The 2024 election has begun, with the presumptive nominees in both parties already fighting with each other.
President Joe Biden attacked former President Donald Trump over January 6th on Friday, throwing in some old attack lines as well. None of them worked, except the point about Trump just being out for himself.
You know what? He might be. But it doesn't matter, nor do Trump's offensive comments.
That's because nothing Trump did or said (or does or says) has anything to do with the fact that Biden has failed to secure the border, and is allowing millions of people to enter illegally.
That's it. That's the whole election, to me.
Allowing -- even encouraging -- mass migration means changing the electorate one day. It means changing national culture today. It means higher crime and squalor in many of our major cities.
Some immigrants will be hard-working and contribute to our society. But they failed the first test: they failed to arrive legally. We do not want people here who break the laws. It's a pretty good filter.
Moreover, we're seeing the results of mass immigration, both illegal and legal, on our college campuses. The anti-Israel radicalism and antisemitism is relatively new to the U.S., and much of it is imported.
As a Jewish citizen, I feel I have no control of who enters America anymore, even as we bring millions of people from the Arab and Muslim world who have been indoctrinated to hate Israel -- and me.
If there is one reason to consider emigrating to Israel, it is not that antisemitism has reached such terrible levels -- we are not there yet -- but that Israel controls its own boundaries (however imperfectly).
I believe in America. So I'm a one-issue voter. As Trump says, if you don't have a border, you don't have a country. Four more years of Biden will weaken this country and make it more unsafe for Jews.
I find the rest of the debate fairly uninteresting, especially because Biden isn't even trying to scale back the problem. He can't, because he relies on the extreme left. So there really is only one choice.
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
