Author Archives: Rabbi

The Mosque

Posted on August 10, 2010 | 1 comment

THE MOSQUE

Why in the world would Muslims want to build a mosque just two football fields from Ground Zero on the ruins of a building destroyed by Muslims ? And why in the world would such enlightened souls as Mike Bloomberg, the City Planning commission and others be so eager to grant their wish ?

Both questions are relatively easy to answer, not that the answers are necessarily persuasive. It is the epitome of “tolerance,” in circles where tolerance is a virtue prized over all others, to embrace your enemy. Christians even deem it noble to forgive one’s enemy even if forgiveness is not sought, even offering as many cheeks to be struck as one person can muster. America values freedom of religion, and, notwithstanding that there are 100 other mosques is New York City, no Muslim population to speak of in that precinct, and no historical Muslim presence there (except the remains of the Muslim-Arab terrorists of September 11, 2001), once the flag of “encroaching on freedom of religion” is raised, there is no lowering it. It’s a liberal feel-good moment, allowing practitioners to bask in the glow of their own self-righteousness, and condescend to those who possess such disreputable traits such as national pride, historical memory, courage and fortitude.

One wonders why no one ever thought of building a Shinto shrine at Pearl Harbor, as part of the healing process that following World War II. Surely Japanese militarism was a corruption of the Shinto faith, but having visited Pearl Harbor and stood on the still-listing battleship Arizona – with its 1800 dead sailors buried underneath at sea – I surmise that a Japanese presence at the scene would be the height of inappropriateness. And one wonders further – and other have noted as well – about the hullabaloo that accompanied the brief presence of a Catholic convent on the grounds of Auschwitz, built so a group of nuns could pray for the souls of the victims there. Having also seen that building myself, I can testify that it was all but unnoticeable, constructed in a far corner of Auschwitz and outside the grounds of the camp itself, closer to the town and miles from the well-known entrance to that hideous place. No visitor would see it unless he went looking for it – but its mere presence, and the symbolism, and obvious insensitivity, were enough to convince Pope John Paul II to induce the nuns to move elsewhere. And they did, reluctantly.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the desire to build this building in that place is part of the effective (to date) Muslim propaganda effort that is demoralizing and emasculating the Western world. An obvious part of that effort has been their expressed fear of “revenge attacks” against Muslim-Americans after every Muslim terrorist attack on Americans, which changes the topic and pre-empts any real, substantive discussion as to the nature of the Muslim personality that is so prone to violence and does not mind dying in the process of killing others – and even though no such revenge attack has ever taken place after any of the Muslim outrages of the last two decades. Another part of that drive is the mandated reiteration of the essential “peaceful nature of Islam,” which is not exactly born out by history – ancient or modern – followed by the ritualistic proclamation that the “overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful,” which, even if true (and I have no empirical evidence one way or the other), is small comfort as it still leaves an awful lot of Muslims capable of mischief in a world that contains more than a billion Muslims. Those assertions also chill any real analysis as to how this threat can be combated. There is currently a formal legislative process underway in world organizations to make “statements offensive to Islam” – and only against Islam – the equivalent of hate crimes. They, of course, reserve the right – under the Western concept of freedom of speech – to ridicule, mock and demean Judaism, Christianity and other religions, but deny the same “freedom of speech” to Danish cartoonists and other Dutch writers. Where have you gone, Salman Rushdie ?

Add to this genre the cleverness in fostering terror by wrapping themselves in the mantle of Western values and arguing against “racial profiling,” “interference in their freedom of worship,” and for the embrace of “live and let live” (not at all a Muslim value), the pleas for “humanitarian assistance” for terror enablers (such as in Gaza), and, of course, the sanctification of “civilian life” (even though Muslims kill Jewish and Western civilian with abandon, and even though a suicide bomber is technically a civilian up to the moment he ignites himself.) Those are shrewd tactics, and they really work. They work so well that there are people – among them here, the supporters of the downtown mosque – who would have us believe that Muslims are the first and primary victims of Muslim terror, and so it is their community that requires outreach, sensitivity and compassion.

