March 20, 2013 | 1:46 pm

Reclaiming the Morality of Our Torah: A Response to Rabbi Hershel Schachter

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Follow JewishJournal.com on

Recently, a scandal emerged within the Orthodox community when Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a halakhic leader and member of the faculty of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), made an overtly racist comment that was recorded at a London conference. The greatest objections (including from Yeshiva University) revolve around his reluctance to sanction the reporting of sex crimes directly to the police (mesirah), warning that if a Jewish sex offender were sent to a state prison, he might be killed by the warden, or be put “in a cell with a shvartze, in a cell with a Muslim, a black Muslim who wants to kill all the Jews.”

It is true that we must be cautious to be sure that innocents are not thrown in jail. I recently made the case for how many mistakes our penal system is making in this regard. However, religious leaders are not the judges of who is guilty and who is not. We live in one of the most sophisticated judicial systems in the world, one of the reasons why Rabbi Moshe Feinstein argued that we live in a “medina shel chesed” (a nation of kindness) where on the whole we can trust the judicial system.

Rabbi Schachter admitted that decades ago a Yeshiva University High School student confided that he had been abused by a Yeshiva administrator. While the details are in dispute, Rabbi Schachter did not follow up on the investigation, and the administrator in question continued to abuse students for years afterward. While acknowledging in his talk that there is no violation of the halakhah in allowing mesirah for child sexual abuse and most other crimes, Rabbi Schachter then weakened the argument. He proposed that a board of Torah scholars should first hear the charge to determine if there were raglayim l'davar [a credible charge requiring a report to the police], as a child’s report of abuse could be made up (a “bubbe-mayse”). He also demeaned the student who had reported the initial abuse to him: “So now, 40 years later, the guy’s spilling everything out to the newspaper.” He further stated that it was the student’s responsibility to follow up with the school psychologist, and if he did not he bore the blame for any further abuse that occurred at the high school.

We need Modern Orthodox leadership that represents the sacred moral values of our Torah!

Rabbi Schachter’s prowess as a Torah scholar is extraordinary. At age 22, he became the assistant of the noted Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, z’l, and at age 26 became the youngest Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS. Since then, he has written and taught extensively on Talmud and Jewish law. Even the student who confided in vain about sexual abuse acknowledged that Rabbi Schachter was a “true Gadol B’Yisroel (giant of torah).” Further, Rabbi Schachter’s reputation as a man who is kind, sensitive, and sweet in most of his interpersonal dealings is surely warranted.

A teacher has responsibilities beyond instructing content and disciplinary method. We teachers have a responsibility (second to parents) in molding children – an appreciation for faith, ethics, and other healthful values. When a student confides in us, it is our responsibility to consider what is good for the child and to act upon those considerations.

This case is indicative of an unfortunate tendency of some Modern Orthodox educators who have moved to an ultra-Orthodox position that can obstruct justice. It must be acknowledged that sexual abuse was tolerated at Yeshiva University for years, and that several well-known administrators and faculty, even after their guilt was established, were allowed to resign and move on to other positions in youth education rather than face sexual abuse charges or even social or professional cost. Furthermore, even if Rabbi Schachter’s claim that he told the student to go to the school psychologist is true, he should have realized that many in the Orthodox community considered it shameful (and still consider it so today) to go to a psychologist, and so it was unlikely that a student would go there with a story like this. To establish layers of bureaucracy or throw blame on the victims is to hurt the students who are supposed to be served by institutions of learning.

This trend can also lead to intellectual isolation. I remember I was once at a Friday night tisch when I was a graduate student at Y.U. and a student asked Rabbi Schachter if he was allowed to study English literature. Rabbi Schachter responded that he could, as long as it was for parnassah (supporting his livelihood), but not because there was any value to this learning - this occurred not at Ponevezh or the Mir, but at Yeshiva University, the center of Torah U'Madda (the integration of religious and secular studies)! Y.U. needs to decide if it will be a business professional training program or an intellectual academy that values the open and critical pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

Rabbi Schachter’s obtuse desire to ignore the world outside of his personal focus may help explain his many notorious statements. In the London speech referred to above, for example, he raised no objection to sending a Jew to a federal prison, since they have kosher food and better conditions (and presumably less menacing clientele than in state prisons). Consider the following examples:

• In 2004, when asked about the question of women reading a ketubbah at a wedding, he replied that a wedding was valid even if “a parrot or a monkey” did the reading, which angered many women’s groups.
• In 2008, he reportedly told a group of yeshiva students that if any Israeli government would “give away Jerusalem,” then the Israeli prime minister responsible should be shot.

• In August 2012, Rabbi Schachter was criticized by the Board of Directors of the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations  for accusing some Orthodox rabbis in Israel of promoting idolatry (avodah zarah) and conversion from Judaism (shemad) by teaching Gentiles about Judaism, ignoring and perhaps threatening decades of progress in Christian attitudes toward Jews and Israel. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, stated that Rabbi Schachter “seems to know nothing about the different Christian denominations or the current state of Jewish-Christian relations,” and lamented “that a religious figure and university academic who is well respected in the Yeshiva world would publish such a distorted and error-filled text which promotes negative attitudes.”

He also referred to Edah, a Modern Orthodox thinktank that he felt was too liberal, as "a sort of internal Amalek," implying that it was a radical evil that needed to be destroyed from the world as a religious imperative.

While teachers may have areas of concentration in their studies, they should welcome the opportunity of learning something new, and passing it on to their students. Rabbi Schachter, especially due to his prominent position, owes his students the finest education available, without racist vocabulary and trivializing sexual abuse.

The great modern Orthodox thinker and leader Rabbi Saul Berman responded to the defenders of Rav Schachter’s irresponsible teachings and public statements asserting that it is “duplicitous” for them to say he is more comfortable in the beit midrash and doesn’t fully understand the community and yet still seek him out to make vital public policy decisions on sensitive communal issues. “If you assume communal responsibility,” Rav Berman said, “you have to be responsible for yourself.”

We need leaders who have the wisdom to see the bigger picture and the courage to take responsibility for our society. Louis Brandeis was an admirableJewish scholar dealing with justice and society. As the first Jewish associate justice of the Supreme Court, a Zionist, he was a tireless proponent of the social welfare. Brandeis understood that secular institutions such as the courts could help secure the liberty of the people, and that it was incumbent on citizens to guard their liberty. In addition, he established a legal precedent of filing court briefs (called “Brandeis Briefs”) that combined legal, economic, and sociological data to advocate better working conditions and other worthy causes. Consider the wisdom of an intellectual who also acted in the public interest:

• “Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.”
• “Our government ... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law…”
• “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Yeshiva University deserves credit for publicly rebuking this rosh yeshiva who has crossed the line of offensive rhetoric once again. The Torah demands that we see the dignity in all humans and that we be honest and forthright in all of our ways. One who uses racist slurs and impedes justice for abuse victims does not represent the Torah community. We honor Torah scholarship and we respect the good intentions of sincere men and women, but the Modern Orthodox community needs moral leadership deeply sensitive to contemporary human needs and responsible in legal and ethical discourse.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."

March 19, 2013 | 1:24 pm

Feeding Our Workers

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

I recall my experiences as a teenager working waiting tables in various restaurants. There was a high-paced energy that was difficult to maintain, but the greatest challenge was constantly being hungry while serving others food. Today, many have it much worse than anything I experienced, because they work long shifts with no breaks at all to eat.

The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (42:14) ruled that we must ensure that the food server also eats from the food being served. The Biur Halachah (169:1) went further, arguing that this rule requires the cook to be fed as well. The Gemara on which these rulings are based (Ketubot 61a) actually went even further than these legal authorities, stating that one must give food to anyone who can smell the food being prepared or served.

We have not lived up to these just rulings. One-fifth of all Americans work in the food sector, from planting and harvesting crops to selling food directly to consumers in fast-food establishments and restaurants, but these 20 million Americans face an absurd dilemma: in addition to the 86 percent who receive low to sub-minimum wages, many are literally not allowed to eat during their workday. Consider the following statistics for food workers compiled by the Food Chain Workers Alliance in 2012:

• 8 percent never receive a 30-minute lunch break
• 22 percent never even receive a 10-minute break that would allow them to eat a snack
• 22 percent at times do not receive a 30-minute lunch break
• 28 percent at times do not receive a 10-minute break

In addition to the injustice involved, it does not make practical sense from a health or morale basis to deprive people of food while they are on the job. For decades, we have known that students who eat breakfast perform better than those who do not, especially in terms of attention span, the ability to concentrate, and IQ scores. For the adult workforce, companies such as Google and Facebook have long provided free meals for their employees, and surveys have noted that offering food to employees on the job has a positive impact on morale and engagement. With all the data supporting the idea that people perform better and are happier if they eat regularly, what purpose can be achieved by depriving people–especially those who work with food–of the ability to take even a minimal lunch break during the workday?

On the night of Passover, we declare, “Kol dichfin yetei v’yeichal; kol ditzrich yetei v’yifsach,” welcoming in all those who are hungry and in need of a Passover meal. This message should not be restricted to our most special of holidays: As we sit in comfort to eat a meal at a restaurant or in our homes, we should think of those whose efforts helped put that food in front of us, and remember that they too must eat. They deserve a right to food for themselves, and ethical, halakhic Judaism protects this right.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."
 

0 Comments — Leave your comment

March 3, 2013 | 2:37 pm

Special Report from Washington DC: This Year, AIPAC Should Support the Syrian Rebels

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

What would you do if I told you Hezbullah was multiplying its strength? If international jihadists from across the world were setting up camp on Israel's border? This is not hypothetical. These situations--both of them--are taking place in Syria right now, as the beleaguered autocratic regime of Bashar el-Assad struggles to contain an armed uprising against his rule.

Earlier this year, a Saudi newspaper reported that over 5,000 Hezbollah fighters were inside Syria fighting for the regime. In November 2012, moderate rebels estimated a membership of 6,000-10,000 people in the Nusra Front, an Al-Queda-linked rebel group that includes many foreign fighters. Both groups get stronger with time. Two weeks ago, Hezbullah fighters seized full control of a chain of Syrian villages, and reports have emerged of Chechen and British jihadists fighting within the Nusra Front.

Hezbullah and the Nusra Front are bitter sectarian enemies. Hezbullah, a Shiite Muslim group, fights to keep Syria in the Iran-led "Shiite axis," while Sunni Muslim extremists in the Nusra Front seek victory for the majority-Sunni opposition. However, both groups share a virulent hatred for Israel. If either group were to establish a permanent foothold in Syria, Israel would eventually come under fire. The resulting attacks would be far more powerful and deadly than those of Hamas or Hezbullah.

Current dynamics in Syria pose a dire threat to Israel. Luckily, the US and its allies can act to alter these dynamics in Israel's favor. The main rebel group in Syria, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), is motivated by democracy rather than nefarious international agendas. In its Proclamation of Principles, it calls for a "free and democratic Syria," pledges to fight terrorism, and "welcomes peace and prosperity across the region." Local elections have already occurred in areas of northern Syria under FSA control.

The FSA is Israel's best hope for continued quiet along the Golan, and is the best hope for Syrians in the long-term. Since October 2011, Syrian pro-democracy activists have called for international military backing against Assad forces, particularly through a no-fly zone and arms for the FSA. In May-June 2012, senior Israeli leaders Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Shaul Mofaz also urged stronger global support for the rebels. But the United States has yet to take decisive action.

