Democracy’s Woes

   What do Donald Trump, Binyamin Netanyahu and Jair Bolsonaro have in common? They are all right-wing politicians who have alternately won and lost elections and refuse to go away quietly. They all infuriate their enemies, political and otherwise, in ways that defy balance, reason, and common sense. And they are all persecuted by legal and judicial establishments that are controlled by the left, and this is the most ominous of all the comparisons.

    Brazil’s Bolsonaro recently lost a hotly contested election which he claims was rigged – and now finds himself under investigation by the man who defeated him. Netanyahu has been investigated for the better part of almost two decades and currently is in the middle of an interminable trial for conduct that is routine for most every politician. He would not be prosecuted but for the irrational hatred he elicits and the rational fear on the left that he keeps winning elections. And Trump is Trump.

    To be sure, no man is above the law, but no man should be beneath the law either, crushed by a behemoth of a legal system that is politicized and weaponized against an individual target. It is not a person being investigated for possible crimes committed but a person being scrutinized, like searching polluted for chametz with a candle, in the hopes of finding a crime for which he might be charged.

     Joe Biden, rather than lecturing Israel on democracy and the proposed judicial reforms here that will make our legal system fairer, would be wise to worry about his own democracy, the abuse of governmental power against individual citizens, and the dire need to rectify a system that no longer prosecutes most thefts, drug use, assaults or illegal aliens but uses its enormous resources against disfavored people who are targets.

    The weakness of the case against Trump is illustrated by two points. First, the misdemeanor charge of falsifying business records could not stand alone as its prosecution is already precluded by the statute of limitations. Thus it was a charge in search of a felony, which was necessary to get the prosecutor’s foot past the courthouse door. The felony chosen –campaign finance violation through payment of hush money – is difficult to prove and not only because it requires intent. It is difficult to prove because it is not illegal to pay hush money and when the money was repaid to Trump’s now disbarred attorney who paid it… the campaign was already over. In other words, the business records were allegedly falsified in 2017 through payments to the disgraced attorney but obviously could not have impacted a campaign that concluded in November 2016.

     Indeed, even if it was a “campaign contribution,” a highly debatable point, Trump would have been under no obligation to report it until the end of that quarter’s filing period, i.e., December 2016, long after Election Day. It is no wonder that federal prosecutors and the previous Manhattan District Attorney declined to prosecute. There is no case. But it is also no wonder why the current Manhattan DA decided to prosecute: he literally ran for office on a platform of getting Trump. That screams prosecutorial misconduct but the judicial system in America has become so politicized, and democracy so despoiled, that most liberal judges in the chain of jurists that will hear the initial motions and their appeals will not risk their careers and the leftist opprobrium they will receive by dismissing the case. Joe Biden –please focus on America and its judicial and democratic woes!

     There is a growing sentiment across the globe that democracies don’t work and its election results should be voided – unless the left wins. When the left wins, democracy is declared sacred and beyond reproach. Government decisions cannot be challenged no matter how tiny the government’s majority. Thus, in Israel , the first and second Oslo Accords – both catastrophic mistakes – passed with slim majorities, and the second only secured its miniscule majority by literally bribing two far-right wing Knesset members with cabinet positions.  Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, muscularly exercising his slender advantage, did not hesitate to taunt his opponents and those who protested his policies, even saying they could “spin like propellers” but the Oslo process would go forward.

     Whatever criticisms are levied against the Netanyahu government for its conduct of the reforms, they should pale before the heavy-handedness, even brutal dismissal of any opposition, directed towards the Oslo protesters. Similar, the utter contempt showed by the Sharon government – and the indifference of the judicial system – towards those who protested against and were victimized by the disastrous and immoral expulsion from Gush Katif. If anything, the current government has been too deferential to the opposition, certainly in comparison to its oppressive predecessors. We can only imagine what would have happened – and how the media would have reported it – if today’s protesters had received the Oslo and Gush Katif treatment.

     In France, as well, the streets have been overwhelmed with demonstrators who oppose President Macron’s unilateral decision to raise the retirement age by two years (how is that for democracy, but apparently there is such a provision in French law). Businesses closed, strikes were declared, police were attacked – and it is a good thing that Macron did not try to change the composition of the judicial selections committee, or who knows what would have happened. The protests in France, the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter riots in America, and the recent demonstrations in Israel may all have diverse motivations but they share in common discontent with, even rejection of, the democratic process.

    It comes out that when the left wins an election, they win and implement their policies. But when the left loses an election, they still win, because they claim the election was tainted, try to frustrate the implementation of the government’s policies, suddenly claim that the government’s responsibility is to respect the feelings of the defeated minority and decline to govern, and launch prosecutions of the winner.

