Former President Donald Trump has attacked former Attorney General Bill Barr and former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to do more to stop Democrats from "stealing" the 2020 election. Both were loyal to Trump, but not to him personally; rather, they were loyal to Trump when he was clearly defending the Constitution. When he began casting about for a way to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election, they had to choose, and they chose well.
The 2020 election was neither free nor fair, but it was probably not fraudulent, at least on a scale that mattered. That was partly because Democrats legalized what would once have been fraudulent. If Barr did not investigate voter fraud, that is because there probably wasn't any serious enough to rise to the level of a federal crime. The bigger issues were new voting rules -- some of which were passed by Republicans -- and violence, and media/tech censorship, and so on.
Trump is at his best when he is articulating the case against Biden and the far-left that dominates the Biden presidency. He did that in his speech Saturday night. No one else does it better, which is why he is still the effective leader of the Republican Party. But Trump is at his worst when he lets the media bait him into bashing former aides and associates, as happened on this occasion with Barr. People want to fight the battles of the future, not the election of 2020.
This week'd portion begins the book of Numbers. Interestingly, the Hebrew name for the book is "In the Desert," not "Numbers." The portion, which happens to be my bar mitzvah portion, focuses almost as much on the names of the princes of each tribe as the number of soldiers it fielded. It also focuses on the configuration of the tribal camps around the central Tabernacle and the Levites.
So why "Numbers" instead of "Names" or "Places"? The numbers are, to be sure, a unique feature of the opening of this Biblical book -- but they are not the focus of the rest of the narrative. The Hebrew focuses on the place where the events in the book take place, because essentially this is the narrative of the Israelites' wanderings from Egypt to Israel, across 40 years. We move from the giving of the Torah and the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus and Leviticus, to the final valediction of Moses in Deuteronomy -- Bamidbar is the story of wandering that happened in between.
The question of ...
This week's portion begins with the laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year that restores all land to its original (tribal) owners. It also explores laws of property and labor that will apply in the Land of Israel, and the laws of vows and inheritance.
The Israelites are presented -- not for the last time -- with the essential moral choice that they must face, and the rewards for choosing well, along with the consequences for choosing poorly.
We learn that doing good things will earn God's protection from enemies. That does not mean that victims of terror, God forbid, were sinful. But it does mean that we can respond to evil by committing ourselves to a higher path.
This week's portion describes the major sacrifices that are to be offered by the Jewish people, including those that are offered only by the priestly Kohen class, and physical requirements of the people (men) who serve in that role.
Inter alia, there are interesting commandments -- such as an injection to treat animals with respect and care, first, by letting a mother animal nurse her offspring for a week before being offered in any sacrifice; and second, by refraining from slaughtering an animal and its offspring on the same day.
The commandments regarding animals remind us of the purpose of those regarding human beings: to uphold a divine connection, through ritual.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111878/jewish/Rabbi-Isaac-Luria-The-Ari-Hakodosh.htm
