When an Aged Moses Passed the Torch to Joshua

July 26 2024

This week’s Torah reading of Pinhas gets its name from the grandson of Aaron, with whose heroic act of righteous violence it begins. But its most dramatic moment might come when Moses pleads with God to appoint a successor. Erica Brown writes:

The medieval French commentator Rashi notes that Moses, once forbidden to enter the Promised Land, asks only that his replacement have merit. There is a darker midrashic take on this request: “I ask that You should not do to him, as You have done to me since I may not bring them into the Land.” Moses seeks to correct the way he had been treated.

God immediately grants Moses’ request. Joshua is chosen. Moses’ own sons are not deemed worthy. The needs of the nation come first. Joshua earned his place through loyalty and hard work, and, according to interpretations in Jewish tradition, deserved his new status because he straightened out the chairs in the study hall and carried buckets of water. Leadership is ultimately about serving rather than being served.

Read more at JTA

More about: Joshua, Moses, Numbers

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula