One might recall that President Obama bought the last several votes he needed to pass his health coverage bill from Catholic Democrat Congressmen by assuring them that Catholic organizations would be exempt from these mandates. (He now reiterates that he meant churches and schools but not other organizations. The Congressmen now feel duped. Shame on them anyway.) Many Catholic leaders have vowed civil disobedience – just refusing to obey the law and its mandates. And the law itself, whose constitutionality will be heard next month in the US Supreme Court, should be challenged again because the hundreds of waivers only provided to companies favored by the administration create an unbalanced and unfair application of the law in any event.

Only true believers would seek to antagonize an entire voting bloc in an election year, and the Obama administration – the radical left of American life – perceives this issue as one of rights rather than morality or religion. Certainly, this decree panders to the feminist-left for whom abortion rights are a sacrament. But more importantly, Obama and his minions are in the vanguard of those who in the recent past have succeeded in the “privatization of morality,” in Melanie Philips’ felicitous phrase. They passionately reject the notion that religion, a divine-based morality that is actualized through divinely-inspired law, has any real validity or should be accorded any respect or deference in the modern era. They see it as archaic, backward, and the precipitant of untold wars – mostly true, until the 20^th century, whose wars and exterminations were largely the work of the political and atheist left (think Communism and, for the most part, fascism). Nonetheless, to man who is now the measure of all things, one who governs his life and shapes his public policy conclusions based on spiritual insight is deemed repugnant to democratic life. Religion, to this way of thinking, should be relegated to the churches and synagogues until it withers and dies, to be replaced by the new world order of reason and enlightenment. It should certainly have no right to be heard in public matters.

Thus, the administration exercised its tin ear and argued to the Supreme Court (in the recent Hosanna-Tabor case) that a religious school should not have the right to dismiss a math teacher who also performs religious functions but should have to follow the existing labor laws. The Court – this, most divided Court – rejected that argument 9-0, a judicial smack down of epic proportions, ruling that both the First Amendment Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause prohibit the Government from interfering in ministerial decisions. It was the first time in a long time that the Free Exercise clause (prohibiting Congress from making any law prohibiting the “Free Exercise” of religion) was bolstered. Certainly, Obama – adjunct professor of Constitutional Law that he was – should have known this before dispatching his Solicitor General to argue this matter. But the left is often blind to religion, its demands on the faithful and the superiority of its laws –preferring the rule of man.

One need not be Catholic to perceive the devastating effect on religious life that these edicts have (Or might have had, if the decision had gone the other way). Of course, Catholic employees at these institutions never anticipated having coverage for these situations, so it is not as if anything was taken away from them. And it again calls into question the troubling, coercive, heavy hand of government that seeks to micromanage every aspect of our lives – including what health insurance plans must cover. (Why can’t people just choose what they want covered, like from a menu of options? It would dramatically lower health coverage costs, as most people are forced to pay for things they don’t need or want because of these crushing mandates.) But the main effect of the war on religion is to sow distrust between religious institutions and government that should not, and need not, exist in American life.

For example, every same-sex marriage law to date bears an exemption for religious institutions. A rabbi need not perform them, nor must a shul host such an event. (Caterers, photographers, orchestras, halls, etc. are not so fortunate and can easily be sued by state “Human Rights Commissions” for refusing to accommodate such events.) But for how long? Personally, I would never trust the application of such a law, which requires only one leftist judge to rule that the “exemption” is “offensive, odious, hateful, racist, etc.” That is one reason – but there are, of course, others – why these laws meet with such resistance by most religious groups. In a society where religious sensitivities are trampled upon, even the ground is not the limit. There is no telling the depths to which society may fall.

The bedrock of American life is its moral core that has been steadily eroded for almost fifty years, leaving in its wake broken or dysfunctional homes, skyrocketing out-of-wedlock births, aimless youth who just want to protest and occupy, absentee fathers and sometimes mothers, and a relentless cycle of poverty and misfortune for millions.

Politicians are not always credible in advocating moral values, but Republicans have a golden opportunity here to convert the Catholic vote, angered as it is by the lack of discipline and heavy-handedness of the administration. They should exploit this blunder, before it is reversed, as it will inevitably be reversed – either through the political system or through the courts. They should remind people of faith that the ideology of the left that consecrates the pursuit of immorality (and frankly, has little use for a religion-based nationalism, on which the State of Israel was founded) is today embodied in the Obama administration and its policies. And those who fight this decree should have the support of the Jewish people as well.

Newt Gingrich is the Billy Martin of politics.

Billy Martin managed five teams and was successful with each one, most famously with the Yankees from whom he was fired five times. That itself must be a record, and explicit evidence of his hard-driving personality. He brought teams from baseball oblivion to the mountaintop, winning division titles with Minnesota and Detroit, a world championship with the Yankees, and taking Texas from last place to second-place in one season. But he never lasted long in any one job. His peers admired and despised him, his bosses hired and loathed him, and those who knew him best seemed to like him the least.

The similarities are uncanny. Like Martin in baseball, Newt took the Republicans from a position of permanent inferiority in Congress to majority status – and then within a relatively short time offended his supporters and resigned. He took a bad team and made them play well – but could not sustain it for more than several seasons (i.e., two terms). Like Martin, Gingrich is a master manipulator of talent and the press, a strategist par excellence who is always seeing three or four moves ahead of the opposition.

Like Martin, Newt has a healthy sense of paranoia and a narrative of personal struggle and vindication. Like Martin, Newt is averse to admitting mistakes – except when such admissions are politically advantageous – and always feels himself embattled and encircled by the establishment. Like Martin, Newt easily re-invents himself, from job to job, position to position, with his record of immediate success. Like Martin, Newt found himself accused of ethics violations that led to difficulties with his employers. Like Martin, Newt has had serial affairs, although Martin’s wives numbered four in total, one more than the nuptials of Newt.

