NEW YORK — To change President Trump’s mood and take his mind off such concerns as a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and the forthcoming report of the Mueller special investigation, the president’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared have been reading him accounts of major figures in the Bible and other religious writings.
Declaring “Nobody enjoys Jewish stories more or knows more about them than I do, even the greatest rabbis,” the president had observations about many of the figures described to him, both pro and con. Here, in no particular order are some of his comments, as reported by two sources who were present, but for obvious reasons, do not want to be identified.
“Cain supposedly killed Abel. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. I live in a country where you’re innocent until proved guilty, and he denied strongly that he did it.”
As to Adam “(just hearing the name of that little, so-called congressman makes me nauseous) but, trust me, in the Garden of Eden, there was no collusion between Adam and Eve and the snake. I would have just locked the snake up. And that Tree of Knowledge scam was legal entrapment, like the phony Mueller witch hunt committee is trying now.”
When the story of Noah and the flood was read to him, Trump commented: “I bet he wished he hadn’t gone out in the rain, that he’d refused to go just as I decided with the visit they wanted me to make to the American cemetery in France on the anniversary of the end of World War I.’
The Patriarchs elicited several Trump comments. He thought Abraham was a “little wild” for welcoming strangers to his tent. “You never know what you’re going to get. It was a vicious world out there, even then,” but applauded him for showing “tough love” when he was ready to sacrifice Isaac and for “wisely using alternative facts” when, to save his life, said his wife Sarah was his sister.
The president said he liked Isaac’s unswerving obedience to his father, “just the way I like my sons to act.”
Trump applauded Jacob for “doing what was necessary to succeed” — whether it was obtaining his famished brother’s birthright when Esau was willing to do anything for food and drink –“just a smart use of supply and demand,” Trump observed, and for “sort of pulling the wool over his aged father’s eyes” to fool him into giving him the blessing intended for his brother. “Jacob usually managed to do what he had to do, to succeed,” Trump said.
But Trump faulted Jacob as weak for agreeing to work for 14 years for his father-in-law Laban,”an incredible deal-maker, who reminds me of myself” so he could marry the two daughters, Leah and Rachel. “I should have made Jared work for me for years for free before I let him marry Ivanka,” Trump quipped. ( “Isn’t she something?)
The president seemed to have a Pharaoh fascination. “I could have gotten along great with him, he was such a strong leader. Some say he enslaved the Hebrews; some say he didn’t. How can you tell? He never said he did. So how does anybody know for sure?’
The ten plagues ‘sort of knocked Pharaoh for a loop. Some environmental kooks probably attributed them to climate change. But before that, he did great things.”
“I got a lot of grief from loony lefties and fake media outlets about my zero tolerance policy on our southern border that resulted in a handful of kids being separated from their mothers. But if Pharaoh hadn’t done that with Hebrew boy infants and their mothers, we wouldn’t have had Moses. By the way, Moses was a pretty fair leader, but I won’t kid you, if I’d been in his sandals, it wouldn’t have taken 40 years to reach the Promised Land.
“In military matters, Pharaoh was great. As you know, nobody loves the military like I do — even the privates and, of course, the generals. So, going back to the Hebrews, Joshua and the Maccabees are some of my heroes. But the Maccabees wouldn’t have had to depend on a miracle if they had good relations with Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries. Then they would have enough oil not only for eight days but for eight weeks, months or even years.”
On other matters, the president commented that the book about Passover “says something like because we were strangers in a strange land, be nice to strangers today. Who are they kidding? The strangers who come to us aren’t a pack of good guys, believe me.”
Adding to his list of heroes, Trump cited Hillel for his famous saying, “If I’m not for myself, who will be?” “My kind of guy,” Trump said.
Another hero — “this will surprise you” he predicted, “but it’s a woman –Ruth, who promised to stay with her mother-in-law wherever she went. Now that’s loyalty. I wish my cabinet members and staff were that loyal to me. I promise you, if her mother-in-law had been president and Ruth, attorney general, she wouldn’t have recused herself in any fake investigation.
So the president was obviously impressed by some of the Biblical and other figures. But we wonder whether any of the moral and ethical teachings have had any impact on him. Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t.
Smart money says “they didn’t.”
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Readers who are new to freelance writer Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns are advised that they are satirical and should not be taken seriously