President Obama Flip-Flops on Jerusalem

So Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney travels to Israel and proclaims that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, in line with an act of Congress going back nearly 20 years.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest responds:
"Well, our view is that that’s a different position than this administration holds. It’s the view of this administration that the capital is something that should be determined in final status negotiations between the parties."

But Earnest did not leave the point only at the idea of the parties themselves determining their borders consensually. Rather, he added that, "I’d remind you that that’s the position that’s been held by previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican. So if Mr. Romney disagrees with that position, he’s also disagreeing with the position that was taken by Presidents like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan."

Sounds like President Obama disagrees with Mitt Romney. But if so, then why do we have video of him proclaiming, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided"?

Cue the video, Mr. Earnest:




Or how about, "And I continue to say that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. And I have said that before and I will say it again" - even though he also noted that these were "final status issues", he had no problem making the explicit declaration for which his surrogates now castigate the Republican.

More video, Mr. Earnest:



Oh, wait - That was 2008? When he was running for office? And speaking to a pro-Israel audience?

I see. Yes, that does explain a lot, doesn't it.

Despite the AIPAC explanation, all I hear is: Throw the Jew down the well

Listening to President Obama describe the challenges and problems of the Middle East last Thursday, addressing the "problem" of Jewish residence in their ancient land right along with repression of millions; governments that shoot their own citizens; rampant poverty, illiteracy and repression; Sunni-Shiite fighting, and so on, I can only think of Borat's song, "Throw the Jew down the well":



For every problem, there is a simple solution, as there has always been - Throw the Jew down the well, then have a party.

Having now read CNN's positive summary and reivew of the president's Sunday speech at AIPAC, as well as the JTA's takeaways, I do understand his explanation: That he believes this is in Israel's long-term, global interests, and that he wants to see mutually agreed-upon land swaps.

Nonetheless: In making this verbal move, he has given such major diplomatic support to Israel's antagonists that all I hear is this:

In the Middle East there is a problem
And that problem is the Kings
They take all the people’s freedom
And they never give it back

Throw the Jew down the well
So Middle East can be free
If we can make the Middle East judenrein
Then we’ll have a big party

In the Middle East there is a problem
And that problem is Sunni-Shiite war
They blow up each other’s mosques
And supermarkets and schools too

Throw the Jew down the well
So Shiites and Sunnis will make peace
Iran will give up on their nukes
Then we’ll have a big party

In the Middle East there is a problem
And that problem is poverty
Oil money goes to kings and emirs
Whose people are illiterate and broke

Throw the Jew down the well
Kuwait will fund mass literacy
Saudi Arabia will bankroll job growth
Then we’ll have a big party

In the Middle East there is a problem
And that problem is human rights
They block the Net and shut down Twitter
Allow honor killings and slavery

Throw the Jew down the well
So Arab citizens will be free
Muslim countries will tolerate dissent
Then we’ll have a big party

Feel free to add your own verses in the comments... I only wish the Republican Party would put up a decent opposition candidate.

Happy Jerusalem Day, President Obama

Dear President Obama,

I hope all is well.

Normally, I receive greetings from you in advance of Jewish holidays, but this year I did not notice any message in honor of Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. This made me realize that I have been remiss; I should be taking the initiative of sending you greetings in honor of the milestones of my calendar.

I’ll bet that, like me, you watched the trailer for Iron Man 2 a few times. I’ll further bet that, even more than me, you felt vicarious pleasure in seeing Tony Stark stick it to Congress when he declared, “I did you a big favor – I have successfully privatized world peace!” to a round of applause.

I believe that you sincerely think you are doing the world a big favor in your attempt to unilaterally bring about peace in the Middle East by imposing an agreement upon the Jews, Arabs and other inhabitants of the region. After all, think of the lives, the money and the effort expended on solving this problem since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire!

And if the solution to ending this neverending battle requires the internationalization of Jerusalem, then so be it – right? Then there would be a real chance at peace – right?

But to me, Mr. President, the plan to render parts of Jerusalem judenrein, and to take the center of Jerusalem out of Jewish hands, is no favor. It is doomed to fail, and it is a stab in the heart of every Jew who believes in her heritage.

First, the obvious: It is doomed to fail. Terror existed long before Jews were able to live in East Jerusalem; Arab and Muslim animosity toward the West exists independently. Just ask the Chechens, or the bombers in Mumbai or Bali. Or ask Osama bin Laden when you find him – his campaign began not with Jerusalem, but with his hostility toward America-friendly Saudi Arabia.

And to the second point: Jerusalem is the heart of the Jew. To you this seems to be a matter of weighing life and security against a postage stamp-sized piece of land. You have not even bothered to make a trip to Israel to explain this to Jews there; you take it as obvious, apparently.

But that’s not what this issue means to me, and to millions of others.

Judaism teaches of two mountains: Mount Sinai where the Jews received their religious identity from Gd, and Mount Moriah where the Jews built their Temple to Gd. Mount Sinai had a one-time moment in the sun, and was never venerated by Jews thereafter. No Jews made pilgrimages to Mount Sinai. No Jews longed to see that place. But Mount Moriah remained sanctified for all time, in the hearts and writings of Jews of every generation for three thousand years.

From the sages of the Talmud in the Roman period, to Rabbi Saadia Gaon in 10th century Iraq, to Maimonides in Spain and Egypt in the 12th century, to Jews murdered by the Catholic Inquisition, to Rabbi Moshe Sofer of 18th century Hungary, Jews sang and prayed and lived the longing for Jerusalem. I'm sure you know that Jerusalem is a specific subject of prayer three times each day, and is also the subject of the blessing Jews recite after every meal. It has been so for thousands of years. It's a matter of basic identity.

