Author Archives: Rabbi

The Dissemblers

Posted on January 30, 2013 | 6 comments

We break no new ground by noting that many politicians are shameless hypocrites, but especially notable examples deserve special attention. Read this cogent, impassioned and quite eloquent plea against raising the US debt ceiling:
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. …Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here’. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
How true a statement, and how irresponsible a government to willfully and wantonly saddle future generations with this generation’s excesses! The “free stuff” that is handed out in abundance – the astounding increase in food stamps and welfare recipients, the explosion of new disability claims utterly disproportionate to prior eras, the subsidies for housing, cell phones, education and dozens of other government programs – none of it paid for – would make the above statement a clarion call for sobriety and maturity, except for one detail: the above was uttered by Senator Barack Obama in 2006 when he opposed an increase in the debt ceiling to a modest nine trillion dollars, and voted against it. (Now, the debt is approaching seventeen trillion dollars, and will shortly have doubled on Obama’s watch.)
Can Obama’s 2006 statement be reconciled with his 2013 grandstanding, asserting that the Republicans are endangering the US economy by holding firm against a debt limit increase without first imposing spending cuts as a first step to reducing the debt? Of course not. Obama’s minions have alternatively declared that his 2006 position was a mistake, done simply to oppose a Republican president, or just “politics.” All are bad rationalizations that point to a depressing lack of seriousness in the man and his policies.
It emerges that in President Obama’s mind, raising the debt limit in 2006 was irresponsible and not raising the debt limit in 2013 is also irresponsible. That is to say, Obama can hold two contradictory positions, and each time he will be correct in their espousal simply because he is the one espousing them. That is sophistry worthy of tin pot dictators, not an American president. Surely, he can do better than that.
Of course, the implied assumption is that since he was insincere in his objections in 2006 – it was all “politics” – therefore today’s Republicans must also be insincere in their objections. In so doing, and in what has become fairly typical, Obama here strips his opposition of any moral substance or any semblance of integrity, making a principled opposition to fiscal insanity sound like wanton wickedness and just meant as a personal affront to him.
That is not to say that the Republican legislators come with clean hands; the Republicans have been quite adept at running up the debt and increasing spending when it suits them. But when will it all end, and what will cause it to end? By the end of Obama’s second term, the debt will exceed $20,000,000,000,000 (a lot of zeroes, and in essence almost eight years of revenue buried in one gigantic and unfillable hole). That is irresponsible – something every adult can recognize – but something to which Obama seems blithely indifferent. As he is babied by the mainstream press, don’t expect him ever to have to explain himself in any detail. The troubled future lurking – credit rating downgrades, inflation, a devalued dollar, and a shift away from the dollar being the world’s reserve currency – will unfold on someone else’s watch. He will get credit – if that is the word – for opening the government vaults and showering taxpayer earnings and borrowed money on his favored constituents. When the piper has to be paid, he’ll be far gone – and probably criticizing the failures of Congress and his successors for not reining in spending. And that is shameless.
Even that might pale before the astonishing collapse of Senator Chuck Schumer, self-proclaimed defender of Israel, women, abortion, homosexuals, etc., who suddenly withdrew any concerns he had about Chuck Hagel’s nomination of Secretary of Defense. Hagel, in his career, has been anything but reticent about his views – on the sinister Jewish lobby exercising undue control over US foreign policy, on his “courageous” contention that he (was) a US Senator, not a “Senator from Israel,” on a clear pro-Arab bias, and on a host of pejorative statements made about the other issues and groups – any one of which would have been anathema and the cause for much pained mugging for the camera by a Schumer who would have led the opposition to a Hagel had the latter been nominated by a Republican president.
Do values and principles matter at all? Schumer certainly knows that Hagel’s foreign policy positions are hostile to Israel, and so isolationist that the free world will be less safe and more volatile while Hagel serves at the Pentagon. Iran is rejoicing at the prospect of a Hagel tenure, as are Islamic radicals everywhere. And why shouldn’t they? And Schumer must surely know that Israel would have to be insane to share any of its military intentions with a Pentagon headed by Chuck Hagel, who was reluctant to classify Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorists. To Hagel, instability in the Middle East begins and ends with Israel.
So, where is Schumer? Where are the other liberal Jewish supporters of Obama? It is hard to imagine a Secretary of Defense who would be worse from Israel’s perspective, not to mention America’s. Hagel’s admirable service as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam hardly qualifies him to run the Pentagon. Apparently, Schumer’s one “conversation” with Hagel was enough to allay any fears or concerns about a lifetime of antagonistic rhetoric and deeds, consideration that Schumer has never given to Republican President’s nominees. What did Hagel say to him in provate? “Never mind… it was just politics”?! Schumer has never been known for such deference to others, i.e., Republicans. Would Schumer show the same obsequiousness to Egypt’s President Morsi, who yesterday said his 2010 characterization of Jews “as descendants of apes and pigs” was “taken out of context?” (Indeed, what could have been the context from which that statement was… wrenched?)
It is not the first time that Schumer has toed the party line rather than stand up for principles that he usually articulates quite stridently, and occasionally even usefully. I remember vividly when Schumer shilled for Jimmy Carter, traversing Jewish neighborhoods to tout that Jew-hater’s love and support for Israel over Ronald Reagan. Was it worth it to Schumer to sell his soul to chair the inauguration dinner, to stand in front of the cameras one more time, and to keep alive his chances of being Majority Leader? Wasn’t this the occasion to use whatever influence he – or his fellow liberal Jews – think they have with Obama to try to discourage him from such an ignominious choice to lead the Pentagon? Apparently not.
Hagel will assuredly be approved by the Senate; presidents are usually afforded deference and especially when they nominate former Senators. I can’t recall a Senator being rejected by his colleagues since John Tower was denied appointment as Pentagon chief in 1989 because of alleged alcohol and women’s issues. And how did Schumer vote on that nomination? He gets a pass; he didn’t join the Senate for another decade, but he assuredly would have opposed John Tower. Hagel will engender some opposition, and we can be almost certain that when he turns on Israel, the Jewish left will blame neither Hagel, nor themselves for their shortsightedness, but rather Israel for its intransigence.
Nothing is new under the sun, and politics and hypocrisy are conventional bedfellows. Hypocrisy is found in every walk of life, bar none. But in Hagel’s dissembling, he is joined both by the man who nominated him and the man who, ignoring the nominee’s entire career, has rushed to whitewash him and stamp him kosher.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

