Perashat Bamidbar

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I. Come In Under the Shadow of This Red Rock (or, Shelter in the Wasteland)
Bamidbar 1:1- And Gd spoke to Moshe in the Sinai Desert within the Ohel Moed (the Appointed Tent) on the First of the Second Month in the Second year from the Exodus from Egypt saying… This week we begin the fourth of the books which comprise the Torah. This book, known most commonly as “Bamidbar”, “In the desert”, is also known as “Homesh Hapequdim” or as it is conveniently translated, as “Numbers”. In general, we have a return to the narrative of the wanderings in the desert of the Israelites, as well as some commandments, most of which, as pointed out by Ramban, are not of normative force today, though as usual we will attempt to derive emotive meaning from them as we encounter them.

America’s Economic & Ethical Crisis Year Five

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By Rick Wolff

The current capitalist global crisis began with the severe contraction in the housing markets in mid-2007. Therefore welcome to Year Five.  This inventory of where things stand may begin with the good news: the major banks, the stock market, and corporate profits have largely or completely “recovered” from the lows they reached early in 2009. The US dollar has fallen sharply against many currencies of countries with which the US trades and that has enabled US exports to rebound from their crisis lows. However, the bad news is what prevails notwithstanding the political and media hypes about “recovery.” The most widely cited unemployment rate remains at 9 % for workers without jobs but looking. If instead we use the more indicative U-6 unemployment statistic of the US Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, then the rate is 15%.  The latter rate counts also those who want full-time but can only find part-time work and those who want work but have given up looking.

Obama Betrays Israel by Capitulating to Netanyahu

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Last week when Obama seemed momentarily to be taking a stand to push Netanyahu toward a more reasonable negotiating position, I encouraged readers to write to the media and their elected representatives to challenge what appeared at that time to be an overwhelming media and political barrage of pro-Netanyahu rhetoric. No sooner had we written that then Obama “clarified” his position in ways to signal that he had no intention of pressing Netanyahu at all. On the contrary, he was silent as Netanyahu received the overwhelming support of Democrats and Republicans in Congress to a speech in which he revealed his minimal conditions for peace that were obviously impossible for Palestinians to accept. Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar puts forward a very sophisticated analysis of Netanyahu’s triumph after Obama allowed him to return to Israel without having to give anything to make peace possible and with the reward of a defacto promise that Obama would now publicly challenge the Palestinian move to seek UN recognition in the Fall of 2011. In so doing, Obama capitulates to the right-wing pro-Israel Lobby, but betrays the best interests of Israel and the Jewish people.

A Pakistani Speaks Out

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A three-way conversation about the United States and Pakistan with Shaykh Kabir Helminski, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and Abbas Bilgrami, the director of a natural gas distribution company in Pakistan.

Conquering Veils: Gender and Islams

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My cause has always been twofold: women’s equality and Islam. For the world to make sense to me, women and men had to be of equal worth and dignity, just as Islam had to be the true religion. Before I encountered the extremist interpretation of Islam, my world seemed wonderfully whole. Afterwards, my world became fragmented. To glue it back together, I had to reconcile sex equality and Islamic piety.

Gritty Wisdom: A Father-Son Journey

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Phil Wolfson’s Noe describes the experience of a family facing the serious illness and eventual death of Noah, their sixteen-year-old son. This wasn’t an easy book for a bereaved father to write: “The memory of losing him still ignites the most intense feeling of emptiness and longing. It took me ten years after he died to complete the chapter on the last days of his life…. Even now, writing this is complete torment.”

Our Forgotten Tradition

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Socialism, contrary to generations of conservative (often also, liberal) propagandizing, may not be un-American after all. A review of “The ‘S’ Word: A Short History of an American Tradition… Socialism” by John Nichols.

Obama’s Deregulation of GMO Crops

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Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt’s uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.

Torah Commentary: Bamidbar (In the Desert)

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Ambiguity and Mystery vs. Clarity & Display – Bamidbar 2011  by Rabbi Zalman Kastel

We crave clarity in an ambiguous world. In the early 90’s I struggled to decide on a vocation. Did I want to

join the Chabad movement’s team of “Shluchim” agents of the Rebbe to

try to bring Jews back to observance or undertake some other path? As

I sat at a tribute dinner to my grandfather Rabbi Joshua T. Kastel in

Boston shortly after he passed away and heard how much he was loved

and how he contributed as dean of the Lubavitch school there, I

decided that I did not need to decide because the decision had already

been made for me.