This week's Torah portion coincides with Rosh Chodesh Adar -- the beginning of the month of Adar, the happiest month of the year. Actually, this year is a Jewish leap year, meaning that we add an extra lunar month (about 29 days) to the calendar so that it stays in rough alignment with the solar calendar. The tradition is that we add a second Adar -- why not have two of the happiest months in a row?
In the Torah portion, Moses conveys the basic framework of civil law as handed down by God. He then ascends Mount Sinai to receive the rest of the law, and will spend 40 days there -- a fateful 40 days...
...He will receive not only the written law, but also the Oral Law. The proof of the existence of the Oral Law is in this very portion, when the Torah talks about "an eye for an eye" and "a tooth for a tooth."
Without the Oral Law to explain that this way of putting this means the monetary value of an eye or a tooth, we would have the barbaric practice of extracting eyes and teeth as punishment.
I love the teachings at the end -- that if you follow all the laws, then all suffering will disappear, even childlessness ... of course this will prove to be almost impossible. But it is a goal to which we aspire.
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 ...
