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’s portion launches the great story of Abraham, who is told to leave everything of his life behind — except his immediate family — and to leave for “the Land that I shall show you.”
There’s something interesting in the fact that Abraham is told to leave his father’s house, as if breaking away from his father’s life — but his father, in fact, began the journey, moving from Ur to Haran (in last week’s portion). His father set a positive example — why should Abraham leave him?
Some obvious answers suggest themselves — adulthood, needing to make one’s own choices, his father not going far enough, etc.
But I think there is another answer. Abraham (known for the moment as Abram) needs to establish his own household. This is not just about making one’s own choice, but really about choosing one’s own starting point. It’s starting over.
Sometimes we start over in fundamental ways even if much that surrounds us remains the same. Sometimes the journey we have to ...
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.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
