This week's portion includes the final three Plagues and the Exodus itself.
These are the most momentous events in the history of the Jewish people, and are recounted each year, in exhaustive and exuberant detail, in the Passover seder.
One of the more interesting episodes is the payment of "reparations" by the Egyptians to their former slaves, which happens spontaneously before the Children of Israel leave the country, taking Egypt's wealth with them.
Reparations for slavery are a controversial topic; in principle, they are a matter of fundamental justice. But in the case of the Israelites, the payment was immediate and direct; it is much more difficult to craft reparations several generations distant from slavery and the subsequent liberation.
https://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading.asp?aid=2492615&jewish=Bo-Torah-Reading.htm&p=complete
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
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An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
