Author Archives: Rabbi

Last year, I was invited to be part of a panel of rabbis to submit answers to questions posed by the editor of the Jewish Press. The column appears bi-weekly, and I take this opportunity to present my approach to the questions raised.  Each question is fascinating in its own right, as are the variety of answers proffered.  All the answers can be viewed at Jewishpress.com.

Here is the seventh selection with my take on these issues    – RSP

May one enjoy good food or is the ideal to not care what one eats as long as it gives one strength to serve Hashem?

     The primary goal of all physical activity is to strengthen and preserve our bodies for higher purposes. Rambam (Hilchot De’ot 3:2) underscores that all our actions must be l’shem shamayim, for the sake of Heaven. Thus, “when we eat or drink…we should take to heart that the purpose is not just pleasure, such that we only eat or drink what is sweet to the palate…but rather that we are doing it only to strengthen our bodies and limbs. As such we should not eat everything the appetite desires like a dog or donkey [would] but eat healthful foods and eschew harmful foods…”

     To overemphasize the ancillary aspects of food – taste, flavor, presentation, etiquette, matching exotic wines to a particular entrée – is to indulge in animalistic acts but in a more sophisticated manner. It is certainly not the highest expression of human endeavor, which lies in the world of thought, moral choices and pursuit of knowledge of G-d. Man is defined as a baal sechel, an intellectual creature, and not a more refined beast.

     Yet, even the Rambam refers to indulging only (bilvad) for pleasure-seeking. We are not prohibited from enjoying ourselves (some of the baalei musar would disagree). The Yerushalmi (end of Kiddushin) states that we will have to give account for everything our eyes saw in this world but did not consume. The prohibition is to benefit from the world without a bracha, without acknowledging G-d’s beneficence.

       There are some righteous people, like Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, who live on a sublime plane of existence and seek no pleasure from this world. For us mere mortals, we are allowed to enjoy ourselves, as long as the pleasures are permitted and appropriate. But they must always be a means to the end, and never the objective per se. That terrain is very difficult to navigate; it is, though, the test of life.

Is trying to reconcile Torah with current scientific knowledge proper? 

We start with three premises: first, that the Giver of the Torah is also the Creator of the universe; second, that, as such, no true conflict between Torah and science can exist; and third, that Torah and science are distinct disciplines that are designed to explain disparate facets of the world. The Torah teaches us the “why” of the world – why we exist, what G-d’s purposes in creation were, and by what divine moral code we are supposed to live. Science teaches us the “what” of the universe – how the universe operates and how its various forces can be understood and even harnessed for the benefit of human beings. While science thus is amoral, the Torah is the ultimate morality.

Yet, as both disciplines share the same Author, and as man is obligated to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it” (Breisheet 1:28), it is both natural and proper to study how science accords with the Torah. It seems better to ask whether it is proper to reconcile current scientific knowledge with Torah than the converse. This approach is more enlightening and edifying, as scientific conclusions are constantly amended when previous theories are upended while the words of the Torah are both immutable and infinite in their wisdom.

From the Rambam’s understanding of the universe as delineated in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah (chapters 3-4), it is clear that thinking man is required to utilize the scientific knowledge of the day in order to elucidate different aspects of Torah and even (for the cognoscenti) to better understand creation itself, even if that knowledge will change in each generation. It is astonishing how the language of the Torah can accommodate different theories, underscoring that the Torah is not meant to teach science or history – but morality

What should one do if one hears about persecution of a people in a foreign land?

   Years ago, an earnest young woman from our shul asked me to announce a forthcoming rally to protest the horrific genocide in Darfur. When I asked the purpose of the rally, she said it was “to raise awareness.”

   “And having raised awareness,” I asked, “what is the next step? Do you support the deployment of American troops to halt the massacres?” She answered: “Absolutely not.” (It was during the Bush years).“I don’t want US troops deployed anywhere in the world.”

    “So,” I continued, “having raised awareness, what do you hope to accomplish? What are your policy goals?” “None yet,” she answered. To which I responded, “When you figure out what you want to do, I’ll be happy to endorse the rally.”

    The suffering of innocents across the world is often accompanied by a barrage of clichés, platitudes and bromides, some designed to assuage the consciences of the protesters, others intended as mere virtue-signaling, but little that actually thwarts evil and liberates the persecuted. The rasha has a distinct advantage as those who aspire to goodness cannot fight injustice across the globe.

