February 7, 2020 “The Children of Israel were armed when they went…”  Beshalach 13:18

Rashi teaches that “armed” – “chamusheem” – can be understood as “chomesh” or “5”, implying thus that actually only 1/5 of the Israelites left Egypt. How is it that, even after witnessing the signs and plagues and, despite their slavery, 80% of the Jews stayed loyal to the tyrant Pharaoh? And how ironic, today, despite his corruption, his coddling of White Supremacist anti-Semites, his wholesale capitulation to corporate influence, to the fossil fuel lobby, and to polluters, and his dismantling of the healthcare safety net, that anyone with Jewish values can still venerate Donald Trump? His meaningless gestures of Israel support, more than offset by his surrender of the Kurdish buffer zone to Hezbollah allies, this would-be Pharaoh deserves not a single Jewish follower.