid, were sinful. But it does mean that we can respond to evil by committing ourselves to a higher path.
This week's portion describes the major sacrifices that are to be offered by the Jewish people, including those that are offered only by the priestly Kohen class, and physical requirements of the people (men) who serve in that role.
Inter alia, there are interesting commandments -- such as an injection to treat animals with respect and care, first, by letting a mother animal nurse her offspring for a week before being offered in any sacrifice; and second, by refraining from slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The commandments regarding animals remind us of the purpose of those regarding human beings: to uphold a divine connection, through ritual.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm
