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April 24, 2006
Today's Tanakh: David's Message to the Iranians
Lately I've been exploring, for the first time in 30 years, Jewish texts beyond the Torah. After slogging through what I call the "municipal zoning and sanitation code" parashot, the world that follows Devarim has an unfamiliar freshness and poignancy.
This morning I read I Samuel 17, when David the shepherd takes up his slingshot against the fearsome and noisy Philistine, Goliath. The words leapt off the page in their relevance to the Goliath of today, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Over to you, David haMelech (new JPS translation):
The Philistine cursed David by his gods; and the Philistine said to David, "Come here, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field."David replied to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, the God of the ranks of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hands. I will kill you and cut off your head; and I will give the carcasses of the Philistine camp to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. All the earth shall know that there is a God in Israel. And this whole assembly shall know that the LORD can give victory without sword or spear. For the battle is the LORD's, and He will deliver you into our hands."
God helps those who help themselves, and I pray at this moment that the contemporary Davids and their handful of allies have their quiver of stones ready, aimed at the big fat head of Goliath.
Van | 04/24/06 at 09:50 AM | Categories: Doing Jewish
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Comments
What are: "municipal zoning and sanitation code" parashot?
Robert Schwartz ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.keshertalk.com/nav-commenters.gif)
| April 24, 2006 12:24 PM
Surely not the several parshiot on the sacrifices. Surely not the ones on leprosy. But if personal experience is a guide, don't over-analyze a joke.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) | April 24, 2006 05:45 PM