This year's AIPAC conference features 16 sessions on Iran, but just 2 on Syria. If the FSA emerges as the dominant force in Syria, it will prevent regime ally Iran from establishing permanent proxies there. An FSA victory might even doom the Iranian regime; senior Iranian propaganda leader Mehdi Taeb has said, "If we lose Syria, we cannot keep Tehran." For this reason, attendees at this year's AIPAC conference should ask their elected officials to support the Syrian rebels.

Our brothers and sisters in Israel need our help. We should spare no effort to protect them from the threat of hostile governments and dangerous militant groups. By acting to support the FSA in Syria, we can improve the safety of Israelis, and also help Syrians to defend themselves from one of the most vicious regimes in the world.

The Assad regime has already killed over 70,000 civilians in a brutal campaign against its own people. Most of the dead wanted no more than a dignified life, and some were shot down during peaceful protests for exactly that. Israelis are not served to live in a region where such grave injustices are possible. It is time for all American Jews and Israel supporters to ask for military aid to the Syrian opposition--for their sake, as well as ours. The rabbis teach "shtika k'hoda" (being silent is like agreeing). We cannot remain silent at such a crucial turning point in the middle east.
 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."

0 Comments — Leave your comment

March 3, 2013 | 9:50 am

Determinism & Freedom: Is One Punished for the Mistakes of One’s Parents

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

Scholars have noted for centuries an apparent biblical contradiction about whether children are punished for the wrongdoing of their parents. On the one hand, Deuteronomy 24:16 says, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin,” implying that all are judged on their own merits. On the other hand, Exodus 34:7 states, “[God] maintains love to thousands, and forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation,” suggesting that children can indeed be punished for the mistakes of their parents.

The Gemarah (Sanhedrin 27b) gives a clear answer to this question: “It is written, ’He punishes the children for the sins of the fathers’!?  That is only when they grasp the deeds of their fathers in their hands.” The rabbis taught that this rule does not operate by metaphysical determinism but rather through human agency. If one chooses to continue the negative path that their parents set them on, then they will be punished for the mistakes their parents made and passed along to them. However, if they chose to break free from their upbringing, then they are virtuous.

Psychologists today believe that parents have a significant role to play in how their children develop, which increases the chance that their children will very likely end up similar to them. While skeptics have tried to discount this while promoting genetics as the sole determinant, recent research has tended to support the former idea. For example, a  study of more than 300 adoptive families demonstrated that there was a significant association between a hostile marital relationship, hostile parenting, and aggressive behavior by adopted toddlers. In addition, the feeling of financial strain was associated with hostile marital relations and aggressive behavior by the adopted toddler. Since the study involved adoptive parents and toddlers, genetics did not play a part in the correlation between antisocial personality traits and hostile marital and parental behavior. Another study largely corroborated these results, showing environmental factors within the family alone accounting for the association between antisocial parental behavior and childhood depression, while indicating genetic factors were responsible for their child’s hyperactivity.

Unfortunately, politics plays a role in this debate. As Professor Eleanor Maccoby, Barbara Kimball Browning Emerita Professor of Pscyhology at Standford University, stated 

If one does believe… that conditions such as poverty, parental conflict, coercive or abusive parenting, dangerous neighborhoods… are unimportant for children’s welfare, then there’s very little point in trying to intervene to change them.

Thanks to the mapping of the human genome, we have been able to locate genes that determine longevity, blood type, and susceptibility to certain diseases, disorders, and disabilities.  Research studies have also identified more than 50 locations on the genome associated with obesity. Unfortunately, thus far scientists have been unable to predict or develop personalized treatment for obesity, which indicates that we have much to learn in the area of genetic influence on children and how they develop.

