On December 14, 2003, George W. Bush announced to the nation the capture of the brutal Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. He said, in pertinent part (and note the language in bold): “The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq. The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the Dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.”

Now contrast that with Barack Obama’s statement upon the killing of Osama bin Laden, announced on May 1, 2011: “And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as I continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network. Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. Imet repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.”
If writing two autobiographies before actually accomplishing anything doesn’t do it, Obama here crosses the line that separates puffery from pathology. He did everything but claim to have personally hunted down bin Laden and killed him with his own hands, while simultaneously piloting the helicopter, smoking a cigarette and draining a three-point jump shot.

Certainly, some will speculate as to the mindset of a braggart who is clearly oblivious to how he sounds, assuming he doesn’t himself believe his own hype. Perhaps it stems from his disrupted childhood, growing up with a permanently-absent father and a frequently-absent mother that necessitates this self-flattery. Perhaps it is an unconscious recognition of the dearth of his personal resume, notwithstanding (or maybe the proximate cause of) his election to the presidency. One of my colleagues long ago pointed out Obama’s stubborn resistance to using a railing while descending steps, as if he is immune from mishaps – as if he can’t possibly fall. (Apparently he did stumble once, video suppressed.)

And there’s this, President Obama’s statement last week endorsing homosexual marriage: “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Forget the fact that he’s changed his position several times – pro-same sex marriage in the 1990’s, anti- in the 2000’s, pro- again in the 2010’s – without being seriously questioned about his changes (why was he against it? Why was he for it? What moral compass guides him? Is it crass politics – one wag called it less “evolution” on Obama’s part and more “intelligent design,” an attempt to revive his flagging base. What is it?) Forget the fact that he should have to explain why he would be opposed to two adult brothers marrying, two sisters, a brother and sister, a parent and a child, or why he would oppose polygamy or polyandry – assuming, of course, that the people were all in love and wanted to build a strong family. Forget all that, and ponder this: how is it possible to squeeze four first-person pronouns in one sentence, even conceding his lack of eloquence without a teleprompter?!

Chazal spoke quite harshly about arrogance, in every person but certainly in a leader for whom it invariably leads to failures. “A haughty heart is an abomination of G-d” (Mishlei 16:5). Self-aggrandizement is a sign of weakness and insecurity, not strength. It is unbecoming, and, as is well known, “pride precedes destruction and arrogance comes before failure” (Mishlei 16:18). Rav Hirsch explains that haughty people become overconfident; perhaps they genuinely believe they can control the tides and cool the planet. How will Obama react to defeat – further tear apart the country? Complain bitterly about race and bias? Tie up the country in litigation? He has been remarkably lacking in class, almost unheard of in presidential politics.

The haughty are compared to idolaters and sexual predators (Sotah 4b) and find it difficult to praise others (Zohar). “One coin in a bottle rattles; the bottle filled with coins makes no sound” (Bava Metzia 85b). One whose true virtues are minimal cannot but speak of them at length; a person of genuine greatness sees no need to refer to himself or his achievements. They speak for themselves.
It was Pat Riley who characterized arrogance as “the disease of me,” marked by chronic feelings of under-appreciation and a concomitant focus on the self, and a resentment of the competence and success of others. Bad midot are worse than bad policies, and although only a fool looks to any politician to provide examples of good midot, politicians can have an extraordinary effect on the public culture, for good and for bad. Man’s finest virtue, Rav Moshe ibn Ezra stated, is that of which he is unaware.

Leadership often carries with its feelings of superiority, especially when the leader makes decisions that affect millions of people. It is an occupational hazard. The better ones conceal it under a veneer of humility and graciousness. It makes them personally tolerable, even if their policies are repugnant and risible. Someone should inform the President of this basic truth.

     That, as well as anything, explains the recent self-immolation of a colleague on the “Orthodox left” (perhaps, better, “left Orthodoxy”) who demeaned and denounced the daily blessing recited by men thanking G-d for “not having made me a woman” and opined that he has stopped saying it, in breach of a Jewish tradition that is several millennia old. Stealing from the non-Orthodox playbook, he castigated Orthodoxy for its “maltreatment” of women, and our “inherited prejudice that…women possess less innate dignity than men.” He even brazenly declared the blessing a “Desecration of G-d’s Name,” trampling any sense of propriety and humility and demonstrating the ability to leap over the spiritual giants of Jewish life in a single bound – quite a stupendous feat.

    To be sure, the condemnation of his remarks elicited from him a standard (and partial) retraction, apologizing for the stridency of the remarks but not their substance. This is the flip side of a fairly typical liberal criticism, the clichéd “it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it,” when, actually it is the substance, often irrefutable, that bothers them. Here, not only was the tone repugnant, but the sentiments were equally abhorrent – and were not only not withdrawn but educed defenders from the “left Orthodoxy” who are adept at finding the one source that seems to support their views (even if it doesn’t) and are blithely contemptuous of Jewish tradition, history, custom and the wisdom of our Sages. It is impossible to read his remarks without sensing that he perceives the Talmudic sages and their spiritual successors down to our day as, G-d forbid, small, bigoted, and immoral people who are his moral inferiors. One wonders why he can respect anything that they say, being so flawed, and why any of his students or congregants should care to study the opinions of those hopeless misogynists. A rabbi must have enormous self-confidence, to say the least, to set himself up as judge and jury over the guardians and transmitters of the divine word, and he must also be inordinately sensitive to feel pain when none is intended.

