The first rule of power is: He who has the power makes the rules.
Throughout human history, the civilization with the most powerful was dominant. Early on, the best form of power was human power, and civilizations with enormous slave power dominated. Egypt built its entire civilization on the backs of slaves; pyramids, palaces, and Sphinxes, were built by millions of slaves toiling for free. Of course they build amazing edifices still a marvel today, they didn’t even have to pay minimum wage, and they could use millions of hands to build their cities and support their lavish lifestyles.
The same could be said for the Chinese, they used millions of slaves to build the Great Wall of China, which contrary to popular myth can’t be seen from space, but can be seen from anywhere near its 13,000 miles of wall! It may have not been successful at keeping out invaders (contact your local Mongol or Manchu community for 10 Simple Tips To Invade Through a Great Wall), but it sure did project power just by standing there! Slaves also built their massive Forbidden City, reserved for the nobility and ruling class, and ensured that the Middle Kingdom thrived for over 1,000 years!
Later in history, Spain and England learned how to harness wind power to send massive ships and galleons all over the globe, conquering foreign powers and building empires far bigger than anything Genghis Khan and his wild cavalry ever dreamed of. Then James Watt of Scotland invented the modern steam engine, and suddenly power could be produced on demand, not waiting for nature to send wind.
The country with an almost limitless supply of coal, Britain, was able to dominate the seas with their steam powered Royal Navy and build a British Empire that spanned the globe! They also used their power domestically, to power factories in England that produced textiles and a myriad of other manufactured goods that were sold and traded to the world, keeping Britain on the top of the food chain for centuries.
When oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, it was first seen as a dirty nuisance. But as soon as people realized that it was even more energy dense than coal, oil became the dominant form of energy production, and the US became the global superpower. Cars became an essential part of life, and oil powered ships, tanks, and airplanes decided wars. Power shifted from Britain to the USA, the largest producer of oil in the world. When the Middle East took over as the largest producer of oil in the 1970’s, the Middle East became a player on the global scene for the first time in centuries.
This all leads us to the current age, when power production has shifted again. This time, China is once again the largest producer of power in the world, producing over 10,000 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2024, compared to just 4,500 TWh in the US and 2,772 TWh in all of Europe combined. It’s no wonder that China is the manufacturing hub of the world, they have the most power, and power fuels manufacturing. They produce 13 times more steel than the US, they produce 27% of the world’s manufacturing output compared to the US’s 17%, and they outproduce the US by $1.7 trillion yearly. How did they get so much power?
Here is China’s dirty secret: they produce insane amounts of cheap dirty electricity from coal. 55% of the world’s coal power is produced in China, 6.2% in the US, and only 2.5% in Europe. Coal may not be as dense as oil, but it is much easier to produce, so China has been building coal-fired power plants so fast that a new one has opened almost every other week for the last twenty years!
The rational thinker might ask, how has one country built so many coal fired power plants, that they now account for over half the coal power plants in the world, while the rest of the world has seen their number of coal fired plants shrink? Doesn’t that mean that energy is becoming cheaper in China while it gets more expensive in the rest of the world?
The answer is: yes. China understands the first rule of power: He who has the power makes the rules. So they have built more and more coal fired plants that can produce energy for really cheap. But what about the rest of the world, why don’t they do the same? Here is where it gets super devious. China has convinced the rest of the world that coal is bad for the environment, and has spent billions of dollars on activists who block the development of cheap energy all over the world, while building up their cheap coal-fired energy at the same time. Because of their cheap energy, China has been able to build a larger navy than the US, a manufacturing base that overshadows the rest of the world, and an army that dwarfs that of all other countries.
China knows that the rest of the world can be easily played, so they invest heavily in making the rest of the world pay much more for their energy, while they build, pollute, and manufacture, using dirty energy. They don’t give two hoots about climate change, but they make sure we do. They pay for activists and professors who preach about climate change and how it will send our world into oblivion. They fund non-governmental organizations, (NGOs) that sue every time a power plant is proposed. And they influence and promote activist judges who block the building of power plants that use the most abundant and inexpensive power in the world, coal power.
Let’s take for example the Energy Foundation China (EFC) an NGO based in San Francisco. They have given out over $500 million to over 4,000 “climate related projects.” Every one of these projects work to hobble energy production in the US. They enlist armies of students and professors who work to agitate against any new power plant proposed in the US. They also create conferences and media tools to promote scary information about how climate change will destroy the world if we don’t get to a carbon-neutral world in the next few years. They pay for studies, they fund university departments, and they have successfully created a fear of climate change that has caused entire continents (the EU, North America) to curb their own power generation. Its CEO and president, Professor Ji Zou, is based in Beijing, seems to have deep connections with the Chinese Communist Party, and is a visiting professor at Harvard University and the London School of Economics! Ji Zou represented China at the Paris Accords, which was signed and agreed upon by over 194 countries in 2015. These countries included the US, the European Union and China, and they all agreed to significantly limit their emissions. (The US joined under Obama, left under Trump, rejoined under Biden and is still officially part of the accords.)