Supporters point as well to the fact that this mosque is allegedly under the sponsorship of Sufi Muslims (aka “good Muslims”), the mystical branch of Islam. But check the money trail, and perhaps another story emerges. Undoubtedly, Muslims worldwide will perceive this mosque as a sign of conquest, and be emboldened further in declaring that the presence of a mosque on such a hallowed and tragic site is “proof” that – as is widely believed across the Islamic world – that Jews, not Muslims, committed the heinous crimes of 9/11. And once consecrated as a Muslim holy place, they will certainly set about revising the history of that site, in the same way that Muslims have attempted in the last decade to deny and erase the Jewish historical presence on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

There is a cloying naïveté to the claims of the supporters of the mosque that is the hallmark of what the late Italian writer Oriana Fallacci used to call “Goodists.” Goodists (a term made famous by the Wall Street Journal’s unparalleled columnist Bret Stephens http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704429304574467080047317314.html) are people who like to be seen as good, who think all conflict arises from simple misunderstandings that can be settled by reasonable people through dialogue and acts of penance. But Goodists are notoriously incapable of defending freedom and liberty. Perched in their ivory tower, they look down their noses at the unenlightened masses, but cannot see the danger in front of them, how they are being used as pawns – and how the bell tolls for them, as well, and perhaps first of all. Sometimes I fear they would rather be killed without having betrayed their conception of the world than to be perceived as wrong, or to fight for their right to be foolish indefinitely. The Goodists see the world not as it is, but as they wish it to be, always a hazardous enterprise. When wishes are father to thoughts, true thinking is stillborn.

Just projecting ahead a few years: what do you think the reaction will be of these same Goodists when the mosque hosts a “retrospective on 9/11,” and invites speakers representing the “Bush-did-it-theory,” the “US-government-did it-theory,” the “Mossad-did-it theory,” and the “anyone-but-the-Muslims-did-it theory” ? If you answered that the Goodists will defend it on free speech grounds and feel even more morally superior as a result, you have properly immunized yourself against this malodorous doctrine.

The Goodists are more dominant than one otherwise might think. That Israel is the defendant in the flotilla episode investigation speaks volumes about the pervasiveness of this attitude, and how inimical it is to Jewish interests. Jews, whose morality is based on the real world, especially suffer when morality becomes detached from life itself. The continued obsession with the deaths of ten Turkish thugs – when the world community studiously ignores massacres and pillages elsewhere – is typical. More typically was the recent published revelations by an Israeli leftist that she brazenly violates Israeli law by smuggling in Arab women from the PA for party days in Tel Aviv. Should she be prosecuted ? Certainly. Will she be prosecuted ? Likely not.

The 1960’s Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol used to refer to his Foreign Minister Abba Eban as a “Gelernter na’ar,” a “learned fool,” who “always knew how to give the right speech but never had the right solution.” Eban was urbane, sophisticated, erudite and articulate – but his strategic thinking, his ability to see the big picture was questioned. Eban wasn’t necessarily a Goodist – they almost never achieve positions of real power – but the concept is the same: what the Goodists say always sounds nice, but it is usually inappropriate and often unseemly in the real world.

Muslims with grace and sensitivity should strive to keep a low profile at Ground Zero. They should do penance, not build a mosque. The Muslim world – with all their petrodollars – should be compensating the families of the 9/11 victims, the murdered and the survivors, and not just the US government (i.e., the US taxpayer). The firefighters and gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio are right in their fierce and principled opposition, and should be assisted. Build another mosque – if necessary – elsewhere in NYC, but not where it will be a thumb in the eye to the bereaved and a victory for Islam. “Freedom of religion” is ultimately irrelevant here; no one has the right to build a house of worship in the middle of Times Square. Those who cloak themselves in their flawed perception of American values should be reminded of the thinker who said that it is better to be kind than to be right. It is certainly better to be kind and right than to be cruel, insensitive and wrong – which this mosque is, at this time and at that place.

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Needed: A Jewish Tea Party

Posted on August 6, 2010 | 3 comments

(Published as an Op-ed in the Jewish Press, Wednesday, August 04 2010 )

Among the bitterest aspects of the ancient tragedies commemorated during our recent national period of mourning was the crushing disappointment felt by the Jewish people when we were betrayed by our erstwhile allies: “I called for my friends [those who had professed love for me] but they deceived me” (Eicha 1:19).

Rashi comments that this refers to the infamous episode in which the Arabs, our putative cousins, distributed salty foods to the Babylonian exiles on their death march, and then offered flasks that contained nothing but air – and the Jews perished of thirst.

So, on whom can we rely in this world when times are tough for Jews but on each other, on the shared bonds of peoplehood? And therein lies the problem and one of the enigmas of the exile today.

Visiting the Chabad of Salt Lake City, I picked up a few pamphlets Chabad distributes about mitzvot, Shabbat, Jewish life – and one called “Love Your Fellow Jew,” a primer on that most indispensable, definitive mitzvah. Its language is both instructive and inspirational:

Nothing has been as detrimental to the Jewish people as the modern idea that Judaism is a religion. If we are a religion, then some Jews are more Jewish, others less Jewish and many Jews not Jewish at all. It’s a lie. We are all one. If one Jew stumbles, we all stumble with him . We are not a religion. We are a soul. A single soul radiating into many bodies, each ray shining forth on its unique mission, each body receiving the light according to its capacity . A healthy Jewish people is one big, caring family where each individual is concerned for the other as for his own self.

Clearly, this is not a universally shared perspective, as the pamphlet continues:

Some don’t think that Jews should single out Jews for special treatment . We need to get down to reality and human nature: If someone ignores his own brother’s needs, what’s behind his kindness to others? First we learn to care for our own family, and then we can truly care for everyone else . There’s another reason to start with your own fellow Jew: If we do not take care of our own, who will? Perhaps this is the secret of our survival: We are unique, for to this day, when one Jew hears of another’s plight somewhere across the globe, he identifies with that Jew, feels his or her pain, and is moved to do whatever he can to help.”

What beautiful sentiments, and the more I read, the more I wished they were true.

By coincidence, I read this on the same day the Russians extricated their ten spies from the United States by orchestrating an exchange within a week of their arrests, and I wondered to myself – again – what is wrong with the Jewish people? How is it that we sit with such equanimity while Jonathan Pollard now sits in prison for more than 9,000 days, and Gilad Shalit sits for more than four years in some dark abyss, absent without a trace?

Too many Jews say, “Well, Pollard was a spy who committed crimes, so he should sit. And Shalit, well, the government in order to free him has to find the right number of terrorist murderers to free to create more mayhem, so it is really up to us.”

And many say, “Well, Sholom Rubashkin deserves 27 years in prison for bank fraud, and the desecration of God’s name, and the like. And Israeli MIAs Zachary Baumol, Yehuda Katz and Tzvi Feldman can disappear into Syrian custody, and Ron Arad can evaporate off the face of the earth, and that’s just the way it is. And Eli Cohen, the Syrians don’t have to return his body for burial even 45 years after his execution, because ” I’m not quite sure why.

We have a rationalization for everything, and I’m left to wonder: what is wrong with the Jewish soul? We pay lip service to ahavat Yisrael (love for our fellow Jew), but do we really believe it, or ever act upon it when it is personally inconvenient? The Russians extracted their spies in the blink of an eye; the Chinese community in the 1990s rallied around a Chinese-American spy and he was released after two years; a non-Jewish American naval officer named Michael Schwartz who spied for the Saudis in the 1990s was never even prosecuted, just court-martialed and dismissed.

Somehow, Japanese-Americans kept their unjust internment during World War II in the forefront of American consciousness, and blacks do not let anyone forget the slavery that ended a century and a half ago. Their communities rallied around, and rally around, any victim of perceived injustice. And where are we?

Rubashkin was sentenced to 27 years for defrauding a bank of $27 million dollars – more prison time than the prosecution even requested, and after they initially sought a life sentence. Yet Jeffrey Skilling, former president of Enron – which defrauded banks and investors of billions of dollars, and cost people 20,000 jobs plus their pensions – was sentenced to 24 years, less time than Rubashkin, and Skilling’s sentence was just vacated on appeal, and he may be free in a relatively short time.

Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom) was convicted of defrauding investors of $100 billion dollars, and received less prison time than did Rubashkin. Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco) was convicted of stealing five times as much money (and pocketing it) than Rubashkin was accused of – and also received less jail time than Rubashkin. And most recently, Hassan Nemazee, an Iranian-American fundraiser for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, was sentenced to just 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million dollars, half the incarceration for more than ten times the fraud.

Granted, no two cases are identical, but the contrasts are still jarring. And one need not argue for the innocence of Pollard or Rubashkin to be outraged at the disproportionate sentences each received. How is this possible? Is there a Jewish surcharge? Do the courts increase a Jew’s sentence because of the chillul Hashem involved? Where are we?

Further, why does Israel tolerate the kidnapping of its soldiers, and continue to provide Gilad Shalit’s captors – the residents of Gaza who voted Hamas into power – with food and electricity? Has Israel insisted that Shalit be visited by the Red Cross, as is his right under international law, in exchange for those provisions? Has Israel verified that Shalit himself is a beneficiary of that same food and electricity? Jews bend over backward to be more moral – after all, who wants to be accused of collective punishment – but instead we are less moral, lacking even in elementary love for our own flesh and blood, our own people.

* * * * *

Whither our ahavat Yisrael? Maybe we don’t really care as much as we say we do. Maybe in our drive not to be seen as parochial and overly concerned with only Jewish causes we have robbed ourselves of our natural instinct to help our own. All the hospitals and museums Jewish money provided for the general community have not bought any good will, at least not in the legal system. All the politicians we fund, and whose shoes we run to shine if only they will take a picture with us, surely must mock us behind our backs – because we don’t take care of our own. We don’t protest, we don’t scream. We rely on platitudes and empty promises, and accomplish little for our own people in distress.

On a recent trip to Washington, I visited the Newseum, a fine museum dedicated to the history of journalism. The museum screened a documentary titled “The Media and the Holocaust,” describing in great and painful detail the “paltry, embarrassing coverage” (Abe Rosenthal’s words) of the Holocaust by the American news media, especially The New York Times.

It is not that the Holocaust wasn’t covered – it was. The New York Times alone ran 1,100 Holocaust-related stories during that era – but almost all were buried on the inside pages.

Item one: a tiny story on page 6 in July 1942 reports that “700,000 Jews have been murdered.” That same day’s newspaper devoted a lengthy page-one article to New York Governor Lehman’s decision to donate his tennis shoes to the war effort.

Item two: an April 1943 report on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising – a cover story – failed to mention that the insurgents were Jews; they were described only as Poles.

Item three: The Times reported in July 1943 on the death of “350,000 Jews” in a little blurb on page 5. The front page that same day contained a long piece on the July 4 traffic.

Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum said the disgrace was that the media reported that “A million Jews have been killed,” when they should have shouted – in 16-point type – “A MILLION JEWS HAVE BEEN KILLED!” They did not scream when they should have. We too do not protest or scream or get angry or threaten to turn off the spigot of financial contributions Jews make to (usually Democratic) politicians. We will occasionally have a very tepid demonstration, addressed by the same array of politicians and professional Jewish leaders with predictable speeches that send everyone home thinking something has been accomplished. How many Jewish leaders who meet with President Obama ask about Pollard? How many leaders who met with Prime Minister Netanyahu recently asked him if he requested Pollard’s release?

We look back with disdain at the apathy of American Jews during the Holocaust. Granted, this is not the Holocaust – but have we really improved that much? I don’t see how we are any better. Our excuses are more clever and articulate, and sound more reasonable – but our devotion to the preservation and well-being of every Jew still needs enhancement. We are often told our leaders have bigger fish to fry; but human beings are not fish. “I have called for my friends, and they have deceived me.” Will that be Pollard’s legacy, and Shalit’s, and others?

According to our Sages, the Second Temple was destroyed due to the baseless hatred prevalent among the Jewish people. And perhaps if we cannot find it in our hearts to protest every injustice against a Jew and to instinctively defend every Jew, we are presently unworthy of redemption.

There is a fine line between being so provincial and insular that we are indifferent to others – and being so cosmopolitan, so universal, that we are effectively indifferent to our own. In the not-too-distant past, Jews changed their names and noses in order to curry favor with our neighbors; now, they merely have to disconnect from other Jews and identify with the cosmopolitans, and some even with our enemies.

For too long, we have so feared being stigmatized as narrow-minded that we have become too judgmental and unforgiving towards our own people. But in reality, there is no stigma. Every group naturally takes care of its own before others – whether Americans or Russians, whether Muslims or blacks. That is natural. We have become unnatural, and many Jews are emotionally estranged from our own people.

We can – and should – condemn crime and criminals (and ostracize those who have intentionally harmed Jews), but that does not mean we also have to accept double standards and abandon our own when unjust punishment is meted out. We do not have to tolerate that Jewish prisoners of war never survive the experience, and are held incommunicado in gross violation of the rules of war. We do not have to tolerate the cruel and heartless treatment of them by our enemies (enemies that are otherwise celebrated by the civilized world) that is their now customary fate, and negotiate with them as if they are decent, respectable people.

We have to get angry, in a positive and constructive way. We have to take our inspiration from the Tea Party that is trying to transform the American political culture from the grassroots, because the elitists of both parties have not been responsive.

We need a Jewish Tea Party that can reflect the voice of the average, simple Jew who loves Jews and loves justice, and is ill-disposed to making the crass political calculations that sacrifice human beings on the altar of expediency.

Israel is not a powerless country. An Israel that even feigns anger for the sake of Jewish life – and demands to know the fate of Katz, Baumol, Feldman, Arad, Pollard, Shalit and others – can achieve surprising results. We need to bolster the sense of unconditional love that always emerges during crises, and join together to advocate for Pollard and Rubashkin, for Shalit and Arad, and not simply each sub-group for its own. Ahavat Yisrael is a difficult mitzvah, but it is a mitzvah nonetheless. Now is the time.

When we have self-respect, others will respect us. When we are fearless, others will fear us. When every day we pray for suffering Jews and envision ways to liberate them from their afflictions, when we hold our politicians and leaders accountable rather than sit silently as they take our money while acquiescing in the demeaning of Jewish life, when we show that Jewish blood is not cheap and Jewish life is precious, we will be a people worthy of redemption and the restoration of God’s kingdom on earth.

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

Sensitivity

Posted on August 4, 2010 | 11 comments

Sensitivity is unarguably a fundamental Jewish trait. It is not merely an aspiration but a definition: “Whoever is compassionate towards others, it is obvious that he is a descendant of Avraham; whoever is not compassionate towards others, it is obvious that he is not a descendant of Avraham” (Talmud Masechet Betza 32b). Thus, the recent Statement of Principles on relating to homosexuals is clearly intended in that vein. However, the Statement itself, and some reaction to my own published thoughts on the subject, reminded me that while sensitivity is a cardinal Jewish value, it is one of many values that mold the Jewish personality.

Much has been made – and rightfully so – about the personal abuse heaped on homosexual oriented youth and adults. It should be rightfully condemned and eradicated as much as is humanly possible. “As much as is humanly possible” is a necessary qualifier, because, although we may strive for perfection, we rarely attain it, and the existence of human imperfections should not surprise or be unduly lamented. “Bullying” is, of course, wrong, as is mockery, verbal abuse, put downs, etc., and the victims are right to complain and be aggrieved. But perspective is helpful; homosexuals are not the only victims of such unfair treatment. As I recall from my own school days – before the invasion of the therapists, psychologists, and do-gooders, and when insults that went too far were settled – literally – in the school yard that itself bred a certain toughness and realism about life and the world – numerous groups (likely everyone, at one time or another) were tormented.

Here’s a brief list from my own experience of groups who were harassed: children of low intelligence or high intelligence, children who were not athletic, children who were too athletic (derided as “jocks”), boys who acted like sissies and girls who acted like tomboys, children who were obese or rail thin, people who suffered from a physical disability or were developmentally disabled, people who had a prominent physical characteristic (too short, too tall, big nose, no chin, one eyebrow, bearded at age nine, slack jaw), girls who were unattractive or too attractive (and therefore assumed to be dim-witted), immigrants, poor children, the poorly dressed and the too-spiffily dressed (the dandy), the fatherless and the motherless, the kid who brought his lunch from home in a metal box, the teacher’s pet, fans of non-local sports teams, and many others. [Yes, I attended one, tough school. If that weren’t enough, non-Jews would assault us on the way home.]