     Some of my learned colleagues have written eloquent articles about the provenance of this particular blessing, starting with the Yerushalmi (Brachot, Chapter 9) that explains it as referring to man’s obligation in Mitzvot that are numerically greater than those of a woman, a servant and a heathen. (See, e.g., Rav Dov Fischer at http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2011/08/08/who-hast-not-made-me-a-liberal-rabbi/). Another distinguished colleague wrote beautifully of an encounter with a woman who said that she loved the female version of the blessing – a woman correspondingly recites a blessing thanking G-d “for creating me according to his will.” She understood it as follows: women were the last entity created during the six days of creation, and therefore represented G-d’s special creation – the only entity created perfectly, “according to His will.” It is the man who recites wistfully that G-d did not make him a woman. Not only is that interpretation clever, creative, respectful of Chazal, and reflective of a joy and contentment with life, it also echoes Rav Hirsch’s commentary that women are spiritually superior to males and naturally closer to G-d than men are. I don’t have to agree – I think men and women are spiritually equal before G-d but just given different roles – to respect her satisfaction with her station in life. That is true love of G-d and love of Torah – the exact opposite of the embittered assault on Torah and Orthodoxy (among other sins – batei din, agunot, the lack of female rabbis, etc.) that emanated from the quarters mentioned above. The task of the Rabbi is to teach Torah to the unlearned, not reinforce their basest stereotypes, and one who chooses an interpretation of Chazal’s words that put them in a bad light, as opposed to teaching the many traditional interpretations that are holy and positive, is defining himself and his biases rather than the Torah. Indeed, it is peculiar that a rabbi who claims to be concerned with women’s spiritual dignity would find that dignity not in a uniquely feminine role but in rank mimicry of man’s role.

     We are living through a period of history in which “sensitivity” has become so acute that every word and deed is scrutinized by self-appointed moralists for even the possibility of offense, and in a world in which we try to co-exist with numerous individuals who are always taking offense about something or other. Some people are just thin-skinned, but today there are many who have no skin at all; they are just a bundle of raw nerves, claiming either victimhood or an unrestricted license to protect potential victims as they see it, and using that status as a club with which to beat the less-enlightened who do not share their views. There is little that, read a certain way, does not give offense, so here’s a brief list of blessings that the fastidious might also consider omitting:

     Blessed is Hashem…Hamelamed Torah l’amo Yisrael (who teaches Torah to His peopleIsrael) – might offend the world by singling out the Jewish people for our special relationship with G-d;

 …hamachzir neshamot lifgarim meitim (who restores souls to dead bodies) – might offend those who r”l die in their sleep;

…She’lo asani goy (who did not make me a heathen) – might offend non-Jews;

…She’lo asani aved (who did not make a slave) – might offend the working man;

 …pokeach ivrim – (who opens the eyes of the blind) – might offend the blind;

 …matir assurim – (who unties the bound) – might offend the incarcerated;
 … zokef kfufim – (who straightens the bent) – might offend the hunchback;

 …she’asa li kol tzarki – (who provides all our needs, i.e., shoes) – will offend Shoeless Joe Jackson;

… hameichin mitzadei gaver (who prepares the steps of man) – might offend the lame;
 …Ozer yisrael bigvura and oter yisrael b’tifara (who girdsIsrael with might, who adornsIsrael with splendor) – really offends non-Jews who apparently were not so blessed with might or splendor;

…hanoten laya’ef koach (who gives strength to the weary) – will offend the exhausted who nonetheless wake up every morning;

… Yotzer ha’meorot (who formed the luminaries) – offends evolutionists, and sounds too much like the claims of those right-wing creationists.

…Habocher b’amo yisrael b’ahava (who chose His people Israel with love) – offends…well, it is obvious. There are many others. It is not that everyone will be offended by everything; it is rather that someone might be offended by some of them, and the sensitivity police will be on the case, poseurs all.

     And, of course, noten Hatorah (who gave us the Torah) – will offend those who do not believe that G-d actually gave us the Torah but assume it is a man-made ball of wax that can be shaped as they wish in order to conform to the prevailing political correctness of every generation.

   But I suppose that is the whole point of this exercise. My colleague prefers to abstain from this blessing citing the Rabbinic dictum “Shev v’al taaseh, adif” (“it is preferable to sit and not do…”) Of course, that dictum is our general recourse when we confront a conflict of laws – when an action will simultaneously fulfill and violate different commandments; it is does not at all relate to a case in which one chooses not to fulfill  mitzva because he has shamefully construed it as a “sin.” And what really is the source of the alleged sin, to add to Mamet’s quotation at the top ?

     One of my distinguished colleagues recently called attention to the introduction of the Steipler Gaon to his work “Chayei Olam.” The Steipler writes that too many Jews are spiritually perplexed – either a consequence of intellectual confusion or uncontrollable desires whetted by what they see in the world around them – and usually because they have gazed in the works of free-thinkers whose words are impure and transmit impurity, and this nonsense is retained in and shapes their minds. And then he writes (translation mine): “It is appropriate to respond to these confused individuals that do they really think that they are the first people ever to have these questions and doubts ? Does it take some genius to be thus confused ? Rather do you not understand that thousands of the giants of Israel in every generation wrestled with every possible question, doubt and angle – and yet their faith remained perfect and complete, in force, and they all served the will of their Creator with fear and reverence because their souls were pure and in the light of their understanding they saw the truth clearly – what is true and what is false and counterfeit… From the simple faith of all our Rabbis, you will be able to understand that for every question and doubt there are clear answers….”

