I accidentally skipped ahead last week, so here's the portion I should have written about.
Pinchas stops a plague that strikes the Israelites in the desert, when he kills a prince who fornicated openly with a Midianite woman. As a personal reward, he and his descendants are allowed to join the priesthood.
The story is complicated, morally and otherwise. The Midianites are described as idol worshippers of a particularly gruesome sort: their method of worship was to defecate publicly in front of their idol.
According to Jewish tradition, when the evil prophet Balaam failed to curse the Israelites, he found another way to undermine them, which was through immoral relations. I don't like passing judgments on other people's personal or sexual behavior, but it suffices to observe that when people behaved badly in their personal conduct, there were profound consequences for public life.
Whatever we think of Pinchas's actions, it took extraordinary measures to reverse a decline that had become so personal, and so pervasive.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