Many people in every strata of society still suffer from this sorry expression of a blatant lack of midot tovot (virtuous traits) on the part of insensitive people. Thus, the Torah mandates sensitive treatment for the poor, the widow and the orphan, to which we can properly add the divorcee, the single, the childless, the infertile, the unemployed, etc. Add to this list, today, the officially protected groups in our world, based on innate characteristics like race or skin color, ethnic background, religion and creed, and women, and now a class defined by private behavior that also seeks these protections, those attracted to same-sex relationships. We can literally walk on eggshells among our fellow humans, and it is undoubtedly prudent not to say anything that might offend a card-carrying member of one of the protected classes; that is to say, it is best to say nothing at all, ever.

There are many people who fear even addressing these issues – especially the place of the homosexual in Jewish society – for fear of sounding, or being branded, insensitive. Correspondents who castigated me assume that their particular victimization exceeds that of any other victim, a point naturally made by every victimized group in history, including Jews. But there are several brutal facts that need to be considered: first, as noted last week, homosexuals are the only group mentioned above whose defining activity involves a sin, a transgression of the Torah. That cannot be papered over, and the Statement’s dismissal of hirhur (illicit desires, even if not acted upon) as part of this discussion is deceptive, and telling.

Second, and consequently, it is naïve to think that an open homosexual – like an open adulterer, open Shabbat desecrator, open cheeseburger consumer, or open thief – can ever be accorded a place of honor or even acceptance (“full members”) in the official Jewish community, including shuls and yeshivot. Sensitivity becomes tolerance, then acceptance, then legitimacy – and that obviously requires a revision of the Torah, which cannot happen. The idea that a yeshiva can or should accept the children of homosexuals is as absurd as the notion that it should embrace a family of Jewish polyandrists (Torah prohibition) or Jewish polygamists (Rabbinic prohibition), and would subject that child to unimaginable and undeserved cruelty, our best efforts at sensitivity training notwithstanding.

That raises the third, and clearly the saddest aspect, of this individual tragedy: children. The Statement presupposes that homosexuals will want children, and want their children raised in the Torah community, notwithstanding their unacceptable lifestyle. But is it fair to bring children into the world – or adopt children – under those circumstances, i.e., fair to the children ? For sure, the childless in our world suffer enormously, as our tradition celebrates children and much of Jewish life is built around the continuity of family. For that reason alone, the Statement’s clear disdain for therapies that might ameliorate this condition is itself problematic. How can there be a “religious right” not to avail oneself of a therapy that might re-channel the person’s desires from the illicit to the licit, and potentially enable him/her to lead a normal and traditional lifestyle ?

In its casual but sincere call for the acceptance of such children – under the guise of sensitivity to children, which should be beyond question – the Statement fails to consider that not every Jew will merit posterity, either because of nature or choice. “For so says Hashem to the barren ones who observe My Sabbaths and choose what I desire (italics added) and grasp My covenant tightly. In My house and My walls I shall give them a place and a renown (Yad vashem), better than sons and daughters; eternal renown I shall give them, never to be cut down” (Yeshayahu 56:4-5). There are ways to serve G-d and contribute to Jewish life for those who cannot – or will not – have children.

It is sad, and their struggles – like all of us who struggle with transgressions that sever our connection to G-d, family, loved ones and community – are heartrending, and part of the human condition. But the Torah cannot be updated to conform to the zeitgeist on grounds of sensitivity, nor can we gerrymander the boundaries of Mitzvot in order to carve out an exemption for one class of sinner or another. We should be kind and decent to all people, including those in the schoolyard of my youth, and sensitive as well to the eternal nature of Torah that has been entrusted to us as the divine light that illuminates our every thought and move and by whose standard (and only that standard) we judge what is right and wrong. Those who choose to follow their desires, and not what G-d desires for them, deserve no special consideration – and certainly not (as mentioned before) when modesty dictates that what is private should remain private.