Sacred Violence

Posted on January 29, 2013 | 4 comments

The Torah is filled with violence, although it doesn’t always seem real to us. Imagine if there would be today a “splitting of the Red Sea,” and Egyptian soldiers would be killed by the thousands, even myriads. Wouldn’t it be unseemly to sing and dance over their destruction –“the horse and its rider were tossed in the sea… the mighty sank in the water like lead”? I am not referring to the Talmudic comment that G-d admonished the angels for singing; that is a different point – in the ideal world, every human being would be engaged in Divine service and to that extent the death of every human being is a loss. But we recite Az Yashir ¬– Moshe’s song celebrating the miracle at the Red Sea and the destruction of the Pharaoh’s forces – every day. Every day we recount the downfall of our enemy. But how do we react to the violence? How do we not become desensitized to it?
It is not the first or last time this matter is confronted in the Torah. In Sh’mot, Moshe saw an Egyptian beating a Jew – and he killed him, buried him in the sand, and the next day had to flee Egypt. Moshe killed him. Who kills people? The Torah doesn’t even say that the Egyptian was trying to kill the Jew, only that he was hitting him. For that you kill someone?
And all the accounts of the plagues visited upon Egypt – one after another and culminating with the Red Sea – begs the question: does anyone feel sorry for them, at any point? Should we? Does the Torah ever command us to feel sympathy for our enemies? (Mishlei 24:17 deals with personal enemies, not national ones; besides, numerous other verses contradict it – e.g., Mishlei 11:10). There’s even a children’s song I remember that makes the divine plagues visited upon the Egyptians seem entertaining – about the frogs that afflicted the Egyptians. Or do we simply rely on G-d’s justice and exult in that “G-d is my might and my song, and He is a salvation for me… G-d is the Master of war, G-d is His name.”
Master of war? Rashi comments that G-d is the Master of War – and even when He takes vengeance on His enemies, still “G-d is His name,” He remains a merciful G-d who can wage war and provide for the domestic needs of His servants. But how do we even feel about G-d being “Master of war?” We are accustomed to depicting G-d as compassionate and gracious. But the “Master of war?” Why are we never commanded to have sympathy for these victims of sacred violence, of which there are legions in the Bible?
Sympathy is usually an unreliable tool to measure either people’s character or their moral aspirations. I’ve noticed over the years that, like many things in life, there is a Bell Curve that accurately charts the people’s parameters of sympathy for others. There are some who feel bad for everyone – or almost everyone; they are “extreme sympathizers.” Even if the predicament is of the person’s own making, they will still feel bad for them. They’ll even feel bad for bad people, although maybe not real evil people.
Others are at the opposite extreme – they are “sympathy-challenged.” They believe in self-help and initiative, that people naturally suffer for their own mistakes, and that most bad situations are avoidable – most, not all, and they reserve their sympathy for the absolutely unavoidable. And the majority of people are found somewhat in the middle of the Bell Curve – they’ll sympathize with most but not all victims, but with one remarkable dimension: very often reasonable people will differ as to whether some victims deserve sympathy or not.
Take this case: Do Pharaoh’s armies that drowned in the Red Sea deserve our sympathy? Each of them was certainly a child of someone, and probably a father and a husband as well. Their deaths were undoubtedly tragic for their families and communities. But they don’t seem real to us, and are ancient in any event. Nonetheless, more modern cases present: Gazan children killed inadvertently by Israeli rockets targeting terrorists who build their infrastructure in residential neighborhoods seem to provoke much more international sympathy (contrived and hypocritical, to be sure) than did the children of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Dresden. Those killed – almost all civilians – did not seem to provoke as much hand-wringing then (less than seventy years ago) as they unquestionably would today. So, are we more moral – or less moral – than we were seventy or 3300 years ago? Are we more sensitive to human suffering or perhaps just less judgmental about absolute evil?