As such, Newt presents such a clear contrast to Mitt Romney that it is no wonder they are so frequently at odds, and with such vehemence. Romney is almost preternaturally calm and composed, almost always unruffled, and very controlled and deliberate. Newt is the anti-Romney – frequently ruffled, often scruffy in appearance, and constantly agitated about something. Romney is focused on marketing (himself), whereas Newt appears almost uninterested in marketing, preferring the generation of excitement and exhilaration to the details of campaigning (like getting on the ballot in Virginia and Missouri). And Newt generated enthusiasm, similar to that of Ron Paul supporters but much more grounded in reality.

It is Newt’s volatility that endears him to so many – at least at first – and makes him such a compelling contrast to Barack Obama. He is always on the edge, always ready for a good scrum, always ready with a verbal and intellectual comeback to any challenge. There is no question Newt can’t answer, no policy matter he hasn’t thought through, and no confrontation that he will duck. Many salivate at the prospect of Newt debating Obama, which will not only be exciting television, but will so easily distress the thin-skinned Obama. Newt without a note is more articulate than Obama with three Teleprompters. So that would be fun.

But is that what the presidency is supposed to be ? Presidents are never called on to debate anything, so they are meaningless as a measure of presidential performance. And as indicia of presidential success they are even less significant. They are reality TV – in the case of Republicans, a good way for the electorate to familiarize itself with them, even as it seems they are locked in a circular firing squad. (Come next fall, no one will remember or care about anything said in a January debate, and the election will more turn on some as yet unknown factor.) Newt’s strength as a debater is critical to his nominating chances but ultimately inconsequential should he become the president.

Newt’s capacity as an idea-man makes his candidacy so intriguing. Bright thinkers can produce an idea per minute, but many of them half-baked, some dangerous, and still others immensely profound. The last professor type who occupied the White House was Woodrow Wilson, and his musings – on economic policy and foreign affairs – shape America until today, and in a largely negative way. It was Wilson who laid the foundation for the modern welfare state (that was later expanded by FDR and LBJ) and for the US’s role as the world’s policeman. Often, professors are not sensitive to the real-world effects, consequences, or reactions to their suggestions, and simply develop a new idea to replace the previous failure. Thought, like talk, is often cheap when one is in an inconsequential role in an ivory tower, but hazardous when the real world with its real people intrudes on the speculations.

Many of America’s problems are so intractable that only out-of-the-box solutions should be considered. The unfunded liabilities of all the government welfare programs – Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and now Obamacare (may the Supreme Court overturn it) – run into the tens of trillions of dollars. America’s debt – now sixteen trillion dollars and growing (that’s $16,000,000,000,000.00) simply cannot be satisfied conventionally. Obama’s old idea of “tax the rich” – class warfare that depends for its success on two groups, the unintelligent and the recipient of handouts – is not only hackneyed and tired but also an obvious failure. Forget raising the rates on the rich: if Obama confiscated all the assets of every billionaire in the country, it would underwrite his budget for approximately two months – and then it would be gone, along with his class warfare argument.

Newt can make these arguments colorfully and compellingly. But will he flame out, as did Billy Martin again and again ? Will he offend his peers, co-workers and contemporaries even during the primary season ? He seems already to have inspired much opposition from Republicans with a personal animus towards him, an enmity that Romney never engenders even in his opponents.

A Newt Gingrich presidency would be a wild ride. He has already done an immense public service by pointing out the farce of the “peace process” and the vapidity of the Palestinian claims – the “invented people” remark from which he, to his credit, has not backtracked and has even reiterated.

If he is true to the Billy Martin form, Newt will win this election and then be booted out after one term. The difference – and this of course is critical – is that Martin had only one employer with a vote. Newt has to appeal to tens of millions of employers, who will either embrace or reject his voluble, out-sized personality.

Yet, we occasionally read these days of “Orthodox” Jews who molest, steal, rob, murder, assault, spit and curse at women and little children, set fire to businesses they disfavor for one reason or another, eschew self-support, brawl, intimidate and terrorize other Jews, or are otherwise genuinely disagreeable people. So what is it that makes those people “Orthodox,” or, even holier in the public mind, “ultra-Orthodox”?

The costume they wear.

It is a mistake that is made not only by a hostile media but also by the Jewish public, including the religious Jewish public. To our detriment, we define people by their costumes – e.g., long black coats, white shirts, beards and sometimes peyot – and we ourselves create expectations of conduct based on the costume that is being worn, as if the costume necessarily penetrates to the core of the individual and can somehow mold his character and classify his spiritual state – as if the costume really means anything at all.

If the events in Bet Shemesh or elsewhere in Israel rectify that mistake once and for all, some unanticipated good would have emerged from the contentiousness.

This is more than simply stating that any “Orthodox” Jew who sins is by definition not an “Orthodox Jew.” In truth, that statement is flawed and illogical, because all people sin; the truly “Orthodox” Jew might be one of the few who still actually believe in sin – stumbling before the divine mandate – and still seek to eradicate it by perfecting himself and struggling with his nature.

But the Torah Jew is defined by a core set of beliefs, principles and religious practices. One who subscribes to that core set is Orthodox notwithstanding any personal failings he has, failings which according to the Torah he must strive to reduce and diminish. No Jew – Rabbi or layman – is allowed to carve for himself exemptions from any mitzva. That is why deviations like the female rabbi, the dilution of the bans on homosexuality, the purported officiation by an “Orthodox” rabbi at a same-sex wedding, the relentless search for obscure leniencies in order to rationalize improper conduct, and other such anomalies drew such swift and heated reactions from the mainstream Orthodox world. The violent and criminal excesses in Israel have drawn similar rebukes but the thought still lingers: why do we even expect decorous and appropriate conduct from people who are perceived as thugs even within their own community, and who have literally threatened with violence some who would criticize them publicly? Because of the costume they wear.

