I'm back on the air after several weeks when I was away for family reasons. This will be a very interesting episode, because we'll be looking both forward and back.
Forward: to President Biden's visit to the Middle East, trying to pick up the pieces of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and begging the Saudis for oil. We'll talk to Avi Jorisch, who is doing the hard work of building alliances.
Forward: to the next hearing of the January 6 Committee, which is going to weave a conspiracy theory linking President Trump to far-right groups that stormed the Capitol. The committee is manipulating evidence and has refused to consider the offer of a leader of the Oath Keepers to testify under oath -- with the proviso that he be able to testify live, so they can't manipulate his testimony and make up things about him, as they have done to others.
Backward: to my visit to South Africa, which made the same mistakes 20 years ago that America is making today: failing to invest in power generation and using government investigative bodies to eliminate political opposition.
Backward: to my old home state of Illinois, where the governor is causing for more gun control despite the abject failure of the strictest rules in a liberal community on July 4th. No law can eliminate evil or the need for vigilance.
Forward: to the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential elections -- from Iowa. Yes, I was able to make it to the Hawkeye State this week, and I interviewed two Republicans who are building towards a hoped-for red wave.
Special guests:
Zach Nunn -- Iowa legislator and candidate for Congress in IA-03
Tom Cotton -- Senator from Arkansas and possible presidential contender
Avi Jorisch -- author forging ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors
Listen: 7-10 p.m. EDT, SiriusXM 125
Call in: 866-957-2874
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