     Part of humility is deference to those whose wisdom, deeds and moral attainments were greater than ours, and teachers of Torah should attempt to inculcate that deference – rather than affect an air of moral superiority. This most recent effort to impose the fleeting morality of modern times on the eternal values of Chazal does more than disparage generations of Jews – men and women – who properly understood the intellectual depth and moral goodness of our Sages; worse, it ordains every individual to pass ultimate judgment on every aspect of the Torah, filtering every detail through a subjective moral code that will differ from person to person. Such lacks more than just humility; it undermines the unity of the Jewish people, our faith in Torah, and our acceptance of the “yoke of the divine kingship.”

      Many have traveled down that road; few have returned. The substance is as shallow as the articulation was disgraceful. Both should be withdrawn, and the honor of our Sages and their formulation of our daily prayers, and the spiritual dignity of men and women, affirmed.

    The Gemara (Bava Batra 165a) says, in the name of Rav, that certain sins are hardy perennials that are difficult to suppress: “Most [people are guilty] of theft, a minority of promiscuity, and everyone of slanderous speech,” which the Gemara soon qualifies to mean the “dust of lashon hara” – indirect, disparaging
speech but not overt gossip. (It is safe to say that these days few roll only in the dust of lashon hara.) But what of the Gemara’s assertion that “mi’ut ba’arayot” – only a minority are guilty of sexual misconduct? The overheated rhetoric that came my way seemed to imply – strike that, it was stated explicitly and quite stridently – that if young men and women simply talk to each other, even in public and even in controlled settings, that sin is inevitable for all but the most unresponsive and lifeless among them. How can that be, if the Gemara perceives only a minority as succumbing to these sins?

    Conversely, since the more prevalent danger is theft, why do we not embrace the same restrictions in this area that are suggested in the dating context? Rashbam notes that people are prone, especially in business, to allow themselves leniencies that increase their own profits at the expense of others (known in today’s parlance as shtick). Recall that Rav Yisrael Salanter said famously that just as there is a prohibition to seclude oneself with another’s wife (yichud),
so too there should be a prohibition to seclude oneself with someone else’s money. Reb Yisrael was undoubtedly correct, as always, that the temptation of illicit money exceeds that of lewdness, and yet we have not incorporated the same restrictions: we don’t require two people to work a cash register in a Jewish store, we are not admonished not to enter stores alone lest we shoplift or
remain alone in someone’s living room in the presence of his I-Pod or other desirable devices, nor do we require that young people with uncontrollable lusts for money and no legitimate means of earning it just avoid any contact with it.
Perhaps we should – but we don’t, because erecting limitless fences around sin
does not build character or develop reverence for Heaven. What is does is leave
a person incapable of exercising any self-control the moment one of those
fences collapses.

    Indeed, Chazal did establish one fence regarding relations between unmarried people – the prohibition of seclusion that was decreed by the Sanhedrin of King David in the wake of the Amnon-Tamar episode. Consequently, it is surely forbidden for unmarried people to seclude themselves. But how then is another fence built around the initial fence – a decree added to a decree – that would prohibit even public interactions? Is the world so much different today than it was 50, 100, 500, 1000 or 3000 years ago?

    Yes and no. The world is different in terms of the dissemination of bawdy material and the tawdry imagery that inundates our senses. Modern means of communication has eased transmission of both the holy and the profane. Our eyes and our souls are always at risk whenever we venture out into the world, and even when sometimes we sit at home or in front of a computer. But human nature is the same, and we delude ourselves into thinking that, somehow, today’s young people are more concupiscent than people in ancient, medieval or pre-modern times. That is simply false. People are people and human nature is human nature. (Even the display of raunchy material is nothing new. Visit any art museum – I was at the Louvre in Paris last week – and one realizes that medieval art was almost exclusively either Christian-themed or naked women – and sometimes both, simultaneously. Of course, they called it art, like others term even more salacious material today. Either way, there is not much for a Jew to see. I developed a new appreciation to the genius of Monet, and even Morris Katz.) In the past, the public frowned on debauchery, but that does not mean that its incidence was any less frequent than today.

     Obviously, the Bible has many stories of misconduct between the sexes, and the Torah prohibitions reflect that one’s desires gravitate toward those areas. The Maharal himself was banished from Prague (after his first stint there) because the people resented his carping about one of their prevalent vices – adultery – and this in a community that numbered just several thousand Jews. There is nothing new under the sun. So, knowing what we know, how can Chazal say that just a “minority” are guilty of promiscuity? Would they say the same today? Would Rav amend his statement to read that, today, sadly, “all are guilty
of theft, lechery, and gossip” – in which case, what hope is there for any of
us?