“Everyone knows why the bride enters the wedding canopy but whoever sullies his mouth and speaks of it will have even a good decree of 70 years overturned” (Talmud Masechet Shabbat 33a). There was a time when Jews reflected grace and decorum, where to be accused of being prust (unseemly, unbecoming) was a true Jewish insult. Under the guise of sensitivity, we have become as uncouth as others, and worse, tamper with the Torah as if it were our plaything, not our divine heritage. The Statement, like the other excitement of the past ten days, is just another nail in the coffin of Modern Orthodoxy, sacrificed on the altar of trendiness and political correctness. We must be sensitive – but we must also be different and holy, a nation created not to deify the transient values of Western man but the eternal values of G-d. When that happens, we will have something to teach the world, and perhaps even merit full and complete redemption.

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

HOMOPHOBIA-PHOBIA

Posted on July 30, 2010 | 4 comments

Homophobia, like racism, is a term whose import lies not in its technical definition but in its usefulness as a rhetorical bludgeon against perceived foes to an aggressive but fashionable agenda. The accusation itself stifles discussion, attempts to intimidate dissenters, and demeans the opposition rather than debates it. It is the refuge of those who prefer that shame replace reason, and invective substitute for civil discourse. In the last week or so, the indictment has been used to muster support for a resolution (?), a declaration (?) or something of that sort emerging from a group of Modern Orthodox rabbis that seeks overtly to increase sensitivity in the Orthodox world for the plight of the homosexual, and covertly, it seems, advance an agenda that will garner support in the religious world for the legitimacy of secular civil unions, an official welcome place in the Orthodox community for “open” homosexuals, and perhaps (among the more extreme elements among the MoDos) an admission that the Torah needs to be conformed to the modern research (and only that research) that supports the notion that homosexuality is innate and therefore could not have been prohibited by the Torah, or some other variation on that theme that would vitiate the obvious Torah prohibition homosexuality entails.

Much of the above does not appear in the Statement of Principles circulated in the ModO world, although it is the sub-text of what was characterized as the “Declaration against Homophobia” that I and others were urged to sign. The declaration encourages respect and sensitivity, an admission that homosexual acts constitute Torah violations, but also a plea for the official recognition of the homosexual as full members of the Jewish community (perhaps even as open partners, if celibacy is presumed). It is innocuous enough, unless one stops to ask the question: why is all this necessary ?

Homophobia, the accusation, carries less weight today than racism, the accusation, does, which is to say, none at all. These charges have been so overused as to be effectively meaningless, such that the indicted often wear them as badges of pride. Frankly, I do not know anyone who possesses a “fear of homosexuality,” the literal meaning of the term “homophobia.” People certainly object to the practice for religious, moral, and even societal reasons – but no one “fears” it. The accusation therefore should not be taken seriously, and undermines the sincerity of those who suggest it. They themselves are guilty of propagating a spurious phobia of non-existent homophobes, when all they are dealing with is the natural recoiling of the Jew at the attempted legitimization of a particular transgression.

I start from two very simple premises:

Everyone should treat everyone else with respect and decency. Period. We need not carve out special considerations beyond those afforded by the Torah – the widow, the orphan, the poor. Their unique status is based on external matters that do not involve a potential prohibition, but on the tragedy of the human condition itself. We should be teaching our children not to bully anyone – the poor kid and the rich kid, the smart child and the less smart, boys and girls, the cool and the uncool, the athletic and the less athletic. And we should likewise teach our adults not to disparage any human being – regardless of race, religion, ethnic background, creed and the rest of the list. But to highlight this one vice now, trendy as it is, is to pave the way for a future (not too distant) attempt to normalize these tendencies, much like a curriculum being debated in a school district in Montana these days that calls for teaching ten year olds that relations between men and women, men and men, and women and women are all “normal,” and they are free to choose as they mature. The suggested statement herein can be construed as innocuous enough, artfully phrased so that it does not trample on any fundamental principles of Judaism, but the wise person is always ro’eh et hanolad, sees trends and consequences, and the consequences for this campaign are potentially grave.

