It Is the Passover of the LORD

And Mark Kleiman preaches the lesson on Dvarim 24:17-18: Avodim hayyinu l'Pharoh b'Mitzrayim:

Last week in the faculty Torah study group at UCLA -- which has been fighting its way through Deuteronomy at the rate of about two verses a week for the past decade -- we were examining Deut. 24:17-18: "Thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the stranger, or to the fatherless; nor take the widow's raiment to pledge. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing." A quick check with a concordance showed that the formula: "Do X, because you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord redeemed you" occurs five times in Deuteronomy, in each case following a commandment about dealing fairly with the vulnerable...

Comments

[Guy]

You can tell Bush isn't Jewish. As an American, I say thats too bad. But as a Jew I say thats a relief.

[tante aime]

I got nothing this weekend. Last week was insaner than
usual, Wall Street going up as oil went up, then Wall
Street going down as profits went up, what can you say?
Besides a few million buy-and-go-long's, the rest is funny money chasing funny money at Casino Wall Street,
all on pure margin, leverage on leverage on leverage, a
refi of the refi of the refi of the refi of NYC proper.

But I did observe the passing of Bush's Bankrupcy Bill,
which coincidentally rhymes with Better Business Bureau,
and describes the fate of retail and leasing companies
who just lost another little piece of their downline.

Banks, and especially credit banks, see the best highest
profits in their history. Why not, at 28% interest plus
penalties, they make Usury look good! Now the used and
repo markets will glut with fat profits from the goods
seized, and you and I can enjoy going out for Chinese.
(A little die-a-dog's-death pun there, you'll get it.)

In fact, today, browsing through Goodwill, I found a
walnut credenza, apparently liquidated from a mortuary,
judging from the brochures still in the file folders.
And its cost? $125, cash and carry. A walnut credenza!

Imagine how many repo vehicles will soon hit the market.
Imagine the sinking value of your last retail purchase.
Imagine how many US homeless will line up our streets.

The State's are firing back. Today they announced a tax on estates that have now escaped Fed taxes. The reporter glumly read off the statistics, as though the ultra-rich
were any more a concern for US, as we are to them. Not.
And he closed with this homily, "This egregious estate tax will now affect 125 wealthy families in our state."

125 safely in their lifeboats, out of several million
treading water, all whose lips are barely breaking the
ice-cold surface of the North Atlantic of America today,
now that GWBush has denied them a chance of a lifevest.

"And then they came for me... Every nation deserves the corrupt government it's willing to be subjugated by."
(paraphrase of an old anti-Nazi propaganda piece)

"Let US build a fence along our entire southern border."
(paraphrase of His Holiness Arnold I's rabid fascism)

"Global warming? It's pure science fiction!" GW Bush

"Now even the liberal media is a fawning lapdog of the American Taliban in power." (paraphrase of Billmon.org)

"First they advertise women and especially young girls as hookers and pleasure units, and then, later, they make them wear scarves, and veils, and remain at home."
(paraphrase of an observer of the Afghan Taliban)

And one last thing ... Oklahoma City? I read GHWBush granted visas to thousands of Iraqi secret service after Gulf War I, without checking for double-agents or spies,
and had them living around Oklahoma City when it blew?

Waco? Have you read the transcripts of the survivors?

[Mike Huben]

This must explain why Bush & Co. feel free to tread on the poor. They're not Jewish, and thus their people were not freed from slavery by the Egyptians, and thus they don't owe this duty.

[anne]

Deut. 24:17-18: "Thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the stranger, or to the fatherless; nor take the widow's raiment to pledge. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing."

[anne]

So difficult:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/22/international/americas/22ecuador.html

Ecuador's New Chief Picks Cabinet; Leftist in Economic Post
By JUAN FORERO

QUITO, Ecuador - A day after President Lucio Gutiérrez was driven from power, his successor, Alfredo Palacio, named a new cabinet on Thursday, including a left-leaning economy minister likely to appeal to poor Ecuadoreans, while working to gain legitimacy with Washington and Ecuador's Latin American neighbors.

Mr. Gutiérrez, 48, who was voted out of office by Congress on Wednesday and fled the presidential palace in a helicopter, was granted asylum by Brazil, which on Thursday evening was making arrangements to fly him out of the Ecuadorean capital. The attorney general's office has issued a warrant for Mr. Gutiérrez's arrest for the deaths of two people killed this week in anti-government demonstrations.

