My wife and I took the kids to our old neighborhood in Santa Monica this weekend and stayed overnight on Friday evening. A year ago, Santa Monica was devastated by the Black Lives Matter riots. On that fateful May 31, while a "peaceful protest" was happening on a beautiful Sunday afternoon on Ocean Boulevard, rioters and looters fanned out across the downtown area -- just one block inland -- and destroyed stores and vandalized just about everything. The city looked like a war zone for months. Many shops are still empty or boarded up. But with the slow reopening of California and Los Angeles County, life has returned to downtown Santa Monica. Outdoor dining in particular has brought the place back to life. Those restaurants that managed to survive are doing very well, and well-dressed people are enjoying the beach and the whole scene. There are lots of homeless people, far more than before, but Santa Monica manages to prevent them from setting up tents (unlike the city of Los Angeles, which has allowed homeless encampments to line the streets).
As happy as I was to see life returning, something was bothering me the entire day, which only became clear to me as I returned home this evening. When I look back at the past year, so much of what happened was unnecessary. Not just the COVID restrictions, which were way over-the-top, and largely political, but all the protesting and rioting and canceling -- everything.
We didn't just live through a pandemic; we lived through a violent revolution that we're not allowed to identify as such. When Joe Biden emerged -- almost by default -- as the Democratic Party nominee, the left, which hated him and did not believe he could win, decided that it would take matters into its own hands, and they launched violence across the country. The message -- alter echoed by Biden -- was clear: the violence will continue if Trump wins. The Democratic Party apparatchiks did their part by changing the voting rules and using Zuckerberg's money to push turnout and censoring social media and all of that. But the bigger picture was that the left used violence and censorship to take power. The sooner we are honest about this, the sooner we can start to push back against the ongoing efforts to take our freedoms away from us.
This is my first broadcast from the new office and studio in Washington, DC, where I'll be for a couple of years my neighborhood back in L.A. cleans up -- and as we follow the Trump administration from a little closer up than usual.
Topics:
- The anniversary of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump
- The escalating tariff battle with various different trading partners
- The future of the Middle East peace talks, and ongoing antisemitism
- The Jeffrey Epstein files and whether they mean anything at all
- The continued crisis of the Texas floods, and stories of heroism and survival
And more!
Special guests:
- James Rosen - Newsmax chief Washington correspondent
- Bob Price - Breitbart News Texas reporter, on the ongoing floods
- Robert Cahill - Trafalgar Polling, on a new alliance of reliable pollsters
- Rabbi Yaakov Menken - Coalition for Jewish Values - on Israel & antisemitism
Tune in: 7-10 p.m. ET, 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week’s portion tells the grand story of the prophet who tried to curse people of Israel and instead ended up blessing them.
I am reminded that these portions continue to be relevant anew, as this particular reading lent the title for Israel’s recent 12 Day War against Iran, “Operation Rising Lion.”
This week's portion includes the commandment of the red heifer -- one of the classic "irrational" commandments whose fulfillment is an expression of faith. It also includes the regrettable episode in which Moses strikes the rock.
I referred to this story in a wedding speech last night. Why was Moses punished for striking the rock in Numbers, when he struck the rock without incident in Exodus -- both for the purpose of providing water to the people?
The answer is that in the interim, the Jewish people had received the Torah, which is like the marriage contract between the people of Israel and God. In a marriage, you do not resolve things by breaking boundaries, but through love.
The additional reading, from Judges Chapter 11, is the story of Jephthah (Yiftach), a man whom the leaders spurn, but to whom they must turn to save the nation. The parallels to our present political circumstances are striking.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Fourth of July!
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