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The Story of Naaman the Leper
Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.
This week, the Torah goes into detail about what is called leprosy — but what is actually any infectious skin disease. The Priests were the equivalent of the medical class, and their role was to cure sick individuals, combining both the physical and spiritual.
This week’s Haftarah, on the other hand, deals with an event that took place in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Yehoram the pagan son of Ahab, when the prophet Elisha was the spiritual authority in Samaria. The two did not get along well.
At that time, Aram (modern day Syria) was the dominant power and its general was Naaman. He was a leper, which did not seem to have stopped him from being a successful military man. Aram regularly invaded Israel and took captives into slavery.
One such captive was an Israeli girl who served Naaman’s wife and told her mistress about this great man in Israel who could cure lepers. The King of Aram sent Naaman with a letter to the Israelite King, commanding him to cure Naaman. When the letter arrived, the Israeli king panicked, thinking this was going to be used by Aram as an excuse to invade.
When Elisha heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes in despair, he sent a message to the king: “Why have you [ripped] your clothes? Let him come to me, and he will learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots to Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go and bathe seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be pure.”
But Naaman was angry. He said, “I thought he would come out to me, and would invoke his God by name, and would wave his hand toward the spot, and cure me. Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? I could bathe in them and be pure!” And he stalked off in a rage. But his servants came forward and spoke to him. “Sir,” they said, “if the prophet told you to do something difficult, would you not do it? How much more when he has only said to you, ‘Bathe and be pure.’”
So, Naaman went down and immersed himself in the Jordan seven times, and he was cured. Returning to Elisha he said, “Now I know that there is no God in the whole world except in Israel! So please accept a gift from your servant.”
The main point of the story is that Elisha cured Naaman not through magic, but rather through faith. As Naaman said, he expected Elisha to perform some magic — just dipping in the water seemed pointless. What Elisha was doing was stressing the importance of faith and human will in matters of health. Naaman was expecting spells. Elisha wanted to distinguish between magic and faith.
You might also see this as a metaphor for how we, who live in pagan societies, can remain loyal to our religious life. The postscript of this story is that Elisha’s servant Geyhazi betrayed his master’s values. Elisha refused any gifts of gratitude (unlike too many rabbis nowadays). Still, Geyhazi had run after Neeman telling him that Elisha had changed his mind, and asked for gifts, when Geyhazi only wanted them for himself. When Elisha found out about his betrayal, Geyhazi was punished by being stricken with leprosy. Poetic justice.
Israel was idolatrous, too. There were good and bad people — just like there are now. Shabbat Shalom.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently living in New York.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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