After days of violent street protests over what opponents called Mr. Gutiérrez's illegal overhaul of the Supreme Court, the capital was relatively quiet on Thursday. Most Ecuadoreans, long accustomed to political tumult and short-lived governments, returned to work. Still, despite a freezing rain, small but loud groups of demonstrators, fuming at the politicians they say do little other than sack the country, called for Mr. Palacio, who had been Mr. Gutiérrez's vice president, to resign.

'The reality is people are not happy,' said Pedro Oscullo, 33, an artisan who protested outside the presidential palace. 'We wanted to get the president out but we wanted a new president with new ideas. This is just the same old political parties taking over.'

In a country and region where sentiment against market-driven reforms is strong, Mr. Palacio tried to cast himself as a different leader.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday and Thursday, he and his economic minister, Rafael Correa, criticized his predecessor's fiscal austerity measures and ties to international lending institutions. Even before Mr. Palacio took over as president, he had called it immoral for a country to use 40 percent of its budget to service its debt, and his new government may reconsider the direction of trade talks now under way with the United States. Mr. Palacio and his ministers have criticized the government's fiscal responsibility law and have said they would like to use oil money earmarked for the public debt to pay for social spending....

[Derelict]

For American christians, there are only TWO parts of the Old Testament that matter: Genesis and the Creation story, and Leviticus' injunction against homosexuals.

None of the rest even registers--especially all that stuff about usury, oppressing widows and orhpans, treating strangers decently. Gotta love that dichotomy with the American christian movement: The Bible is the absolute literal word of God and must be obeyed, except for the parts we find too inconvenient or that would cut into profits.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/international/americas/22bolivia.html?ei=5070&en=768674bf472a8d8f&ex=1115006400&pagewanted=all&position=

Latin America Fails to Deliver on Basic Needs
By JUAN FORERO

EL ALTO, Bolivia - Piped water, like the runoff from the glaciers above this city, runs tantalizingly close to Remedios Cuyuña's home. But with no way to pay the $450 hookup fee charged by the French-run waterworks, she washes her clothes and bathes her three children in frigid well water beside a fetid creek.

So in January, when legions of angry residents rose up against the company, she eagerly joined in. The fragile government of President Carlos Mesa, hoping to avert the same kind of uprising that toppled his predecessor in 2003, then took a step that proved popular but shook foreign investors to their core. It canceled the contract of Aguas del Illimani, a subsidiary of the $53 billion French giant Suez, effectively tossing it out of the country and leaving the state responsible.

"For us, this is good," Ms. Cuyuña said, voicing the sentiment in much of El Alto. "Maybe now, they will charge us less."

That is far from certain. Even less certain is how she and 130 million other Latin Americans will get clean water anytime soon in a region where providing basic services remains among the most pressing public health and political issues.

Governments like Bolivia's tried the task themselves before, abandoned it as too costly, and turned to private companies in the 1990's. Today as privatization is rejected, foreign investment is plummeting across the region and the challenge is being returned to states perhaps less equipped than a decade ago.

The trend is not unique to Bolivia, where a lack of clean water contributes to the death of every tenth child before the age of 5, and it has presented Latin American leaders with a nettlesome question: what now?

"The decisions that have to be made are stark and difficult," said Riordan Roett, director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. "They're going to have to make some sort of compromise, and that compromise often means buying back and taking over those services - and then, of course, making them efficient in the hands of the state. Their track record doing this in the past was miserable."

Indeed, the heated backlash against free-market changes - fueled by the sense that they promised more than they delivered while offering overpriced, often flawed services - has at once left governments vulnerable to volatile protests and forced foreign companies to retreat.

No companies have been more buffeted than those running public utilities offering water, electrical and telephone services, or those that extract minerals and hydrocarbons, which, like water, are seen as part of a nation's patrimony.

In Peru, despite major economic growth, foreign investment fell to $1.3 billion last year from $2.1 billion in 2002. Ecuador has also seen investments sag, as oil companies that once saw the country as a rosy destination have faced the increasingly determined opposition of Indian tribes and environmental groups....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22Vargas_Llosa.html?ex=1115006400&en=fe95f462315efd5e&ei=5070

The Return of Latin America's Left
By ÁLVARO VARGAS LLOSA

Oakland, Calif.

THE left is in power in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. With this month's inauguration of Tabaré Vázquez as president of Uruguay, this trend will likely continue. The year 2006 could bring a similar leftward shift in Mexico and Peru, while in Bolivia the Socialist opposition has been setting much of the political agenda since the fall of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003. Although this movement is hardly homogeneous (there are major differences between Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Chile's Ricardo Lagos and Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), the continental pattern is clear.

