This week's portion recounts many of the most interesting events in the life of Abraham -- from the visit of the three angels; to the argument with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah; to the expulsion of Ishmael and Hagar; and to the near-sacrifice of Isaac, the ultimate test of Abraham's faith and love.
It's hard to imagine a man who loves God so much that he is willing to sacrifice the thing he loves the most -- especially when it is his son. It is also, if we are honest with ourselves, hard to image why God would ever ask this of someone.
It seems there is a connection between the argument that Abraham has with God on the one hand, and the test of the sacrifice of Isaac, on the other.
If human beings needed to know that God would deal justly with the world, and had to test him, then perhaps God needed to know that human beings would believe in Him, and had to test Abraham just as Abraham had tested him.
Perhaps God also wanted to show Abraham just how painful it was for Him to sacrifice his own creatures in Sodom and Gomorrah, to show him -- though a similar experience -- that it was not easy for him to kill them, evil as they were.
The additional reading tells a related story from II Kings: the story of the Prophet Elisha and a young boy -- like Isaac, a prophesied gift to a barren couple -- who later died, and was resurrected through healing and prayer.
https://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading.asp?aid=2492488&p=complete
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 ...