I’m sure your advisors have told you about all this, and all of it has been outweighed by the desire to do us a favor - to privatize world peace and save lives, including my own.

But some things are more important to every human being than our own lives: Our children. Our spouses. Our identity. Our responsibility to other human beings, and to humanity in general. And our dignity, perhaps. Think of the soldier who jumps on a grenade, or the parent who slaves eighteen hours a day so that his children will get out of the slums, or the pauper who refuses to take a handout. We often sacrifice our lives for ideals.

My people has a long history of being slaughtered in the name of ideals, and this idealism is not a Jewish trait, it’s a human trait, and it should be comprehensible to all. Our heart means more than just the ability to live and breathe and eat and raise a family; our heart also means the ability to do all of those things as ourselves, true to our identities.

I woul never want to see anyone die for Jerusalem. I would never want to see any child, Jew or Arab, suffer the effects of war, when she could grow up in a healthy environment. I long to see the world promised by Isaiah, in which swords are rendered defunct.

In a sense, I, too, am Iron Man. As Tony Stark said, “The suit and I are one.” To follow the plot further, you may be right: The heart of the suit may be poisoning me. But don’t ask me to give up my heart and identity; I expect to keep both.

Happy Yom Yerushalayim, Mr. President. May we celebrate many more.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan? Or is she too hard on terror?

With Justice Stevens retiring, people are talking about Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, again (see 2004 and 2009).

Some have suggested that President Obama would not nominate Ms. Kagan because she is Jewish. The Harvard Crimson writes:

Kagan’s religious affiliation may also impede her nomination. Justice Stevens is the Court’s only Protestant, and if Kagan, who is Jewish, were appointed, the court would be composed of six Catholics and three Jews.
According to Tushnet, that issue “has not quite surfaced yet,” but there have been some indications that it could factor into Obama’s decision.

Picking up on the same point, NBC Chicago points out Diane Wood might be a more likely candidate, for her Protestancy:

Also, in a quirk of history, Stevens is the lone remaining Protestant on the Supreme Court. (A hundred years ago, all the judges were Protestant.) Wood could fill in for him there, too: she lives in the suburbs, plays oboe in the North Shore Chamber Orchestra and is on her third husband.
It’s hard to get much WASPier than that.

But I see another reason why Kagan might not be nominated: Her defense of a law prohibiting aid for Hizballah, as recorded in the New York Times:

Solicitor General Elena Kagan defended the law at issue in the case, which bars providing material support to terrorist organizations, as “a vital weapon in this nation’s continuing struggle against international terrorism.”
Even seemingly benign help is prohibited, Ms. Kagan said.
“Hezbollah builds bombs,” she said of the militant Islamic group. “Hezbollah also builds homes. What Congress decided was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs. That’s the entire theory behind the statute.”

I can see President Obama overlooking Ms. Kagan's Jewish roots, or even favoring them as a way to balance his horrible press over Israel ("Some of my best friends are Jewish..."). But a justice who openly declares that Hizballah builds bombs? No way this candidate makes it on to that man's court.

Barack Obama, Kenneth Wherry and the Nobel Prize

I don't want to be yet another humbug, rain-on-the-parade blogger bashing the choice of President Barack Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nonetheless: I believe that the President, like most of Washington, is naive about the world's foreign policy issues. He's intellectually sharp, he's well-read, but he is also naive.

It's more complex than that, of course; President Obama's presentation is actually something of a paradox. His words are wonderful, displaying a sense of how the world works, honoring the fact that cultures are truly different from each other in values and not only in language and dress.

But, at the same time, his actions in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, in Russia, in China, in North Korea, betray an inability to translate that understanding into action. He acts with the whole world as though they were Westerners, offering them the same incentives and disincentives one would offer a Westerner and anticipating a Westerner's reaction, without any sensitivity to the nuances involved.

* Example: Promises of economic incentives don't move someone whose highest value is his honor and self-respect (China, and trade protectionism; not to mention the fact that the US needs China in a major way. See The Economist here.).

* Example: Incremental assistance doesn't gain the support of people who, because of their cultural values, will settle for nothing less than 100% of the pie (Hamas; see Khaled Meshaal's June 2009 interview with Time's Joe Klein here).

* Example: Threats of economic sanctions don't impress governments who believe their citizens are best-served by leaders who will not bend - and whose own citizens parrot the same (Iran; see CNN's pre-election report here).

* Example: Arguments from law are meaningless to nations who believe the law, or at least its application, is wrong (Israel - see Obama's reference to "the occupation" in his Cairo speech).

The President's practical naivete reminds me of the same trait in Senator Kenneth Wherry, Republican of Nebraska, who said in 1940, "With Gd’s help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas City.”

See David Brinkley's Washington Goes to War for more examples of pre-WWII Washington's provincialism. A lot of it rings true in Washington today.

If the Nobel is meant to reward good intentions, then I agree - they found someone who is well-intentioned. But I think the standard should not be desire, but success.

Israel is not Made in Germany (Derashah Naso 5769)

These words from this past Thursday are now famous:

[T]he aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.

I appreciate President Obama’s earlier re-statement of the ‘unbreakable’ bond between the US and Israel, but I must protest this re-writing of the birth of the modern state of Israel.

Israel was not built in Roman brutality. Israel was not manufactured by Muslim massacres at Khaibar and along the Mediterranean. Israel was not created by Christian Crusades or European expulsions or the Catholic Inquisition or the pogroms of the Cossacks, and Israel certainly was not made in Germany.

