Kudos to Jeremy Kolmanofsky for connecting the dots between the re-election of Donald Trump election this week and this week’s parsha read in the synagogue as part of the yearly cycle of ritual reading. In Genesis 15, God takes Abram out into the open and tells him to cuts into parts a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram; a turtledove, and a young bird are left whole. In this terrifying visioon, birds of prey descend upon the the carcasses and Abram drives them away. The sun sets and a great dark dread descended upon the patriarch. Abram now knows full well that his offspring will be strangers in a land not theirs. God will execute judgment on the nation they serve, and in the end they’ll go free. In the meantime, it was very dark; there appeared a smoking oven, and a flaming torch passing between the pieces