Part of my week each week is spent at Tablet Magazine, where, among other things, I write this column of Torah commentary. Another part is spent at New York University, where I teach and research video games. And there are weeks, like this one, when these two undertakings seem remarkably intertwined.
Reading this week’s parasha, we come across an odd formulation. As the story begins, Moses is in a revelatory mood, telling the Israelites about to enter Canaan a scary story with a happy ending: God’s chosen people, he prophesies, will soon abandon their covenant with the creator, suffer punishment and exile, and, finally, return home to the Promised Land. It’s just the sort of speech you’d expect from a dimming leader; like Eisenhower’s grim prognostications about the military-industrial complex in his farewell address, Moses’ last hurrah warns of hubris and sinfulness and downfall. Nothing new there.