     I conclude that Chazal were correct, and that only a minority of people are guilty of licentiousness. All people are subject to fantasies, even persistent ones, but most do not act upon them. Hirhur (fantasy) is part of the human condition; fleeting thoughts are impossible to inhibit and our obligation as strivers for perfection then becomes uprooting them, not dwelling on them, and becoming involved in some more gainful and productive pursuit. To think that we can eliminate unconscious thoughts reflects an ignorance of human nature, and
Chazal profoundly understood human nature. And to think that we can eliminate sin by supplementing the Torah’s and Chazal’s prohibitions with even more prohibitions is misguided. It simply drives sin underground – to which a
generation of Jews who hide televisions in their closets, or received deliveries of televisions in air-conditioner boxes, or who furtively sit over their computers surfing the internet without a life-preserver can undoubtedly attest. At the end of the day, there is no alternative to self-control, which is a function of reverence of Heaven.

     Human nature is human nature, and no community is immune from sin or devoid of sinners. The Jewish world – right, left, center, Modern, Haredi, yeshivish – has its share of miscreants, pedophiles, thieves, psychos, murderers, adulterers, degenerates, deviants, and those who would expose or cover up those sins and sinners, crimes and criminals. The comfort might be that our numbers are smaller relative to the general population in all these vices, and that lasciviousness is still perceived as aberrational conduct that is not or should not be tolerated in our midst and appropriately shocks us when it does occur. But to think further that there is one foolproof way that works for all – one way to avoid sin or temptation, one way to find a spouse, and one way to have a happy, fulfilling marriage – is delusional.

   There is something else that needs to be said, an outgrowth of some of the responses I received. Fear of sin is a virtue in Jewish life, in a way that it is simply not understood in the rest of the world. We should always be mindful that we can stumble at any time, and therefore always have a conscious awareness of G-d’s presence. But there is a fine line between piety and dysfunction that tends to get blurred. Reading recent accounts of families that segregate the sexes for meals – or families in which brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law do not converse for fear of the “next step” – crosses the line from excessive piety to palpable dysfunction. If we posit that Chazal are correct – and who among us would not? – that only a mi’ut ba’arayot – then we have to accept that self-control and self-discipline are sufficient to allow normal interactions and to restrain, even among the most lustful among us, improper conduct. If not – if one cannot walk the streets or converse or casually interact without harboring persistently impure or libidinous thoughts that coalesce with an uncontrollable urge to lunge at random females, that is dysfunctional, and such a person requires all the safeguards that we can conjure, and even some that we have not yet imagined. But normal people do not require that.

    The bottom line is that one who does not learn self-control before marriage will not learn it after marriage either, and invariably fall into that minority category that Chazal addressed. And one who cannot restrain his passions in any area of life – money or gossip included – will never learn to restrain it until he/she begins a process of teshuva, self-awareness, and discipline. That process is the true perfection of the soul that is a primary purpose of life itself, and
that process must always be informed by the recognition that the ways of Torah
are the “ways of pleasantness,” as well as normalcy.

A recent piece posted on Matzav.com signed by “A Crying Bas Yisroel” chillingly lamented the plight of a young single woman, with fine personal qualities but without any family money or yichus, who sits forlornly waiting for her phone to ring with calls from shadchanim. Alas, the phone never rings, and for her, the shidduchsystem is an ongoing nightmare.

    President Obama can rightly claim credit for this success that greatly weakens Al Qaeda’s capacity and influence. The fact that its founder and charismatic leader was killed by the “great Satan” demoralizes terrorists across the globe, removes a symbol of the “rise” of radical Islam, and likely reduces access to the bin Laden family fortune. Since the “fish stinks from the head,” chopping off the head from the snake of radical Islam is a grave setback that allows moderate Muslims, to the extent that they exist, to come forward and reclaim the legacy they assert is theirs. Certainly, there are al Qaeda cells across the world, and the Muslim Brotherhood is on the ascent in every Arab country with public unrest. Hamas quickly condemned the “assassination of the holy warrior,” something that itself should preclude any American acquiescence to the Fatah-Hamas rapprochement and is reminiscent of the celebrations that erupted in Gaza, Ramallah and elsewhere in the Arab world when the Arab terror attacks of September 11 took place.

       Nevertheless, something was missing from the Obama announcement. It was not only the lack of graciousness to his predecessor. Typically, Obama asserted that he made the capture of bin Laden a priority immediately after he took office, implying… that Bush did not make that a priority? President Bush wrote in his memoirs that the failure to capture bin Laden was one of his “great regrets” as president, especially after pursuing him relentlessly for several years. A more gracious president would have acknowledged that this has been an American priority since 2001, and, to a great extent, even going back to the Clinton administration. Yet, the only reference to President Bush was to incorporate his statement after the Arab terror of September 11 and reiterate the cliché that America is not “at war with Islam.”

     What was missing from Obama’s address (besides smoothness; he is a much better speaker with the dual teleprompter that enables him to move his head right and left than he is with the single screen monitor directly in front of him – one reason he consistently eschews the traditional Oval Office address) was joy. Simple joy, but even what President Bush’s critics would have termed “smug satisfaction” had this occurred under his watch. (I recall a great Bush line, in which he referenced the criticism of his “swagger. In Texas, we call that walking.”) It is as if killing bin Laden was an unpleasant task, for which Americans should feel at least some guilt and sorrow; that he deserved it but we didn’t want to do it and we hope the Muslim world realizes it is not about them, it was just one bad apple, etc.  A smile, a gleam in the eye (even when thanking the unit that succeeded,  acknowledging their exceptional professionalism and courage) – show some joy ! Bush (I and II), Reagan, Clinton – they all would have known how to gloat without overdoing it. But Obama underdid it. Whatever happened to “when the wicked perish there is song” (Proverbs 11:10) ? There were spontaneous outbursts by the crowds that assembled outside the White House, in Times Square, and even at Ground Zero –  “USA, USA !” They had it right; Obama’s passion was missing, and somewhat discordant. Why ?

