Democrats have deployed "weird" as an insult to attack Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). The word is suddenly constant among left-wing pundits.
Apparently the insult is meant to appeal to young and female voters in particular, for whom "weird" is a catch-all term for everything bad, creepy, or threatening.
But there is nothing immediately "weird" or odd about Vance, save for his beard: there hasn't been a bearded male on a presidential ticket since the late nineteenth century.
The only thing unusual about Vance is his biography. Raised in working-class Appalachia, he overcame the difficult circumstances of his family life. He joined the Marines, graduated from Ohio State, and went on to Yale Law School.
That's not "weird"; that's extraordinary. And it is a journey that the left celebrated before Vance decided to enter the political arena. But suddenly, the elements of that journey are being described as sinister, threatening, and strange.
What is most "weird" about Vance, apparently, is his Christian faith (he embraced Catholicism) and his working-class origins.
To this day, the country's elite struggles to accept the fact that rural working-class voters choose Republicans; they describe it as an odd phenomenon, since they assume that the Democrats' redistributionist policies are better for Vance's constituents than the dignity of jobs in the mines and factories that the climate-change lobby wants to close.
To describe the rural, Christian working class as "weird" is to display a kind of contempt that has become increasingly blatant in the Democratic Party after the Bill Clinton era. It is a classist slur, one that suggests the bicoastal elites to whom "weird" is pitched have no idea who lives in flyover country, who built the heartland. "Weird" turns the rural working class into strangers in their own country.
That is why Trump will win their vote: Democrats deserve to lose it.
This is the portion that all journalists should love: the Torah tells the story of the 12 spies, only two of whom tell the truth when the other ten shade it in a negative away (perhaps to suit a political agenda that is opposed to Moses).
It's not that the ten "lying" spies misconstrue the facts about the Land of Israel; rather, they interject their opinions that the land is impossible to conquer, which strikes unnecessary terror into the hearts of the people.
We have many examples of such fake news today -- from the Iranian propaganda outlets spreading false claims that they are winning the war, to California politicians spreading false horror stories about ICE raids in L.A.
The people realize, too late, that they have been fooled, and once they are condemned to die in the desert, they try to rush into Israel -- only to be defeated by the inhabitants, as the spies predicted that they would be.
But as consolation, God gives the people new commandments -- focused on things they must ...
This week's portion discusses the procedure for lighting the menorah, the holy seven-branched lamp, in the Tabernacle (and later the Temple). It also describes an episode where the people crave meat, and God punishes them by giving it to them in excess. We also read the story of Miriam, Moses's sister, who is punished with the spiritual skin blemish of tzara'at for speaking about her brother, thus violating the prohibition against lashon hara (evil tongue).
I heard a fantastic sermon this week about the lighting of the menorah: that while only the priests were qualified to clean and purify the menorah, anyone could light it. A reminder that each of us can inspire others along the way.
This week we study the vow of the Nazirite; a reminder that sometimes trying to be too holy is excessive, and the best we can do is to be the best that we are.
https://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading_cdo/aid/2495720/p/complete/jewish/Naso-Torah-Reading.htm
