I'm bored by the fights over Pride month. I feel that the community (not going to use the absurd, never-ending acronym for the moment) has achieved a level of acceptance that is approaching complete equality, even if it's not entirely there yet. I'm not sure compelling public displays of pride move the ball.
The main sticking point today is a new issue: not just transgenderism, but youth transgenderism. It seems absurd to me that we are being told that underage children, who are not to be sexualized for any other purpose, must be urged to identify with alternative sexual or genders, with drugs and surgery if prescribed.
I think reasonable people harbor doubts about this issue, and about teaching children that the new dogmas of the left are somehow immutable truths. It is wrong and divisive to describe opposition to this indoctrination, or to trans women (biological men) competing with women in sports, as being "hateful."
Americans are not, in general, hateful people. Even institutionalized racism, when and where it existed in law and custom, was kept in place more by inertia and mistaken beliefs than by active hatred. It's just not who we are. So I'd like the White House in particular to stop making that incendiary accusation.
Other than that: I really don't care much about which brands are identifying with which gay or trans people; I don't care about public displays of bondage in West Hollywood Pride parades (you know what you're getting if you go there, though the city should't advertise the events as somehow "family-friendly" ).
I'm just too busy with my own life to care much about who is doing what with whom. Have fun -- it's what the "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration is all about, in my view. I just don't like the relentless indoctrination of children by joyless people who don't know how to savor the freedoms they have won.
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