     In essence, democracy is only a successful and admirable mode of governance when one side wins – the left. Something is wrong with that picture.

      The current effort to achieve some “consensus” on judicial reform sounds good on the surface – as long as it is not intended to impede or thwart the platform on which the current government ran in the last election.  Dialogue is great because no one side has all the answers and cogent suggestions can come from the unlikeliest sources. But, as Margaret Thatcher put it, caustically, consensus is “the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”

     We shall soon see if the opposition’s idea of consensus is to so water down the reforms as to make them meaningless and inconsequential.

      The number of democracies in the world has steadily declined in the last two decades after reaching its peak in the early 2000’s. That is partly because some fledgling democracies abandoned that path and partly because some strong men seized power. But does democracy work anymore? Sure, democracies generally protect individual rights better but not totally, as witness the ongoing struggles for religious liberty in the US and Israel. There are favored rights and disfavored rights, favored citizens and disfavored citizens. But there is a price to be paid for elections that provide only an illusion of rule by the people.

      And, as Winston Churchill reportedly said, “the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Most voters are easily manipulated, which is why negative campaigning is hotly criticized but continues unabated; it works. See how much of the Israeli public genuinely believes that our democracy is in danger if the justices cannot have control over judicial appointments, something that does not exist in any democracy on the planet. And in exchange for voting every few years in elections that practically mean less and less (even though each one is advertised as the most important in history), citizens in most democracies have to tolerate high rates of crime, personal insecurity, high taxes, deteriorating infrastructure, government favoritism of favored groups, political prosecutions, and cloying self-righteousness on the part of societal elites that lecture the citizenry over how they – the elites – know so much better what is good for them.

     Autocracies are gaining strength across the globe, aided by indifference to any moral strictures. Of course, the downside of autocracy is that we the people are literally at the mercy of the autocrat, who might be benevolent, but is usually not. But if democracies no longer work and autocracies naturally frighten us because of the plethora of bad people who seize power and wield it for their own good, what then is left?

     Fortunately, the month of Nisan – the month of past and future redemption – provides us with the welcome answer, which is to prepare ourselves for the individual who will inspire, unite, and guide us to a world that is peaceful, prosperous and spiritually uplifting for all. We could benefit from Moshiach’s coming, and soon.

     Chag Kasher v’sameach to all!

It is not too late to pick up a copy of my new book, “Road to Redemption,” all about and perfect for Pesach, available at fine stores near you, from Kodeshpress.com, and from Amazon.com.

Enjoy and Chag Kasher v’sameach!

(Published on Israelnationalnews.com last Monday, before the great “pause.”)

Sadly, it has come to this. 

The State of Israel has long self-identified as a “Jewish and democratic” state – the order usually depends on one’s spiritual and national priorities – but the anarchist left has shattered both definitions. 

The anarchists do not want Israel as a Jewish state, except if we define Judaism in the blandest, most inconsequential way. It is not the Judaism of God, Torah, Mitzvot, holiness, objective morality, constant striving, self-improvement and a light onto the nations. It is a religion of – as best as I can surmise – being nice, non-judgmental, placing human reason above God, and feeling uncommanded to do anything. Certainly being nice is a Jewish value, but if that’s all there is, for that no one had to flee the Inquisition, burned at the stake, murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices or be banished to the Gulag. That philosophy can easily fit into several of the world’s religions so there would be no need to fight and struggle for a Jewish state whose territory is claimed by others and is a persistent target of much of the world’s enmity. In fact, if that is all there is to Judaism, it is unclear why it is so important that Israel be a haven for persecuted Jews across the world. If that is all there is to Judaism, why is it so important that Jews survive? We don’t really bring much to the global table and the marketplace of ideas. To the anarchist left, the “Jewishness” of the state is window-dressing. I challenge them to explain why a Jewish state is necessary or why it matters whether Jews survive. (Indeed, I challenge them to identify themselves! The media has been content to identify the protest leaders as “they” without explicating the pronoun. Who are “they”?)

The proof of their hypocrisy is not just in the relentless effort to de-Judaize the state, weaken observance and study of Torah, undermine the traditional family and vitiate the moral notions that we brought to mankind through the Torah. The proof of the hypocrisy is manifestly apparent in the recent demand that Shabbat be desecrated by repair work on the railways because closing the Ayalon Highway on a weekday would “endanger lives.” How hollow and facile does that assertion seem now. Apparently, the Ayalon can be closed – presumably endangering lives – for political protests, which must supersede Shabbat observance. Perhaps the railway authorities can coordinate with the protesters and do their construction in the future on weekdays when the Ayalon is closed for protests. What stunning hypocrisy. 

