I oppose Musk's decision to suspend journalists, even if they were "doxxing" him, largely because I don't believe that any speech should be suspended unless it's actually illegal. But the social media sites have long said "abusive" speech can be banned, which has always been a fuzzy standard. So this is nothing new.
What's new is that the bans are hitting a group that previously thought they were immune -- because they work for the institutional media; because they are on the left; because they knew whom to call at Twitter to protect themselves, or to have other people banned. Now they are throwing tantrums.
I dropped in on a Twitter "space" last night where some of these banned (really, suspended) journalists were gathering to gripe about the situation. They, like, sound like college students, you know, and, yeah, like, they aren't happy about being punished. They didn't lift a finger during bans under previous ownership.
So while I think Twitter is a better place without such suspensions, and that Musk is taking a commercial risk that the company could become another small conservative platform if enough people leave, I have zero sympathy for the people who encouraged censorship just so their "side" could win an election.
If we're playing by their rules, what we should do is call their advertisers and ask whether they have stopped buying ads on publications that saw journalists suspended. That's how the NYT and CNN sought to destroy competitors under the old regime. It won't happen. But now they know a little about how it feels.
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