I think the latter, and the answer to all these questions comes down to values. American society is adrift in sporadic violence and seeming dysfunction, and not because there is more violence today than ever. It only seems that way, but in fact violent crime has dropped precipitously in the last two decades. What has changed is the type of violence – from violence directed at victims of crimes from which the perpetrator hoped to derive some material benefit to random shootings of strangers for no discernible reason. That dysfunction suggests that large sectors of a nation that has lost touch with the G-d of the Bible, and no longer perceives people as created in the image of G-d. That detachment nurtures an avalanche of violence in the culture – books, television, movies, video games – that has a greater impact on people, especially those with defective souls or defective minds, more than anything else. The killing doesn’t seem real to them, and just like the violence in the Bible, it doesn’t really register. The disconnect with G-d added to the cultural celebration of violence and combined with one other volatile ingredient – that fame is more important than accomplishment, regardless how the fame is achieved – engender these sporadic eruptions of violence. If self-debasement is the ticket to fame, so be it; violence is just another form of self-abasement.
But the Bible contains epic scenes of violence; how is it then that Jewish society is less violent than others – still – and even with our children being reared on the stories in the Torah? It is not that there is no violence in Jewish life, but it is exceedingly rare and always lamentable. I think it is because we are also taught the value of every human being created in the image of
G-d, and especially because we internalize “G-d as the Master of war.” We have been given a system of absolute good and absolute evil and the capacity to distinguish them – and therefore we also recognize that reckless compassion and wanton sympathy are inherently dangerous: “He who is compassionate to the cruel will eventually be cruel to the compassionate” (Midrash Kohelet Rabba 7:16; Tanchuma Metzora 1) – and that distorts our entire value system.
And one more reason – we have been given the gift of optimism, of looking forward to a brighter and more peaceful era.
In one of the cryptic questions posed by the Wise Men of Athens in the Talmud to R. Yehoshua, trying to test his wisdom and to concede the superiority of Roman culture and values over those of the Torah – they asked (Bechorot 8b): “How do you cut a field of knives or swords? He answered: “with the horn of a donkey.” They retorted, “does a donkey have horns?” to which R. Yehoshua replied, in classic Jewish fashion, “Is there a field that grows knives?”
The dialogue is enigmatic but brilliant. Of course, our world today is a field of knives and swords and guns and weapons. Mankind has always struggled with a disregard for human life; we are just more aware of its failings today because they are broadcast into our homes. What keeps us striving, and what gives us confidence that goodness will ultimately prevail, is the horn of the donkey – the donkey that brings Messiah, who “rides on a donkey,” and whose “horn” (pride) will be uplifted and symbolize our salvation and that of the world. The Messiah re-introduces to the world the notion of an objective morality – absolute good and absolute evil. It is the task of good people even today to enunciate those values. Civilization is undermined when such people are timid, reticent and withdraw from the fray.
That is why our spiritual giants were always warriors – despite rumors we hear today from some quarters – Avraham, Moshe, Yehoshua, David and others. They did not hesitate to take up arms and to act forcefully when necessary. The Jewish spiritual heroes were always warriors – but always reluctant warriors. They embodied a code that has a great respect for all life but also great contempt for injustice and evil. That is why we sing daily of the death of the wicked at the Red Sea, and the wicked everywhere, not because they died but because we saw evil perish and justice triumph – and why, even today, with each such triumph over evil, we move the world ever closer to the day of when “G-d will reign forever.”

