Well, since that may never happen, it may not be that big of a deal.
[Continuing my irregular series of lessons based upon the Torah portion of the week, read by Jews around the World.]
My observations are prompted by a Gun-Grabbing-Guest invited to address our congregation this past Friday evening. His name is Brian Miller and he presents himself as chairman (or some other exaltitive title) of a relatively obscure group named "Ceasefire NJ."
Mr. Miller will be happy to know that his obscene presentation has moved me to finally join Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (www.jpfo.org). I will discuss Miller's presentation in due course, but first I want to say something about the Torah reading.
This week's portion comes from the end of the book of Leviticus. Sometimes the beginning of the portion (from 26:3) is referred to as "Blessings and Curses." It starts:
If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall last to the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last to the sowing time; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, ...Nice. All sweetness and light. These are the "blessings." But they are followed by an escalating series of curses:
But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; And if you shall despise my statutes, or if your soul loathes my judgments, so that you will not do all my commandments, but that you break my covenant; I also will do this to you; I will appoint over you terror, consumption, and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies; they who hate you shall reign over you; and you shall flee when none pursues you.That's just from the first set of curses. There are three more sets to be applied if the people do not harken to G-d's Law. All together, there are 30 curses and only 13 blessings.
Most of the people in my "Reform" congregation are oblivious to all this. They don't know whether the portion of the week is about Adam and Eve, or about Blessings and Curses; or even that there are Blessings and Curses in the Torah. (twice, in fact - There is another set in Deuteronomy.)
Because we had a guest speaker, my Rabbi did not offer a sermon but he did find time to read all 13 blessings aloud to the congregation. He read none of the curses.
Mr. Ceasefire-NJ was introduced as someone whose brother was an FBI agent killed by a gunman who shot three agents in a Washington office in the mid-90's. This changed his life. He gave up his previous work, and started Ceasefire-NJ, and mirable dictu was nominated by the "board of directors" to be its chairman.
Mr. Ceasefire-NJ started out with a homey anecdote about his gun-owning, NRA member, friend from Brooklyn. Mr. Ceasefire didn't quite sneer when he mentioned the NRA, but his disrespect for the organization was clear. Back in the 70's his friend saw an ad in a gun magazine for some "rings" that would enable only the ring-wearer to fire his gun. So the friend ordered the rings, which "weren't perfect," but they worked. Child-proofing technology was more than 20 years old. Back then a computer took a whole room, and now just a small spot on a desk; and similarly child-proofing has advanced to where the gun can know its owner from the owner's finger prints.
The only problem is that the vicious Gun Manufacturers don't want to put this "proven" technology in their products because miserable NRA members don't want them. There was a sneer this time, and there were lots more sneers to follow. Selfish gun owners don't want locks. (Funny then that someone would advertise the magic "rings" in a gun magazine; and who buys all those gun-safes anyway?)
What is this ? =I= am the NRA. This guy is a guest in my congregation insulting =me=.
Along the way we heard how many little children had died from gun "accidents" and how they would have been saved by fingerprint-sensing-child-proof guns. (about ten a year after one did the necessary division) Of course fingerprint- sensing-child-proofing would have done nothing to save Ceasefire's brother. His poorly veiled message was that we need to confiscate everyones guns. They did it in Australia. People like David Koresh should never have access to guns. Children's lives will be saved.
But like my Rabbi, Mr. Ceasefire only told the fairy-tale part of the story. If this fingerprint lock technology is so good, why don't the car manufacturers use it? I thought about a place I worked that had a palm reader that recognized who I was and sometimes let me into the inner-sanctum when it did. Sometimes it didn't though, and sometimes it didn't let others in either. Eventually the management just left the door open. I thought about the electronic lock on front door of our synagogue which recognizes magnetic keys (sometimes). My Rabbi probably hadn't told Mr. Ceasefire about the time a few years ago when we had to break a basement window to gain entry so that the Saturday morning service could begin at its scheduled time.
Mr. Ceasefire implied that everything was sweetness and light in Australia now that the honest citizens turned in their guns. There wasn't time to tell the unwashed in the congregation about the significant increases in crime there since the ban went into effect.
There wasn't time to ask why the Bill in the NJ Assembly he was urging everyone to support would EXEMPT Police and ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES from having to buy the magic fingerprint recognizing guns. Maybe Mr. Ceasefire just doesn't care about their kids.
There wasn't time to ask whether Israel, untainted by the NRA, was mandating childproof guns.
Just the blessings.
ML/NJ
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