    Defenders will say that he projected seriousness because the war is ongoing, new terror attacks might be in the offing, and we do not want to provoke these attacks through excessive boastfulness (as if terror against innocent civilians is brought upon them by their own deeds, and not the evil of the terrorists). But maybe there is something else afoot  - the liberal’s aversion to war.

     All this is reminiscent of the famous discussion in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 39b) that during the miraculous salvation at the Red Sea, which necessitated the complete annihilation of the Egyptian military, “the Heavenly angels wished to utter a song of praise before G-d but He rebuked them, saying ‘My handiwork (the Egyptians) is drowning in the sea, and you wish to utter a song before Me’?”

     This passage is popularly understood as a reason not to celebrate the downfall of the wicked, and even the reason why we do not recite a full Hallel on the anniversary of that miracle, the Seventh Day of Pesach. (This is based on a Midrash, even though the Gemara Arachin 10a-b offers a wholly unrelated reason for reciting half-hallel that is the operative halachic principle here.)

     Yet, although the angels were rebuked, Moshe and the Jews did sing a most glorious song upon beholding the death of the Egyptians (“I will sing to G-d for He is exalted above the arrogant, the horse and its rider are hurled into the sea… the mighty sank like lead into the water”), a song that we sing every single morning, and an event that we commemorate every morning and evening. And we do recite Hallel on the Seventh Day of Pesach, just omitting a few verses from two of the chapters; it is not as if we don’t celebrate the event at all but are sunk in grief over the loss of Egyptian life. And in a very similar event – the miraculous destruction of the armies of Sancheirev, the Assyrian king, that also took place on Pesach – the king Chizkiah was criticized by G-d for not singing a song of praise over the majestic salvation of the Jewish people and an abrupt end to the siege over Jerusalem (Sanhedrin 94a). So, which is it – do we sing or not sing, do we rejoice (like the crowds of Americans responding to the news of the death of our enemy or do we remain somber (like the Commander-in-Chief) ?

     The answer is in the statement of the Talmud itself: the angels were rebuked by G-d, not the people who experienced the great victory – who endured the suffering and pain inflicted by the evildoer and now lived to see justice done. The “angels” reflect a divine perspective. From G-d’s perspective, evil itself is a terrible waste of human endeavor, and the death of every human being is a net loss. The most wicked individual was created by G-d in the “divine image,” which he then trampled and abused and then forfeited. We are supposed to acknowledge the divine perspective, because it is an aspiration for all human beings.

     But we are human beings, and in the world of human beings, the suffering of innocent people troubles us and the destruction of the wicked delights us. That is why “when the wicked perish there is song” (Proverbs 11:10), and that is why Moshe sang the song that we sing every day since – about G-d’s exaltedness, and the triumph of righteousness that is heralded by the death of the wicked. That is why Chizkiah was punished and, according the Gemara, not designated as the Moshiach – he did not sing when he witnessed the hand of G-d. If we cannot feel joy when the wicked perish, then our love of justice is impaired.

     Certainly, the boisterous and young crowds chanting “USA, USA” were not praising G-d or singing Hallel, which they might have had their educations and upbringing been different. But they were rejoicing in the death of the wicked and the triumph of good, something that should evoke joy and not guilt, and in the President, a facial expression of satisfaction rather than one who looks like he is chewing gravel.

     The war is not over, but yesterday’s accomplishment was a great milestone. Like the death of Saddam Hussein that abruptly ended the fantasy of some Iraqis that he was still lurking and might return to power, the brutal death of Osama bin Laden sends a clear message to all Arab/Muslim terrorists: there is a day of reckoning for all. President Bush vowed in the aftermath of the Arab terror of September 11 that Osama bin Laden would be captured, “dead or alive.”

      He was, and “dead” is better, and an occasion for rejoicing and thanksgiving. So kudos to the President and his team for a job well done, as bin Laden prepares to be greeted by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam and Arafat.

     Part of their ridicule was based on certain scientific errors that the Talmudic Sages allegedly made, which to them, completely discounted and trivialized the knowledge of science they did have. But the critics make a conceptual error, likely out of ignorance. We should be rightly proud and astonished at Chazal’s knowledge of science, but that is not to say that scientific knowledge is a legacy of Sinai and part of the Mesorah of Torah. All it means is that intelligent people have an obligation to study the science of the times, and to keep current on the latest developments in all spheres of knowledge. From that perspective, their correct conclusions are astounding, and their “errors” were simply based on the flawed scientific information of the day none of which played a direct role in the realm of psak. (Bear in mind that formulations such as “spontaneous generation” were not only consistent with the science of the times, but with another basic halachic corollary – for purposes of halacha, physical phenomena are as we see them in their natural and unaided state. “The Torah speaks the language of man,” as do human beings generally in colloquial discourse. That is why the halacha, and normal people, refer to “sunrise” and “sunset” even though technically the “sun” is neither rising nor setting. So, too, “spontaneous generation” is perceived by the naked eye, even if it is not actually occurring.)

