This week's Torah reading tells the incredible story of the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau. Jacob wrestles with an angel, and prevails; at the end, he receives his new name, Israel, which describes a struggle with God -- perhaps the best description of the ongoing Jewish philosophical orientation to the world.
Jacob and his family continue into the Land of Israel, and a disturbing incident takes place, in which his daughter Dinah is kidnapped and raped by Shechem.
Her brothers pretend to deal with the local residents to allow her to marry Shechem, the local prince. But they soon rescue her instead -- slaughtering the entire town along the way. Jacob is horrified by their behavior and worries that it will make him more vulnerable to attack by other inhabitants of the land.
Instead, however, the aggressive tactics of the brothers cause others to fear Jacob and his family, despite their small number -- a tale with resonance today.
Despite his family's overall success, Jacob loses his beloved wife, Rachel, who dies giving birth to Benjamin. It is a loss from which he will never recover -- but her legacy would live on through the early kingship of Israel and the Temple.
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 ...