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Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Election Scorecard: Early Edition

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 2 comments

It is not often that an election is held with results that lead every party to claim victory, but such is the convoluted nature of the Israeli political system. The winners look dejected, losers exult, and parties with very similar outcomes react in completely opposite ways. So with the results still not final but roughly known, who are the winners and losers in this round?
Big Loser: The Haredi parties. Yahadut HaTorah, the Agudist Party, never seems to break through a barrier that leaves it at 5-7 seats, despite the much ballyhooed increase in the Haredi population. Their stagnation must be attributable to either a low turnout or the tantalizing possibility that Haredim are voting for other parties. So, how then can they be the big loser if their mandates have remained the same or have slightly increased? Because the country has shifted to a culture which does not tolerate – and will not long support – a lifestyle that eschews both national service (military or civil) and gainful employment. Every other party has uniformly embraced shivyon banetel – a co-equal sharing of national burdens – as a fundamental plank in its platform, both for practical and moral reasons. Because of the likely composition of the next coalition, the days are rapidly dwindling wherein public money will be designated for parochial interests that involve no acceptance of shared burdens. Perhaps much of the Haredi public recognizes that fact and voted accordingly.
Shas, the Sefaradi Haredi party, retained its strength, but, like Yahadut HaTorah, is confronting for the first time a situation in which a government can plausibly be formed without them. They will both pull whatever strings necessary to find their way into the governing coalition, as support for their institutions and their concomitant patronage power depend on it, but their leverage is diminished and so their demands will have to be scaled down as well.
The riots that accompanied Election Day in some Haredi centers, spearheaded by Satmar and calling on people not to vote and to disconnect from the government, bears some irony and even some intellectual disconnect: to withdraw from society means to reject the government largesse that sustains the Haredi world. Come again?
Loser: Likud. In fairness, it is hard to characterize the winning party as a “loser,” but that conclusion is inescapable. The merger with Yisrael Beteinu was a fiasco from the outset, so preposterous (it turned off voters on each party’s margin that simply would not vote for the other) that it is hard to believe that anyone thought it productive. Likud effectively lost almost 25% of its strength, and even though it will likely form the next government, its policies will bear no resemblance to what the traditional Likud voter espouses and if it turns leftward will alienate at least a third of the current formation.
For a moment, it must have crossed PM Netanyahu’s mind that two parties – Yesh Atid and Labor – could easily unite for the purposes of forming a coalition and present themselves to the President as the largest grouping. Perhaps that is why Netanyahu reached out so quickly to Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid.
Likud also hurt itself by the relentless negativity it directed against Bayit Hayehudi, which it clearly perceived as its main rival for votes. Rather than indulge the pejoratives, those voters moved elsewhere (Yesh Atid?) leaving Netanyahu with a weakened right flank, assuming he wanted one. It was a bad campaign from its inception, and the errors were compounded by shoddy tactics.
Loser: Zippi Livni. Her party was formed so precipitously that it even lacked a name, but it certainly lacked an identity. She is unlikely to be part of any governing coalition and will sit in opposition with her small party. So why is she a “big loser”? Because Israel has a habit of recycling electoral failures after a few years, and at least she will remain active –and especially popular on the leftist “blame Israel for no peace” circuit.