The only difference is that all the other countries have taken the steps outlined for them in the Paris Accords, with the exception of China, which has only increased their emissions with more and more coal-fired power plants. This also puts China at the forefront of the rare earth minerals production. Rare earths can be mined easily, but extraction from the raw ore is very energy intensive, so most countries simply shift the raw ingredients to China, and China extracts them using cheap coal-fired electricity! Rare earth minerals are needed in electronics and military equipment, so China is also the primary exporter of so many military components that the US Army can’t function without China produced materials!
What do we learn from this? The most important law of them all, the Law of Actions: Judge people not by what they say but by what they do.
People say, “Islam is a religion of Peace” (a quote literally said by George W Bush after Islamist attacked the US on 9/11), but Islamist groups entirely make up the 10 most violent and lethal terrorist groups on earth:
1. Islamic State (IS) and Affiliates
2. Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM)
3. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
4. Al-Shabaab
5. Boko Haram
6. Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISK)
7. Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWA)
8. Hamas
9. Al-Qaeda
10. Hezbollah
The Chinese government spends billions telling the world that climate change will destroy the earth, while they build new coal plants every week for twenty years. Scientist tell you they only talk about topics they can measure in the laboratory but then lecture you about how believing in G-d is ridiculous, and talk about spontaneous Big Bangs where they have no explanation for how the energy got there, and no proofs for showing that the Big Bang was spontaneous that they can show you in a laboratory. The husband says he loves his wife more than anything, but acts like he loves anything more than his wife.
The lesson we learn is that talk is cheap and action is telling. Which brings us to the time of year. We have just entered Elul, the month that precedes the High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Day of Judgement and the Day of Atonement. When G-d will have a one-on-one conversation with us on the Day of Judgement, He won’t ask us what we said last year, He will ask us what we did. When we come before him on Yom Kippur saying we regret all the bad things we’ve done in the previous year, He will ask us to show Him the receipts. What did we do that shows we regret the bad things we’ve done.
Elul is the time of action. It’s the time that we need to make the changes in our behavior not our speech, so that when we show up on Rosh Hashanah for our day of Judgement and on Yom Kippur to plead for full atonement, we can show Hashem that we are putting our full power into being the person we want to be judged as.
Elul is the month where the first rule of power plays the biggest role, the month when where we put our power makes will make the rules for the whole next year. Let’s use our power, to manufacture the person we want to be.
Parsha Dvar Torah
In this week’s portion Moshe commands the people to set up a meticulous judicial system in the homeland the Jews are about to inherit, including courts in every city.
"Judges and officers shall you place for yourself, in all of your gates which HaShem your G-d gives you..." [16:18]
The commentators all discuss the fact that the Torah says that the judges and officers should be “for yourself,” in the singular. This means that besides the general command that the people set up a judicial system for the nation, we are also being told to set up some sort of judicial system for ourselves. Moshe was hinting to the Jewish people that before they take care of judging other people they should be judge themselves.
That being the case, what exactly are the judges and officers that we should set up for ourselves? I would understand the idea of judging ourselves, or judging the actions that we are about to engage in to make sure they are in line, but what exactly would be the role of the officers which we should be setting up for ourselves?
We can perhaps understand this using an insight from Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (a.k.a. the Ramchal, 1707-1746, Italy-Amsterdam-Israel) in his magnum opus, the Messilat Yesharim. In the third chapter, when discussing the different aspects of the character trait called watchfulness, the Ramchal says that there are two times when a person needs to contemplate his actions to ensure that nothing he does is negative or harmful. The first is at a time when he is not involved in anything. At some point during the day, a person should set aside time to meditatively look through all his actions and judge them. However, a person also needs to pay careful attention to what he is doing while it occurs, because often a person can get caught up in the emotion and charge of the moment and forget or disregard what he previously thought about.
An example of this would be someone thinking over his day’s actions, and noticing that he got angry and lost control that day. He then thinks about how negative that experience was, and comes up with strategies to avoid losing control the next day. However, the next day, when one of his children spills hot chocolate over his freshly pressed pants, he will need to once again stop and think about what he is about to do. Is he going to yell at the child? How loudly? Is he going to say things that attack the child as a person, as opposed to what they did? In this way he thinks about his actions twice, once away from the situation when his emotion is not charged, and once in the heat of the moment.
Those two thought processes are the judges and officers that Moshe was telling us to set up for ourselves. The judge is the time we spend removed from all other activity, thinking about what we have done or will do, and judging those actions. The officer’s job is to enforce those judgments during the moment of action, when we need to regulate ourselves a little more carefully due to the strong emotions that are at play.
With our judges and officers in place, we will be able to properly reach the places we want to go, and lead the lives we want to lead!