Israel was made in Israel, thousands of years ago. We have more than our own Torah as evidence; we have the testimony of pottery shards and the Mesha stele and the historical memory of numerous races.

Israel is not a product of our enemies’ venomous anti-Semitism, but a product of our proud Torah and our proud ancestry.


Of course, President Obama’s speechwriters were not the first to view Israel, primarily, as a haven from our enemies.

Moses Hess wrote in 1862, [T]he Jews in exile, at least the majority of them, cannot devote themselves successfully to productive labor: in the first place, because they lack the most necessary condition - an ancestral soil; and, secondly, because they cannot assimilate with the peoples among whom they live without being untrue to their national religion and tradition. The irony, of course, is that Hess fulfilled his own dire prediction by marrying a Catholic woman.

Leo Pinsker wrote, twenty years later, We need nothing but a large piece of land for our poor brothers, a piece of land which shall remain our property, from which no foreign master can expel us. This was the idea behind the Uganda movement, which sought to acquire territory in East Africa for a Jewish land at a time when a return to Israel seemed unlikely.

Certainly, this approach of “Israel as Safe Haven” has an internal logic as well as a legitimate pedigree in modern Jewish and world history – but serious weaknesses undermine its meaning and application today.


First, what are we to make of a Jewish nation which so values its own survival that it will ride roughshod over the survival of other human beings in order to achieve it? If we desire Israel for the sake of our own security, do we not have a responsibility to help Palestinian Arabs find their security? Indeed, that was part of the president’s point of moral equivalence.

Second, in an age when millions of Jews feel comfortable and secure living outside of Israel, do we have the right to demand a homeland for our safety? Even if the world is not entirely safe for the Jew, we don’t see the Jews of North America or Australia expressing concern for their future!

And third, and most crucial for me today: Israel in the Torah was never meant to be a function of our enemies’ hatred; rather, Israel is supposed to be a positive expression of Judaism. It is the place where, as recorded in the Torah, our ancestors walked. It is the place where, according to the gemara, we can achieve purification from our sins. It is the place where, as Ramban noted, our mitzvot are real. It is the place where, as Rav Kook wrote, the Jewish heart can connect to Gd.


Indeed, in our own parshah, this is what the Nazir fails to understand regarding the Torah itself.

The nazir vows to abstain - for a period of time or indefinitely – from drinking intoxicating beverages, from contact with impurity, and from cutting his hair. These abstentions guarantee one thing: The Nazir will withdraw from society. He will drink with no one, he will mix with no one lest they contaminate him, he will grow his hair until it is long and tangled and dirty; he will become a hermit.

The gemara paints nezirut as a safety option taken by a Jew who feels that he is out of control, threatened by his own desires, but the gemara goes on to argue that this is not the purpose of Judaism and its Torah. The Torah labels nezirut a חטא, a sin; the Torah and its mitzvot are not about escaping this world for a spiritual place of our own, they are about developing and growing into model human beings.

And the same is true for Israel. Our homeland is not a mousehole to which the Jew can run and hide from the big bad Nazi. Israel is a place for the Jew to be a Jew.


But there’s a catch. If we really disagree with the President and believe what I just said, if we really believe that Israel is not only about safety but rather about creating a place where a Jew can live and develop as a Jew, if we buy the arguments of Tanach and the gemara and the Kuzari and so on, then we should all be rushing to live there, now.

Were Israel only a mousehole for protection, we could stay out of the mousehole until the cat came along. But if Israel is truly a religious imperative, then why aren’t we there, now? I don’t speak of those who have medical or financial or family reasons and the like for remaining in galut, but for the rest of us, is there any question as to where we belong?

The president’s speech should not be a simple opportunity for politicking; rather, it should be a challenge to us, all of us, a chance for us to think. If we don’t accept his narrative, if we do not view Israel as the nazir views Judaism, as an escape hatch, then let us ask ourselves what narrative we do accept, and put it into practice.

-
Notes:
1. Before you ask, "What about you, Torczyner?" know that I am in one of the categories mentioned above.

2. You can find the president's remarks here. Pinsker (Auto-Emancipation) and Hess (Rome and Jerusalem) are excerpted in Herzberg's excellent The Zionist Idea.

3. Re: Nazir - I presented the midrashic rationale for nazir, but I wonder about another type of nazir, someone who chooses nezirut as a way to fuel passion and direct intensity, as might arguably be observed in Shimshon, Shemuel and Avshalom.

Moshe, Obama and the Cult of Personality (Derashah: Vaera 5769)

As I watched the crowd shots at the Inauguration this past week, and I listened to people describing their expectations for the Obama presidency, I was forcefully reminded of Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch's comments on our parshah.


The parshah begins with Moshe's frustration and his outburst at Gd - "Why did You send me to Paroh?" Moshe demands to know. "From the moment I came to Paroh, he made things worse for this nation - and You, Gd, You have not saved Your nation!" To which Gd responds by telling Moshe to return to Paroh - but then the Torah interposes a genealogy of Moshe and Aharon:

Levi had three sons, Gershon, Kehat and Merari.
Gershon's kids were Livni and Shimi.
Kehat's children were Amram, Yitzhar, Chevron and Uziel.
Merari's sons were Machli and Mushi.
Amram married Yocheved, and she gave birth to Miriam, Aharon and Moshe.

Why does the Torah include this genealogy; what are we meant to learn here?

Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explained, in a fascinating polemic, that the Torah presents this record of the ancestry of Moshe and Aharon in order to vaccinate the Jew against a theological disease which would ultimately infect Christianity: "So that, for all time, their absolutely human origin, and the absolutely ordinary human nature of their beings, should be firmly established. We know well enough how, in later times, a Jew whose genealogical table was not available... came to be considered by nations as begotten of Gd, and to doubt his divinity became a capital crime."

In other words: The Torah presents Moshe's pedigree lest we come to believe, through the miracles he would engineer and the charismatic personality he would bring to bear, that he was somehow a deity.

The Jews of that day wanted a deity for a leader. When Moshe disappears to receive the Torah, the Jews approach Aharon, seeking a new leader. They say to Aharon, "קום עשה לנו אלהים אשר ילכו לפנינו כי זה משה האיש אשר העלנו מארץ מצרים לא ידענו מה היה לו, Make a god to go before us, because we do not know what happened to Moshe the man who brought us up from Egypt." The Jewish people are dissatisfied with this all-too-mortal leader; they would be led by a god. And so HaShem stresses, at the outset, that their leader is but a human being, born of human parents.


But there is more here. I believe that beyond concern for deifying Moshe, HaShem is also concerned that this nascent nation will act in the manner of children everywhere, shirking responsibility with the expectation that their parent, Moshe, will take care of matters on their behalf, achieving feats of righteousness in their name, protecting them from the consequences of their actions, leading them along the spiritual equivalent of the Bunny slope toward a land flowing with milk and honey.

Moshe does play a parental role; as he says forthrightly, he is a nursemaid carrying a nurseling. That's why Moshe was selected in the first place, per one midrash; Moshe was chosen because of the way he cared, as a shepherd, about every sheep in his flock. This type of parental leader was necessary at this stage, to introduce a nation of slaves to their spiritual and national potential as a parent will nurture a child through adolescence and into realization of his strengths and powers.

But with that positive parental role comes the negative, adjunct possibility that the Jewish nation will become dependent upon their leader, viewing him as the solution for all of their problems. And, in truth, that did happen. This man who had said, "They will never believe me, they will never trust that Gd spoke with me," would become the parent for every national need, from food to water to military leadership, as well as the righteous protector, religious proxy for a sinful edah.

And so the Torah, at this early stage, takes pains to inform the Jew: Moshe is no superhuman individual, capable of shouldering the burdens of a nation. The Jewish people, in that generation and for all time, will need to take responsibility for their own actions, will need to grow into their role as a special nation and meet the challenges themselves.


This same concern - the possibility of relying on a leader to too great an extent - was, in fact, a problem which appeared repeatedly in Jewish history.

* Jews flocked to numerous false messiahs down through the ages, from Bar Kochba to Shabbtai Tzvi to many lesser figures in between. It is not that we are feeble-minded or beset with an unthinking gullibility. Rather, the offer of a man who bears our sins is attractive for people who are tired of bearing their own.

* Even short of Mashiach, various Jewish sects have long embraced leaders and accepted, without question, the notion that their leader's righteousness could somehow serve as a substitute for their own, extending mystical philosophies of leadership well beyond their authors' intent. Whether the chassid who goes too far with his Rebbe, or the Sephardi Jew who does the same with his Chacham, some Jews have adopted personal paths which their leaders would never have recommended, placing their leaders' portraits in their homes and businesses but failing to emulate the lifestyles of those much-admired icons.

This is a grave risk. Humility is certainly appropriate. Subordination of our will to the guidance of someone who knows us and who knows Torah is certainly appropriate. But the abdication of responsibility, with the expectation that another's righteousness will stand in our stead, that another will act in our place - this is anathema to the personal responsibility which permeates every nook and cranny of the Torah's moral mandate.


This morning's listing of Moshe's genealogy is only the beginning of the Torah's response to that abdication of responsibility:

* We noted last year, on Parshat Shoftim, that the Torah presents us with many models of leadership - Melech and Kohen, Shofet and Navi. But we also noted that all of these positions are presented as בדיעבד, concessions to a human need for intermediaries, and not an ideal. In the ideal world, all of us are leaders in our own right.

* The gemara was particularly concerned with the embrace of false messiahs, and declared, תיפח עצמותן של מחשבי קיצין, Cursed be those who formulate calculations of when Mashiach will arrive! Rather than play games of mathematics in a daydream of future irresponsibility, better to expend our energy in action!


We, in our own lives, are expected to steer clear of the mistake anticipated in this morning's parshah, to understand that we cannot look to leaders, living or deceased, past or present or future, to act on our behalf.

Our organizations - shul, school, any of them - dare not depend on a single person's inspiration and perspiration; all of us bear the responsibility of working for the betterment of the community. And the same is true for our Judaism; rather than wait for others to burden us with guilt or bodily drag us to righteousness, we must recognize that Moshe was as human as the rest of us, and that neither he nor any of his spiritual heirs will be able to do for us that which we will not do for ourselves.


President Obama may turn out to be as good as his backers claim, but as he has said himself, he will never be a nation's savior; a nation must be motivated to save itself. The same is true for the Jewish people under Moshe, and today.

Our redemptions, Messianic and otherwise, will come when we recognize that no human being can bring it one single second nearer for us. As the gemara says, redemption will come when we recognize אין לנו על מי להשען אלא על אבינו שבשמים, that rather than depend on Moshes or Messiahs or Presidents to act on our behalf, the only One upon whom we can depend is HaShem - and HaShem has already handed us the keys to our own redemption, and is waiting for us to put them to use.