Do children grow up to be like their parents? Politically and financially, the answer appears to be mostly yes. A 2005 Gallup poll of teenagers found that 71 percent said that their social and political ideology was about the same as their parents, versus 21 percent who said “more liberal” and 7 percent who said “more conservative.” Of course, there can be some generational differences; in the 2012 election, young adults age 18-29 voted 60-37 percent for Democratic candidate Barack Obama, while their parents voted Democratic at a significantly lower rate. For example, those 40-49 voted 48 percent for Obama and 52 percent for Republican Mitt Romney. Financially, a recent Pew Economic Mobility Report indicated that only about half of Americans earn more than their parents did, with the greatest stagnation in the bottom quintile, where 43 percent raised at this level remain at the bottom as adults. When they grow up, children generally wind up close to their parents’ economic level.

As adults, we know where we came from, and in the vast majority of cases we are grateful for the sacrifices our parents or guardians made for us. Nevertheless, our parents, friends, and schools can teach us principles, but as we approach adulthood we must make our own decisions. We often reject what our parents advise and make impulsive choices. As we mature, we may realize that our parents knew best, and that we made mistakes. While we are not the clones of our parents, and may choose an independent path, we are their physical creation by virtue of our chromosomes, and their spiritual creation through their nurturing and guidance. As humans, we are constantly seeking autonomy, independence and authenticity, as we should, but on some level we must also embrace that without reflection and serious transformation, we generally end up quite similar to our parents (for better and worse). May we have the courage and insight to learn from the past and also to truly chose our own destinies.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."

0 Comments — Leave your comment

February 28, 2013 | 6:39 pm

Steipler Rav & Kapishnitzer Rebbe - Loving Family through Acts of Kindness

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

In the Jewish tradition, love is considered to be more of an action than an emotion. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik wrote:

The Bible spoke of the commandment to love one’s neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). However, in Talmudic literature, emphasis was placed not only upon sentiment, but upon action, which is motivated by sentiment. The Hoshen Mishpat, the Jewish code of civil law, analyzes not human emotions but actual human relations. The problem of Hoshen Mishpat is not what one feels toward the other, but how he acts toward him (Family Redeemed, p. 40).

British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks makes the same point in explaining the importance of performing acts of loving kindness. He notes that hesed usually means “kindness,” but it may also be translated as “love” expressed through deed, in a covenantal bond. Through this covenant, there is mutual respect for the integrity and freedom of the other in acts of hesed, which do have a deep emotional component:

Hessed exists only in virtue of emotion, empathy, and sympathy, feeling-with and feeling-for. We act with kindness because we know what it feels like to be in need of kindness… Societies are only human and humanizing when they are a community of communities built on face-to-face encounters – covenantal relationships.

Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, agreeing with Rabbi Sacks, wrote that the image of a “face” is a key to what makes us human: “Society is faceless; hesed is a relationship of face to face. The Pentateuch repeatedly emphasizes that we cannot see G-d face to face. It follows that we can only see G-d in the face of another” (To Heal a Fractured World, page 45-55).

Of course, we see the face of another most in those closest to us, our families. There is a powerful story about the Kapishnitzer Rebbe about the importance of taking care of family. A prominent businessman from the community who worked in Manhattan asked to see the Rebbe about an opportunity to give tzedakah. He stressed that he would go to the Rebbe in Brooklyn to discuss the matter. Instead, the Rebbe said that he would go to the man’s office, for he had an important message to deliver.

When he arrived, the man barred any interruption, cutting off all phone calls and leaving customers waiting. He invited the Rebbe into his office. There, the Rebbe detailed the dire financial situa¬tion of a family with many children. The breadwin¬ner had lost his job, his health was suffering, and financial pressures were crushing the family's spirits. Something needed to be done immediately. The businessman immediately offered to write out a $1,000 check for the unfortunate man, but wondered why the Rebbe had to deliver the message in person. The story concludes, “Pen poised above his checkbook, the man asked, ’For whom is the check?’  The Rebbe stared at the floor for a few long moments, then answered, ’For your brother.’”

