It was bad enough that the only Capitol Police allowed to testify at this week's January 6 Commission hearing were disgruntled members of the force, one of whom has a long record of anti-Trump statements and support for Black Lives Matter riots. We have also learned that the Capitol Police are opening offices in Florida and California, the better to investigate potential threats against legislators, which is normally the job of the FBI.
Now Nancy Pelosi is ordering Capitol Police to arrest anyone in the complex who refuses to wear a mask -- a penalty more severe than any that is imposed anywhere in the nation on anybody.
Pelosi has long been a petty tyrant. She centralized power in her office during her first tenure as Speaker (2007-11), infamously passing Obamacare before anyone really knew what was in it. When she regained the Speaker's gavel, she insisted that she was co-equal to President Donald Trump, whom she also impeached, twice, on flimsy grounds. She used proxy voting -- not just to fend off the coronavirus, but to centralize power even further. Since President Joe Biden took office, she has lorded it over the opposition, despite losing seats in the last election. She has kicked Republicans off committees, undermining the legitimacy of the opposition, and now she wants to arrest people who dare not to wear masks, even though they may be vaccinated. If masks work so well, then someone else not wearing one is not really a major additional risk, is it?
I believe masks do work, but I would deliberately not wear one in Congress, if I were working there. Let them arrest me. Civil disobedience to this tyrant is absolutely necessary and long overdue.
But beyond the issue of masks, what we see happening is the deliberate politicization of the Capitol Police into a praetorian guard -- the one police force Democrats want to valorize, since it protects the elite politicians against the voting rabble. This damage will take a long time to undo.
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
