Parsha Chukat

Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was not mentioned in this week's parsha, though the Greeks did, for a time, occupy Palestine. His appearance as YHWH's confessor is a device to let us put words in her mouth about how she might have felt about this week's shocking turnaround in her relationship with Moses.

Zeus is also our way of emphasizing one of the things we notice most in this year's parsha reading, the VERY polytheistic nature of our Torah. But that is for another discussion and perhaps another god.

Shabbat Shalom,

a & s

Sharon Goes Native

Sharon shops for Islamic clothes in Ramallah, the capital of Palestine.

Parsha Ba'alotecha

What's Israel's favorite wineEgypt!" Now that we've finally left Sinai and are on our way to Canaan it's complain, complain, complain. The Hebrews demanded dietary diversity! Though for us it's hard to figure why they needed the extra foods since manna tasted like whatever the eater wanted. We're not sure why YHWH believes that Moses needs prophetic help, especially since, as far as we can tell, he doesn't do much prophesizing himself. The lesson of this parsha is clearly, "Be careful what you wish for."

- SHABBAT SHALOM! - a & s