Parsha Summary
The Jewish People stand on the brink of putting down roots in a land in which they hope to live peacefully forever. Moshe dictates to them a number of commandments that will allow for a stable society. The first commandment is to set up courts in all the cities. Additionally, Moshe warns the people to appoint honest people as the judges, ones who won't accept bribery or favors. Juxtaposed to this is the prohibition against planting asheira trees, trees which served as idols. The juxtaposition underscores the idea that a corrupt judge is similar to an asheira tree. Just as the tree looks beautiful and productive from the outside, yet is really a vehicle to entice people to serve foreign gods, so too, a corrupt leader appears righteous and upstanding, yet he really lures the people into lawlessness and chaos. This is followed by the prohibition against offering sacrifices that have blemishes.
The Torah then discusses the capital punishment of idol-worshippers. We learn many of the laws that apply to capital cases from this portion of Torah. Circumstantial evidence, or testimony by a single witness, is considered invalid, and there is a very thorough cross-examination required before condemning anyone.
Next we are told that when we are not sure of the law, we must bring it to the judges, "who will be in those days." This indicates that even if we feel that the judges and leaders of our times are not as great as those of previous generations, we must nonetheless follow them just as the previous generations followed their leaders.
The Torah inserts a verse reminding us to listen to the Rabbis, as is stated (Deut. 17:11), "In accord with the Torah that they instruct you, and upon the law that they state to you, are you to act; do not deviate from the word they tell you, neither right or left." This verse could not have been telling us to simply listen to the Rabbis telling us to keep the clear Biblical prohibitions, as the Torah itself constantly tells us that. Rather, this verse is the source of the mandate the Rabbis have to make a fence around the Torah, that is, to pass laws that will keep us from violating Biblical commandments. (An example of this is the Rabbinic prohibition against playing a musical instrument on Shabbos. This prohibition was set to prevent someone from fixing a broken instrument, such as by replacing a broken guitar string, which would be a Biblical violation of Shabbos.)
The Torah then lays down the rules for picking a king. The king must be righteous and of Jewish origin, he must not have too many wives lest they distract him from his duties, he may not have too many horses lest he initiate a return to Egypt (where the best horses came from at the time), and he may not have too much money lest it lead to corruption and excessive taxation (I always thought the Torah was Republican). The king must write two sifrei Torah, or have them written for him, one that he keeps at home and one that he brings with him everywhere to constantly remind him Who is the King of all kings.
Next, the Torah reminds the Jews of the gifts they are required to give the Kohen (he gets no portion of the land since he is supposed to live among the people and provide them with spiritual support. In return, they support him with all kinds of gifts). These include a portion of all grain, oil, wine, and wool sheerings produced by Jewish farmers, and select parts of some slaughtered animals. The Kohen can bring sacrifices to the Temple at any time, and perform the services associated with his sacrifice. However, regarding communal offerings, there was a system in which the various Kohen families would take turns performing all Temple services, one each week.
Here the Torah commands us not to seek out the future through various supernatural forces such as sorcery, divination using bones or omens, witchcraft, or astrology. G-d tells us (Deut. 18:13), "You shall be wholehearted with Ha-shem, your G-d," meaning that you should have faith that G-d will take care of you, without having to look to other sources to discover your future. (Sorry, you are going to have to stop calling those psychic hotlines!) G-d tells us that He will send us prophets when He feels we need to know what lays in store for us. If a prophet predicts something and it doesn't happen, we can know that he is a fraud.
The Torah then discusses the laws of the city of refuge, a place to which someone who murders someone unintentionally (but in a way which could have been prevented if more caution was exercised) must exile himself. Next is a warning not to move a boundary marker so as to steal land that rightfully belongs to a neighbor.
This is followed by the laws of the conspiring witnesses. Two people come to court and give testimony, e.g. "On Sunday, March13th, we saw Mike break Sam's window in Detroit, and now he must pay Sam $400 to fix it." Then, a second group of witnesses comes and says to the first group, "How can you say you saw that, you were with us on the 13th of March in Acapulco?" The Torah tells us that whatever verdict the conspiring witnesses were trying to attain against the defendant is now given to them, so, in this case, the witnesses would actually have to pay Mike the $400 they were trying to make him pay.
An exact procedure for war follows. A special Kohen, anointed specifically to lead the people to battle, would address the people and tell them that anyone who was faint of heart due to his sins, who betrothed a woman but did not marry her, built a house but did not settle in it, or planted a vineyard but did not harvest the fruits, should go back from the front lines. Then, before attacking a city, the Jews had to offer the other party a peaceful resolution. Only after being refused were they allowed to attack. While lying siege on a city, the Torah forbids cutting down fruit trees to build siege implements such as battering rams or siege towers.
The Torah concludes the Parsha with the laws pertaining to an unsolved murder found in the open, but I have already written way too much, so I encourage you to take out a Chumash, and see what the Torah commands us to do when we have an unsolved murder (and no, we do not post reward for anyone who calls a tip line with information that leads to the arrest of the killer- there were no phones back then!).
Quote of the Week: The really happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. ~ A. Gombiner
Random Fact of the Week: A Boy Scout must earn 21 badges before he is eligible to become an Eagle Scout.
Funny Line of the Week: Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it!
Have a Splendiferous Shabbos,
R’ Leiby Burnham