Behind this tilt is popular frustration with the failures of the 1990's, a decade of reform under governments of the right that were supposed to catapult the region toward development. Despite the success of many of these governments in curbing inflation, that development failed to happen. Instead of decentralization and the creation of a free, competitive economy and strong legal institutions open to all, crony capitalism and authoritarianism grew.

Countries replaced inflation with new taxes on the poor, high tariffs with regional trading blocs, and, especially, state monopolies with government-sanctioned private monopolies. The courts were subjected to the whims of those in power, widening the divide between official institutions and ordinary people - one reason recent surveys in Latin America have pointed to such widespread disillusionment with democracy.

This frustration opened the doors of power to the left. With some exceptions like Venezuela, this new left is trying to avoid the worst mistakes of the old, especially 1980's-style hyperinflation and open war against foreign investors. Some of the results are impressive: investment is picking up in Brazil, economic growth reached 8 percent in Argentina last year, and a Socialist president in Chile has overseen a big decrease in poverty (only 18 percent of the population, according to the Inter-American Development Bank, is below the poverty line in that country). Politically, despite a few authoritarian spasms in places like Argentina, the new governments are playing by democratic rules.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that all these governments need to do is stay the course. Unless Latin America's leftist governments are willing to deepen reform, the continent is unlikely to break free of its recurring cycle of economic stagnation and political disillusionment. The good news, however, is that left-of-center governments in other parts of the world have put such reforms into place and lived to tell the tale.

Latin America's rebound owes a great deal to favorable international circumstances, from low interest rates in the United States to heightened demand for commodities by China and India. After experiencing little or no growth between 1998 and 2003, the region's economies have benefited from the high price of oil (Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela), minerals (Peru) and other commodities like soybeans (Argentina, Brazil).

But investment levels are still low: 15 percent to 17 percent of gross domestic product in the majority of countries, compared with roughly 25 percent in East Asia over the past two decades....

[chris brandow]

Thanks Brad, those are good words indeed!

[masaccio]

Anne's posts ought to remind us that when the super-rich separate themselves from society, society has the ability to separate the super-rich from their wealth.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24QUESTIONS.html

Recasting PBS?
Questions For KEN FERREE
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

As the chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, you've been said to represent the growing influence of conservative politics in public TV and radio.

Believe it or not, we don't discuss politics here. We're just trying to get money into the public broadcasting system in the most efficient and intelligent way we can.

But who can deny that politics has crept into the process? Your predecessor, Kathleen Cox, was axed just two weeks ago, supposedly because she had incurred the wrath of conservative groups. Recently, they were outraged by an episode of ''Postcards From Buster,'' which was never shown, in which the animated bunny visits a friend who lives with a lesbian couple.

All I know is that on Friday afternoon the board chairman came in and asked if I would serve as interim president. I had no idea until the 11th hour that this was happening. I don't know what led to what.

Do you worry that these sorts of incidents will alienate the old left-leaning PBS loyalists?

Well, maybe we can attract some new viewers.

You mean viewers who are more conservative?

Yeah! I would hope that in the long run we can attract new viewers, and we shouldn't limit ourselves to a particular demographic. Does public television belong to the Democrats?

Of course, many liberals also gripe about PBS. Maybe the real problem is a lack of creativity.

We're working on that right now. We have a new initiative we call ''American History and Civics.'' There's been a long decline in teenagers' knowledge of civics. So we're going to put our TV dollars into new programming that will not be TV-centric.

How can TV not be TV-centric?

It uses new media. Interactive media. Games.

You previously worked at the F.C.C., where you championed deregulation. Why did you want this job?

What I was doing at the F.C.C., in my mind, was preserving commercial broadcast services and helping them thrive. Now, in this job, I am trying to preserve free noncommercial television.

Isn't the president trying to cut the budget of public broadcasting by about 15 percent?

In the president's budget there were some changes that would result in a net cut to us of about $60 million. We need to be better at telling the story of public TV and radio on the Hill so that Congress will be less inclined to look at public broadcasting as an easy place to find extra dollars.

What PBS shows do you like?

I'm not much of a TV consumer. I like ''Masterpiece Theater'' and some of the ''Frontline'' shows. I like ''Antiques Roadshow'' and ''Nova.'' I don't know. What's your favorite show?

It would probably be the ''NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.''