   Are there individuals who can derive scientific knowledge from the Torah ? I imagine there might have been, and might be, but I do not know any. We have no scientific mesorah, only an obligation to seek wisdom from every source and acknowledge the truth regardless of its spokesmen. Hence, the great Rebbi Yehuda HaNasi had no qualms about conceding that on a certain scientific matter (involving the sun’s rotation) in which the “wise men of Israel” disputed the “wise men of the nations” that “their view is preferable to ours,” i.e., the view of the non-Jewish scholars should prevail (Pesachim 94b). For that comment, Rebbi was not dismissed as Prince of Israel, nor was his official Tanna Society card confiscated. He is merely praised by us as a person of integrity.

    The critics should be gratified by such statements, and intellectual honesty, which was unheard of in the ancient world, through medieval times and even today, especially in “religious” circles. Jews never entertained persecuting a Galileo Galilei figure, whose scientific conclusions aroused the enmity of the 17^th century Catholic establishment. (He recanted. Fortunately, he was pardoned by Pope John Paul II in 1992, and he received a posthumous apology from the Church.) The point is that persecution of scientists was and is unknown in Jewish life, except, I suppose, when scientists exceed their areas of expertise and begin pontificating on matters of morality and mesorah.

     The Torah was not given to us as a book of science, history, archeology or any secular realm but rather as divine wisdom that governs how man should live and pursue spiritual and intellectual perfection.

     How is it that some Jews cannot take pride in the mindboggling scholarship of our spiritual shepherds, then and now ? For example, one should marvel at the fact that the length of the solar year (according to Rav Ada bar Ahava) is 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes and 25-25/47^th seconds, while the US Naval Observatory calculates it as exactly the same, except for 25.439 seconds. It doesn’t matter whether it was Rav Ada’s calculation or derived from the science of the day; it is clear from the dispute in the Gemara that he did not simply parrot an opinion but did his own independent research – as Chazal did regarding the conduction of electricity through metal, or (what became known as) Halley’s Comet, or that Chazal perceived the earth as “a ball” (Bamidbar Rabba 13:14) and verified it experientially. (Many such fascinating tidbits about the wisdom of the Sages in all areas of life are found in “A Book of Jewish Curiosities” published in 1955 by my wife’s grandfather, David M. Hausdorff a”h.)

    It might be that the resentment of the critics stems from their discontent with some of the Sages’ moral mandates, especially when they conflict with the modern agendas over which so many obsess and through which they sit in judgment of the qualifications of the Talmudic masters and their descendants. Or, it could simply be a testament to the dearth of Torah knowledge among some Jews, who have never learned with a Torah master and so cannot distinguish between mesorah, halacha, homiletics and general knowledge.

    And that is a crying shame. Ignorance of our heritage is the bane of Jewish existence, but does not stop Jews from weighing in on many subjects beyond their current capacities. In a world in which Koreans have fallen in love with Talmud study (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143192) as the fount of all Jewish wisdom, should Jews willfully deprive themselves of their own heritage ?

     The secret of Jewish life is summed up by two words from the hagada of the Sages:  Tzei u’lmad – “Go forth and learn!” Then we will all take pride in our origins and heritage, in our commitment to wisdom and intellectual honesty, and in the special blessings that G-d bestowed upon His people on Pesach, this holiday of our founding.

     The storm subsided, and the tsunami was unleashed – a deluge (think Noach’s flood) of disparagement and condemnation by the non-Orthodox, leftist, and secular wings of the Jewish world, along with the homosexual lobby that went so far as to link the retraction to the unfortunate suicide last week of an outed Rutgers student as another example of “intolerance.” Since the legitimization of homosexuality and same-sex marriage is one of the most pervasive causes reported today (under the guise of civil rights), journalists have been swooping down all week from across the world on our fair township. I have been called by six reporters – print and electronic media – to comment, which I have not, until now. What to make of this spectacle ?

     The “Standard” is a typical “secular” Jewish weekly. Its style and substance is non-Orthodox (occasionally anti-), and its politics are decidedly left-wing – pro-Democrat, pro-Oslo, pro-abortion, etc. – and the Torah’s views on any issue are assumed to correspond to those of the New York Times’ editorial page. Most people receive the paper because they donate to the local Federation, which deducts a portion of their contribution and forwards it to the paper (and some shuls and temples apparently do the same). In return, the Standard disseminates information about Federation campaigns, fund-raisers and other events.

      I have not read the paper in over a decade, having tired of the simplistic liberalism that informed every commentary, embarrassed by the anti-Torah screeds that were presented as legitimate, Jewish points of view, uncomfortable by the reporting of matters so indecent that I would not have wanted my young children to see it, and not least of all, disgusted by the constant mischaracterization of my views and opinions when I was interviewed.  For a decade, I have adhered to an unwavering policy of not returning their phone calls, and not responding beyond “no comment” when they accidentally caught me. In a word, boycott, and I have publicly urged my congregants to do the same. Some listen, some don’t, and that’s life. Somehow, I don’t lack for information on community events by not reading that paper, and, for years, when people have complained to me about this or that offensive item, I have smiled and explained patiently that “I don’t read that paper, nor should you. And if you did not read it, you would not be so agitated now.”

