I am not a believing man – or certainly not in the traditional sense of attending religious services, observing the holy days, studying theological texts (except for research purposes – I have a decent knowledge of the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran), saying grace at table, or praying before bed.  When it comes to a divinely ordained plan for the human drama, I recall Nobel physicist Richard Feynman's remark that the stage is too big for the play. The human presence on the planet strikes me as an evolutionary hiccup. Nonetheless, when I regard the condition of the American Republic, it is hard not to believe that something like divine retribution, a force of cosmic or spiritual justice, has been slowly at work throughout its history, or at the very least since the middle of the last century.  This is Jonathan Cahn's argument in his troubling volume treating the nature of the Shemitah, or sabbatical judgment (which I considered at length in a 2015...(Read Full Post)