Obviously, the anarchist left does not want a Jewish state (which they have alternatively threatened to leave or sabotage if they don’t get their way). It is patently clear that they also do not want a democracy. They do not respect the results of elections. The people’s choices do not matter. They prefer that important decisions of state be made by one unelected person (the Attorney General) who derives her power from an elite cadre of other unelected officials, the Supreme Court. That might be a legitimate form of government and it might even be effective in certain societies but we should stop deluding ourselves that it is a democracy. It is not. 

In a democracy, political change is effected through the ballot box. In a democracy, the people govern through a majority and in an enlightened democracy, the majority rules and minority rights are protected – minority rights that promote and do not undermine the national purpose. A democracy is premised on the consent of the governed as is determined through elections. Political change that is effected through riots, protests, demonstrations, violence and threats of civil war is a hallmark of banana republics, not of democracies. We are witnessing the murder of Israel’s democracy at the hands of people who think they are saving it. Hence, their inability to conduct any meaningful dialogue with advocates of judicial reform. 

Several things should be stated clearly. Halting the legislative process will not slow it down until cooler heads prevail; it will kill it. It will not happen. Slowing it down is a smokescreen, a cliche, an obvious deception. The judicial reform movement will be dead on arrival, There will be no negotiations because the opposition will have stumbled onto an effective political strategy in its desire to undo the results of the last election. And a key reason why this government was elected and formed will have been vitiated. It will be yet another failure of a right wing government – a failure of leadership of Binyamin Netanyahu and the Likud. A new generation of leaders who are committed and steadfast will have to be nurtured. Perhaps the corrupted judicial system could then finish Netanyahu’s damn trials, one way or another, instead of dragging them on endlessly, endlessly, endlessly. And if he has to leave office? Well, isn’t that what most of these protests are about anyway –  not so much who comprises a judicial selection committee but how quickest to eject Netanyahu from office? And if he allows it to happen, he really is unfit to serve. 

There are silver linings in this catastrophe. Our society – our children, our citizens, and our leaders – is being taught that violence pays. Violence works. Our soldiers are being taught that refusal of orders and service is an effective approach to social and political change. If people are bothered by Shabbat desecration by railroad workers – or for that matter, anyone driving on the Ayalon on Shabbat – let tens of thousands of Jews block the railways and the highway. If a future left-wing government wants to evict Jews from our homeland or create a Palestinian state, let 100,000 committed nationalist Jews block intersections, storm the Knesset, and shut down the society. Tank the economy. “Let me die with the Philistines.” Let thousands of soldiers refuse orders. They can arrest one or ten people.  They can’t arrest 10,000 people, because then the American government will express its concern over Israel’s instability and call for a halt in the deportation of Jews. Sure. The secret to stopping the destruction of settlements, the surrender of land and the establishment of a Palestinian state has now been revealed. Violence. Threats. Protests. Insubordination. And shamelessness. These are useful implements to have in our toolbox, wholly inappropriate in a Jewish and democratic state, but, oh well. 

We are learning as a nation that any minority can threaten civil war, attack soldiers and police officers, and be granted their every wish. Elections don’t matter and voting is a waste of time. Let Esther Hayut and Gali Baharav-Miara make all the decisions. No one voted for them but they have arrogated to themselves dictatorial powers and have the strength of the mob behind them. That is all they really need in a state that is neither Jewish nor democratic. The protesters are passionate and may even be sincere – but they are anti-democrats. 

Yeshayahu prophesied that part of the process of redemption is ridding ourselves of corrupt leaders and judges who will be thieves, bribe-takers and perverters of justice. We have to purge ourselves of the dross. The process of redemption will be the restoration of the “judges as of old and the counselors as at the beginning” (1:26). He spoke of the ideal Jewish state that would come into existence. He didn’t mention anything about a democracy but, then again, neither does Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Yes, read it. It characterizes the nascent state of Israel as a “Jewish state” (Medinah Yehudit) several times and it doesn’t mention the word “democracy” even once. 

Perhaps the leftist, anarchist mob is onto something. But here is more good news. True, it is pathetic that after 75 years it seems that we no longer have the capacity to govern ourselves in a dignified, coherent and mutually tolerant way. But we can pray that the abject, embarrassing failure of the leadership class – the politicians and judges – and its displacement by the mob signals, and is a harbinger of, the coming of Moshiach, who, among other things, can save us from ourselves. Perhaps the time is ripe, in Nisan, the month of redemption. May we – all of Israel – be worthy of the moment. 

