1. Trump was right all along: Hunter Biden's job was to protect Burisma from a prosecutor, and Joe Biden had him fired using the threat of U.S. loan guarantees. Trump was impeached for being right.
2. Biden lied all along: He lied about not talking to his family about their businesses; he lied about his family not making money from China; he lied about not having anything to do with Burisma.
3. Dan Goldman is a clown: He played the role of fearsome prosecutor when empowered by Adam Schiff during the impeachment inquiry. But today he tried to defend the indefensible.
4. The media are pathetic: Now they are trying to pretend everyone knew all along that Biden had talked to his son's business partners, when in fact no one outside conservative media reported it or cared.
5. The DOJ is part of the coverup: They are going after Trump while trying to cut sweetheart deals for Hunter Biden that would bury the evidence of Joe Biden's wrongs -- and they are doing it in plain sight.
That's just the beginning. But essentially Biden is a corrupt family boss, and the media have covered for him, and Democrats have bought into hoax after hoax after hoax. It might eventually bite them.
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