Many of the brutes of Bet Shemesh have been widely identified as part of the sect known as Toldos Aharon (Reb Arele’s Chasidim).* The thumbnail sketch by which they are known always includes the declaration that they “deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel,” which in today’s world should be – and largely is – identical to being a member of the Flat Earth Society. They are “devoted to the study of Torah,” reputedly. Really ? What is the nature of their Torah study ? Are they Brisker thinkers, analytical and questioning, or are they more akin to another Chasidic sect, whose rebbe famously discouraged learning Torah b’iyun (in depth) because he claimed such distances the student from Divine service ? (That rebbi preferred a superficial and speedy reading of the words of the Gemara as the ideal form of Talmud Torah. And it shows.)

But what most identifies Toldos Aharon is…their costume. This, from Wikipedia: “In Jerusalem, married men wear white and grey “Zebra” coats during the week and golden bekishes/Caftan (coats) on Shabbos. Toldos Aharon and Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok are the only groups where boys aged 13 and older (bar mitzvah) wear the golden coat and a shtreimel, as married men do; however, married men can be differentiated by their white socks, while the unmarried boys wear black socks. In other Hasidic groups, only married men wear a shtreimel. All boys and men wear a traditional Jerusalemite white yarmulke. Unmarried boys wear a regular black coat with attached belt on weekdays, unlike the married men, who wear the “Zebra” style coat.”

Does any of this sartorial splendor have the slightest connection to Torah, to Orthodoxy, to living a complete Jewish life, to true divine service ? Memo to real world: there is no such concept as authentic Jewish dress. The Gemara (Shabbat 113a) states that Rav Yochanan would call his clothing “the things that honor me” (mechabduti) – but the Gemara does not see fit to even describe his clothing in the slightest fashion. Jewish dress is dignified and distinguished, clean and neat.  We are especially obligated to wear special and beautiful clothing throughout Shabbat (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 262:2-3). But beyond the tzitzit and the kippa for men, and modesty for all, there is no such thing as Jewish dress, the prevalence of contrary popular opinion notwithstanding. We are never told what Moshe, Ezra, Rabbi Akiva or the Rambam wore, and we are informed that one reason the Jews merited redemption from Egyptian because “they did not change their garb” (i.e., they did not adopt Egyptian styles) – but we are never informed what kind of clothing they did wear. Why ? Because it doesn’t matter one whit.

A sect that obsesses so much on clothing that it distinguishes the married and the unmarried by the type of socks they wear, and insists that everyone wear the same two coats, is not practicing a form of Judaism, in that respect, that is either traditional or brings honor and glory to the Creator. It is a practice that is not designed to induce others to gush about what a “wise and understanding people” we are. They are rather fabricating artificial distinctions between Jews – likely in order to foster cohesion within their small group, ward off outsiders, and better exercise mind control over their adherents. It is no wonder that such a group is not responsive to any known Rabbinic authority – not even the Edah HaChareidis – nor is it any surprise that the sect’s deviations from Judaism can be so repugnant to all Jews and all civilized people.  Surely there is more to prepare for in marriage than simply the acquisition of different color socks.

One can search in vain the Torah, the Talmud, the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch and the classic works of our modern era for any guidelines similar to what appears above. If these hooligans wore modern garb, we would not hesitate for a moment to denounce them, to agonize over how it is they left the derech, over the failings of their parenting and education, and probably over the high cost of tuition and the toll joblessness is taking on the Jewish family. That the reaction of many to this criminal behavior is less shrill is attributable to but one cause: the costume. For some odd reason, we expect more.

We assume the costume mandates fidelity to halacha and engenders considerate and refined conduct. It doesn’t. It is unrelated. It is irrelevant to spirituality. It says nothing – nothing – about a person’s religiosity. I have dealt several times with conversion candidates who insisted on wearing Chasidic dress – who had beards, peyot, long black coats, white shirts, would never wear a tie, and wouldn’t even hold from the eruv – but they were still non-Jews. In the shuls where they davened while studying for conversion, members wondered why these frum-looking men never accepted kibbudim (honors). They didn’t, for one reason: they were not yet Jews. They just thought they were wearing the costume of Jews.

All the lamenting and hand-wringing is partially warranted, and partially misplaced. Partially warranted because we have for too long tolerated discourteous, larcenous and vicious conduct among people who self-identify because of their “dress” as religious Jews – the consistent rudeness, the unseemly “bargaining” that occurs when a bill is due, and, as one extreme example, the recent arson at Manny’s. (Manny’s is a popular religious book store in Me’ah She’arim that carried a great variety of sefarim –  including mine – that was targeted by similar violent groups for carrying “disapproved books.” The store was set on fire a few months ago, and the owners largely caved to the pressure.) None of that is “Orthodox” behavior in the slightest. And it is partially misplaced because we play the game by their rules when we gauge people’s spiritual potential – or even spiritual level – based of the coat, hat, yarmulke, shoes, socks, shirt, pants or belt that they wear. It not only sounds insane, but it is insane, and it should be stopped. No one is more religious because he wears black or less religious because he wears blue or brown.

We would never consider people who habitually violate Shabbat, Kashrut, etc. as Orthodox. We should never consider people who are routinely brutal and abusive, or have disdain – even hatred – for all other Jews outside their small sect – as Orthodox either. They embrace certain Mitzvot and dismiss others, as well as ignore fundamental Jewish values. Certainly – traditional disclaimer – these goons are but a miniscule, atypical, unrepresentative, extremist, outlier group unrelated to the greater Charedi community that is only now awakening to the dangers within.

Nonetheless, even the greater community would benefit if they too began to de-emphasize the “costume” as at all meaningful or indicative of anything substantive. The Sages state (see Tosafot, Shabbat 49a) that the custom to wear tefilin the entire day lapsed because of the “deceivers.” (One who wore tefillin all day was reputed to be trustworthy, until the thieves learned that trick and used their “tefillin” to swindle others.) Those who reduce Judaism to externals necessarily exaggerate the importance of the costume, and naturally provoke those common misperceptions that cause the Ultra-Distorters to be deemed “Ultra-Orthodox.”

Would we make great progress in the maturation of the Jewish world if a blue suit occasionally appeared in the Charedi or Yeshivish wardrobe ? Perhaps. But we would certainly undo the inferences that attach to certain types of dress that leave many Orthodox Jews wrongly embarrassed and ashamed of the behavior of “people like us.” They are not like us. We must love them as we would any wayward Jew, and rebuke them as we would any wayward Jew. Even wayward Jews wear costumes.

Then we can promulgate the new fashion styles – the new uniform – of the Torah Jew, where beauty, righteousness and piety are determined by what is inside – not what is on the outside – by deeds and Torah commitment and not by appearances.

May we never again hear someone say that “X looks frum.” No one can “look” frum; one can only “be” frum, which itself is not as admirable as being erliche. That lack of sophistication is atrocious, embarrassing, and corrosive to Jewish life and distorts the Torah beyond recognition. We know better than that, and we are better than that. In a free society, anyone can dress exactly like others or unlike others if he so chooses. But it says nothing about their values, only about their identification with one group or another. We should stop trusting people simply because they don black coats, black hats, and wear beards – or, for that matter, kippot serugot. All are costumes. None convey any real truths about the real person.

The true measure of every Jew – and every person – is always within.

RSP- For another perspective on this issue, please read the following at: http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2011/12/29/welcoming-the-charedi-spring/#ixzz1iP31ZbUB

*I have seen one report attributing the violence to Toldos Aharon adherents, and another that Toldos Aharon is uninvolved. If they are indeed uninvolved, then I retract the reference to them and apologize. – RSP

    Indeed, these caucuses are not even real elections. Rather than enter a polling booth and cast a secret ballot as normal voters do, Iowans gather in various locations across their state (churches, schools, even homes), discuss the nominees and other concerns, divide up into various groups, write the name of their preferred candidate on slips of paper which are then collected and tallied. The “results” are not binding, and actual delegates are chosen at county conventions later in the year based on – or not based on (!) – the “results” from these caucuses. In terms of actually choosing a president, these results do not matter in the real world but only in the media world that is only capable of reporting winners and losers but little else of substance. The horse race becomes the be-all, end-all of this process.

And when the delegates are finally selected months from now, they will total a whopping 1% of all the delegates at the Republican Convention. That is because Iowa is a small state, with a population of about three million people and whose largest city – Des Moines – has, roughly, just five times the population of Teaneck, New Jersey. Iowa is also not very representative of the rest of the country – overwhelmingly white, rural (although the population is today more clustered in urban areas), and evangelical – not that there is anything wrong with any of those, or with Iowa itself (which, after all, gave us the “Field of Dreams”).

And, if Iowans are extremely enthusiastic about the caucuses, approximately 100,000 people will take part – meaning a winner who receives 25-26% of the vote will garner the support of some 25-26,000 people, smashing his defeated opponents by…oh, 2000 votes ? Perhaps even 4000 votes ? The also-ran who winds up in fourth place and is dismissed by the media as dead and buried can trail the triumphant victor by 5000 votes. Does that make any sense at all – that a country of 310,000,000 people can write off credible candidates for the presidency because they lost in Iowa by a handful of votes? No – it makes no sense at all.

History bears this out. If Iowa’s choices had any impact on the rest of the nation, we would have enjoyed Presidents Huckabee and Dole (even Pat Robertson attracted votes than George H.W. Bush did in 1988), never heard of Ronald Reagan again, and suffered through Presidents Harkin (76% in 1992, the most ever of any candidate!) and Gephardt. Bill Clinton received the passionate support of 3% of Iowans in 1992.

The Iowa results do serve a purpose of winnowing the candidates (strangely, Tim Pawlenty was long gone two Iowa corn harvests ago). But should he have left the race so early, before even a single vote was cast? Should a Bachmann, a Gingrich, or a Perry drop out simply because they trailed in this non-binding vote by a few thousand people?  Does a strong Rick Santorum finish mean anything more than in the peculiar demographics of Iowa he struck a receptive chord ? I would hope they would all continue regardless of the outcome here. Does a Ron Paul “victory” mean that he has any real support in more representative or diverse states, or would he just be this year’s Ed Muskie ? And far fewer Iowans participate in the caucuses than vote in the elections as it requires a much greater commitment of time than simply voting and occurs during the winter season when the weather can be unduly harsh in the American heartland. Turnout is key, but distorts rather than clarifies outcomes.

For sure, a Mitt Romney victory will vindicate his strategy of de-emphasizing Iowa this time around. During the last election cycle, Romney poured boatloads of money and spent an enormous amount of time campaigning in Iowa, finishing second and scarring his chances of ultimate victory. In 2011, Romney was rarely seen in Iowa until recently, and low-keyed the state. In fact, Romney may have devised a winning tactic in the last year, generally, by carefully limiting his television appearances and interviews, avoiding the overexposure that these days is bound to make any candidate or president (memo to Obama) look pedestrian and uninspired. The average American voter has gotten to know Mitt Romney mainly through the debates in which he has performed well, notwithstanding that debating has as much to do with the presidency as swimming does with the Rabbinate.

And from Iowa, it is on to New Hampshire, the “first in the nation primary,” which is unique in that it even less important than Iowa – an even smaller state, if that can be imagined – and therefore plays an even bigger role in the election process. That makes even less sense. The city of San Antonio has more people than the entire state of New Hampshire, New Hampshire is even whiter than Iowa, and it is a state without any sales tax or personal income tax. How it supports itself is less important than understanding why these states’ electoral choices should really matter. It is obvious that these states insist on being first because, if they weren’t, they would not matter at all. Certainly, every vote counts the same, but these votes seem to count more.  Everyone who wishes and is eligible should have a voice, but no voices should be artificially augmented. These are, and the whole process becomes comically misrepresented.

As some have written recently (I recall both Fred Barnes and Daniel Henninger making these points), it makes one long for the days of the smoke-filled rooms. Before there were primaries, caucuses, polls, media favorites and beauty contests, party elders would meet either before or during conventions and nominate candidates they thought could win and could best represent their often diverse interests. Delegates were pledged, controlled and traded. Many of our finest presidents emerged from such a system (unfortunately, so did Buchanan and Harding), and many of those same presidents became independent of their original backers when they assumed the office.

Republicans have a fine group of candidates, almost all of whom would be immense improvements over the Oval Office’s current occupant. But there is a cachet, and strong advantages, to the smoke-filled rooms of the past that produced almost all the presidents through FDR’s time. It enables the country to use the election to focus more on the “what” – what needs to be done to rectify the country’s problems – than simply on the “who” – who wins and who loses, who is up and who is down. It forces voters to concentrate on policy and not personality or appearance – most Americans in the first century and more of American politics neither heard a president speak nor knew what he looked like.

And it would end the absurd spectacle of having potential presidents riding tractors in Iowa or snowmobiles in New Hampshire to prove their presidential credentials. Of course, like many things in life, what should happen will not happen, if only because – in this matter, at least – the states don’t want it, the media opposes it, and the whimsy of democracy demands it.

Who knows ? Perhaps one of the candidates here will win 30% (!) of the Iowan vote, and by virtue of his landslide victory – a margin of maybe 6000 votes – he will become the clear frontrunner and coast to victory in November 2012.

P.S. Here’s a better way: Have two separate dates for the primaries  – one in February for eastern and southern states, and one in March for northern and western states – instead of staggering them week after week. Then, let delegates be approtioned according to votes, not winner-take-all. This way, each candidate will receive the attention he or she deserves, even if trailing, and will be a factor in the final decision. The trailing candidate’s support will have to be earned by the frontrunner, making for a stronger party and a stronger candidate.

Of course, it is too late for this cycle, but a candidate like Mitt Romney, who will likely finish in the top two or three in every state, would benefit from such a system, as his support would clearly be more widespread. And if the VP nominee was the runner-up, so be it. That might incline all the candidates to avoid scorched-earth campaigning that destroys each other and only benefits the incumbent.

    Concludes our writer: “There is only one small difference. The Levites were acting under God’s direct command, whereas Matityahu was acting on his own religious zeal and certitude. While we see God’s hand working through the Maccabees, and while were it not for Matityahu’s rebellion the miracle of Chanukah never would have happened, we do not have to endorse this initial act of killing another Jew who was violating the Law. We do not have to endorse an approach that turns a tzaddik into a kanai, a zealot.”

      At least he doesn’t go so far as to turn Matityahu into a rasha, an evildoer, but merely, a zealot. But he was a zealot, as were his sons, and that is why they were successful, and why we celebrate Chanuka until today.

     The linguistic acrobatics performed here are worthy of a circus act. “Were it not for Matityahu’s rebellion, the miracle of Chanuka never would have happened,” so the rebellion ostensibly was a good thing. But “we do not have to endorse this initial act of killing,” because apparently it was a bad thing. But if it was a bad thing, he shouldn’t have done it; but if he didn’t do it, there might not have been a rebellion – after all, “the initial act of killing” was the rebellion. Hmmm…quite a predicament: how can we make Chanuka palatable to the religious left, since it seems to be rooted in many doctrines that are anathema to the religious left: objective truth, moral certitude, justified violence, fierce nationalism and religious zeal. That is quite a predicament.

      Perhaps the rabbi has in mind that Matityahu should have led non-violent rallies against the enemy, written some nasty letters to the editor, negotiated peace with the Syrian conquerors, or –  perhaps even better – allowed himself to be killed while not-resisting, so that 2250 years later liberal Jews would not have to be embarrassed by his actions which only serve to ruin their celebrations of Chanuka. How short-sighted of Matityahu…

     Matityahu and his sons did not believe in religious freedom, or in pluralism, or in peace with the invader, or in sharing the land of Israel with foreigners. They believed in the absolute truth of Torah, in the sanctity of mitzvot, and in an uncompromising loyalty to the Creator, and they were willing to die for their beliefs. And almost all of them did die for their beliefs, including the most famous son of Matityahu, Yehuda HaMaccabee, who was killed in battle not long after the Menora miracle of Chanuka took place.

    It must be painful to celebrate a festival that is repeatedly mentioned in our prayers with a passage that begins “in the days of Matityahu,” and then to have to read approvingly how they “stood against the evil Greek kingdom that attempted to cause them to forget the Torah and to cause them to stray from the statutes of Your will.” It must be even more painful to be forced to recall three times a day that “You, in Your abundant compassion, stood with them in their time of travail,” and with His help they prevailed over their enemies.

    How to avoid such pain, or such cognitive dissonance between the real Chanuka and the contrived Chanuka ? Our writer: “We choose what to remember, and we choose how to see God in the world.” That is to say, since we are troubled (sometimes rightfully so) by religious certitude, arrogance and zealotry, we will eliminate those postures from our celebration of Chanuka, notwithstanding that without those, there is no Chanuka. So he chooses to focus on the miracle of the oil (unmentioned in the Chanuka prayer “al hanissim”) rather than on the rebellion and the military victory that the miracle of the Menora only came to ratify – to confirm that all aspects of Chanuka were the handiwork of G-d.

