The version of this midrash that I heard included the basic principle of physics that not only does the water seem cooler because someone else jumped in, but it will actually be cooler, because heat gets used in scalding him, so the water will be a lower temperature.
I'd never heard that explanation before. I'm afraid it doesn't change my mind regarding God's exhortation to genocide (and why the children and animals?), but it certainly is interesting.
Yeah, I have trouble with that, too. Fortunately, the written torah is rarely the final word on something. (We're not fundamentalists.) Take, for example, another part of this week's parsha: the rebellious son. According to the torah, if your son doesn't listen to you and is a glutton (food and wine), you bring him before the people at the gate... and kill him. The rabbis understood all sorts of restrictions on this, to the point where, they assert, this never actually happened.
(This is kind-of, sort-of related to the d'var torah I gave this morning. More on that anon.)
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(This is kind-of, sort-of related to the d'var torah I gave this morning. More on that anon.)
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