I have seen rainbows on days that happen to coincide with tough political events. I saw one on the day the Supreme Court trumped the states and legalized gay marriage (which I am not opposed to, but would have liked the states to control themselves). I saw one on the first day of the COVID lockdowns. And I saw one yesterday, the day that the Manhattan DA indicted former President Donald Trump.
Update: Now that I remember it, I saw one on Election Day 2022 also.
I don't know how to interpret that, except as a reassurance: things will be OK, even though they seem topsy-turvy. The flood subsides.
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).
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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 ...