This week was, all things considered, a fantastic week. So much happened, and I felt that I moved forward so much, on a personal level… And yet I felt a sense of anxiety for reasons I struggled to understand.
I think so many things are changing at once, that even though the changes are good, they are difficult to manage, and I wonder if it will all fall apart.
I guess this is why we have the Jewish Sabbath: sometimes there really is a limit to what creativity can do, and you have to sit back and let things settle
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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 ...