     The psychological disconnect of Chanuka from modern, liberal sensibilities results from the Maccabim’s rejection of democracy (they were the “few against the many”), humanism (they were the “pure against the impure”), moral relativism (they were the “righteous against the wicked”), pluralism (they were “the diligent students of Torah against the wanton violators”), and reason (they were the “weak against the strong”). All the pillars of the liberal Jew wobble each time the name Matityahu is mentioned, and each time the miracle of Chanuka is commemorated amid feasting and rejoicing, the lighting of the Menorah and the singing of Hallel.

     Of course, there is always a real choice for every Jew – a choice not to try to force the round peg of Torah into the square hole of modern liberalism. There is always a choice – to conform our ideas to those of the Torah, and not try to distort the Torah so they it conforms to our predilections. There is even a choice to re-think cherished assumptions, primarily that good and evil, morality and immorality, and right and wrong, are determined not by the editorial pages of the New York Times but only by the Torah.

     The subtle attempt to link Matityahu’s “extremism” with the evildoers of Bet Shemesh fails, except to the extent that any disfavored violence should be attributed to disfavored people. The Ultra-Distorters who spit on little girls are not Matityahu reincarnate because their motivations are impure and repugnant, and their sexual hang-ups both bizarre and un-Jewish. Their lifestyle and values, such as they are, reflect an obscene failure of education, upbringing and Torah knowledge. The simplest solution would be to imprison them where they can be kept apart from decent society. They are too easy a target even to criticize – but not a rightist fringe of Jewish life; there is nothing “right” about them – and they have few defenders of any standing in the Rabbinical or Jewish world.

       But Chanuka celebrates certainty. It is why we have survived many cruel and harsh enemies, and even survived many pleasant-sounding notions that are really the death knell of Jewish life. Jewish nationalism is not restricted to jingoistic expressions of greatness but is designed to cultivate a nation that will better the world and be a source of blessing for the entire planet. The celebration of Chanuka internalizes that objective and advances that goal – of pride and accomplishment, of purposeful survival, of righteousness and faith, of self-sacrifice and intense dedication to Torah – and to true Jewish values.

     So thank you, Matityahu and family, and happy Chanuka to all.

Moreover, the Rambam continues that “the mitzva of Ner Chanuka is most precious (chaviva hi ad me’od) and one has to be extremely careful in order to inform others of the miracle, and to expand on it in praise and thanksgiving to G-d.”

But why is this particular mitzva so precious ? There are other mitzvot that we have that also purport to publicize miracles – most famously the reading of the Megila and the drinking of four cups of wine on Pesach. In neither place does Rambam call those mitzvot precious – so why does he use that term only in reference to Ner Chanuka ? And why do we say of the Chanuka candles that they are “holy” – what’s so holy about Ner Chanuka ?

And one other, fundamental question: Why Chanuka ? Why do we commemorate ancient but short-lived victories ? The  Chashmonaim had their moment and served a valuable function 22 centuries ago, but they disappeared 20 centuries ago. The monarchy they established was a fleeting phenomenon in Jewish history, and the Mikdash they lovingly rededicated was destroyed two centuries later  – so why celebrate their achievements that have long ago been dimmed by history ?

Rav Soloveitchik zt”l explained by citing the Gemara Shabbat (22b) that the Menorah in the Mikdash served only one purpose: “it was evidence that the Divine Presence rests on the Jewish people.” So, too, the Rav said, Ner Chanuka is a symbol of G-d’s enduring presence among the Jewish people in every age and in every location in the world. In essence, in the absence of the Mikdash, Ner Chanuka is the means by which we demonstrate every year that we are the Chosen People.

That was one of the primary clashes between the Jews and the Hellenists. The latter maintained that the Jewish people had to renounce any notion of chosenness, to them a cause of Jew-hatred that we ourselves provoked. They argued that we were just like everyone else, and the very concept of a “chosen” people was repugnant to their modern sensibilities.

It still is. Of course, the early Christians claimed for themselves the mantle of the New Israel, but it fascinating that the early Americans did the same. The Pilgrims called themselves New Israel, sprinkled the colonies liberally with biblical names, and saw America as the “Promised Land.” Benjamin Franklin even wanted the Great Seal of the US to depict the crossing of the Red Sea, and Thomas Jefferson thought a better image was the Israelites in the wilderness being led by a pillar of fire and a cloud. (Instead, they chose the bald eagle and other symbols.)

Nonetheless, all this imagery – and the idea of a “manifest destiny” – fed the notion of American exceptionalism, which, sad to say, even high-ranking American politicians have repudiated of late. And even Jews are uncomfortable with the concept of an “am hanivchar.”. One of my putative colleagues on the far left fringe of the Orthodox rabbinate not long ago described the notion of chosenness as “a moment of imperfection in G-d’s creation and decision-making.” It is “problematic” to single out one people for leadership. Hmmm…well, someone’s imperfect.

The publicizing of Chanuka is not merely a reminder of the miracle of Chanuka and the salvation of Israel from our enemies, but primarily proof that the divine presence rests on the people of Israel. Our relationship with G-d is based on two components – our acceptance of

G-d’s oneness and the special character of the descendants of Avraham. That’s why the Rambam says the mitzvah is “to demonstrate and publicize the miracle” – to demonstrate what is already known but also to reveal what is not widely known, or widely accepted: to explain why we fought then, why we fight today, what G-d expects of us, and what is His vision for mankind.

And that is why the Ner Chanuka is a “very precious Mitzva,” treasured and cherished, and why these flames are holy, set aside not to use but to examine, understand, and investigate this unique phenomenon of an eternal people and its relationship to the Creator. Megila and the four cups on Pesach recall a particular event – Chanuka is more than that: it is a celebration of our unique relationship with G-d that has never faltered and that transcends time and space.