-
Notes:

1. The gemara on אין לנו על מי להשען is at the end of Sotah, as I recall. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch's note is in his commentary to Chumash. He also discusses why the Torah brings the genealogy of Shevet Reuven and Shevet Shimon, but I didn't want to get sidetracked here.

2. Of course, the Torah also provides the genealogy of Aharon here, and for the same reason, but adding Aharon and his own conflicts as a "parent" to the nation to this derashah would have made it overly complicated, albeit more interesting to me.

3. A question: Is the Torah really addressing the Jew in the wilderness, of that generation, with this concern? Or is it addressing us? I suspect the latter.

President Barack Obama's White House Blog: Observations and Suggestions

CNN reports here that the Obama White House website has a new face, and they are certainly correct. Long on policy and substance, this site has the look of a campaign site, hungry to communicate with the world and publish its message directly to its audience.

Observations:
I like the fact that President Obama’s website bio is brief. (I suppose that when the heading says “President of the United States,” you don’t really need to mention much more.)

Two items of interest in the “Agenda” section:

I’m fascinated by the fact that pretty much every sentence says, “Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe…” I wonder if that inclusion was part of Senator Biden’s agreement to become Vice President.

Of particular interest: Israel is addressed in two separate places in the “Foreign Policy” category, once under Renewing American Diplomacy and once under Israel.

The former includes a section titled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” and focusses on realizing a two-state solution. The latter includes “Ensure a strong US-Israel partnership,” “Support Israel’s right to self-defense” and “Support foreign assistance to Israel.”

I have no objection to what the site says in either place, but I feel it would have made more sense to have included both sets of comments under “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” (And if the site’s point is that the US-Israel relationship is about more than just the conflict, then the sub-section “Support Israel’s right to self-defense” really belongs under the “Israel-Palestinian Conflict” sub-heading.)

What I would like to see:
1) I like the “Office of Public Liaison” concept (which already existed under President Bush), and hope it will be developed. Right now, it’s just a “Contact Us” form.

2) Under “Agenda,” I would very much like to see a daily or weekly list of the president’s key appointments, even without specific times. Security, secrecy and spontaneity may make a precise listing impossible, but knowing which briefings are going on, and what has the president's attention and with whom the president is working, would be a great step toward the promised transparency.

3) I would love to see a permanent focus on the ordinary citizen, especially since that has been a key part of the Obama appeal. I’m thinking a small corner or sidebar photo on the page, linking to an article about that person – an obituary of someone who had passed away, or a newspaper article about his/her achievement. The achievement doesn’t have to be as large as a CNN Heroes type; it could just reflect the life of an American citizen. The photo and article would change daily, or weekly.

4) Of course, I would love to see the President author a post or two in his blog, not as a press release or transcript of a speech, but just an everyday type of comment, the sort that appears on any other blog.

5) And most important:
It is evident that many of the people who have fallen in love with presidential politics have done so because of the star power of the new president, and not because of a newfound love for their country, or the American democratic system. That’s fine – as long as their love deepens into an appreciation for the system and country itself.

To aid that transition, I would like to see a permanent feature, such as a sidebar photo leading to an article, on specific legislators. Whether municipal, state, or federal, regardless of party affiliation, the site could spotlight people who are making positive contributions to government, and could thereby encourage others to become involved.

Of course, there is an inherent risk that with such a spotlight you accidentally endorse the next Ted Stevens; you would need some serious vetting, and the wording would have to eschew the laudatory. But if you did one every week or every two weeks, that should be manageable – and it might go a ways toward inspiring interest in government and appreciation for the best of America.

[And one more: Having just attempted to submit some of these suggestions on the Comment Form on the website - change your programming so that "Enter" does not automatically submit the form. It's quite frustrating.]

Eric Holder for Attorney General: Good and Bad for the Jews?

Per CNN, Eric Holder is President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice for Attorney General.

My gut instinct is that this is, as they say, “bad for the Jews.” Not because of Holder, personally, but because his confirmation hearings are bound to include the infamous pardon of Marc Rich.

The Rich pardon is a perfect example of the tarring ethnicities undergo when one of their own is involved in wrongdoing. I can’t imagine that any responsible party in the Jewish community would have endorsed this pardon - a trader who cheated the financial system, then wrapped himself in the Israeli flag by getting himself an Israeli passport (along with a Spanish passport) in trying to avoid extradition. But when Bill Clinton pardoned him, it was viewed as an example of Jewish malfeasance and influence.

Holder, at the time, was the deputy attorney general, and through a series of events described well here by the Washington Post, he allowed Jack Quinn to push the pardon through. So we are pretty much guaranteed that anti-Obama Congressmen will bring up this pardon as a way to harrass Holder’s appointment. And we will have to endure Marc Rich/Jewish/Israel-oriented headlines.

But, on the other hand, Holder might have a positive impact in another case - the AIPAC trial. The accused AIPAC officials relayed - to the press, to other AIPAC officials and to an Israeli diplomat - information US government officials gave them (in a sting operation), regarding anti-Israel operations in Iraq. The AIPAC guys argue that they had thought they were permitted to speak of the information they had been given.

As noted a couple of days ago in The Forward, Holder is known to be strongly in favor of First Amendment liberties, including free speech. This may help the AIPAC defendants.

So I am split on what to expect with a Holder nomination, but, ultimately, all of this points to a more central point: Realistically, Jews must accept that our kin are so involved in so many ways in so many different parts of American society, that any nominee is going to raise similar issues. Whether it’s Pollard or Rich or AIPAC or Abramoff or Agriprocessors or any other Jew or Jewish institution involved with the wrong side of the law, the bottom line is that we are going to have to get used to headlines like those we’ll be seeing during Holder’s confirmation hearings.

