Parshat Masei, the last portion in the Book of Bamidbar, contains a long list of the many places in which the Israelite nation encamped during their forty-year journey through the desert.  The formulaic list – “and they traveled from Livnah and encamped in Risa; and they traveled from Risa and encamped in Kehelata; and they traveled from Kehelata and encamped in Har Shefer” – goes on and on for some 50 (short) verses, with very little commentary or incident reported by the Torah. It does not make very compelling reading.

My first grandchild to reach the age of Mitzvot – my lovely and wonderful granddaughter Atara - is about to become Bat Mitzvah. I would never think of giving my fabulous son and daughter-in-law parenting tips, as they are doing such an outstanding job with all of their truly delightful children, so you will get to be the lucky recipients of my sage advice.

This week, in Israel, we read Parshat Korach, while in the Diaspora the Parsha before that, Shlach, will be read. I have always been intrigued by the connection between these two portions. Both are tragic stories: in Shlach, the spies sent by Moshe in preparation for the Israelite’s entering and taking possession of the Land of Israel fail miserably, and return to camp with a message of fear and defeatism: we can not defeat the Canaanites, we should go back to Egypt. In Korach, we read of the rebellion against Moshe and Aharon led by the Levite Korach.

The recent string of grotesque and deadly attacks on innocent people, in Tel Aviv, Paris, Orlando, Yorkshire, etc. has produced a conversation online and in the media that is toxic in its own way. The inability to hold more than one idea at a time in one’s head, or to see more than one perspective, has led to a completely unnecessary and quite ugly fight between those who see gay rights as central, those who see gun control as crucial, those who want the fight against Islamist terror to take center stage, and those who feel a need to blame all the world’s ills on Trump or Obama.

America seems poised to elect a boorish, ignorant, self-serving champion of cutthroat capitalism as its president – I hope I’m wrong but the clown has the momentum and the media on his side, and if I was a betting man my money would be on the loon in orange. Before we take one more step on this descent to madness, we should consider a message from this week’s parsha, Behar.

Parshat Kedoshim is one of the most beautiful and significant portions of the Torah. It contains the commandments to love your neighbor as yourself, to not lie and cheat, and to help and be sensitive to others, especially the disadvantaged, in a multitude of ways.

Quite a few years ago, I was engaged in a conversation with a colleague about something pertaining to men and women. I don’t remember the precise topic. It was some aspect of feminism, or sexuality, or a gender issue, or something along those lines. I do remember, however, that I was accused of being an “essentialist”, a word I was not then familiar with in the context of gender. Since then we have all learned what it means: an essentialist believes that women and men have fixed attributes, abilities, and behaviors, which are intrinsic to being a man or a woman.