Secondly, every human being has tendencies that conflict with halacha, but we ordinarily do not broadcast them to others. How and why did homosexuality became the only biblical prohibition today that has its own lobbyists, interest group, and now legislators ? There is no other sin that earns such public acclaim, and surely that cannot be merely the result of allegedly harsh treatment against this particular group alone. The publication and mass dissemination of private sexual matters has contributed to, if not catalyzed, the tawdriness in our society that makes educating our children and other Jews with the eternal values of Torah an uphill battle. What shocks today becomes acceptable tomorrow, normal the day after that, and – scarcely a week later – a sign of moral degeneracy and mean-spirited judgmentalism for anyone who refuses to embrace it. This statement plays into that scenario and exacerbates that problem. To glorify, chastise, lament, excuse, or empathize with one set of hirhurim (illicit desires) as opposed to others elevates that particular hirhur to an undeserved “favored” status that simply echoes the zeitgeist and cheapens the Torah, but in a way that leaves us feeling both morally pure and virtuous when we in fact are neither.

In the society of decent people in which Jews should be the natural leaders, private behavior should remain private. That is the essence of tzniyut, the Jewish concept of modesty. Why must society be bombarded with knowledge of the details of a person’s private sexual practices, whether homosexual or heterosexual ? It is unbecoming. Indeed, everyone knows why people use bathrooms, and yet we still keep the door closed. For a person to trumpet his/her private sexual practices, whether or not they conform to the Torah, is just crude and unseemly, and unworthy of any Torah Jew. And yet, this statement, and the movement to normalize homosexuality in the Jewish world, is built on the foundation of coarseness that has vulgarized Western society and clearly infiltrated the precincts of Torah.

Must we know, hear about, read about, and agonize over people’s sinful or instinctual tendencies ? That is the job of a Rav to delve into in private with the afflicted individual, whatever the tendency is, not smooth the way for acceptance of that vice in Jewish (or general) society. The genius of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, similarly under siege today, was that it kept private matters private. No one need know the intimate details of another’s life, even if the person feels compelled to share it. And, as a rabbi, I need not decide whether a person who has homosexual tendencies can receive an aliya or perform some other public religious function – if I am not privy to that information. I don’t want to know and I don’t need to know – and if these matters are kept private by the relative few beset by them, then the declaration becomes superfluous.

Finally, despite all the protestations to the contrary, it strains credulity to believe that avowed homosexuals looking for acceptance in Jewish life do not act on their impulses. If they don’t, then why discuss it with the general public ? If they do, then why are we trying to diminish the gravity of their sin ? And if they do but we prefer to believe that they don’t so we can utilize the actor/action distinction as a convenient fig leaf to advance an agenda that further debases our society, then what is that saying about us ? As I see it, there is only one situation in which a person’s sexual deviance becomes an issue that requires sensitive but clear deliberation: the dating world. Men (or women) with homosexual tendencies should not date members of the opposite sex as they try to work out their issues. When they date nonetheless, the men (in particular) torment the women, who do not grasp why their relationship did not mature romantically, and, suspecting nothing, blame themselves unnecessarily. People who struggle with their sexual identity should discreetly say they are not dating; that would be a noble act of sensitivity and respect.

The bottom line is we should treat all people with respect – people like us and people not like us. Certainly, I would support under the proper circumstances the ostracism of an avowed adulterer, even though he/she could well argue that monogamy is unnatural, temptation is great, they were both consenting adults, and the pain and harm caused to themselves and their families were real and should itself warrant lenient treatment, sensitivity and “understanding.” Nevertheless, we sometimes act l’migdar milta, to set boundaries and sound a cautionary note about practices that offend the halacha. This statement tears down the boundaries that moral societies have always erected and maintained on the pretense that we are dealing only with thoughts of sin and not sin itself. I am not buying it.

I respect all those who struggle with their tendencies to avoid sin, and they should be lauded and encouraged – because “they” are “us” – all of us. The statement is therefore unnecessary and potentially harmful. The fact that it needed to be “negotiated,” with one side apparently advocating greater acceptance and legitimization of the homosexual agenda, with their own “red lines” drawn in the sand, is itself a cause for concern.

Keep private things private. We’ll be a better people for it, the world will be a better place, and the Torah will be cherished by all as the source of eternal verities and morality, rather than a weather vane that charts the shifting winds of public policy proper behavior. In so doing, we will rightly be a “light unto the nations,” if not also, first and foremost, unto ourselves.

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