Yes, Lehrer is good, but I don't watch a lot of broadcast news. The problem for me is that I do the Internet news stuff all day long, so by the time I get to the Lehrer thing . . . it's slow. I don't always want to sit down and read Shakespeare, and Lehrer is akin to Shakespeare. Sometimes I really just want a People magazine, and often that is in the evening, after a hard day....

[anne]

Masaccio, thank you :)

[anne]

The slight interview of the President of PBS is on the wrong thread. The interview, slight or not, is rather discouraging.

[anne]

Masaccio, I like your cleveness at phrasing :)

[lfs]

Anne, keep up the good work.

[Jennifer]

Politeness always counts. Having enough of an important article to capture the essence is what I need. Also, I can later Google a thread by referring to an article. Often I save articles and comments to Gmail. The choice is splendid, and quite a few of us apparently look forward to the interjections.

[Randall]

We need need to think anew why there is not more development success in Latin America. Can Brazil be the real catalyst for change? Once I thought Mexico might be a growth catalyst, but Mexico has had little effect on the rest of Central America.

Wonderful comment Anne. Never be discouraged.

[Hal]

PBS has been a pleasure to watch for many years, but I am increasingly alarmed about the the conservative slant of the programs. I am not looking for conservative or liberal but intelligent discussion, but the conservative slant is never intelligent discussion any more. I am tired of listening to pretend scientists talk about creationism or about global warming as an unsupported theory.

[AP]

Anne; it's really not legal to post entire articles from somewhere else that you didn't write. The New York Times owns the copyrights on these. Please summarize in your own words and include choice excerpts instead. It'll keep Brad from getting in trouble.

[Jennifer]

There is absolutely no copyright problem in posting portions of New York Times articles. We can in turn send the articles to each other or ourselves, actually the New York Times encourages this. Before our Seder, Mom sent us all a copy of a New York Times article and recipe she had saved. The article went to every friend Mom has, and there are a whole bunch of friends about the world. Yummy, yummy.

[Jennifer]

Appreciate all the wonderful ideas this blog brings us. There is such wonderful intellect behind the posts and comments. Be happy for Passover. The Latin America articles, by the way, are excellent and just right now. At Passover we can all look beyond our needs.

[sm]

Let's hope that in Bolivia the corruption of capitalism isn't followed by the corruption of socialism.

[Dale]

There are 100s of verses about economic justice in what we Christians call the Bible. At my church we have an Eonomic Justice Action Group. Promoting economic justice as a spiritual practice. We've had Paul Krugman, David Cay Johnston, Eric Alterman, Bill Gates Sr. and others stop by talking about their recent books.

It's strange. The Bible is silent on abortion. Just 3 or 4 verses having something to do with certain behaviors associated with homosexuality. But 100s of verses on economic justice, compassion for the poor, denouncing the wealthy and powerful. Yet look at what passes for Chrisitanity in the popular mind.

[anciano]

Voltaire once said that Europe had never tried Christianity, meaning to follow the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed the history of human societies is that reformers spring up with good ideas and that their teachings are pasted on external facades by organizations that lie, cheat and steal to keep feeding at the political trough. Power corrupts. President Bush has never tried Christianity.
Right now, many of our political leaders are revolting against civilization, demanding that judges who pass unpopular laws be impeached, threatened or worse. Wages as a % of GDP are at the lowest level in fifty years, but the media conceal this. Tune in to Justice Sunday and you’ll learn that all of the problems of our society are due to puppet judges controlled by socialists and homosexuals. Our society is rich in hate, full of nominal Christians like the detestable Bush, Delay and Frist, and heading for a serious crackup.

[Jennifer]

Dale

What a terrific comment. There is a Passover thought for this evening's Seder. Could this fine church be Riverside?

[Jennifer]

http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/index.asp?id=100

A wonderful church, looking inward and outward, which we have often visited.

[Dale]

Jennifer,
First Unitarian, Portland, OR

I've never been to NYC, but if I do get there some day I would love to spend a Sunday morning at Riverside.

[anne]

"Yummy, yummy." This evening, I am invited to a Seder:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/dining/20braz.html?ex=1115006400&en=a22e21e937d8c95e&ei=5070

In Brazil, Passover Holdovers
By JOAN NATHAN

Recife, Brazil

ONE recent morning, the three young daughters of Jill Weinstein and Luiz Steinberg played hide-and-seek beneath the mango trees at the Centro Israelita de Pernambuco, a community center here that houses a synagogue and a school. Awaiting them inside, for when they were done, were coconut-filled sweets, potato pies and other Brazilian goodies, some made by their grandmother Mathilda Steinberg.