      That is how I reacted when the publication of the “wedding” announcement was brought to my attention by several distressed congregants. I simply did not know – or frankly, care – whether the Standard printed such announcements, and was even a little surprised that they had not done so in the past. I was even more pleasantly surprised when they retracted after the initial onslaught, for they have not always shown the greatest deference to Orthodox sensibilities in the past.

     There is logic, not to mention good taste, in their retraction. The Standard, I am told, does not print intermarriage announcements, and therefore can simply enunciate a policy that it does not celebrate any union that violates the Torah – a clear and consistent course of action.

      The second (nuclear)explosion now has the Standard scrambling for an effective and cogent response, assuming they don’t retract their retraction. It is an unenviable position: on the one hand, a second retraction will likely lead to mass cancellations among the Orthodox population that still reads it, as it should, and that decline in circulation will certainly affect their advertising rates. On the other hand, their base has always been the non-Orthodox community whose commitment to Torah and Jewish causes is waning from generation to generation, and who now perceive the right of homosexuals to equal treatment across the board as a sacrament.

      And they are in a tizzy for a number of reasons. Aside from the blather about freedom of the press, freedom of speech and the like (which liberals have taken to applying with great selectivity these days) their discontent is grounded in several contentions: firstly, that the Standard has never hesitated to advertise anti-Torah messages, from non-kosher restaurants to programs that desecrate Shabbat and other holy Jewish institutions; secondly, their newfound piety is just pandering to the Orthodox at the expense of the unity and happiness of the broader Jewish community; and finally, and quite naturally, the issue for some always boils down to the question: why are the Orthodox trying to squelch the true and genuine love of two men for each other ? Can’t they just live and let live ? Who could be against love ?

      Well, that is not quite the issue, and the analogy to intermarriage is compelling. The latter also involves forbidden love that is repugnant to the Torah, and should not be legitimated in Jewish life notwithstanding its prevalence. One who aspires to Jewish standards (pardon the pun) should naturally embrace the Torah’s standards of right and wrong, of the permissible and the forbidden. As such, although the Standard’s acceptance of advertising of a variety of sins is lamentable, that – a $$$ issue, after all – is not at all similar to the celebration of a marriage that is antithetical to Torah and the death knell of Jewish continuity. Nor is that “pandering” to the Orthodox; it is merely the recognition that, like it or not, the Orthodox bear the burdens (and privileges) of the preservation of Torah and Jewish life. We are carrying the water (good pun – “there is no water like Torah” [Bava Kamma 17a]) for the rest of Klal Yisrael. Without exaggeration: but for Orthodox Jewry, Torah and the Jewish people would be lost within a generation – and that is why we should be “pandered to” in this matter, in kashrut, in conversion, in areas of marriage and divorce, and on any question of elementary morality and Torah tradition.

      The anguished left claims that the Standard is not representative of the Jewish community because homosexuals are also part of the community and have a right to be treated as such. But not everything that a Jew does is necessarily “Jewish.” We have our share (hopefully, small) of misfits, murderers, thieves, perverts, gangsters and miscreants of all sorts – but nothing they do in the satisfaction of their desires is “Jewish” such that it deserves recognition and acclaim by the Jewish community. Newspapers often detail the sins and failings of man – but they need not celebrate them. These types of announcements are celebrations of sin, and so have no place in any organ that carries “Jewish” on its masthead, or seeks to uphold a “Standard” of any level.

     The “Standard” now runs the risk of alienating at least one major demographic group in Jewish life. They could have dodged this bullet entirely by consulting a friendly Orthodox Rabbi, who could have advised them of the likely reaction in our community. They could have rejected the announcement, but for the allure of appearing trendy and progressive and hip to the contemporary immoral norms. They could maintain the high road of tradition, or they can cave before the fusillade of leftist anger and recriminations and proclaim to all the vacuousness of the “Torah” professed in the non-Orthodox world.

     In a sense, they are hoist on their own petard, with the conceptual flaw that is the undercurrent of every movement outside the Torah framework: in any cultural conflict, whose will prevails – G-d’s or man’s ? Which should take precedence in American Jewish life – the norms of the Torah or the US Constitution ? Whose word is more relevant in modern Jewish life – Rabbi Akiva’s or Thomas Jefferson’s? The Standard has customarily chosen man, the Constitution, and Jefferson – and now is entrapped in the consequences of those choices that afforded its readership the expectation of continued, slavish adherence to modernity at the expense of tradition.

     They need a Houdini-like escape from the ideological shackles in which they are chained, and I await with fascination their response to the outcry on the left. They have a great opportunity to send a message that the Torah is the heritage of all Jews – whether embraced fully or not, and whatever the personal level of observance, and thereby sanctify G-d’s name. I hope they seize that opportunity and remind the world that the Jewish people, after all, do have standards that are eternal and enduring.

UPDATE: I have been informed that just a few hours after this was published, the “Standard” retracted their retraction and apologized for their apology, without committing to any future policy.

      Throughout, although several footballs were thrown in her direction, Ines was untouched by human hands, and that is one obvious red-line. No person has the right to lay a hand on another without permission, and that type of abuse should not be tolerated by society or its laws. Nevertheless, there has been talk of a sexual harassment lawsuit being filed because she was subject to verbal taunts, notwithstanding that she was able to procure and conduct the interviews she sought. This is where the matter gets a little cloudy.