Tzedakah does not, of course, have to be in the form of money. The Steipler, Rav Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, who endured abject poverty, harassment in the Russian army because he insisted on observing his religion, and who eventually went deaf, was extraordinary for his combination of wisdom and common sense, was widely sought after for advice.  A young man once visited the Steipler Rav and complained bitterly, “I don't know which way to turn. My home is in constant chaos. I come home every Friday afternoon before Shabbos and the dishes are still in the sink, there are diapers everywhere, and the floor is not even swept. My wife is just not getting things done. I can't live like this anymore.” The Steipler Rav looked at the young man with incredulity and said, “You don't know what to turn? I'll tell you. Turn to the nearest closet and take out a broom. Has it occurred to you that you can help!"

There is plenty of work to do in the broader Jewish community and around the world, but we should be sure that in the process of doing that holy work we never forget the needs of our family. My great teacher Rabbi Avi Weiss likes to tell a story about how he was unable to pick his visiting parents up at the airport. He kept saying, “I love you. I just can’t pick you up at the airport.” His parents finally replied: “Avrami, stop loving us so much and just pick us up at the airport.” There is great value to love as an emotion, but Judaism reminds us that that love is ultimately manifest in action, not feeling.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America." 

0 Comments — Leave your comment

February 27, 2013 | 9:57 am

The Pope and Jewish Communal Professionals: Staying in a Job too Long? The Need for Term Limits!

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

I have been involved with many institutions where someone clearly overstayed his or her welcome in a certain position. That person should have retired, transitioned, or resigned years (maybe even decades) earlier, but found ways to maneuver such that he or she could stick around, with the majority of folks involved in the organization becoming deeply resentful and the organization itself having its growth stunted.

Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI will resign, marking the first papal resignation in hundreds of years (and then only because there was more than one Pope at the time). When Benedict the Pope, who will soon turn 86, was elected in 2005, he was the oldest Pope elected since 1730. Pope Benedict has had a pacemaker for years, and recently had a routine operation to replace its batteries. While religions often stress tradition, it must also be noted that, although people now live longer due to advances in medical care and knowledge of healthier living, there are also medical conditions that can greatly inhibit the ability of an elderly person to perform the full-time duties of a religious spiritual or communal leader.

After announcing that he was leaving the Jewish Funders Network, Mark Charendoff argued that there should be term limits for Jewish professionals. He offers a number of benefits:

 

• “Breathe new creativity and vibrancy into our agencies”
• Avoid falling “into a rut, into a certain way of doing things, of thinking, of acting, after being in any job for too long”
• We can “move those years of experience and expertise into another agency”
• “Allow a greater opportunity to import talent from agency to agency where it is merited”
• “It is sometimes hard to feel that accountability if there is no longer any danger of being held accountable”
• They make room for new executives to “recruit new senior lay leadership, opening up space on boards that may not have seen enough diversity in background or in thinking”
• They “force lay leadership to deal with an uncomfortable topic— succession planning. The long-term health of our agencies could benefit from a more sustained focus in this area”
• Open opportunities for middle management to grow into higher positions. “And we may find more opportunities for women to fill what have traditionally been male dominated roles”
• “We’ll save money. CEO salaries rise over the course of their tenure and well they should”

American political history has many such examples of leaders who held on to the reins of power too long. Republican Representative Joe Cannon served 46 years in the House of Representatives from 1873-1923, including a stint as Speaker of the House from 1903-1911. As Speaker, he earned the nickname “Czar Cannon” because of his dictatorial manner and opposition to every progressive measure, even resisting the formidable efforts of President Theodore Roosevelt. He was finally overthrown as Speaker by a coalition that included members of his own party, but so much necessary legislation was needlessly held up due to his destructive authority.