Thus, after the victory, the Chashmonaim endeavored to formalize the notion of the chosen people in halacha – reinforcing the ban on intermarriage, and adding to the laws of purity and impurity – all of which served to stem the tidal wave of assimilation in those days, and serves as a model for our time as well. That is the Chanuka that deserves celebration every year. It is not just the miracles of old, but His loving embrace that reminds us then and now that redemption comes not through might or power but through G-d’s spirit, and our fidelity to that spirit.

But now they’ve gone too far. This week, they published an account of a Jewish leader, righteous and decent but grieving over some family tragedies, who catches the eye of a courtesan at the crossroads and hires her services. When he unable to pay cash up front, the wench takes some of his property as a pledge and then disappears. But at the end of the story, the nobleman saves her from certain death by owning up to his moment of weakness.  Another sordid tale ostensibly with a moral message…

Wait, that wasn’t the Beacon – that was the Torah in Parshat Vayeishev and the episode of Yehuda and Tamar! And the light of the Messiah entered the world.

So what do we make of these stories? The media focused on its obsession – freedom of the press and censorship – and whether Modern Orthodoxy is too modern – when, to me, the real story was elsewhere. How do we discuss sensitive, delicate, even prurient matters? In fourth grade, we just skipped over the story of Yehuda and Tamar; that’s one approach. It doesn’t work well. How can you transmit values when the subject matter, or the application of those values, are taboo, and unmentionable? Granted, despite the anonymous author’s best efforts, the average commercial on television is more risqué and suggestive than this short story; and granted, I can see why the “Yeshiva” side of the YU ledger was offended.

But there is, unfortunately, a seamy corner of the Jewish world that we would do well not pretending that it does not exist. It exists – it exists because the culture is that decadent, and because young people looking for love, attention and respect often seek it in the wrong places and in the wrong activities – and they wind up without love or respect, although they do capture the attention, temporarily at least, of the exploiters and predators.

It exists in our colleges – whether YU or Stern and certainly in secular colleges – and it exists in the holy Yeshivos where only men learn, and where we presume, falsely, that they are shielded from the world’s tawdriness. They are, for the most part, but not entirely, human beings being human beings. It exists in our high schools – with young men and women pretending they are adults having real relationships, and even teachers, administrators, and Rebbeim acting inappropriately and sometimes criminally. It exists in the self-styled holiest neighborhoods of Lakewood and Borough Park, and it exists in the self-styled modern, sophisticated neighborhoods like Teaneck and the Five Towns. We usually are forced to deal with it when we hear of arrests for abuse and molestation – dozens in certain communities in recent years – and when we learn that some of our teens and young adults have lost all sense of boundaries and propriety. We ignore it at our peril.

We ignore it because we are uncomfortable talking about it. We would rather skip this story of Yehuda and Tamar.  We would rather believe that our children going off to high school and college are as pure and naïve and darling as they were at their Bar/Bat Mitzvot. We would rather that the Messiah descends from Heaven in a chariot than have him born as a result of this dissolute rendezvous.

The Torah conceals little about human life from us – and we are forced to reckon with Lot and his daughters, Yehuda and Tamar, Zimri and Cozbi, and later with King David and Bat Sheva and a host of other stories. I too was scandalized, until I actually saw the story – an effective if contrived way to raise a pressing social issue with a challenge at the beginning and a lesson at the end. “How Do I Begin To Explain This?,” the title, introduces the anticipation and the excitement – but the story ends with the ill-disguised indifference felt by the man towards his trophy-person and the self-loathing of the women – now forced to do the “walk of shame” for selling herself so cheaply, ‘a “stupid mistake.” As Rav Kahana said in the Gemara in a not-unrelated context: “this too is Torah and I have to learn it” (Berachot 62a).

Ultimately, the problem rests not in censorship or permissiveness, but in failures of education and parenting – a failure to transmit our values and to convey our way of grappling with desire and gratification. We have to overcome the fear of discussing those very issues that can be the most troublesome but in the long term the most spiritually rewarding. It is only the areas in which we struggle that true spiritual greatness emerges.

If it causes one woman to retain her dignity and say “no,” the article was worth it. If the discussions of the seamier side of Jewish life cause even one young victim of abuse to turn to his/her parents and then immediately to the police, then the discussions were worth it. And if we debate amongst ourselves the propriety of the Torah’s inclusion of the story of Yehuda and Tamar, then we will not only fail to understand how the moral greatness of Yehuda and the persistence of Tamar were indispensable for the destiny of Israel – we will also not  perceive how amid all the tumult and sadness and recriminations surrounding the event, “G-d was busy as well creating the light of the King Messiah” (Breisheet Rabba 85:1), that will soon illuminate all of mankind.

     Of course Newt was right. Interestingly, few, if any of his most rabid critics in the Arab world and in the anti-Israel media even challenged his thesis. They focused on the prudence and propriety of the statement, on the ever-shifting balance between the Old Newt and the New Newt, and the prospects of “peace” in the Middle East given this startling and audacious admission.

    But of course Newt was right, if impolitic. It wasn’t that long ago when Israel’s Prime Minister, the late Golda Meir, made such an assertion herself. In a statement to The Sunday Times (June 15, 1969), she said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” All Newt did was state a bald-faced truth that has been obscured for too long.

    That is not to say that there have not been Arabs living in what they called Palestine for generations. There have been Arabs living in the land of Israel for quite a while, just like there have been Jews living in Israel – in an unbroken chain of residence – since antiquity. But the Arabs of Israel never had a national identity, and never sought statehood or independence until the Jews returned en masse in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. (Previous Jewish residents were forced to live without any national rights and subservient to the Muslim, Christian, Turkish – the latter for 400 years until 1917 – and finally British rulers.) It is Palestinian “nationalism” and “peoplehood” that were contrived by Jew-haters and anti-Zionists.