Big Loser: Peaceniks. The so-called “peace process” played almost no role in this election, even though the media continued to use as its measure of seriousness support for a “two-state” solution. Perhaps they haven’t heard, but in most of Israel that is a measure of foolishness and a flight from reality rather than seriousness. For the first time, an Israeli politician deigned to tell the truth to the public. Naftali Bennett of Bayit Hayehudi said what most sane, grounded people know: peace is not coming in this generation, so Israel has to remain strong and focus on building its society. And that endeavor – strengthening Israeli society, keeping its economy robust and growing its work force – were the primary issues in the campaign. Barack Obama can be included as a “loser” in this process as well, as very few parties spoke of the diplomatic future with any enthusiasm. Of course, Netanyahu is unpredictable, so anything can change especially with the Iranian bomb looming, but those changes will be difficult and independent of the election results.
Big Winner: Yair Lapid and the Yesh Atid (“there is a future”) party. Lapid brought his winning TV personality to the campaign, along with some of the insipid media-popular clichés (of course “there is a future;” but what does that mean?). Israel has always been blessed with the rise of third-parties that burst onto the scene and then disappear within an election cycle or two (Yadin’s Democratic Movement for Change, Mordechai’s Center Party, and now Kadima). But Lapid didn’t only bring a fresh face to politics but a fresh approach – confronting issues rather than avoiding them, offering solutions (where possible) rather than platitudes (OK, some platitudes, too) but especially by challenging the Haredim rather than demonizing them. His own late father Tommy was a noted basher of Haredim and Torah, but the son – also secular – has taken a more mature approach. I heard a speech he gave last year – to Haredim¬ – in which he said, in effect: “You won. We thought Torah would have no future. We were wrong. Now that you won, you also have to take responsibility for Israeli society. You are not marginal players anymore. Secular Israel needs you to give it a Jewish identity, and for you to play a full role running, supporting and defending the society.”
It is hard to argue with his logic, even if some (not me) question his sincerity, and it was after that speech that shivyon banetel became a clarion call in society. I have not yet heard a good Haredi response to his call. And Yesh Atid includes as its number two a Religious Zionist rabbi, and lower on its list but still entering the Knesset, a “Haredi” activist from Ramat Bet Shemesh who challenged the Haredi excesses that galvanized the public more than a year ago.
Big winner: Israeli society. The society wins not because of the results but because of the maturation of the electoral system. There was not one major party that did not include at least one kippa-wearing Jew, and some had several – not as tokens but because the Torah should be part of every Israeli political party and its values should infuse the whole system. That is not to say that we can do away with overt religious political parties – perhaps someday – but rather that the makeup of the slates reflects the increased and natural role that religious Jews play in Israeli life. Similarly, the fact that all parties outside the Haredi ones have secular Jews on their lists as well also bodes well for a cohesive society.
Winner: Habayit Hayehudi. They would have been big winners but for the sleazy campaign run against them, which included – for several weeks running – the release of disparaging material about its candidates to the media on Friday night, so the party could not respond for 24 hours until after Shabbat and thereby allowing the smears to seep through the media and public unchallenged. Ultimately, Netanyahu suffered for these calumnies, and will suffer in the future.
Nonetheless, Habayit Hayehudi added to its Knesset strength, energized the Religious Zionist public and will be a force for years to come, especially if it counters the negative image thrust upon it by the Likud with solid legislative work and substantive contributions to the public debate. No longer concerned with purely sectoral issues, and no longer interested in being the mashgichim in a restaurant owned and managed by others, Naftali Bennett emerged as the voice of the future – instilling Torah values into all aspects of society.