Such is Jewish life in the USA. The only antidote of which I am aware is to make sure we have plenty of positive Jewish examples, so that whenever someone brings up a Marc Rich, we can respond with a kiddush HaShem (sanctification of Gd's Name), “That’s not a representative. Look, instead, at…,” citing numerous examples of ישראל אשר בך אתפאר, Jews of whom Gd can be proud, and we can be proud.

Column: Is there a place for The Compassion Forum in the political process?

This is a column I submitted to The Allentown Morning Call after Sunday night's The Compassion Forum at Messiah College. They ran it here with a few edits.

Note: If this had not been a general readership newspaper, I would have used the term צניעות Tzniut, privacy, to describe the third point below, toward the end of the article. Public discussion of deeply personal beliefs seems to defy that צניעות we are taught to hold dear.

Is there a place for The Compassion Forum in the political process?

Is it hypocritical to wish for spirituality in our political representatives, but to wish equally that they not discuss it in public?

I found myself pondering that question as I sat in the audience at The Compassion Forum at Messiah College on Sunday night, April 13th, watching Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama answer faith-oriented questions both personal and political. As a guest of the Orthodox Union I felt honored to have been invited, but as a Jewish American I felt more than a little uncomfortable.

Certainly, I find nothing inappropriate in a politician incorporating religious beliefs into decisions; just as they rely upon education, upbringing, friends and advisors, so our elected officials may draw on religious beliefs. More, their application of religious beliefs to practical policy displays an encouraging sophistication of faith and depth of thought. Nonetheless, this sort of forum does trigger deep discomfort in many Americans - myself included.

In my view, one problem is that these discussions unnecessarily spotlighted disagreements for voters of different religious persuasions. Many Americans vote based on practical policy and track record and overlook differences in religious philosophy, and many of those voters don’t want to have the underlying religious disagreement waved in their faces.

As a member of a Jewish minority, and as a member of an Orthodox minority within even that Jewish population, I have disagreed with basic religious beliefs held by every political candidate for whom I have voted in the past eighteen years. My own sensibilities have survived that conflict - but I do appreciate the candidates who don’t emphasize those differences.

A second issue is that these interviews flew in the face of our American freedom of religion. As a nation, we have valued that freedom since the colonial period. As a Jew, I particularly appreciate the fact that my right of worship is honored in our great country. No American should ever be made to justify, or even explain, his own religious ideals - but that was exactly what happened on Sunday night.

There was an awkward resemblance between Sunday’s public dialogue and the savage religious persecutions of the past millenium. Placing a political leader - or anyone - on a stage to answer questions like, “Do you believe God punishes nations in realtime,” and “Do you believe God created the world in six days,” white leather chairs and glasses of water notwithstanding, calls forth images of the Catholic Inquisition in the late Middle Ages and the Mutazilite Muslim Inquisition of the 9th century.

And to this I would add a third piece of the problem: The role of public display in religion, altogether.

Certainly, the Bible itself is mixed regarding public declamation of religious belief. At no time in the Pentateuch are the Israelites instructed to spread their Sinaitic tradition to other nations. On the other hand, Canaanites who opt to adopt Judaism are accepted into that early Jewish nation.

As a viewer whose tradition is ambiguous regarding evangelism, and whose personal beliefs include the words of the prophet Micah (6:8), “and walk modestly with thy God,” I mistrust a forum in which a politician is called upon to publicly answer the question, “When did you experience the Spirit?”

I attended the Forum out of curiosity, and my curiosity was duly satisfied. More, the Compassion Forum did highlight elements in both candidates’ beliefs with which I could agree, and which likely resonated with people of many faiths. Senator Obama spoke about the way his bible-based faith had inspired his work with impoverished people in the south side of Chicago. Senator Clinton voiced a very Jewish belief when she said that her response to suffering is not to ask why God permits it, but rather to ask how she can help. And yet, for all three of the reasons outlined above - spotlighting religious differences, the resemblance to an Inquisition and the public display of personal beliefs - I was less than comfortable with The Compassion Forum.

May our political representatives always remain strong in their beliefs, but - so far as I am concerned - may they keep those beliefs to themselves.

How important is Israel/Middle East Peace to Senators Obama and Clinton?

If I had to choose between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and if my deciding issue were Israel, I’m not sure I’d go with with Hillary. I am a card-carrying member of the pro-Israel “right wing,” and my gut says that Hillary would be a bigger threat than Barack to the safety of Israel.

(Note: I am not endorsing anyone in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Personally, I am a registered Independent - and rabbi of a religious institution.)

True, Barack Obama has a stable of staunchly left wing foreign policy advisers. Ex-President Carter has endorsed him, former Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer is said to be a key adviser, and the further list of left wing associates who claim to be his advisers is quite long. (This is separate from the Reverend Jeremiah Wright issue, about which enough has already been said.)

In fact, I do think that Senator Obama supports Israel’s left wing. Based on his own public comments (which have been admirably frank; I wish others were so forthright!), it is clear to me that he believes Israel’s best interests include making lopsided “peace deals” which rely far too much on trusting the Arab world to mutate into honorable societies who keep their words and honor their agreements.

Further, I do think that Senator Clinton is less likely than Senator Obama to trust the Arab world, and less likely to strengthen terrorist sponsors in the course of “diplomacy.”