(This is the fourth year that I am answering questions in the Jewish Press forum entitled “Is It Proper?” All the rabbinic responses and more can be read at Jewishpress.com)

Is it Proper for a person with a bad cold (or virus) to daven with a minyan?

In the current environment, it is prudent and politically correct to stay away from shul when one is ill.

But let’s get real! Would a person with a cold not go to work or would teachers or children who have colds avoid school? Would a person not board a plane for a long-planned vacation if he has a cold? That would be asking too much. Rather than have a decree that applies universally, we must return to a life in which people demonstrate personal responsibility for their decisions. The main factor here is: might other people be realistically harmed by your presence? If so, then the person should refrain from going to shul.

Colds and viruses have varying degrees of contagion. If one goes to shul with mild conditions, then it is proper to sit apart, not talk to anyone up close (generally, good advice in shul), not shake hands with others and leave before the conclusion. Any illness which is contagious requires isolation. It is worth noting that not harming other people is a greater zechut for the niftar or nifteret than is reciting Kaddish. The former is a Torah obligation while the latter is a custom.

So go but act responsibly.

That being said, I did not attend shul this year on Shabbat Chanukah because I was suffering from the flu. Davening alone was a greater Kiyum Hamitzvah than thrusting myself and my germs into a crowded shul. It was the first time, I believe, that I ever missed a Shabbat davening because of illness, a pr. It wasn’t easy but it was the right thing to do. And my wife insisted.

What is the proper thing to do when seeing someone who is mesurav l’din at a simcha, Jewish communal event, or some other place where you can’t just leave?

The response is shaped by two important caveats. First, the Bet Din in question has to be authorized, reliable, legitimate and properly constituted. There are such Batei Din. And there are others that unfortunately are not legitimate, and make pronouncements without following proper procedures and sometimes even lack jurisdiction. In any particular case, one should ask his/her Mara D’atra. Second, it is assumed that the seruv includes the harchakot of Rabbanu Tam that demands that we ostracize this miscreant. 

If these two criteria are satisfied, then the miscreant should not be invited to such events and should be shunned by the community. It doesn’t mean that the witness has to make a scene, ruin the simchah, or call attention to the presence of the mesurav. But if their paths cross a good Jew should solemnly say to the miscreant “you should respond to the Bet Din. That is what a faithful Jew does in this situation and being responsive to a Bet Din is more important that attending a simchah or an organizational meeting.”

The nature of the case also matters. Often, people sue in Bet Din when they realize that they could not prevail in a secular court because of insufficient credible evidence or reluctance to adduce that evidence in secular court (where they, wrongly, try all their other cases). This happens when money is the issue and those cases naturally arouse skepticism. But when the issue is a husband who wrongfully refuses to give his wife a Get or a wife who wrongfully refuses to receive a Get from her husband – both having been directed by a legitimate Bet Din to comply – we should be wary of any pleasant, social interactions with the wrongdoers. 

What’s the ideal and most appropriate format for kiddush–standing around, sitting at tables; lots of hot food, a few cold items?

First principles first. A kiddush is an occasion for the members to socialize after shul, which renders the kiddush redundant if the members were r”l socializing during shul. Ideally, it is opportunity to catch up on the week’s news, chat with friends, and discuss the wisdom and insight of the Rabbi’s drashah.

Anything beyond that is secondary and tertiary. Standing or seated will be determined by crowd size and event space. The quantity, quality and variety of the menu will be determined by the affluence or expectations of the participants. Certainly, the kiddush should not render the main meal of the day (at home) superfluous, perhaps even an achilah gassah (gluttonous consumption). One must take care not to overeat or certainly not overdrink at a kiddush so as to make the second se’udah of Shabbat an enjoyable one.

If the kiddush functions as the main meal for some people then it is critical that rolls be served and that the diners sit and not stand around. “Kiddush must be recited at the place of the meal” and so this kiddush then serves a dual purpose. It is probably wise to serve some hot dishes as there is an obligation to consume hot food on Shabbat and not everyone is careful about that. It is probably unwise to turn the kiddush into a lavish smorgasbord, which then pressures current and future sponsors to shell out significant sums of money to please the palates of their friends and neighbors. And we would do well to minimize the quantity of unhealthy foods that are often staples at a Shabbat kiddush.

I must add that I do miss the elaborate Mens’ Club kiddushim at my former pulpit. Consider this a well-deserved shout out!

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