This week's portion continues Moses's valediction to the Israelites. He promises them that God will reward them if they obey His commandments, and reminds them of how good He was to them during years of want and desert wandering.
Crucially, Moses reminds the people not to believe that when they become wealthy, and when they defeat their enemies, that they have done so because of their own efforts alone. He tells them God is the determinant of success.
In doing so, he reminds them of how God had mercy on them after the sin of the Golden Calf; had He not been merciful, they would have been destroyed.
He also tells them that the Land of Israel is a land watered by rain -- not by the Nile, as Egypt was. The implication is that Israel requires faith, and frugality, and careful planning -- while Egypt could be lazy and still see its fields watered.
The prosperity of Israel would depend on the people's faith and their morality.
This is the seed of the idea, embraced by the Founders of the American Republic, that morality was the foundation of any successful nation -- that the best constitution would be undone by a lack of personal and civic virtue.
The additional reading, from Isaiah (49:14 - 51:3), is the second of the portions of comfort that are read between the end of Tisha B'av and the launch of the Jewish New Year. It promises that God will not long forsake His people.
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.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
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 ...