The Senate today further illustrates the case for term limits. Republican Mitch McConnell, who entered the Senate in 1985, has been the Minority Leader since 2007. As of September 2012, Republicans in the Senate had filibustered 375 bills during the Obama Presidency, far and away a record. In December 2012, Senator McConnell achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the first Senator to filibuster his own bill; he proposed a vote on raising the debt ceiling, but then blocked it when the Democrats did not object to the vote. On the other side, Democratic Senator Harry Reid, who has served since 1987, has been the Senate Majority Leader since 2007. Senator Reid has acceded to most of this obstruction by not pushing for a revision of the filibuster rules, and as a result everything in Congress is stalled, including the Farm Bill that regulates foreign aid and food stamps in addition to agricultural policies.

The American public bears some of the responsibility for this. A January 2013 Gallup poll reported that three-fourths of Americans favor term limits, although they also re-elected at least 90 percent of congressional incumbents in 2012. (Part of this may be due to gerrymandering, which has made most congressional district races noncompetitive). Americans have always backed term limits in theory, although no term limit legislation has ever passed both houses of Congress. The one national term limit, under the 22nd Amendment which was ratified in 1951, limits a President to two terms in office (and no more than 10 years in the event of taking over the Presidency before running for the presidency). Oddly, this amendment passed as a reaction to the 4-term administration of perhaps the most popular president in history, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There are those who point out that term and tenure limits do not always make sense. For example, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was frustrated by the “nine old men” of the Supreme Court who had declared so many New Deal laws unconstitutional, he tried to enact legislation that would force the retirement of elderly judges. However, as critics pointed out, the oldest justice on the Court in 1937 was 81-year-old Louis Brandeis, who was perhaps the most progressive justice. Nevertheless, as our population ages, and as the prevalence of debilitating conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke, and complications from cardiovascular and other diseases increases among the elderly, lifetime tenure can impede the workings of an organization. In addition to health concerns, term limits are compelling due to the corrosiveness of entrenched power, best summarized by Lord Acton, who in 1887 wrote, with reference to the Catholic Church: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

We would be wise to consider policies that limit the terms of our religious as well as political leaders. When our institutions don’t provide term limits, leaders might assume the wisdom and humility to transition themselves for the welfare of the organization and broader community just as Moses actively brought Joshua into leadership to prepare the community for the next stages of their journey (Deuteronomy 31:7-8). Succession planning honors the community but it can also honor one’s own legacy, coloring one's memory with the virtues of humility and selflessness.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."

0 Comments — Leave your comment

February 25, 2013 | 11:37 am

A Reflection on Awakening & Encountering

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

The Jewish tradition seeks to startle us, to challenge our routine and our dogmas. Slavoj Zizek, the Slovene philosopher and social critique writes poignantly about this point.

“There is an overwhelming argument for the intimate link between Judaism and psychoanalysis: in both cases, the focus is on the traumatic encounter with the abyss of the desiring Other, with the terrifying figure of an impenetrable Other who wants something from us, but does not make it clear what this something is - the Jewish people’s encounter with their God whose impenetrable call disrupts the routine of human daily existence; the child’s encounter with the enigma of the other’s (in this case, parental) enjoyment,” (Zizek, How to Read Lacan, 99).

This is what Emmanuel Levinas similarly calls “the ethics of alterity” and what Buber refers to as the “I and Thou.” It is about human encounters and the responsibilities born out of them. Encountering the human face and presence is indeed the birth of the ethical moment. Poverty is not an abstraction and it can take consistent conversations with the homeless to remember the pressing needs. So too, social change does not happen from the email or the office but in the streets and in relationships. Being in relationship with G-d is described as being panim-el-panim (face-to-face). How much more true for humans where the face can be taken literally. Perhaps one of the most powerful ways that one may encounter the Divine is in the face of the human, in the calling of the ethical moment of the encounter.

Zizek explains the thinking of Jacques Lacan, the 20th century French psychoanalyst. “For Lacan, the ultimate ethical task is that of the true awakening: not only from sleep, but from the spell of fantasy that controls us even more when we are awake,” (Zizek, How to Read Lacan, 60).

