Take the holidays -- which were spiritually uplifting beyond anything I could have imagined, and at the same time a LOT of work -- plus my finishing touches on Rhoda's biography plus helping the kids with schoolwork plus the usual duties of work and strains of exercise and general household stuff...
...and I'm exhausted.
I've been making the best of things in the past few days by going for dips in the ocean. It's unseasonably warm, even for Los Angeles, and the water hasn't yet acquired that biting winter cold. We probably have a few weeks left in which to enjoy the beach in that special, summerlike-autunmnal SoCal kind of way...
I'm beginning to think that the pursuit of beauty is almost a moral imperative. We've left it behind over the past several decades -- I don't know why. I'm not talking about the commercialization of appearance or the sexualization of whatever. I'm talking about the things we discover, all around us, spontaneously.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