     Words cannot save the victims but sometimes they can redeem our humanity. I know of no effective measures to fight evil other than the application of righteous and overwhelming military force against the perpetrators. We should support that use of force, which is not to say that the United States or any other country has the obligation to intervene everywhere. We should mindful of how hollow our criticism would be of those who did not rescue Jews during the Holocaust if we ourselves do not volunteer to rescue other endangered peoples.

    The least we can do is daven for them, as we pray for the peace of all nations on the Yamim Noraim, and remind ourselves that “chaviv adam she’nivra b’tzelem,” all mankind is precious as we were all created in the image of G-d. We can care, grieve, speak out, refuse to relegate these stories to the “way of the world,” raise money, demand protective action, and punishment for the perpetrators.

      Here are four compelling reasons why American-Israelis should vote for Donald Trump’s re-election – and why it matters.

       First, it should be obvious that gratitude is a fundamental Jewish virtue and, for that reason alone, the simple gesture of voting to re-elect the most pro-Israel president in history should suffice. But concomitant with gratitude should be the realization that President Trump has incorporated Israel’s best interests into American domestic and foreign policy to an unprecedented degree. Thus – a partial list follows – he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the American embassy there; he recognized the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory and the legality of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria; he pulled America out of the Iran nuclear deal and orchestrated peace treaties between Israel and two Gulf States, with others apparently in the works; he closed the PLO mission in Washington and halted aid to the Palestine Authority, recognizing that American taxpayer dollars were being diverted to fund the PA’s “pay for slay” travesty; he unequivocally defended Israeli in the United Nations and other international forums, and worked to undo the lasting damage of the anti-Israel resolution spearheaded by the American government in the waning days of the Obama-Biden administration that declared, among other things, that the Western Wall is Arab territory; he has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism, and became the only president to sign an Executive Order combating anti-Semitism on college campuses (where it is rampant in America) and threatened to freeze federal funds to colleges that don’t protect Jews from discrimination on campus. The list goes on.

     And he did all this without receiving or expecting any significant support from liberal American Jews. Thus, President Trump has derived no political benefit from Jews for his staunch support of Israel.

      Second, a strong America benefits Israel as it keeps American and Israeli adversaries, including Iran, at bay. President Trump has articulated a belief in the smart but limited projection of American military power and he has forcefully applied economic sanctions to a number of countries engaged in acts of global destabilization. This “America First” policy – which greatly advantages Israel as well – contrasts sharply with the globalist view of the Obama-Biden administration and others which sub-contracted American influence to neutral or hostile elements and emboldened rogue nations to perpetrate acts of evil with impunity. One need only recall the days of kowtowing to Iran and subsidizing its terror operations, of drawing red lines in the sand that were erased the moment they were crossed, and acquiescing in the conquest by major powers of adjacent territories to realize the inherent danger of a return to those policies, all of which will occur in a Biden-Harris administration.

       Third, it is high time for Israelis to explicitly acknowledge the influence of American political and cultural norms in Israeli life. One clear example, not often remarked upon, makes the point. The High Court of Justice in Israel began operating as a super-legislature in the 1970’s, and the Aharon Barak tenure as President (beginning in the 1990’s) ushered in an era in which the High Court grants itself jurisdiction over everything it deems appropriate, without any limits on standing or justiciability. Thus the High Court sits in judgment on Knesset laws, government decisions and administrative rulings, without any grounding in statute but simply based on the predilections of the justices. The Court vehemently resists any limitations on its powers or even its composition.

     Justice Barak and his successors admittedly drew inspiration from the activist United States Supreme Courts of Earl Warren and Warren Burger, which also derogated to themselves authority to read into the American Constitution clauses that were not there in order to enshrine as law their own policy preferences.  The US Supreme Court has attempted, in recent years, to revert to a more constitutionally appropriate role interpreting and applying the will of America’s foundational documents. That has not been an easy nor altogether successful enterprise, as it is difficult for any institution to relinquish power it has claimed for itself. But it is slowly changing, and that is due to the incumbent American president.

     President Trump has appointed and continues to appoint Supreme Court justices and federal judges who adhere to a more limited, originalist philosophy. Such can only have a positive influence on jurisprudence in Israel and rein in the High Court’s excesses. Conversely, an American judicial system whose judges are appointed by a President Biden will encourage even more unbridled activism by the High Court here that will further erode Israeli democracy and make the Knesset almost irrelevant.  Judicial norms in democracies have to be revised and it starts in the United States. What happens in America – the trends that are unleashed or stifled there – has a tremendous effect on life here in Israel.

     Finally, and apropos of that, a victory for President Trump would greatly weaken the “cancel culture” promoted by progressives in America that seeks to destroy individuals whose words or actions simply offend them. This “cancel culture” is today routinely accompanied by attacks on freedom of speech, assembly and worship. It attempts to silence any voices that dissent from the orthodoxy proposed by the critics. To an immeasurable extent, President Trump stands in the way of the “cancel culture,” even as Joe Biden is a beneficiary and even an unwitting advocate for it. Israelis who are accustomed to these freedoms, and quite aware these days of how easy it is for government or social entities to repress them, should take note. A vote for Biden will bolster every negative social trend in America, and those will arrive on our shores more swiftly than we can imagine.

     All American-Israelis should therefore vote.  It is especially important for second-generation American Israelis to vote. Having been born and raised in Israel, they may think that what happens in the United States little affects them. That is not true. If anything, we have seen under the first Trump administration the glorious advantages of having an unabashedly pro-Israel administration, one that advocates for traditional values and freedoms and perceives Israel as a partner, friend and ally.

      We should not take that for granted because we will rue the day if and when it is no longer the case. It is our duty as Israelis and Americans to vote for President Trump whose policies have strengthened both the United States of America and the nation of Israel.

         Those who lament the rancor, pettiness, name-calling and puerility of the presidential debate (I am among them) should realize that this nastiness has existed for several decades and pervades election campaigns at all levels, and especially targets people nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court by Republican presidents. It is not ending anytime soon. Gone are the days when politicians bickered by day and drank together in the evening. President Trump doesn’t drink.

        It is inconceivable that the President should win re-election, and I write that as an unabashed supporter. Most indicators point towards his defeat, even if his policies have been a boon to the American economy and a boost to its spirit. President Trump certainly has a compelling case to make for his re-election but he is often not the person best equipped to make that case.

        Unfairly, he will be blamed for the pandemic’s havoc in American life and its high death toll. No one really knows what to do; there is no panacea. Israel is now locked down for two weeks, one month, two months – no one knows for how long or why anything should be different whenever society reopens. Joe Biden’s suggestions were all implemented, and the most effective ones President Trump introduced were the ones Joe Biden opposed. The United States, like Israel, has yet to decide whether it will live with the virus, come what may, or live for the virus, upend civil society, ruin children’s lives, and put life on hold until something that no one can truly anticipate happens.

       Nevertheless, the buck stops with the President, fair or unfair.

       Consequently, pandemic aside, Democrats will tendentiously point to the cold, hard statistics.  They will ignore the Trump boom, record low unemployment, a recovery of manufacturing and improved foreign trade conditions – all before the Coronavirus entered the American bloodstream – and simply advertise this: measuring from the day Trump took office until today, unemployment is way up, manufacturing is way down, the GDP has taken a major hit and the deficit has skyrocketed. Forget the reason and the fine print; those are the cold facts.

       It is inconceivable that President Trump can win re-election with those numbers. And, it should be added, Democrats are more skilled at election cheating than are Republicans (witness the Minnesota Senate race in 2008, four formerly Republican congressional seats in California in 2018, and continued shenanigans in the last year). Democrats will stop at nothing to defeat Donald Trump in 2020. One has to be naïve to believe that fake ballots filled in by the tens of thousands do not already exist in six key swing states, ready to be trotted out a day or two after Election Day, as needed by the Democrats, to be tallied and (oops) tossed out. That alone would make a Trump victory in 2020 even more shocking than in 2016.

      And yet, it is inconceivable that Joe Biden can be elected president of the United States. It seems patently clear that his mind is no longer sharp, and his verbal and intellectual stumbles are conspicuous. He has had a lackluster career – literally, a career politician – without any

significant or enduring accomplishment as a Senator (unless you consider his inauguration of the execrable custom of persecuting, in personally degrading terms, Supreme Court nominees of Republican presidents, which he did as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman by the borking of Robert Bork and the high-tech lynching of Clarence Thomas).

      He has run away from major bills he supported (the crime bill and NAFTA of the 1990’s) and, as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote, Biden has been on the wrong side of every major foreign policy decision for the last forty years. While Trump may overwhelm foreign leaders (and others) with his braggadocio, he intimidates them with his unpredictability and shocks them with his unconventionality. Conversely, it is hard to imagine any foreign leader taking Biden seriously, and he has long confused knowing a leader with having any influence or real dialogue with them.

      He is devoid of achievement, essentially winning social promotions every few years, except if you consider that Biden almost singlehandedly put the kibosh on the #Metoo movement as those activists were forced to ignore Biden’s predations. And while both men seem incapable of expressing complete thoughts in grammatically correct sentences, Trump’s mind seems to work too fast, Biden’s too slowly. Biden’s zingers are programmed, his policies an amorphous mush concocted by others and not fully digested by the candidate, and he communicates facts and fictions indiscriminately, and with equal gusto.

      If it is inconceivable that either man should win, what is a voter to do?

      Being a New Yorker myself (born and raised) I always sensed that the rest of the country would have trouble relating to the brashness of a typical New Yorker like Donald Trump. (An ABC executive infamously rejected Seinfeld claiming it was “too New York” and would never resonate elsewhere.) Somehow Trump pulled it off, and I am reminded every few days of Salena Zito’s insightful observation of several years ago that Trump’s enemies take him literally but not seriously, while his supporters take him seriously but not literally.

      Take his policies seriously – and their effect on the America that its citizens love. That is not the America that is incurably racist, born in original sin and hopelessly evil. That is not the America that plays the identity politics games that demand that Biden appoint a “woman of color” as his running mate, and another “woman of color” as a Supreme Court justice – as if people are to be ultimately defined by such external, minor characteristics. Rav Soloveitchik wrote very tellingly that, as opposed to other creatures like animals, “Man…is individually valued. Secularists, who reject man’s metaphysical pretensions, implicitly impair his claims of individual worthiness…If the individual is significant only by virtue of his being part of the collective, then man may be legitimately exploited and abused if it serves some presumed higher social good. This is statism, the total empowerment of the state at the cost of individual liberty.” He might not know or even intend it, but this is Joe Biden’s America.

        Trump’s America is not one that promotes the forced redistribution of wealth, rewards sloth, blackmail and violence and penalizes individual initiative and entrepreneurship. What is Trump’s America? A country that celebrates freedom, especially of speech and worship, rejects the cancel culture created by fascists and respects the value system and moral yearnings of the faith communities. Trump’s America liberates the creative, commercial energies of its citizens, encourages free enterprise, and has greatly expanded the black middle class. Isn’t it racist to consider blacks – as Biden does – permanent wards of the state incapable of self-help? And yet it is Trump who is routinely called a racist because he treats blacks as equals, not as special-needs cases, and has benefited their lives immensely through prison reform and economic opportunity zones. Nonetheless, it is the blacks, like the Jews, who will inexplicably vote for the Democrat whoever he might be and whatever she might say.

       It is unequivocal – beyond debate – that President Trump has been the best president for Jews ever. Ever. Whatever his personal baggage, Trump respects the moral commitment of Torah Jews, has welcomed them into his inner circle and has enacted numerous policies that aid Jews and all people of faith.

    And on Israel? There has been no stauncher ally and friend of Israel than President Trump. He is not just a relative friend, to be compared favorably to the hostility of Obama-Biden who rewarded Iran, effectively subsidized its global terror, and befriended other dictators like Castro. Trump did things that no other President did, most of whom realized that Jews were content with saccharine rhetoric and soothing promises even if they went unfulfilled. The Trump list is long and well known, and partially includes: recognizing Yerushalayim as the capital, moving the embassy, recognizing the Golan Heights and the legality of Israel’s settlements in the heartland of Judea and Samaria, preempting the Iran nuclear deal, backing Israel unequivocally in the United Nations, spearheading peace agreements with other Arab states, marginalizing the Palestine terror entities, defunding them and expelling them from the US and from being players in world and regional diplomacy, etc.

      One former Obama official wrote recently that Trump is really anti-Israel because he has done little to further the two state illusion. Well, if that defines one as anti-Israel, then most Israelis today are anti-Israel as well.

             What to do in an election between two candidates when it is inconceivable that either should win? Buckle up – and vote for the candidate who will strengthen America, its standing in the world, its virtues, its deepest aspirations, and its commitment to individual liberty.

     That the coming Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) will be different than any we have previously experienced is a given. But does it not have the potential to be exceptional, perhaps even better than any other? It is saying a lot but let us explore how that is possible.

     The year of Corona has upended our lives in numerous ways. It became a mitzvah not to go to shul. The Talmud’s stark choice that extols the virtues of socializing – “either companionship or death” (Taanit 23a) – became a mockery of itself, when seeking companionship became a cause of death and isolation became the norm, a desideratum. Healthy people suddenly fell ill; communities suffered horrible losses. The world economy crashed. A robust economy in America and Israel became anemic, and many millions lost their jobs. Entire industries shut down, and some will not recover for years, if ever.

     Faith in government, already feeble, collapsed, and trust in the “rule of the experts,” a staple of liberal thinking since the Wilson administration, dissipated in the wake of contradictory and error-filled decisions. The same experts who were adamant about not wearing a mask became equally adamant about wearing one; ditto with the certainty (then lack of certainty) for surface transmission, for airborne transmission at 6 feet, 7 feet (or is it 27 feet?), for lockdowns versus herd immunity, for the efficacy of one drug over another.

       Indeed, “all the powerful men are like nothing before You… the wise men without knowledge, the scholars without intelligence.” Mankind, after a year like this one, should feel humbled, very small, vulnerable, and awestruck before the Creator whom we, evidently, do not control, and whose inscrutable will is beyond our ken. With all the obeisance paid to science – and all the fawning deference some want to show to “science,” however inconsistent and conflicting are its conclusions, and however limited its scope when measured against other vital global factors – it is abundantly clear that science does not have all the answers. It is risible to “follow the science,” when the science is confused, uncertain, too often wrong, and inconclusive. Here in Israel, the authorities are flailing about trying to find some way to halt or reverse the spread of Corona, this to the distress of many citizens who have little confidence that anything will change in three weeks after another lockdown – and that if it does change, that these Draconian lockdowns will have had anything to do with it.

     On Rosh Hashana, as we hail the melech elyon, the Supreme King, we also underscore the fragility of the melech evyon, the impecunious king – man – whose ego is as boundless as his ultimate capacities are feeble. The authorities, the experts, mean well and I presume that most are sincere. Man’s talents were enlisted to combat this deadly disease and many devoted people are making a difference, bringing relief to the ailing. But no one really saw this coming, knew with any certainty how to deal with it once it arrived, and thus are still struggling to arrest and overcome. It is most humbling. And it should remain humbling, even if a cure or vaccine is found.

     Those who pay careful attention to the davening remember all the phrases from the moving liturgical poem “u’netaneh tokef” that took on new meaning this year, and not just “Who will live and who will die.” “Who by fire” – and the conflagrations that bedevil the entire west coast of the United States. “Who by water” – and the floods that ravage various parts of the world suddenly and without warning. “Who by earthquake” – and the horrible toll that takes on human life. But all that is ordinary, part of the natural order, and even sadly familiar to us.

     But is this? “Who by magefa, plague?” Who thought a year ago that a plague would sweep across the globe, transforming the lives of every nation? “And who by chanika, stragulation?” Too many people, healthy people, within just a few minutes, found themselves unable to breathe for reasons that were not immediately discernible. Certainly those phrases should resonate with us this year, as we contemplate the greatness of G-d and the frailties of man, the pinnacle of His creation. Afflictions that we thought were relics of a bygone era are now part of our daily lives. If that does not cause us to take stock and look to the heavens, then nothing will.

     If so, then we are blessed – if that is the right word – to be able to “cast our eyes to the heavens and perceive who created all of this” (Yeshayahu 40:26). Many Jews will be davening outdoors, under the skies, braving the heat in some places and weathering the chill in others. Being in nature is a different experience than sitting in an edifice constructed by human beings. Shuls evoke awe – the House of G-d – but nature evokes a sense of majesty, a universe created by His word and wisdom and according to His will. It is the classic feeling of “Yir’at Hashem” (the awe of G-d’s transcendence), when man reflects on the wonders of nature and “is immediately taken aback, stricken with awe, and realizes that he is a small, insignificant creature, dark, standing with a paucity of knowledge in the presence of One with perfect knowledge” (Rambam, Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah 2:2).

     That experience does not just fulfill the mitzvah of “Yir’at Hashem.” That experience is at the heart of Rosh Hashana, the coronation day of the King of Kings on which we sound the shofar to acknowledge and celebrate His kingship.

      This past year – año de la corona – was the year of the crown in one sense, and not just because of the virus that bears its name. It should have forced us to take the imaginary crowns off our heads and realize how exposed we are, and how flimsy can be our lives, our grandiose plans and our aspirations.

     May the New Year be another año de la Corona – a year of the true Crown – when we anoint G-d as King over the entire world and include ourselves as well (in R. Yisrael Salanter’s sardonic phrase), as among His servants. And may He hear our prayers, heal our wounds, end the scourges that distress His creatures, bless us  all with life, good health, prosperity, peace and redemption.

     Shana Tova to all!