This week is a special Sabbath -- "Shabbat Nachamu," the Sabbath of Comfort. It is the first Sabbath of recovery after Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, which is the saddest day on the Hebrew calendar and the culmination of three weeks of mourning for the Holy Temple.
The additional reading for this week comes from Isaiah 40: "Be comforted, be comforted, My people." In contrast to the visions of destruction and exile predicted by Jeremiah, Isaiah foretells a future of salvation, forgiveness, redemption, and, ultimately, return.
This year the message of Shabbat Nachamu is particularly poignant, because of the divisive debates in Israel and around the Jewish world about judicial reform in that country. After the passage of the first of Benjamin Netanyahu's bills, there is hope for reconciliation.
The Torah portion itself continues Moses's valediction to the people of Israel before he dies and they continue into Israel. It includes the Shema, the most famous Jewish prayer, recited several times daily, and in distress: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord, is One."
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).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
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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 ...
