This week's portion describes the life of Isaac, who lived a more peaceful life than that of his father Abraham, or his son Jacob. Indeed, Isaac is so quiet that some commentaries wonder if he suffered enduring trauma from his near-sacrifice.
I don't think so: it looks like Isaac is quite happy. He lives a conservative life, occupied with re-establishing and protecting his father's wells, rather than digging new ones. This is a valid, and valuable, orientation to the world: not everyone has to be an innovator or a disrupter. Sometimes it it more important to preserve what previous generations have left to us.
The most remarkable aspect of Isaac's life is his marriage to Rebecca. It is the happiest pairing in the Bible. We are even given some insight into the joy and happiness they enjoy in their sexual relations, when the Bible says that Isaac was delighting his wife (Genesis 26:8), which implies he was doing so in an intimate way.
And yet, Rebecca intervenes to make sure that Isaac blesses Jacob, and not Esau, tricking her husband by stimulating his physical senses -- his love of meat, for example -- rather than making the case to Isaac directly herself.
Is that a sign of a healthy marriage, or an unhealthy one? Ultimately, Rebecca is right -- but perhaps insisting to her husband that she knew what was best for the family might have led to tensions. So she fooled him, with Jacob's help.
Notably, Isaac is distraught when he discovers the ruse, but does not blame his wife, or even think to suspect her. The lesson here is not that one should try to deceive one's spouse, but rather that a happy marriage is one in which partners understand each other's motivations in a way that is beyond the need for words.
The additional reading, from I Samuel, talks about the tragic parting of David and Jonathan, the two best friends in the Bible. There is a thematic link to this week's portion, in that Jacob must also part from his family. But the other, perhaps deeper, link, is the story about the bond between these two souls -- one so close that it did not even need physical closeness to endure. The story of Isaac thus evokes themes of love and friendship that recur throughout the Bible.
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 ...
