Parshas Korach

Korach: Moses, I have decided to challenge your leadership. For simply asking why you get to be the leader I may eventually be made into a major villian in the midrash and rabbinic literature, but anyway we want elections or something.
Moses: Look this isnt a democracy. We settle this the old fashioned way. With pans. God has already given you Levites a sweet life. You dont have to get a real job, and you get to live off the donations of the rest of the people while you ostensibly perform some vital spiritual service. In the future, this will be known as "Kollel".
God: Can I annihilate them? Please can I annihilate them? Come on, I wanna kill someone today!!!
Moses: Remember we talked about your anger issues? Youve got to control that temper.
God: Thank you once again. You would think that being God I wouldnt need your advice and/or it wouldnt be able to sway me, but you are seriously better than Dr. Phil. Im going to miss you when we enter the land and you're not around...
Moses: Wha...?
God: Did I say that? just kidding...he..he...(phew).
Moses: Dathan & Aviram, you guys are so evil that you definitely deserve to die...and even though i have the influence to sway God, I have no moral objection your wives, children and even young babies dying too.
God: Yes! I knew I got up today for a reason.
Dathan & Aviram: Oh no! The ground is opening and swallowing us along with our households and possesions!!!
God: OK, rebels...you want fire in those pans? you want fire? heres some fire...(burns them)
I crack me up. This day is just getting better.
Moses: This incident has shown me that we need a more transparent and open system of God choosing who he desires. So we will leave a bunch of staffs in a place only I have access to and see what happens to them. I will go in and bring them out and that will prove beyond doubt that I am not rigging this. (Staffs grow almonds) Looks like Aarons family will be the priests and our family will all be Levites. Incidentally, God has just told me that you all have to give lots of money and donations to the Priests and Levites.

Parsha In brief: Shlach

Hello everybody,
Due to the constraints of modern life, and the fact that we live among the many perversions of western society, many of us do not have the time to learn as much Torah as we should as we are busy pursuing materialistic things. To try and help you, and hasten the coming of Moshiach Tizdkenu Bimhera Beyamenu, I am providing what i hope will be the first in a series of brief parsha summaries - with all the boring stuff taken out.

This week: Shlach

Spies: We will never be able to successfully enter the land of Canaan
Jews: OMG! God has brought us here to kill us in the desert. We were better off in Egypt. Let us try and kill Moses & Aaron.
God: OK, now I am going to kill you all in the desert.
Jews: OK, we are contrite and have learnt our lesson. We are now ready and willing to enter the land and fight, which is what you originally wanted anyway.
God: Yes, but now its half a day too late. So instead, even though you have gotten the message , I will kill you all in the desert - due to my delicious sense of irony, you will wander 1 year for every 1 day the spies spent in Canaan.
Jews: Yesterday when we suspected that God had brought us here to die in the desert we rioted, now that we have been assured that our entire generation is going to die in the desert, we are kind of OK with it.
Joshua & Caleb: Sweeeeeet.

Meanwhile, in a secret location, somewhere in the desert:

God: I have had it up to here with these people. How about I get rid of them and make you a great nation?
Moses: Have you considered what that will do for your image? I mean, do you want the Egyptians to think you are a sissy?
God: Good point. I hadn't thought of that angle. Fortunately, even though I am omnipotent and all knowing, and no human is capable of possible comprehending my thoughts, you have managed to talk sense into me once again.

Skeptic at a shiur

I got dragged to a shiur last night. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The teacher was fairly engaging and actually managed to hold my attention through his public speaking skills (it definitely wasn't the subject material). The shiur was on hilchot Shabbat. It was interesting to be there as an outsider. Sometimes I think I should become an anthropologist. Anyway, a few things struck me during the course of the shiur.

1. At some point he made a casual mention of the death penalty for violating Shabbat. No one else even blinked, but to me now, it is unbelievably abhorrent to stone someone to death for anything, but particularly for something as benign as weaving a basket. It's sickening, but the thing that really struck me was that no one questioned that the ideal state of being for the Jewish people is one where that would happen. All these Jews longing for Mashiach -- do they ever think of how cruel that era could be? Of course, they say that the death penalty was rare in the times of the Beit Hamikdash, but that it even existed in principle is bad enough for me.
2. He admitted that there are some key definitions not given (e.g., for grinding, what tools may/may not be used; how small is grinding, and what may/may not be ground). He claimed that the answers to these questions were arrived at logically by the rabbis but it seems to me to be anything but. For some reason, non-food items and vegetables and fruit can't be ground, but other food items can be. How on earth did they come up with this one? It just seems very random.
   
3. He was talking about why a knife may be used on Shabbat, but a grater may not. His explanation, that a grater is designed to cut things too small, doesn't wash with me. It all seems like part of the plot to keep women in the kitchen for longer. Especially when he said, "I don't have to worry about this, but you do" (it was a women's shiur). Jeeeez, what century are we in here?