Passover is here, just days after the Israeli government suspended plans for judicial reform amid nationwide protests. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for unity on the eve of Passover.
But that wasn't good enough for the left, which has continued protests and provocations. And the English-language Israeli press, which has moved left over the years, has followed right along.
The Times of Israel, edited by David Horovitz, seems to have lost its way. Horovitz compared Netanyahu to Pharaoh and has urged readers to see this Passover in the context of a fight against tyranny.
On the right, Caroline Glick has a more credible message, talking about how the long history of Passover should remind us that the Jewish People have endured far worse, as has Israel, and survived.
I would rather that Passover politics not become the Jewish version of Thanksgiving politics. Let the story of the Exodus guide us; its meaning is timeless and transcends the pettiness of current events.
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.
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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 ...