However: The issue of where these candidates stand on the Middle East is not nearly as important as where the Middle East stands with them.

For Senator Obama, based on his brief national-legislative history and this campaign, the Middle East is an issue that he must face in the course of politics, but that he doesn’t consider “front and center” in his plans. As President he would be forced to deal with terror, and with issues that affect American soldiers overseas and the American economy at home, but domestic matters like poverty and healthcare and taxes, as well as issues like environmental concerns and energy policy, seem to be at the top of his agenda. He won’t have the time, or political will, for the sacrifices needed to muscle the obstinate Middle East into his vision of peace.

On the other hand, Senator Clinton has made foreign policy a central part of her sales pitch to America. Although she has plenty of plans for domestic policy, she considers herself accomplished in the global arena, and it seems far more likely to me that she would want to achieve a landmark (dare I say legacy?) in the Middle East, than that Senator Obama would want to do the same.

I plan to attend a Monday night program at a local college, featuring Steve Rothman, a New Jersey Congressman, speaking on Senator Obama’s Middle East policy. The campaign is involved with the event, so I expect Congressman Rothman will be able to speak authoritatively.

I won’t need to ask Congressman Rothman what the Senator thinks Israel ought to do; the Senator has made that pretty clear himself. Instead, I’ll want to know: How pressing will Middle East peace be to the Senator from Illinois?

Derashah: Shemini 5768 - The Appeal of Jeremiah Wright

After a month of hearing about Jeremiah Wright this and Jeremiah Wright that, I finally gave in and watched the video of his famous sermons: the 9/11 sermon, the “Gd Darn America” sermon, the whole bit.

Honestly, I sometimes wish I had license to speak with that kind of animation and monochrome passion, that kind of shout-at-the-rafters anger… but it doesn’t work here. Our crowd tends to be sensitive to nuance and to loathe extremes; waxing passionately salivary about some potential evil yields responses like, “Well, that’s interesting,” “To each his own” and “Are you sure we need to be so harsh?”


For example, look at this potential dvar torah for Parshas Shemini:
I could condemn Nadav and Avihu, who enter the Mishkan disrespectfully while drunk and are struck down by Divine fire.

I could rant that to a person who owns no respect for the mishkan, for avodah, for HaShem, Judaism is just one snack at a lifelong party, just a step along our way to satisfying physical lusts. Partaking in a kiddush is chowing down at a buffet, the avodah of a korban is no different from bloodthirsty butchery, it’s all one big bacchanalia.

I could then fire it up and say that it is this bacchanalia which Gd punishes, which Gd must punish. These people who used religion, who turned their Divine essence toward physical satisfaction, they got what they deserved.

Or how about this tirade: We, today, live in a world of Nadav and Avihu. A world of empty religion, of empty prayer, of empty mitzvot. A world in which a Jew can get drunk on Kosher wine, can stuff himself with Kosher food, can take extravagant trips around the world for Pesach, can fill his den wall with a large-screen TV and kiss the mezuzah on his way into the room to show how pious he is, and all along not give a dime to tzedakah.

Then I could go all-out Jeremiah Wright, point a finger in the air and shout: Those people are Nadav and Avihu, and our parshah provides us a grave warning about what happens to those people, to Nadav and Avihu, with their fancy cars and stylish clothes. Nadav and Avihu burn in Divine fire!

And then I could really have fun: Those people who neglect their souls, people who think this world is about eating, drinking, and merriment, people whose concept of religion is that it’s a fun thing to do on Shabbos morning to make them feel better about what they do the rest of the week - they had better watch the skies, because what came for Nadav and Avihu is coming for them, too!

Now: Fast-forward to the kiddush conversations: Rabbi, that’s pretty strongly worded! Are you saying that we shouldn’t enjoy this world at all?

And fast-forward to the lunch table: Did you hear what the rabbi said? The rabbi said that people who go to hotels for Pesach are going to burn!


So it doesn’t play here - But we know there are places in the Jewish and non-Jewish world where these speeches do play well, and it’s important that we understand who responds to such speeches, and why.

That Nadav and Avihu dvar torah would play very well in a low-income church, or a run-down shtiebel or mosque for that matter, with people who bitterly resent a world of pleasure they cannot afford, and they therefore condemn.

That sort of dvar torah would resonate with cynically self-righteous people who think everyone else is guilty of gross impiety, and with teenagers in the throes of adolescent rebellion, who think they’ve discovered the true meaning of life.

That sort of dvar torah would even ring true among wealthy people who carry a burden of parents or grandparents who were oppressed, or people who find comfort in feeling that the world is against them.

Demagoguery works with people who are angry. Demagoguery works with people who want to be angry.


Our chachamim were wary of this; they called it איבה, enmity, and they proposed a solution for it: They instructed us to act in דרכי שלום, ways that would build peace with the nations around us, that would make us partners with the world instead of setting us in opposition.

We’ve discussed, on other occasions, avoding arousing jealousy in those around us. We don’t flaunt such success as we might have. But beyond that, we try to build up positive feelings with דרכי שלום. Therefore, the gemara says מבקרין חולי עכו"מ עם חולי ישראל, we should be certain to visit non-Jewish patients along with Jewish patients, מפרנסין עניי עכו"מ עם עניי ישראל, we support non-Jewish charities while supporting Jewish charities, and to take care of general communal social needs even as we take care of Jewish social needs.

Lest one think that דרכי שלום is some petty after-the-fact rationalization for assimilation, these are the words of the Gemara: “כל התורה כולה דרכי שלום היא, שנאמר "דרכיה דרכי נועם וכל נתיבותיה שלום" - The entire Torah is about paths of peace, as it is written, ‘Its ways are pleasant, and all of its paths are peace.’”

