It was painful, as a Bears fan, to watch Chicago fight back against the Washington Commanders on Sunday, only to lose on a last-second touchdown via a "Hail Mary" pass. Likewise, I know Yankees fans were as disappointed in Friday's walkout grand slam by Dodgers' veteran Freddie Freeman as L.A. fans were elated.
It's always tough to be on the losing ends of these things, but you have to be glad they happen. For one thing, they might happen for your team one day. For another, they are reminders that you can never give up, right to the end.
And most of all, they are good for the game.
People will be talking about that grand slam for decades, and kids will be reenacting that Hail Mary on playgrounds at recess for a long time to come.
But not every last-ditch effort is so positive.
Kamala Harris's closing pitch to voters is that Trump is Hitler. The false Atlantic story; the hoax that Trump's Madison Square Garden rally was a Nazi reenactment; the media talking points that Trump is a "fascist" -- it's all just desperate, and a sign she believes she is losing.
It's also a terrible way to go out. Even if she wins, she will -- much like Biden with the "very fine people" hoax -- have destroyed her own mandate by calling half the country Nazis.
It's also bad for the game.
Hillary Clinton did the same thing in 2016, and poisoned the minds of her own followers, to the point where they lost their sanity when Trump won, and began tearing the country apart -- Russia collusion, 2020 riots, etc. -- for years.
If you throw a "Hail Mary" pass and you fail -- well, then, good try. But if you trash half the country in an effort to win an election, it's worst than bad sportsmanship and you really ought to be disqualified from holding public office.
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