     It is perplexing when women who dress in order to attract the attention of others protest when they attract that very attention. A person who flaunts his/her body in the workplace – or in public – is asking to be judged by that body and its attributes. It seems unseemly to complain when that judgment is rendered, especially if the judgment is favorable though proffered crudely. The reactions speak to the low moral level of the observers, to be sure, but also to the shallowness of the party who is looking to be noticed and might even be irritated if not noticed. In a word, both sides are at fault, and the incident itself testifies to the further decline of the standards of decency that used to obtain in society. There was a time when lingerie was limited to the bedroom and was inappropriate in the boardroom. Those days are gone, and apparently anyone who points it out becomes labeled as a chauvinistic suppressor of women, or a primitive voyeur with the table manners of a caveman. Actually, all it means is that a person has eyes and values – eyes that increasingly have to remain shut and values that have to be unabashedly reinforced.

     It poses a special problem in the Rabbinate. Rarely does a week pass in the spring and summer that I am not approached by people lamenting the declining standards of dress of some women in shul or walking the streets of our fair neighborhood. Lest you think that these men should mind their own business, I hasten to add that four out of five complainants are women, not men, protesting the visual affront of women (in number, actually very few) coming to shul wearing mini-skirts, micro-sleeves and low-cut blouses. Interestingly, some of these women are themselves stylish but modest dressers, and not all cover their hair outside of shul – but they have a healthy intuitive sense, that used to be prevalent in the Jewish world, that in a shul we strive for our optimum religious behavior, and that even dignified practices that they haven’t adopted yet in the street should certainly be embraced in shul. For example, there are women of a certain age who might wear pants in public – but they would never enter a shul wearing pants, even on a weekday to drop off a flyer. For most of the younger generation, that sort of discretion seems to have been lost, another victim of feminism that has empowered women, among other types of empowerment, to dress however-they-please even at the cost of their good sense or halachic propriety.

     Cynics might think that the complaining women are “jealous,” but nothing could be further from the truth. They are merely troubled by what they rightly see as a problem in our world, and are especially troubled by parents who allow their teenage daughters to leave the sartorial demands of their weekday yeshivot on the dressing room floor and dress on Shabbat in what used to be considered beachwear. And since I have been told – because I never would have guessed – that women dress primarily for other women, not men, many women feel that their spiritual experience is shul is cheapened by the fashion show sashaying about and the chatter it invariably provokes.

     Invariably, these complainants wish me to address these matters publicly, from the pulpit, excoriating the offenders so they will be shamed into adding more material to their clothing. I have noticed that Rabbis have generally shied away from doing just that, excepting those who will offer learned discourses on the appropriate length of sleeves, skirts and necklines, usually to the already modestly-dressed. The area is a tough nut to crack, because some women will complain that the Rabbi shouldn’t be looking (true, but irrelevant; he may not even see it), or that there are more important issues in the world to discuss (always true… especially when you touch a sensitive chord with someone; that is when “preaching” steps over the line into “meddling”!), or that it is just another indication of the insensitive rabbinate’s contempt for women, yada, yada, yada. I have on several occasions authorized women to speak to the offenders, and even to address the issue publicly; all, to date, have declined to take me up on the offer.

     On the other hand, not to address the issue is a Rabbinic copout, despite the discomfort it causes on all sides. It is a valid point, and it is one of the ModOs failings that tzniut is often not even construed as a religious concern – which is precisely how the general society sees it. There was a recent buzz when a graduate of Maimonides appeared on a reality-TV show featuring models, and this particular young woman – a self-described “modern Orthodox, Sabbath-observant Jew” – ditched her commitment to Sabbath-observance for the duration as soon as she learned it would impair her chances of winning the prize modeling job. The broader question is: how does a yeshiva graduate see her future as a fashion model in the secular world ? The very job requires a person to showcase her body as the means by which she will earn her living, or acclaim. To be a fashion model is as suitable to a Torah Jew as is being a hunter, and about as common.

     So, what is there to say, beyond the technicalities of inches here and there ? In truth, while the inches matter, tzniut is more about presentation and attitude that about lengths and widths. A tight-fitting outfit that looks like it has been painted on (from the Ines Sainz collection, perhaps ?) is as immodest as anything that is too short, even though the requisite parts of the body are dutifully covered. The Jewish laws of modesty focus on one critical point: we demean ourselves when we seek to be perceived and judged primarily as bodies.

    Every human being, male and female, was created b’tzelem elokim, in the image of G-d, and we degrade ourselves by seeking acclamation not for those attributes or activities that foster that divine image but for the accident of our physical shell. Nothing can be more humiliating than to be judged primarily on our looks rather than on our spiritual or intellectual achievements. Clearly, the soul endures, whereas the body erodes over time, even while we are alive. We should seek to be defined by what pleasures the soul and not the body – and that is the essence of tzniut.

    Any person who calls attention to himself/herself because of some physical characteristic engages in an act of self-debasement, and is looking to be treated as an object, not a person. There was a time when women recognized that to be demure was not only classy but alluring. That was a gift of Torah society that had pervaded the general culture. It is when Jews again take the lead, and discard the world view of Ines Sainz and her loutish hecklers, that we will be recognized and lauded as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation and lead the world back to its moral equilibrium.