Of course, this isn’t about helping others at the expense of our own immediate family - but it is about building affordable bridges to the larger human community, a practical consideration for a Jew living in a very angry world, a world eager to assign blame for its ills.


Which brings me back to our reaction to Jeremiah Wright’s speeches. All the chain emails and newspaper columns and worries about Senator Barack Obama in the world won’t change the fact that Jeremiah Wright found a ready and welcoming audience for his venom in that Chicago church - just watch the video of the cheering crowd! There are an awful lot of angry people who are ready to blame you and me for their own suffering, or the suffering of their ancestors.

I believe that our response must be to embrace the gemara’s model of דרכי שלום, of community-wide initiatives which build bonds with the larger human world out there.


One such initiative is coming up on April 6th. I mentioned this project a few weeks ago, but not many people from our shul have signed up. It’s a community service day, involving Jews and non-Jews, for everyone. One project, which our own shul will be chairing, is for the Holocaust Resource Center at Lehigh. There are many more projects, such as work at shelters, Turning Point, housing construction sites and more.

I have known my own anti-Semitism, from being attacked in a mall by a couple of larger kids when I was all of five years old, to facing a group on a subway late one night when I was in college. I can’t say that our דרכי שלום would prevent attacks like those; there will always be angry people, and there will always be people who want to blame others for their problems, and so will be open to the Jeremiah Wrights.

Nonetheless, every step we can take will be positive, on April 6th and beyond, and can only help.

-
Notes:
1. I still wish I could do the rant-and-rave thing every once in a while. It looks like a lot of fun.

2. I actually had much more in the Nadav/Avihu section, but the good Rebbetzin advised me to take it out. She thought people would think I was serious.... and who's to say I'm not?...

Column: Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright and Spiritual Politicans

I submitted the following column to the Allentown Morning Call on Friday Feb. 29, and it ran today. (They changed the headline in the version they printed here, and that does slant the column's meaning, but they seem to have left the actual text intact.)


The Political Candidate and his Spiritual Advisor
At the February 26th Democratic debate between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Mr. Obama was questioned regarding the political views of his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. As Tom Raum described it in an Associated Press analysis,[1] the moment was awkward.

This type of questioning is certainly not new to American politics; it is reminiscent of religious challenges put to recent presidential candidates like Orthodox Jew Joseph Lieberman (regarding Israel) and Roman Catholic John Kerry (regarding abortion). There is a long historical pedigree behind these questions, too - think of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Al Smith in 1928. Nonetheless, the approach remains troubling: In a country so solidly committed to separating Church and State, why is a candidate’s religious guide entertained as a factor?

I suspect the electorate is skeptical because of the way Americans view spirituality. Today’s churchgoers tend to view their lives as an integrated whole, merging spiritual life with day-to-day existence - the two arms of the Cross, as Reverend Wright himself put it in a recent interview[2] - and so it is hard to imagine any citizen or candidate separating the two.

The mix of religion and practical life affects every citizen, beyond the realm of the ballot box; witness the religion-oriented marketing of today’s major issues. Controversies on issues as varied as abortion, the welfare state, environmentalism, healthcare, war, right to die and gender discrimination are argued not only for secular ideals but also for the religious doctrines on each side.

Religion plays the same role at the executive level of government, and has done so for millenia. Students of the history of Christian monarchs recognize that Church-affiliated monarchs have long been mightily influenced by their spiritual advisors. Constantine, Justinian, Ferdinand and Isabella and many other European kings acted in the perceived interests of their Church. There have been rebels, too, like King James I of Aragon - who defied the Church in an attempt to defend Spanish Jewry from expulsion - but they have been the exception rather than the rule.

Jewish history, too, positions clergy as key counselors to political leaders. The prophet Samuel rebuked King Saul, and ultimately removed him from the throne. King David was chastised by prophets Nathan and Gad, King Solomon was guided by his mentor, scholar Shimi ben Geira. In the Gaonic era of the 7th to 10th centuries, the Jews of Northern Africa and Europe were led by a political Exilarch and a religious Gaon, who were supposed to work in tandem to guide the nation. In modern Israel, religious legislators tend to approach their spiritual advisors for political guidance.

The upshot of this analysis is that today’s Americans, heirs to a long tradition of combining spiritual and practical considerations, are unlikely to accept any candidate’s distinction between religious pastor and political master. Until a candidate builds up a track record to the contrary, religious Americans will assume that he weighs seriously the beliefs of his religious affiliation when determining policy.

Is a candidate’s merger of religion and political philosophy harmful? Not necessarily. Candidates whose spirituality affects their public policies are more likely to have a stable religious worldview than those whose spirituality is divorced from reality.

Religion which dwells entirely in the untroubled realm of theory develops as a cloistered, naïve, even shallow philosophy which can offer little to edify its adherents. An abortion philosophy which is unfamiliar with the reality of teen pregnancy and the population explosion, or an environmental philosophy which is uneducated in the hard facts of business, employment and climate change, can have little to say to a citizen of the 21st century. However, religion which plays a robust role in daily life gains a savvy which forces its followers to face hard questions and develop a sophisticated worldview.

Therefore, I’m not sure I would not want a chief executive whose religious faith was divorced from the real world; perhaps it might be better to have a candidate who has a foot in both worlds, and is forced to mediate between the two.


[1] http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/politics/sns-ap-democrats-analysis,0,781296.story
[2] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week1028/interview.html