Y
ou are our Moses’: Delaware rabbi blesses Biden at ceremony on eve of inauguration
JANUARY 19, 2021
President-elect Joe Biden and wife Jill attend a farewell event at the airport in New Castle, Del., before departing for Washington, Jan. 19, 2021. (Jim Watson AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — A Delaware rabbi blessed President-elect JoeBiden and his wife, Jill, before they leave the state to assume the presidency by citing this week’s Torah portion describing the Israelites’ flight from Egypt.
Rabbi Michael Beals explained at the farewell ceremony in New Castle the meaning of “bashert,” the Yiddish term for destiny often used to describe a married couple. He applied it to the Bidens, who were on hand at the event at a National Guard center named for Joe Biden’s late son Beau, but also said Biden was bashert for the presidency.
“It is indeed bashert that you, our dear president-elect, are being inaugurated on the very week that Jews around the world are reading from the book of Exodus, about Moses’s freeing us from 400 years of backbreaking Egyptian slavery at the hands of an autocratic cruel Pharaoh,” Beals said. “In many ways, dear Joe, you are our Moses.” ....
BY RON KAMPEAS