This week's portion deals with the final three Plagues (Locusts, Darkness, and the Death of the Firstborn), as well as the Passover ceremony, and the Exodus.
One of my rabbis, whose family has been deeply affected by the Palisades Fire, wrote an extended contemplation of the plague of Darkness. He suggested that we try to uncover the light within the darkness in moments of difficulty.
I have just two thoughts to add about this week's portion. One is about the odd phenomenon of my house being spared from the fire. People have commented that it must have been because of my "mezuzot" -- the scrolls that Jews affix to almost every doorpost in the house in commemoration of the Passover blood. According to tradition, a mezuzah protects the house, just as the blood of the paschal lamb protected the Israelites from the Angel of Death in Egypt.
I don't know -- there are rabbis who lost their homes, and they certainly had mezuzot. Plus, I was missing one mezuzah that fell off a closet door. But who knows? It can't hurt to have the extra protection, for all kinds of reasons.
The other thought I have about this week's portion is about the experience of leaving Egypt in a rush. We, too, left our homes in a rush when we evacuated ahead of the raging, racing fire. Did the Israelites really know they were being liberated? Or were they racing to flee what they feared was a great danger, headed into something completely unknown?
I don't know, but it could explain their slow embrace of freedom in the desert. Something to think about.
https://www.chabad.org/parshah/torahreading.asp?aid=2492615&jewish=Bo-Torah-Reading.htm&p=complete
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- The state of the economy
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- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
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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 ...