    Thus, it is well known that the early 20^th century Arabs of the land of Israel called themselves “Southern Syrians” and derided the early Jewish settlers as “Palestinians.” (How’s that for marketing?) Those same Arabs rejected the UN state proffered to them in 1947, and then “neglected” to seek statehood from 1948-1967 when Judea, Samaria and Gaza were controlled by fellow Arabs. In other words, the “Palestinian people” that Newt neutered, and “Palestinian nationalism” itself, were both inconsequential formulations that only exist to undermine and disqualify the Jewish State of Israel. To underscore the point, had there been no “Israel” created in 1948, the territory of “Palestine” would have been distributed to a variety of Arab entities to the north and east, themselves creations of the international community. But an “Arab Palestine,” as an independent state, would have been on no one’s radar, as it was not until, as Newt pointed out, the 1970s.

     Jews have lived in Israel since time immemorial (the title of Joan Peter’s famous work), and even after the destruction of the Second Temple and the great exile, Jews remained. Jews remained in the 2^nd -4^th centuries to write the Jerusalem Talmud, draft the permanent calendar and even entertain, for a time in the 4^th century, the building of another Temple with permission from Julian the Apostate; in the 5^th-6^th centuries to cling to the land amid the Byzantine and Christian persecutions; in the 6^th-11^th centuries to survive the Muslim invasion – returning to Yerushalayim with permission from the Emperor Omar and observing the founding of the only town founded by Arabs in the land of Israel during their entire sojourn – Ramle; suffering the torments of the Crusaders in the 12^th century; enduring the Muslim re-conquest in the 12-15^th centuries in which the land saw a constant stream of Jewish visitors and/or residents, including Rambam, Ramban, R. Yechiel of Paris, and many others; the 16^th century that witnessed the flourishing of Jewish life – the composition – in Israel! – of the Shulchan Aruch and the rise of the giants of Kabbala; the 17-18^th centuries during which both Sefardic and Ashkenazic Jews bolstered existing communities throughout the land of Israel and founded new ones, and the 19^th century, when the Zionist movement in a variety of forms took root.

    Is there a similar “Palestinian” history ? Of course not. Throughout the ages, Jews both persevered in the land, and prayed for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty. It is absurd to even suggest there is a competing Palestinian narrative that bears any substance or validity. As I have noted before in this space, choose any century in the past 2000 years, and try to name a “Palestinian” of any sort. That is why the Arab apologists have been forced to assert that “Jesus was a Palestinian” (Arafat, apparently unaware that Jesus was a Jew) or, in the last week, that the “Palestinians” are descendants of the ancient Yevusi. (Really? I thought they descended from the Girgashi.) That is why the official Palestinian line of the last decade, emanating first from Arafat, is that there is “no Jewish Temple, no Jewish nationalism and no Jewish connection to the land.” The hat burns on the thief’s head. They have no indigenous connection to the land of Israel, and only arrived in large numbers after Jewish settlement began and to take advantage of the opportunities presented by Jewish settlement. Certainly, Chanuka itself reinforces the deep bond that the Jewish people have for, and in, the land of Israel.

    Usually, the Arabs have sought at this point to shift this uncomfortable conversation by saying that “there will never be peace if we argue over history.” But that is a tactic designed to move the debate from the realm of facts and reason to the charade of myth and fantasy, and to obscure the basic function of “Palestinian nationalism” – an Islamic/Arab marketing device to undercut and destabilize Israel’s existence by embracing Western nomenclature of human rights, self-determination, victim refugees, etc.

    Others effectively concede that there really is no historical “Palestinian people” (John Bolton also said as much the other day), but the political reality today is that they “exist” in the media, in the diplomatic chambers, in the UN, and in the land of Israel – so they exist today even if they never existed before, and therefore must be dealt with as if they are a real people.

    This would be a compelling argument, but only if the starting point is that “peace” is somehow possible to attain with an invented nation that denies one’s own existence. That bubble has been burst for many thinking people (excluding, among others, NY Times “experts” on foreign policy) and now resembles more a pagan fantasy than serious statecraft. But nothing valuable or meaningful can be built on a foundation of lies, and the State of Israel, nonetheless, remains guilty of propagating the Palestinian national fantasies while pandering to their blatant lies.

Take, for example, the recent and ongoing ruckus over the renovations of the Mughrabi Gate walkway to the Temple Mount that is in the process of crumbling, not to mention a terrible eyesore. This construction has been challenged by the Muslims as an attempt by the Jews to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.” (Of course, when the bridge collapses, those same Muslims will allege that the Jews destroyed it in order to kill Muslims and to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”) For some mysterious reason (fecklessness is the working theory), the Netanyahu government has abdicated its responsibilities to the Jordanian authorities, a shameful renunciation of sovereignty and a tacit acceptance of the lie that the Jews are attempting to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

The Israelis should rebuild that collapsing bridge for many reasons – it needs it, it is dangerous, it is now hideous-looking with all the scaffolding surrounding it, and it is acting as the sovereign entity in its capital city within shouting distance of the holiest place in Judaism – but primarily to expose the lie that the re-construction is designed to – you guessed it – “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

Lies have legs. Mark Twain famously said that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” With a complicit media and the Internet, lies these days can travel around the world several times before truth is even aware of the lie’s existence. For too long, Israel and its supporters have been guilty of accepting the Palestinian lies – history, narrative, policies, accusations (remember Suha Arafat, Hillary Clinton and the poison gas charge? The Egyptian media and the Israel-spreading-AIDS charge? Et al) and reportage without serious and sustained challenge. That time, thanks to Newt, should be long past.

Newt Gingrich may or may not become president, but he has served a valuable function in this regard – defying convention, stupefying his adversaries, and shocking the American-Jewish establishment – by telling an unvarnished truth. Call it “political Newt-ity,” for he has laid bare the hollowness of the enemies’ claims against Israel and exposed their lies, and our inexplicable acquiescence in them.