Jerusalem is finally getting its first big rain of the season. I’ve been busy clearing drains, picking up fallen leaves and branches, and generally battening down the hatches. One can’t help but think how this long-awaited storm is a mixed blessing: great for the farmers, the Kinneret, and the rivers and streams all around the country, tough on those with leaky ceilings, flooding first floor apartments, and the two cops I saw today getting soaked while trying to direct traffic at a busy Jerusalem corner where the traffic lights had gone out.

Since the disastrous presidential election, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about what contexts might be appropriate or inappropriate for “talking politics”. Many seemed to be nervous about what might happen around the Thanksgiving table – a problem we here in Israel didn’t have -  and the question of whether the Rabbi’s sermon, or the synagogue in general, were appropriate frameworks for political talk was often raised. Many seemed to feel that politics should be kept out of shul, away from the family meal, and off the Rabbi’s agenda at this very difficult, divisive time.

This week we read one of the most difficult sections of the Torah – the binding of Isaac. Avraham, along with his wife Sarah, has been yearning for a child who would follow in his footsteps and uphold the covenant with God. God, from the beginning of His relationship with Avraham, has been promising him children. Finally, in their advanced old age, Isaac is born to them.

And then, just when things have come to what seems to be a happy conclusion, God tells Avraham to bring Isaac to a place He will reveal to him and “raise him up there as an offering.”

I was not sure that there was any need to write about the Trump disaster. It seems that everyone has already weighed in, I’ve seen some very good analyses and calls to action, and I’m not sure there is much more to add. There is certainly no point in reciting, once again, the all-too-long litany of what is wrong with him and his supporters; we all understand exactly what there is to be very afraid of.

OK, I give up. I really wanted to write something NOT connected to the damn election, but everywhere I looked, there were messages, signs and symbols, so I surrender – here it is.

God destroying the world with a cataclysmic flood is a pretty big deal, and a really drastic measure. The Torah, frustratingly, does not go into too much detail as to what the sins of the generation of the flood actually were, so it is less than perfectly clear why God got so angry that He decided to destroy mankind and essentially, with Noach, start all over again.

Many people are disturbed by a whole bunch of things about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In the interest of brevity and good taste, I will not mention any of them. I will say, however, that what disturbs me the most about Trump is not all the truly awful stuff he says and does (that’s it, no more on that from me), but, rather this one thing: his denial of climate change. It is not only him; the entire Republican party, along with all kinds of people on the right, is playing the same dumb game of denying the dangerously obvious.

Many people are disturbed by a whole bunch of things about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In the interest of brevity and good taste, I will not mention any of them. I will say, however, that what disturbs me the most about Trump is not all the truly awful stuff he says and does (that’s it, no more on that from me), but, rather this one thing: his denial of climate change. It is not only him; the entire Republican party, along with all kinds of people on the right, is playing the same dumb game of denying the dangerously obvious.

This week’s parsha, Shoftim, contains one of the more challenging and suggestive verses in the Torah. The parsha deals mainly with civil law: kings, judges, warfare. Among the rules of war to be found in the parsha is one with tremendous importance to us, as we foolishly continue to destroy our natural resources, putting our continued existence on the planet in danger.