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 injustice in general -- not to wipe out another nation.
We are reminded that while the challenges we face today seem new and daunting, almost all of them have taken place already, in one form or another, and usually in the passages of the Bible. We can and do overcome.
This portion, one of the shortest, repeats the terms of the covenant: do good, and receive reward; do evil, and receive punishment. The Torah makes clear that this applies to individuals: it cautions against rationalizing sin.
Deuteronomy 29:18 says: "When he hears the words of this oath, he may bless himself in his heart, saying, ‘I will enjoy peace of mind even if I follow my heart’s illusions.’ As a result, God will add the punishment for his 'drunk' (unintentional) sins to the punishment for his 'thirsty' (intentional) sins."
The punishment for sin is one thing; the punishment for excusing oneself from the moral rules is that you are punished even for inadvertent sins.
The lesson: don't try to make up an independent morality, separate from the one God provides to the people. If you could ever do such a thing, you'd be so great that you'd be worthy of being punished for even inadvertent sins.
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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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