I endorse…. Coming
to our area’s best Friday night service – 7:30 tonight!
I endorse… Malerie Yolen-Cohen, who will be discussing
her new book tomorrow morning – her journey across America parallels the
Torah portion, which discusses Abram and Sarai’s journey across the Fertile
Crescent, to a land that God has chosen.
We’ll also be celebrating the naming of Jocelyn Sloane Moy, daughter of
Russell and Tamar
I endorse… our first family service of the season,
tomorrow morning, as well as Rabbi Dardashti’s class about Shabbat on Sunday
morning.
I endorse… AIPAC’s “Faces and Races” election
preview here on Monday night (and a weather forecast that will push Hurricaine Sandy
out to sea).
I endorse… signing the petition for religious
equality at the Western Wall. I've written
extensively about the heroic efforts of the Women of the Wall to fight
for justice and alter the discriminatory status quo at Judaism's holiest site.
Last week it took a turn for the worse, as the leader of W.O.W was
arrested for singing the Sh'ma during a Rosh Hodesh service at the Wall.
About 250 women were participating, many of whom were attending the
Hadassah convention. American Jews have
been fuming over this arrest and also over the thus far tepid response of
Hadassah leaders. I hope my Hadassah friends can prove me wrong on
this one. Click
here for a
news story regarding the arrest, followed by Hoffman's reaction and the
petition for us to sign.
I endorse… discussions about how best to
incorporate Halloween into our kids’ lives.
See
a number of different views here. Ronnie
Brockman offers additional ideas in this
week’s early childhood blog post.
I endorse… the fabulous lessons taught to us by
last week’s b’nai mitzvah, Sam
Porto and Ryan
Murphy
I endorse… interfaith conversation. I very much enjoyed hearing Susannah Heschel
at UConn the other night and taking part of the interfaith panel. You can see
a similar lecture of hers here. See
also my Times
of Israel commentary on the recent visit of the Dalai Lama. I implore you to read Abraham Joshua
Heschel’s seminal essay on the topic of interreligious dialogue, ”No Religion is
an Island.” Heschel writes, “ I
suggest that the most significant basis for meeting of men of different
religious traditions is the level of fear and trembling, of humility and
contrition, where our individual moments of faith are mere waves in the endless
ocean of mankind's reaching out for God, where all formulations and
articulations appear as understatements, where our souls are swept away by the
awareness of the urgency of answering God's commandment, while stripped of
pretension and conceit we sense the tragic insufficiency of human faith.”
And finally…
I endorse…religious leaders not endorsing
candidates. October 7 was declared Pulpit
Freedom Sunday as part of an ongoing effort spearheaded
by by a group calling itself the “Alliance Defending Freedom” to defy IRS
restrictions on pulpit endorsements. The Alliance claims that over 1,600 pastors
have participated thus far. Pulpit
endorsements are, of course, not relegated to conservative groups like the
Alliance or to Christians. Over 600 of my colleagues have signed
on to “Rabbis
for Obama” (including several from our area), which has led to the creation
of a ”Rabbis
for Romney” group, though those rabbis have chosen to remain anonymous.
The history
of the 1954 tax amendment is fascinating.
It was offered by Senator Lyndon Johnson, and evidently without any
connection to church-state issues or the Bill of Rights. It was a simple amendment to a bill and there
was almost no discussion. It speaks to
churches as institutions and references clergy on inasmuch as they endorse
candidates from the pulpit itself. It’s
hard to say what the original goal was, but it seems clear that it was not to
preserve that precious Wall of Separation.
It is understandable that clergy are going so far as to
declare an allegiance to a candidate.
The stakes are enormously high, passions are at a fever pitch and the
core issues of this campaign touch on those values that define our faith
traditions. If clergy can’t speak out on
one of the most important decisions their parishioners are going to make, what
can they speak out on?
In my view, clergy can and should speak to the values
their traditions hold dear, but that directly endorsing candidates does blur
that precious Wall of church/ state separation, the very thing that makes
religious freedom possible in our country.
In most countries, (including, alas, Israel), religion and politics are
hopelessly intertwined. In America, at
least in theory, religion speaks from a position of independence and autonomy,
rather than as a cog in any partisan political machine. That enables religious leaders to work toward
building bridges that can link those on both sides of the political chasm,
bringing together those with divergent views.
It also enables us to speak truth to power authentically and
independently, though it can still be supportively. So I don’t endorse.
There is no question that enormous issues are at stake in
this election. For me, as with many Jews,
Israel is high on that list. As I have
stated before, I feel that both major candidates are very supportive of
Israel. I am delighted to see that over
the past few weeks a real consensus has emerged between them regarding how to
deal with the Iranian threat (as we saw particularly in the foreign policy and
Vice Presidential debates). Israel has
stronger bipartisan support in this country than ever before, and we all need
to keep it that way. You don’t get unanimous
Senate votes like the recent Iran sanctions resolution other than with
strong bipartisanship. It’s strong, but
like everything else in this turbulent world, it’s fragile. We can’t and mustn’t play political games
with it. I strongly endorse…
bipartisanship on Israel.
And finally, I endorse… VOTING… It’s
a mitzvah and a prime Jewish value (click to see why)!
No comments:
Post a Comment