THE SUCCESSFUL

Posted on August 10, 2012 | 8 comments

     Like a skilled acrobat, President Obama is tying to extricate himself from his unguarded but truthful statement several weeks ago. As part of his effort to incite class warfare and raise taxes on the “rich” to some unspecified amount that will constitute “fairness,” he veered from his teleprompter and exclaimed, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” “If you’re successful, it’s not because you work hard – a lot of people work hard.” It’s something else – not the village – but, apparently, government, and especially all others who created the infrastructure that facilitated your success. (Of course, those others, for some indeterminate reason, did not achieve the same success as did the protagonist; evidently, that is the “unfairness” at the heart of the system, notwithstanding that the successful” also paid for the infrastructure but perhaps utilized it more productively. No matter.)

     Winston Churchill once said that the difference between socialists and liberals (he meant the classical liberals of his day, those who loved liberty, akin to today’s libertarians) is that the socialist wants to tear down the rich, whereas the liberal wants to build up the poor. In a nutshell, Churchill defined not only his era but also the primary issue before the American electorate this year.

       One potential problem in criticizing the Obama philosophy is an allusion to such an approach in this week’s Torah reading (!): “And you will say in your heart, it is my might and the power of my hand that has afforded me this great wealth. And you should remember G-d, for it is G-d who has given you the power to achieve this wealth” (Devarim 8:17-18).

      In other words, it is not you! Many people may work hard, many people may be educated – but their success is not due to their own efforts but to G-d’s will. Obama meant government as that unseen force, and if he had substituted “G-d” for “government,” his argument would have met little objection except from diehard secularists. And he would have flabbergasted his supporters and opponents alike – but for wholly different reasons. Is there some merit to this argument? Is the contention that “my might and the power of my hand have afforded me this great wealth” inherently arrogant? If so, where is there room for human endeavor, ingenuity and effort? Are we not allowed some personal satisfaction in the wake of any achievement?

       As always, the Torah penetrates to the depths of our thoughts. At the beginning of the Torah reading (7:17), we are enjoined that “if you say to your heart” that the nations around us are too powerful, then do not fear, and later (9:4) we are admonished “do not say in your heart” that G-d gave us the land because of our righteousness. Note the difference in phraseology: If you say, or do not say… as opposed to here, where the Torah writes “and you will say” when you see the great abundance and physical blessings of the land of Israel, that “my strength and my might made me all this wealth.”

      Is this latter statement positive or negative statement? We widely interpret it as negative, the height of arrogance, as if to say, it is all me, I did it. But if it is negative, then why doesn’t the Torah use the other locutions, “if you say,” or “don’t say.” Here, the Torah emphasizes “you will say.” Furthermore, how can a person who builds an organization, a building, a home, a family, a successful business – how can he not feel that but for him, it would not have occurred? The Torah’s prescription would seem to be a recipe for passivity or even apathy – “I didn’t do it, it’s all from G-d.” But if it is all from G-d, then why should we do anything?

    The “Ran” (Rabbenu Nissim, 14th Century, Gerona, Spain) comments in his tenth sermon that “you will say” is meant literally – you will say it, because you should say it. Every person should feel that there are things that only he or she can do – there is no one else to do it; it is my responsibility. The truth is that people have “segulot meyuchadot,” special abilities and talents, so that the successful person should say “it is my might and the power of my hand” that have accomplished my goals. There is only one caveat, one limitation: “remember G-d,” remember as well that G-d is the ultimate source of your talents and abilities, that the forces that inhere in you all come from G-d.

    There are times when a person must say, in the language of our Sages, “ein hadavar talui eleh bi,” it is all up to me. And what a delicate balance that is – between the arrogant form of “my might and the power of my hand” and the weighty realization that “everything is my responsibility.” How do we distance one and bring near the other? Through remembering G-d.

     Countries are not built, wars are not won, communities are not founded, and organizations are not sustained by the passive or the reactive, but rather by the activists, the strong, the leaders, the fearless – especially those who don’t fear failure or success, and by those who are willing to take personal responsibility for failure. Successful businesses are not built by the timid, and great advances in civilization are not the product of the diffident – and nor, for that matter, are they the product of government but of people, entrepreneurs, independent thinkers, creative souls.

    The catalyst for all success is “and you will say” and “you will remember         G-d” – to do our share, to take responsibility for our own destiny, to know that G-d has given each of us the tools to accomplish great things in life, each of us in accordance with our own personalities. It is what built Israel, it is what built America, and is at the heart of the challenge facing civilization today – the war of the timorous and the brave, the struggle between those who crave dependency and those who love freedom, and the battle between those prone to concession and weakness and those with strength of spirit and character. It is that spirit that will sustain even through difficult times – as we await the great and awesome days of complete redemption.

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Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

SMALL COUNTRY

Posted on August 3, 2012 | 2 comments

Here in Israel, the talk is not of Iran and its Jew-hating leaders and ongoing threat to civilization, but rather of Yakov Tumarkin and Israel’s other Olympic athletes. There was great rejoicing, and the lead story on the news the other night, when Tumarkin became only the second Israeli swimmer (and first in twelve years) to make it to a finals, this in the backstroke. He immediately announced that he does not expect to win, which is in fact refreshing, not to mention accurate (his best time, an Israeli record, is seconds off – but in swimming, light years away – from championship caliber). His candor speaks volumes, as does the celebration of his achievements.

     I don’t follow or watch the Olympics. Few of the sports interest me, and there are far better, more enlightening ways to spend one’s time than to watch strangers competing in ultimately meaningless exercises. Add to that the contrived hype about the “Olympic spirit” which says nothing and means even less; the “Olympic spirit” seems to encompass cheating, doping, gloating, and these days the worst political correctness – the rejection of a moment of silence for the slain Israeli athletes of Munich, forty years ago, was attributed to a desire not to “offend” the Arabs, and, as incredible as it sounds, a declaration that such commemorations would have to mention the “Palestinians” who lost their lives that fateful day, i.e., the Palestinian terrorists who were killed while murdering the Jews would have to be mourned along with the Jews they killed. So much for the “Olympic spirit,” which in a Jewish context also involves the rampant Chilul Shabbat that the Games engender. But the news remains the news, and the reaction to Tumarkin’s achievement in Israel is remarkable from an American perspective.

      Freed of the expectation of winning, the Israeli athletes can actually enjoy the experience of competing on the world stage with their peers. In America, the losers – even winners of silver medals – receive little acclaim and few endorsements. No second-place finisher finds his/her visage adorning a box of Wheaties, which is after all the breakfast of champions, not also-rans. Thus, young lives are effectively sacrificed for fame and fortune. Athletic children (gymnasts, swimmers, etc.) grow up without normal childhoods. (Even in Israel, “exceptional sportsmen” are exempt from IDF service, or at least have their service postponed for several years while they compete internationally; Haredim, take note, as should anti-Haredim, who apparently value sports more than Torah study.) Most of their dreams are snuffed out, as there can only be one champion. But in Israel, the mere fact that they have made it to that stage suffices for acclaim and approbation.

    Thus, the badminton scandal – wherein some Asian teams threw games in order to achieve a better seeding in the real tournament – is typical of the problems of these competitions. Medals count more than performances do. While this happens in team sports fairly often towards the end of the season (star players are rested, games are won or lost based on a team’s playoff wishes), it surprised the Olympic officials and surely disappointed the dim-witted fans who shelled out exorbitant sums of money to attend this foolish spectacle. In any event, I am not sure why there needs to be so many sports involving throwing things back and forth over a net; one sport would have sufficed. But the thrill of competition means nothing; the victory is everything and the sense of failure in defeat can be overwhelming when one’s life is so focused on – even obsessed with – winning the event.

      What else is sacrificed for sports? The peculiar boast by champion swimmer Ryan Lochte’s mother – that her son has no time for relationships but prefers to exploit women serially, and very briefly – is not only a sign of the decline of normal motherhood and the inculcation of moral values in the young but also of the single-mindedness that afflicts parents who are living through, and profiting from, their children’s success, if they indeed succeed. That narrow focus strikes me as sad, and such an upbringing as deprivation of the worst sort – of what is most important in life.

     Even that does not compare to the classical American conundrum that Senator Marco Rubio is trying to avert: in the US, the medal winners are taxed by the federal government because the medals themselves have value and are construed as income. He estimated that a gold medal winner would have to pay more than $8000 just for winning the medal, a hefty sum for a young amateur competitor in an obscure sport that promises no great payday at the end. Such penalties (See? Taxes can be penalties also, as per Chief Justice Roberts) are largely unknown in the rest of the world, and Senator Rubio wants to amend the US tax code to exempt the winners from this mandate, even so as not to encourage them to eschew the gold and win silver or bronze, which are worth much less. But the government behemoth must be fed, and that pettiness is sprinkled throughout the tax code. Good for Rubio to try to undo the effects of this parsimoniousness.

     A country’s smallness is ultimately not determined by size, population or even achievements in sports – but by its embrace (or rebuff) of fundamental values, its commitment to moral excellence, and, in our case, to the propagation of G-d’s word to the rest of the world. This morning’s paper brought the news that Tumarkin finished seventh in the finals; yet, his effort was celebrated and he is being extolled for his accomplishment.

    The cliché would maintain that that is the true Olympic spirit, but that is an empty platitude. There is no Olympic spirit, and the crass commercialization only adds to the small-mindedness. The truth is that the Tumarkin episode is uplifting, and arouses momentary national pride without any tears, frustrations or recriminations. Each Israeli athletes’ feats are honored, lose or lose, and if someone sneaks in a medal victory every few years, how wonderful and unexpected.

     Those countries where the national esteem is dependent on medals are the real losers, small and morally diminutive. Any place where achievement and effort can be lionized is really not small at all – and particularly where those achievements benefit, and not simply serve to distract, all of mankind.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

Senseless

Posted on July 31, 2012 | 41 comments

      The alternating dazed and demonic looks of the Colorado killer illustrate the senselessness of the murders. And “senseless” is the operative and literal definition: it makes no sense, and it will make no sense, however hard inquiring minds seek a rational motive. While James Holmes might not be legally insane – that requires an inability to distinguish between right and wrong, as in ‘he thought he was blowing bubbles when he was firing his weapons’ – clearly he has several screws loose. The planning, the preparation and the execution all point to a calculating but disturbed mind that rests somewhere inside a red-colored head. How can society guarantee safety from such monsters?

     The sad and troubling news is that, ultimately, it can’t. There is no perfect, foolproof system that can protect against massacres of the innocent unarmed by the determined heavily-armed. Suicide bombings cannot be prevented, but bombers (or their dispatchers) can be halted before the mission begins. But at the time? It is usually too late. One who wants to kill, and does not mind being killed, has a distinct advantage over the sane and the decent.

     Nonetheless, these horrors are always accompanied by demands of pandering politicians for new gun control laws, to be added to the existing gun control laws. The reality is that gun control laws only inhibit the law-abiding citizen from acquiring a self-defense weapon. Criminals can always acquire weapons. Indeed, in my part of the world, it is much easier to purchase an illegal gun that it is to purchase a gun legally, after licensing and waiting periods. It is also cheaper; this I recall from my days practicing law. The plethora of illegal guns on Bronx streets – and the dearth of legal weapons – was shocking, and itself encouraged lawlessness.

    This is an aspect of the gun control fantasy that advocates refuse to recognize but that has been demonstrated conclusively by the research of John Lott, among others. An abundance of guns in the hands of decent, civilized people decreases street crime rather than increases it. The statistics do not support the argument that normal people who possess weapons routinely become enraged and start settling disputes with their weapons. That simply does not happen in a statistically significant manner.

    Gun possession is legal in Colorado, but – not surprisingly – the Aurora theater banned patrons from entering with concealed weapons. Surely, if a moviegoer that night – or several – had been armed with their privately-owned and licensed defensive weapons, the massacre would have been halted in its tracks (if it even would have taken place at all). Gun “control,” in that theater on that night, aided the criminal and hampered the victims.

That didn’t stop liberal Senator (and gun control fanatic) Dianne Feinstein from opining that those who might have had concealed weapons on that night would have caused a “bloodbath” and many people would have been shot in the “crossfire.” Huh? It was a bloodbath because only the killer was armed, and dozens were killed and wounded because there was no “crossfire.” But, as often happens in politics, ideology trumps common sense.

Gun control advocates are fighting a losing battle because the American ethos will not support it, because over 100,000,000 Americans already own more than 300,000,000 firearms, and because there should be a palpable fear when only government and naturally, the criminal, are in possession of weapons. The initial objective of every dictatorship is to remove the means of self-defense from the average citizen; that is why the Second Amendment was so cherished by the Founders and defended vigorously ever since. One need not speculate too deeply about how differently the Holocaust would have unfolded had Jews been armed and able to defend themselves. Yet, liberal Jewish groups are in the forefront of the gun control lobby, as sensible and Jewish-oriented as everything else they do.

Some people just hate guns, and they should fight for their right not to bear arms. But others see firearms as essential to defense of person, home and property, and therefore oppose even the incremental restrictions that are frequently proffered. Certainly, reasonable people support background checks to weed out the insane, but adjudication of insanity is difficult to obtain. If James Holmes had announced his intention to kill people a week before he did, I am not sure what could have been done to stop him. The police don’t arrest for prospective crimes (assuming he did not reveal any overt steps taken to perpetrate his massacre) and liberals ensure almost 30 years ago that nuts could not be institutionalized against their will, greatly exacerbating the homeless problem as well. If James Holmes could not be arrested or institutionalized, then how could he be stopped? Trailed every day the moment he left his home? Not likely.

The suggestion that semi-automatic weapons or clips that allow rapid fire be banned also falls short on the sensibility spectrum. And it is not because I seek to allow hunters freedom to kill their prey as simply as possible, hunting being anathema to any Jew and strikes me personally as barbaric. It is rather for the reason outlined above: a ban on any personal hand-held weapon just drives the market underground. The criminals will always have it, and the police never have to fight the honest citizen – so the only group ever affected by these restrictions is the group of peaceable citizens.

Paradoxically, we probably could use more guns on the street and in the places we deem worthy of protection rather than fewer. Cities with very, very restrictive gun laws – think Chicago – have the highest rates of homicide and violence in the country. The average person cannot protect himself against criminal assaults. The old bumper sticker – “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” – still rings true. And societies with high rates of legal possession – think Israel or Switzerland – actually have very low rates of gun violence.

As frustrating as it sometimes might sound, the price we pay for having a free society in which an individual has the right and the capacity to protect himself or herself against hostile attacks is the occasional eruption of senseless violence. It is a tradeoff that we make, much like we do in our mass use of the automobile wherein reckless drivers kill many more people during the course of a year than do guns, and with all the licensing and testing that legal driving requires.

Rabbi Eliezer (Shabbat 63a) wanted to permit men to carry their swords in the public domain on Shabbat, deeming them “ornaments.” The majority disagreed, saying that such weapons reflect poorly on man and the sad necessity of war, and of course carrying weapons are only permissible for security reasons. Nevertheless, we can appreciate Chazal’s characterization of weapons as a “gnai” while understanding – as they did – their indispensability before the Messianic Era dawns upon us,

To imagine that we live in a world more moral than it actually is simply courts danger unnecessarily and leaves us ill-prepared to defend ourselves when appropriate. That fantasy directly negates fundamental Jewish values.

Until Messiah comes, let us fight for the right to defend ourselves and our homes, in conjunction with the police. In the meantime, let the maniacal miscreant be tried, convicted, and, if there is true justice, executed for his crimes. But let him not be used as a pretext to tamper with our vital freedoms.

41 Comments

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

Fallen Idols

Posted on July 24, 2012 | 2 comments

The Penn State debacle – crime, punishment and overreaction – displays much of what is wrong with American life today. To be sure, the innocent victims have been vindicated and the guilty punished. Sandusky, the longstanding pervert, will never see the light of freedom again, although true justice would demand his execution. Paterno, the venerable legendary coach, is dead, and other administrators have resigned. Did Paterno place the primacy of football above every other concern – moral and personal? Certainly. Was he also of a generation that was uncomfortable with such deviance and untrained in the modern protocols? Again, certainly.

     Indeed, the modern protocol is to lash out at peripheral people and institutions, and recklessly attack all those in the penumbra of the truly guilty. That is why the NCAA punishment strikes me as overwrought and overkill. It suggests the conclusion that engendering new innocent victims is less important than punishing the old guilty ones. (Full disclosure: I have zero interest in college football. Growing up, it was exclusively a Shabbat sport, so I have never followed the teams, the players, the bowls, etc.)

    What did the NCAA decree?

    Penn State must pay a fine of $60,000,000, the equivalent (apparently) of one year’s revenue from their football program. That is a lot of money – both for the program to generate, as well as for the university to spend. Thus, it is quite a loss of revenue, which ostensibly was utilized not only for football, but for the presumed purposes of a university – the education of its underclassmen. So, how exactly will Penn State compensate for this loss of revenue? Its faculty suffers, its research institutions and infrastructure suffer, and its current students, guiltless in this spectacle, suffer the most, because they will likely be hit with increased tuition, reduced services, an inferior education, or all three. Where’s the justice in that – punishing the innocent to get back at the guilty?

     Penn State is on NCAA probation, forfeits dozens of scholarships, and is barred from bowl games for four years. The NCAA president offered this pearl of wisdom: “Football will never be put ahead of educating, protecting and nurturing young people.” Who is he kidding?  A program that generates annual revenue of $60M will take precedence over anything else on campus, because nothing else on that campus produces such revenue. Arguably, the NCAA presides over an amateur sports behemoth that is tangentially attached to college campuses. The essence is the football (or basketball, hockey, etc.) while the education is clearly secondary. College sports are teams that are associated with schools, not schools that also have teams. That is why the coach is paid an astronomically-greater salary than any faculty member, and that is why student-athletes are awarded scholarships, even when they are more athletic than scholarly.

    How else to explain another sanction: Any entering or returning player is free to transfer without restriction (waiving the normal requirement that a transfer student has to sit out one year before playing at his new school). That presupposes that “students” are in college primarily to play football, and will transfer schools not to engage in a course of study unavailable at the first college, or to learn from more distinguished faculty at another, but simply to play ball. Is that what college is? For many people, yes. Hence, the contention that “Football will never be put ahead of educating, protecting and nurturing young people” is risible. It already is, and will be as long as there is an NCAA.

     Joe Paterno’s wins from 1998-2011 are vacated (and the university on its own initiative took down the Paterno statue that graced its campus). The mere fact that a statue was erected to honor a football coach – rather than a clergyman, a professor, a scientist, a moral beacon, etc. – already shows the priorities of the university, but is it fair to judge a person’s life based on one act, and an act of omission at that?

The fallen idol is weird but understandable, but the removal of the wins from the record book is downright stupid, a pathetic joke and a classic overreaction. It is not like the use of an ineligible player that voids that player’s contributions to the game and thereby the game itself. Here, did Paterno not coach from 1998-2011? Did the players not play? Were the players injured in those games suddenly healed? Were the games not won? Did what happen never happen? Is Bill Clinton still president? Did the Arabs not terrorize the US on September 11, 2001? How can one abide this blatant falsification of history, and not burst out laughing?

Ty Cobb is reputed to have been a racist, one of today’s cardinal sins. Should he have 1000 hits removed from his batting records as penance? Indeed, there was once talk of removing Cobb from the Baseball Hall of Fame for his sins, talk that emanated from ridiculous circles similar to the one that just erased Paterno’s wins from the record book. Forget steroids; perhaps we should review the moral record of all athletes and adjust the box scores accordingly. The Mets seem like a nice group of guys – let’s give them some wins. They could surely use them now.

There is one other troubling factor about this repulsive matter that is swept under the rug in the haste to blame the obvious guilty parties. There is one group that is overlooked, that attracts only sympathy and understanding, but who were instrumental in prolonging the problem: the victims.

In today’s culture, it is in poor taste ever to blame the victims, but often the victims are responsible –not for their own victimization but for their failure to prevent the victimization of others. I don’t want to know what Paterno did or didn’t do, or any college official. Crimes were committed against children! Did any of those children ever go to the police? Did any of their parents go to the police? Not soon enough.

This is a recurring problem today that anguishes me constantly. Over a decade ago, in response to a similar situation in our community, I announced publicly that if children are abused, or report abuse to their parents, don’t come to me. Go right to the police. Don’t think, don’t make calculations, don’t ask questions. If the testimony is credible, then prosecute. Let the police and the District Attorney sort out the details. For medical problems, see the doctor. For criminal problems, see the police.

But it almost never happens until it is too late, until the children become adults and wake up to the abuse. The default reaction of parents is to get angry – and then do nothing, so as not to affect the shidduch, or not make their child more uncomfortable, or to avoid a public spectacle. And predators thereby enjoy temporary immunity, and usually long careers. This I have learned through personal and painful experience in the rabbinate.

For all the talk of rabbis who tell congregants to cover up, my experience has been that the rabbis in those cases, deplorable as it is, are simply confirming what the person wants to hear anyway. Too many people do not want to put themselves out, too many victims want to disappear back into their lives and not think about their trauma. That is understandable, but no one chooses to be a victim; victimhood is thrust upon them unwillingly. It is a test of their character, too. So we need a code of ethics for the victim that reads in part: Go to the police. Don’t cover up. Prosecute. You owe it to yourself but you owe it even more to the potential, future victims.

Pikuach nefesh (the saving of lives) takes precedence over all but three cardinal sins. Just as we breach the laws of Shabbat for Pikuach nefesh, so too we breach even the laws of informing on another Jew for pikuach nefesh. And it is pikuach nefesh – the predator destroys young lives and healthy souls, as assuredly as if he took a gun to their heads. One who fails to prosecute a predator either because he would rather not make waves or because he is afraid of the consequences is literally standing idly while his brother’s blood is being shed.  A normal society does not require a panel of rabbis to adjudicate the seriousness of the allegations, any more than a person in cardiac arrest needs to consult a panel of rabbis before seeking medical attention. But this is unfortunately not the norm in Jewish life, and it is why predators are sometimes bounced from school to school, and why timely prosecutions are rare.

I have too often encountered an unwillingness to prosecute, and conversely a desire to “work it out” between the parties, and a desire not to harm the pervert’s family, and a desire not to make waves. And the abuser goes merrily on with his life, going to shul and attending parties, appearing in public places where children proliferate – and the community is none the wiser. I have personally been told by the police that if a predator is not prosecuted, and I reveal his name to the public, then I can be arrested and charged with harassment. No prosecution, no evidence, no crime – it is as if it never happened. And when the victim does come forward 10-20 years later, he is invariably coddled, lionized and compensated for what he endured – but never castigated for what he indirectly inflicted on others.

That has to change. It is a shame that the public focus remains on what Paterno did or didn’t do –and his wins and idols – but not on what the victims could have, and should have, done.  Too many people are obsessed with the viability of Penn State’s football program, surely not an indispensable part of a college education. Let Sandusky rot in prison since he can’t be executed – but the overriding lesson for me is the moral obligation of victims to come forward, make accusations, prosecute the guilty – and defend their peers, the innocents of the future whose lives are literally in their hands.

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