President Trump's juvenile eating habits, the World Economic Forum at Davos, and the upcoming Superbowl and its attendant carnival of carnivorous overindulgence focused my attention on the manna, to which Parshat B’shalach introduces us. This food from heaven was one of the major features of the Israelites’ trip through the desert to the Promised Land, and I'd like to look at one aspect of the miraculous consumption of this miraculous food.

The theme of dreams is, of course, central to the Yosef story to a degree which is unique in the Bible. From Yosef’s dreams of grandeur, in which his brothers and parents – symbolized by sheaves of grain and the sun, moon, and stars – bow down to him, to the dreams of Pharaoh’s incarcerated servants which Yosef correctly interprets as prophesying their respective fates, to Pharaoh’s dreams of seven fat and seven lean years – as Yosef again correctly interprets – we have a higher dream per verse ratio than anywhere else in Biblical literature.

In this week’s parsha, Vayetze, Yaakov, after his dream of the ladder stretching from heaven to earth, is given a series of blessings by God. These include the statement that Yaakov’s “descendants will be as the dust of the earth, and you will break forth, to the west, the east, the north and the south, and all the families of the world will be blessed by you and your descendants.” The promise that his descendants will be like the dust of the earth was originally given to Yaakov’s grandfather, Avraham.

One of the things I’ve noticed about the current, ongoing, sexual harassment issue is the role that place plays in all this. “He invited me up to his hotel room”, “He took me to his apartment”, “He asked me to come to his office”, etc., etc. Notions of safe and unsafe spaces, of the weaponized use of private space, of whether we should trust an invitation to come on in or not, seem to be an integral part of many of these stories.

Typically, we make a big deal of Avraham’s obeying God’s commandment and leaving his home for an unknown destination. This behavior is meant to highlight Avraham’s obedience to and trust in God, and his willingness to sacrifice the comforts and certainties of the known for the unknown destiny which God had in store for him. Avraham’s willingness to follow the commandment and just pick up and go is seen as a fabulous act of faith.

The news over these past couple of weeks has been so full of villains, charlatans, and fools, and the parsha of Noach, what with the flood and all, lends itself so well to a finger-wagging posture (one of my favorites), that it’s hard to know where to begin. I guess I’ll stick close to home, and focus on the latest cycle of disgraceful Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) actions and words concerning Israeli army service, as well as other issues impacting on Jews abroad as well: the status of non-Orthodox – indeed non-Haredi – Jews, the Kotel, conversions, and more. Here we go.