Before the global pandemic, most people in developed nations didn’t think much about plagues. Clean water, sewage infrastructure, refrigeration, and decent basic medical care ensured that the scourges of the Bible and Middle Ages seemed like a distant memory. Because of that, the extended passages in Leviticus about Biblical leprosy often struck a modern reader as antiquated, bizarre, or completely irrelevant. We now recognize that humanity may never escape periodic plagues
Before the global pandemic, most people in developed nations didn’t think much about plagues. Clean water, sewage infrastructure, refrigeration, and decent basic medical care ensured that the scourges of the Bible and Middle Ages seemed like a distant memory. Because of that, the extended passages in Leviticus about Biblical leprosy often struck a modern reader as antiquated, bizarre, or completely irrelevant. We now recognize that humanity may never escape periodic plagues
What a few weeks it has been! Fields of tents, broken windows, paint splattered walls, peaceful protests, violent riots, political speech, and violent hate-speech. It is safe to say that our national attention has been fixated on Columbia, NYU, Yale, Arizona State, USC, Cal Poly Humboldt, and a dozen more schools. Here in Portland, the PSU library was occupied, windows were smashed, walls were tagged, and classes were cancelled.
Before the global pandemic, most people in developed nations didn’t think much about plagues. Clean water, sewage infrastructure, refrigeration, and decent basic medical care ensured that the scourges of the Bible and Middle Ages seemed like a distant memory. Because of that, the extended passages in Leviticus about Biblical leprosy often struck a modern reader as antiquated, bizarre, or completely irrelevant. We now recognize that humanity may never escape periodic plagues
In rabbinical school, the phrase "I’ll see you on the other side," spoken as Passover approached, was more than a temporal marker: it was a ritual re-enactment. It suggested that, like the Israelites at the Red Sea, we, too, were navigating passages of profound transformation. This sentiment echoes through this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Beshallach, where the recently freed Israelites face an existential crisis, pinned between the sea and Pharaoh's advancing army.
Before the global pandemic, most people in developed nations didn’t think much about plagues. Clean water, sewage infrastructure, refrigeration, and decent basic medical care ensured that the scourges of the Bible and Middle Ages seemed like a distant memory. Because of that, the extended passages in Leviticus about Biblical leprosy often struck a modern reader as antiquated, bizarre, or completely irrelevant. We now recognize that humanity may never escape periodic plagues
Before the global pandemic, most people in developed nations didn’t think much about plagues. Clean water, sewage infrastructure, refrigeration, and decent basic medical care ensured that the scourges of the Bible and Middle Ages seemed like a distant memory. Because of that, the extended passages in Leviticus about Biblical leprosy often struck a modern reader as antiquated, bizarre, or completely irrelevant. We now recognize that humanity may never escape periodic plagues