The final results could change somewhat in the coming days but certain conclusions are inescapable. Netanyahu miscalculated as a candidate, as he miscalculated when he indulged the two-state fantasy, the settlement freeze and the removal of outposts, in the process alienating his core supporters. His tenure as prime minister will be less stable than was this term.
And there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that the electoral totals between the parties have narrowed so much that new elections are a distinct possibility within 2-3 years. The good news is new faces bring new ideas and increased enthusiasm, and the peace processors should remain dormant for some time. Both of those factors should enable the nation to focus on bridging the gaps between religious and secular, and enabling all sectors of society to contribute to the glory of the Jewish state and the Jewish people.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

Whither the Jews?

Posted on January 16, 2013 | 4 comments

A headline caught my attention the other day and caused a “here-we-go-again” sensation. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a poll (the US Religious Landscape Survey, at Pewforum.org) illustrating the beliefs and attitudes of adherents to various faiths, with one Jewish media report leading with this: “5% of Jews Believe that Jewish Religion is the One True Faith.” That would be a terrible indictment of Jewish life, a symptom of the eroding commitment of Jews to their faith, and a reflection of how the mushy moral milieu of the American melting pot has taken its toll on the Jewish people, again. Most religions assert that they are the “one true religion,” so how could Jews be so mealy-mouthed when compared to others? Only 5%? Surely this represents the abject failures of schools, shuls, temples, parents and families, right?
Not so fast. On closer look, the headline did not accurately represent the question being asked or answered, even though that, indeed, was Pew’s title, “Views of One’s Religion as the One, True Faith.” The choices offered in the question itself were: “My religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life” (added emphasis is mine), or “Many religions can lead to eternal life.” That is a different question entirely, and whatever the answers were, it is then shocking – astonishing – that so many Jews could be on the same page when it comes to a basic principle of Jewish life, for 82% of Jews responded that “many religions can lead to eternal life.”
This, essentially, is a uniquely Jewish doctrine, notwithstanding that the poll revealed that a few religions and sects had slightly higher percentages of adherents who believes that “many religions can lead to eternal life” than did Jews. Most were lower, with the Mormons having the lowest such percentage (39%), and the religions that emerged from Judaism showing percentages ranging from 56% to 83%. The Jewish conclusion that “many religions can lead to eternal life” – odd in light of the fact that Judaism also claims exclusive truth – emerges from a Talmudic discussion (Sanhedrin 105a) and codified by the Rambam twice, most famously in Hilchot Melachim (The Laws of Kings) 8:11: “All who accept the seven Noachide laws and are careful to observe them are the pious one of the nations of the world and have a share in the world-to-come (i.e., eternal life)…” Those Noachide laws are the basic building blocks of civilization, prohibitions against homicide, robbery, idolatry, sexual misconduct, blasphemy, tearing a limb from a living animal and the positive commandment of maintaining a system of justice to enforce the other obligations.
Although Rambam does require that acceptance of the Noachide laws must be based on the Bible, the fundamental point established is that non-Jews need not become Jewish in order to merit eternal life, and not even to live moral and meaningful lives in which they relate to G-d. For that reason, Jews do not proselytize. Sadly, at least 5% of Jews are unaware of this, but even more sadly, it seems that many more Jews answered this question correctly but accidently, not knowing of the Rambam’s opinion but simply afraid or unwilling to opine that Judaism is the one, true faith.
