EGYPT’S PHARAOH AND AMERICA’S 

The Torah and the Israel-Gaza war offer lessons about denying reality and risking terrible consequences. In Exodus, God strikes Egypt with ten plagues, concluding with the slaying of the firstborn. Pharaoh had continually refused to let Israel go. At first, he hardening his own heart. Then God hardened it. The biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman…

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MOSES AND THE OVAL OFFICE

The terrorist insurrection at the Capitol shocked the nation. Donald Trump’s second impeachment not so much. The American Pharaoh was headed for disaster. His leadership stood in contrast to that of Moses.  Rabbi Shai Held spotlights Moses’ leadership strengths in The Heart of Torah: Essays on the Weekly Torah Portion: Genesis and Exodus, Volume 1 (2017).  In…

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