At the Passover Seder at the home of Ms. Weinstein and Mr. Steinberg on Saturday night, the food Mrs. Steinberg prepares will reflect, as food does all over the world, family history and local culture. It is believed that the first Jews in Brazil, some 300 families from Spain and Portugal, arrived here, in this northeastern port, in 1631, seeking safe haven from the Spanish Inquisition. Hundreds of years later, in the 1920's, Jews arrived from what is now Belarus, fleeing persecution, pogroms and forced conscription in the Bolshevik army. The 1,200 or so Jews here now are more Russian in heritage than Mediterranean, and so is their cuisine.

It is in close-knit communities like this one that classic Jewish recipes, long forgotten elsewhere, can still be found, altered somewhat by the use of local ingredients. Most of Recife's Jews speak Portuguese and a little Hebrew (with the older ones speaking some Yiddish). They hold on to the recipes of their past much as the Jews of Montreal hold on to their pierogi and smoked beef, and the Jews of South Africa, originally from Lithuania, hold on to their stuffed matzo balls.

At the Weinstein-Steinberg Seder, traditional Eastern European gefilte fish, chicken soup and pot roast will tell this family's history. But the gefilte fish will be made with snapper, hake, grouper or whiting, all local fish, instead of the traditional mix of carp, whitefish and pike.

Other dishes, too, will have a Brazilian touch. The haroseth, the fruit and nut blend that symbolizes the mortar that Jews used when they were slaves, will be made with raisins, dates, apples, walnuts and sometimes cashew nuts, instead of only nuts and apples. As a main course Mrs. Steinberg, who with her sister Silva will do most of the cooking, will serve what she calls holiday fish, poached with wine, cilantro and oregano, typical flavors of this coastal province.

"I have integrated the herbs and spices that are here into what my grandmother used to cook in Europe," said Mrs. Steinberg, 76, whose grandparents first settled in Brazil in the 1920's....

[Julian Elson]

demanding that judges who pass unpopular laws be impeached

Surely you mean "enforce unpopular laws" or "hand down unpopular rulings."

[A. Zarkov]

Judges don’t enforce laws either. Enforcement is the prerogative of the executive branch. A judge makes conclusions laws and in some cases finds facts. So if a judge concludes A owes B money, that’s a judgment. Usually B has to enforce the judgment, and that might entail getting an order from a judge to order A to pay up, or face contempt of court. Of course the judge has to determine that A has the ability to pay before he can issue the order. In this sense judges do a kind of enforcement. But today we have judges trying to subsume the powers of the other branches. For example a judge in (I think) Michigan decided he wanted a raise in pay, and that not to give him a raise was against the state constitution. So he ordered the state Treasurer to raise his pay under threat of contempt. Moreover, there was to be no hearing on this matter. I don’t know how it all turned out. But it’s a good example of an imperial judiciary that has many angered.

[Jennifer]

Dale, thank you. I should enjoy such a Church, for our Synagogue is much the same. As for a Brazilian Seder, "yes." Happy Passover for all.

[Tom]

Another tidbit from Deuteronomy:

2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
2:35 Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took.

[consigliere]

Might as well toss another menhir on the Deuteronomist's pile. These instructions are from Moses to the Israelites as they were readying to cross the Jordan into the promised land (on that land, see Deut 6:10-12):

When you approach a town to attack it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it responds peaceably and lets you in, all the people present there shall serve you at forced labor. If it does not surrender to you, but would join battle with you, you shall lay siege to it; and when the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, the livestock, and everything in the town, all its spoil, and enjoy the use of the spoil of your enemy, which the Lord your God gives you.
Thus you shall deal with all the towns that lie very far from you, towns that do not belong to nations hereabout. In the towns of the latter peoples, however, which the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, you shall not let a soul remain alive. No, you must proscribe them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God commanded you, lest they lead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God. 20:10-18

And what happens if the Israelites let down their Lord God? Well, that's covered in Chapter 28, but particularly grim in verses 47-57.

[Dale]

Tom, consigliere,
Everything is ambivalent. Especially the Bible. If one uses these texts for inspiration or recognizes that our modern notions of social justice largely came from them, we still have to deal with stories like you have quoted. There are choices to make. Some liberal theologians make a distinction between a royal theology of the Bible that rationalizes violence and inequality and the prophetic or social justice theology. The Bible justifies elites of money and power and it condemns those same elites.

Jennifer,
I would love to visit such a synagogue.
Have you ever read Constantine's Sword?