One charming Jew custom is the reading of the equivalent of a chapter of the Torah each Sabbath. Because those damn Jews have a different word for EVERYTHING, the Torah is divided into “sedrot” rather than chapters. And to confuse the goyim further, we also call them “parshiyot.” We are simultaneously crafty and redundant.

This week’s sedrah (that’s the singular form, you uncircumcised heathen) is a rather scattered and eventful portion from the book of Bamidbar (“in the desert”), which if your penis is intact, you might call “Numbers.” This is beside the point, but then again, I said the story was scattered.

The first part of the story starts when Moses sends a band of spies on an advance scouting mission to Canaan (later called Judah, then Israel, then Palestine, then Israel again, whatever). After 40 days, the spies came back and said, “Holy shit, this ain’t gonna be easy. The people already there are fucking ENORMOUS and totes badass. But check out the fruit!” They showed Moses some big grape clusters (overcropping already being a custom, the AOC laws being many millennia in the future) and a pomegranate. “The grapes look nice,” Moses observed, “but what kind of cheap shit is this, only bringing me one pomegranate?” Moses was a charmer. But hey, they had some figs, too, which helps keep a Jew nice and regular.

Jews being who they are, they started whining, “Those guys living there are badass, we’re fucked! Shit, we coulda stayed in Egypt! Let’s vote to go back!” Two of the spies demurred, arguing, “Look at the fruit! LOOK AT THE FRUIT!” which seemed as good an argument as any. To be fair, they did point out, “Remember the secret weapon: Yahweh,” which to them was an unassailable argument. The rest of the people thought the argument was eminently assailable as were the two optimistic spies, so prepared to stone them. This pissed off Yahweh, of course, because after doing all the plague stuff, he kinda expected to be a bit more respected.

Yahweh and Moses had a sidebar. “Look, Moses, enough is enough. These Jews dissed me, and that’s royally pissing me off. I think it’s time for some smiting.” Now here’s the diff between Jews and goyim- we’ll argue. “Submission” is not the translation of “Jew.” Moses countered, “Look, Yahweh baby, you do that and all those goyim around us will laugh in your face. ‘Stupid Yahweh couldn’t even get those Jews from Egypt to Canaan without them all dying. HAH-hah!’ Is that really what you want?” Yahweh thought that was a pretty good argument, so he said, “OK, we’ll compromise. These people wussed, then doubted me and my power, so fuck ’em. We’ll wander around for the next 40 years or so until all the adults are dead, THEN we can go into Canaan and kick asses. No-one’s gonna laugh at Yahweh then, huh?” Moses was a bit more polite than I would have been, so didn’t ask the obvious question: “Umm, why not just smite the Canaanites, then we can just waltz in?” Apparently, this was too obvious.

For some reason, all of this impressed the Jews. They said, “My bad” to Yahweh, and unlike politicians when they say, “I take full responsibility,” they actually DID take full responsibility. I can’t figure out this sudden change in attitude, but I guess that’s why I’m not religious.

After detailing the booty that the priests would get to extirpate the sin of Doubt (funny coincidence, that), the story lurches to something which should sound familiar to anyone reading the news out of the Middle East today. Some people walking around the desert for a Saturday stroll saw a guy picking up sticks. As any reasonable Middle Easterner would do, they grabbed the guy and hauled him in front of Moses. “Dude was out there picking up sticks. You’re Yahweh’s BFF, tell us what to do- and you know what we want!” Moses, ever deferential, said, “Let me check with The Big Guy, back to you shortly.” Very shortly, as it turns out. Yahweh, who always comes across as somewhat insecure in these stories, said, “Hey, I told you not to pick shit up on Saturday. So… kill him. That’s the only reasonable response.”

This made the people very happy, so they took the guy outside, set him up, got the rocks handy, then cast the first stone. And the second. And the third… well, you get the idea. I think the usual phrase is, “closed casket funeral.” ISIS does have a long tradition.

I love happy endings.