This is borne out by other statistics uncover the state of Jewish belief (or better, the beliefs of Jews) today. Approximately 84% of Jews believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, far more than any other religious grouping, with an astounding 40% of those asserting that abortion should be legal “in all cases.” All cases? Ninth month?! Mother in labor?! No restrictions at all? Abortion on demand! Even people who described themselves as unaffiliated with any religion (!) approved of abortions less frequently than did Jews; apparently, worship of personal autonomy over one’s body has made abortion a sacrament for many Jews. Conversely, 5% of Jews believed that abortion should be illegal “in all cases,” a clear misstatement of Jewish law as well. I wonder if those are the same 5% as above; from where are they acquiring their knowledge of Torah.
Similarly, 79% of Jews believed that homosexuality should be “accepted by society,” a number that again far exceeded any other religion or denomination except for the Buddhists (82%) who must also be practicing Democrats as well. A scant 15% of Jews averred that homosexuality should be “discouraged by society,” itself an inelegant phrasing of the issue. How would society “discourage” homosexuality even if it could? “Acceptance” might be interpreted as legalization, or protection within the law, but then “discouragement” is not its antithesis. Pew may have meant to distinguish “acceptance” not from rejection or discouragement but from celebration, legitimization and/or adoration of homosexuality, which is where American society is heading today, and which would have generated among the Jewish respondents here the same lopsided answer. “Acceptance” rates of homosexuality among evangelical Christians, Mormons and Muslims all hovered in the 25% range – less than a third of the Jewish rate.
One flaw in the study, alluded to above, is that the respondents self-identify the religion of their choice. One of the anomalies of American-Jewish life is the large number of people who identify or perceive themselves as Jews when Jewish law deems otherwise, while many others – with the most non-Jewish sounding name – are actually Jews according to Jewish law. That is the price of intermarriage and assimilation, and those individuals number in the hundreds of thousands, a staggering figure given the undersized Jewish community. Pew calculated that 1.7% of Americans are Jews, but 4% identify as atheists or agnostics, but one can assume that those groups are disproportionately Jewish, at least by birth through one Jewish parent.
Tellingly, a scant 41% of Jews said they were absolutely certain of G-d’s existence, and 10% did not believe in G-d at all. Both figures were again surpassed only by Buddhists; Christians “absolutely certain” belief in G-d was almost double that of Jews.
As such, it is to be assumed that few Jewish respondents answered the questions by accessing their knowledge of Jewish law or philosophy, but rather by looking into themselves, or the repository of ideas and values they have accumulated over the years from mere living, and answered accordingly. Most Jews do not speak Jewish or think Jewish; many even claim – sincerely – that Judaism does not mandate any particular beliefs, values or deeds, but rather seeks goodness and kindness from its faithful. Of course, goodness and kindness are quite important to Judaism – as they are to most religions – but Judaism is ultimately defined by the divine revelation of 613 commandments, 13 fundamental principles of faith and a commitment to live a divinely-inspired life, part of a people of destiny and eternity.
We also have the highest median age (36) of any group, attributable to the low Jewish birthrate outside the Orthodox community. It would seem that the Jewish “religious landscape,” to use Pew’s expression, is quite barren, with lush pockets of verdancy and fruitfulness that literally keep the faith and welcome others to learn about real Judaism and to actually live it in real life. It may not be possible to completely stem the decline and disappearance of most Jews, but many are open, ready and willing to explore their heritage and discover their roots.
Let us strive to be good examples for them.
 

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought