After publishing this, I randomly received this video via whatsapp. Really impeccable timing, considering the specific way I chose to write about the law given to us through Moshe's hands. (Apologies that it is in Hebrew with Hebrew subtitles (!))
by Rabbi Avi Billet
In the aftermath of the recent inauguration of a female Vice President, a discussion came up in one of the rabbinic listserves I read as to the propriety of the language of the prayer for the government of the US which is written, in Hebrew, in the masculine (ie. gender specific) when referencing the President and Vice President. My contribution to the conversation was to read the prayer in English, as we do in our shul, as “President” and “Vice President” are presented by title – no emendation needed.
Following that discussion, I learned from this article by Michael Feldstein (a friend) that such a conversation raised in shul could be explosive. https://jewishlink.news/features/41981-prayer-politics-and-the-pulpit
While I don’t agree with everything Michael wrote, I believe he deals with the issues sensibly, noting that some changes might perhaps be better than others. I certainly agree that changing the prayer based on who is in the White House is not a good idea.
There was a time, particularly after World War II, when many immigrants filled pews, when the ways of the USA were new to them, when English was not their language of birth, when the rabbi’s role in explaining politics to his congregants had its place. Nowadays people are very connected, very astute, and while a rabbi is entitled to his opinion – one he may share in a private conversation with a congregant – the role of the rabbi with respect to politics should be limited to addressing moral issues, and, when calling out bad political behavior, noting that it happens on both sides of the aisle.
Based on the question of the place of politics in the pulpit, I was rather surprised to find that Rabbi Sacks, Z”L had written about this very topic in an essay on Parshas Yisro! In Covenant and Conversation: Exodus, in an essay entitled “Mount Sinai and the Birth of Freedom,” he wrote the following:
“… at Mount Sinai the concept of a free society was born.“… long before Israel entered the land and acquired their own system of government, they had entered into an overarching covenant with God. That covenant set moral limits to the exercise of power. The code we call Torah established for the first time the primacy of right over might. Any king who behaved contrarily to Torah was acting ultra vires (beyond legitimate authority), and could be challenged. This is the single most important fact about biblical politics.“Democracy on the Greek model had one fatal weakness. Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill called it “the tyranny of the majority.” J.L. Talmon called it “totalitarian democracy.” The rule of the majority contains no guarantee of the rights of minorities. As Lord Acton rightly noted, it was this that led to the downfall of Athens: “There was no law superior to that of the state. The lawgiver was above the law.” In Judaism, by contrast, prophets were mandated to challenge the authority of the king if he acted against the terms of the Torah…“Individuals were empowered to disobey illegal or immoral orders. The first example… was the Hebrew midwives who ‘feared God and did not do what the Egyptian king had commanded….’ It was on this tradition that Calvin – inspiration of the seventeenth-century Puritan radicals in England and America – drew, when he said, “prophets and teachers may take courage and boldly set themselves against kings and nations.” It was on the same tradition that Thomas Paine based his pamphlet Common Sense (1776), widely credited at the time as the inspiration that led to the American Revolution. Historically, it was the covenant at Sinai and all that flowed from it, not the Greek political tradition, that inspired the birth of freedom in Britain and America, the first people to take that road in the modern age.”
Rabbi Sacks goes on to describe two more crucial elements of Sinai:
Through saying “We will do what Hashem has said” the people gave what was later called “the consent of the governed.” And finally, that the essential constitution of liberty includes everyone – women, men, children (see Shmot 19:3 where “Beit Yaakov” is mentioned first, and is traditionally understood to Moshe being instructed to speak to the women first, then to the men). Hakhel, in Devarim 31, mentions including men, women, and children in the one-in-seven-years gathering aimed at enhancing our communal, national, and personal relationships with God.
Maybe one day we will all look back at the last 11 months and have a more clear picture of what happened. Maybe we’ll see that some governors and politicians were wrong, some were right, and some were simply hypocritical and/or tyrannical in their abuses of power. Maybe we’ll be given the truth, maybe the data won’t be manipulated, maybe people will take responsibility for their actions, maybe people will see that lockdowns hurt as much as they helped, maybe the idea of personal responsibility will have a resurgence. Maybe healthcare will be removed from politics, and doctors will once again be allowed to care for their patients without having bureaucrats tell them what they could or could not do. And then, maybe not.
If Rabbi Sacks is right that Revelation set in motion what it means to be free – and that is essentially “to choose the rules I wish to follow” as evidenced by “All that God said I will do” – then it behooves us to 1. Trust and believe in God, 2. Not to worship any idol, or even to turn any human being into an idol we follow blindly, 3. Not to take God’s name in vain, 4. To remember the importance of Shabbos, because GOD created the WORLD and everything in it, resting from creating on the seventh day – it is His world which was given to us, not any person’s world to dictate how we are to live, 5. Honor our parents if they are alive, and carrying their legacy if they are deceased – if they valued Tefillah, Torah, Mitzvos, we must find a way to reconnect to what has been lost in the last year, most notably Hachnasas Orchim, Bikur Cholim, and Nichum Aveilim, 6. Not to deliberately murder – which includes not to character assassinate without evidence, 7. Not to commit adultery – not to betray most sacred relationships, 8. Not to steal – including stealing someone’s reputation for simply having a different point of view, 9. Not to bear false witness – not to misrepresent facts, data, or someone else’s opinion, 10. Not to covet, which Rabbi Yosef Albo explained as our obligation to be concerned for others through our thoughts.
Rabbi Michael Rosenzweig focuses on the symmetry between the beginning and the end of the Decalogue, as he notes:
The Torah insists that man's perspective can and must be shaped by the spiritual-halachic values that give life its purpose. This is true not only with respect to belief in Hashem, without which life would cease to have meaning, but is also true with regard to the equally indispensable value of a proper approach to material goods.”
Quoting Rav Hirsch, he categorized the last of the Dibrot this way:
“… while the first group of the Asseret ha-Dibrot begins with theological commitment and then shifts to obligations of actions, the second half of the Dibrot commence with a focus on actions but conclude with values that are critical to an ideological commitment. Values and a commitment to principle is the foundation of the Torah, but the Torah's special approach to life demands that these be concretized in activities and norms. At the same time, the focus on actions and norms would be insufficient if it did not, in turn, produce and generate a more intricate halachic value system to govern the spiritual life of the committed Torah Jew. The process that begins with a commitment to faith- "Anochi Hashem Elokechah"- culminates with the profound impact of halachic reality manifested in Lo Tachmod, as the reciprocal interaction of thought and deed shape and define the halachic personality.“
Perhaps, then, the last of the Dibrot is a roundabout way of saying “Do unto others what you’d like done to you” (aka “Love Thy Neighbor,” as taught by Rabbi Akiva) and “What is hateful to you do not do to others” (as taught by Hillel) That is a perfect summary of what freedom is – Following God’s commandments because they are Divine and therefore good, and giving the other person the space to use the same instructions and commitment to come to similar conclusions, all while we each find our own personal way to serve the Almighty.
In our tradition, we have conflicting values which inform our behavior. אנכי עפר ואפר – I am dust and ashes - the ultimate expression of humility. בשבילי נברא העולם – the world was created for my sake – the ultimate expression of personal pride. כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה – all of Israel bear responsibility for one another. אין הדבר תלוי אלא בי – I bear a personal responsibility for the outcomes in my life.
Each of these expressions, especially כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה, can be interpreted in different ways. Does responsibility for one another mean: we all represent God and our people and must behave a certain way? We can’t leave a wounded or dead soldier on the battlefield? We have to trade 1,000 terrorists for one kidnapped soldier? There can’t be poor people? We should protest when there’s injustice against Jews in the world? We have to make sure every Jewish child can have a Jewish education? We must make sacrifices for the “Greater Good”? This latter thought is always a relative (and perhaps dark) discussion, heavily dependent on who decides what that Greater Good is.
We have our answers – they are in the Decalogue, and in the statements of Rabbi Akiva and Hillel quoted above. We should be blessed to rise above politics and remember how necessary human relationships are, and what should be the guiding principles in how we go about the choices we make, the conversations we have, and the things we do.
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