To truly live we must break free from fantasies and from our slumber. To do this, we must take off the veils that block us and hide us from true encounters with G-d and man. When we have the true courage to see and be seen, we can awaken our deeper spirit and our authentic self.

Sigmund Freud often took a very negative approach to the human psyche and to human nature. Here is how he understood the depth of the myth of Gyges:

The bit of truth behind all this [talk of virtue]—one so eagerly denied, is that men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, but that a pow¬erful desire for aggression has to be reckoned with as part of that instinctual endowment. The result is that their neighbor is only to them not only a possible helper or sexual object, but also a temptation to them to gratify their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without recompense, to use him sexually without his con¬sent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him; homo homini lupus—who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life, and in history?

But we need not, and must not, view ourselves and others in this way. Humans are capable of doing terrible acts of evil but we are also capable of performing tremendous acts of love. With each new human encounter we must see the beautiful potential in the face of that other.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."

0 Comments — Leave your comment

February 24, 2013 | 12:16 pm

How Do We Relate to Morally Difficult Texts in the Jewish Tradition?

Posted by Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz

We have all become familiar with the tactics of bigots who distort our religious beliefs or make up horrible lies to advance their hatred. Fortunately, most people in our pluralistic society recognize and reject these tactics.

But how would we respond to a skeptic who points to the morally troubling verse, “When...the Lord your God delivers them to you and you defeat them, you must utterly doom them to destruction: grant them no terms and give them no quarter” (Deut. 7:1-2)?

Or consider the many admonitions in the Torah to be kind to strangers, and to remember that we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. How do we reconcile this noble idea with these seemingly contradictory commands, “In the towns of the latter peoples, however, which the Lord your God gives you as a heritage, you shall not let a soul remain alive. No, you must proscribe them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you” (Deut. 20:16-17), and  “Samuel said to Saul, ‘I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over His people Israel. Therefore, listen to the Lord's command! ... Now go attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and assess’” (I Samuel 15:1,3)?

There are four primary philosophical approaches in relating to difficult texts like these.

First is the “Divine Command Morality” argument; i.e., because G-d is the source of and determines all morality, there is no contradiction between morality and G-d’s commands. Only the Divine can understand the big moral picture and thus only G-d has moral reasoning and authority. The problem here is that humans must abandon some of the greatest G-d-given gifts: moral conscience, reason, and autonomy.

Second is the argument proposed by 19th-century theologian/philosopher Søren Kierkegaard; i.e., if it appears that there is a contradiction between religion and morality, it is only because G-d has the power to suspend morality, and we must abandon our human conscience in heroic sacrifice to the Divine command, which supersedes all. This binding of Isaac-type mentality creates the religious personality. The problem here is that one must consciously act against their own moral intuition and that is spiritually and socially dangerous.

Third is the “heretical argument,” that there is indeed a contradiction between morality and the religious command, and that we must choose morality as we understand it over religious duty. This individual may be moral but they are generally not deemed religious.

Fourth is the “casuistic argument”; i.e., we need both the truths of human morality and of Divine command and that all contradictions can be resolved. Through moral reasoning, we can come to understand and embrace the Divine command. We are never compelled to obey anything immoral if we cultivate our intellectual and spiritual faculties to really understand that, to the well-organized mind, religion and morality can always be reconciled.

This last approach is most compelling, and demanding, for the modern religious person. In working every day to understand our texts, our world, and our hearts and souls, we can best achieve our Jewish mission. Rav Saadia Gaon, the 10th century Jewish philosopher, explained that if we find a contradiction between tradition and reason then we have made a mistake and we must continue to learn the text over and over and analyze our reason over and over until they are consistent. The text is our starting place, read charitably, but we never neglect our crucial human faculty of moral reasoning.

Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, said it well:

It is forbidden for religious behavior to compromise a personal, natural, moral sensibility. If it does, our fear of heaven is no longer pure. An indication of its purity is that our nature and moral sense becomes more exalted as a consequence of religious inspiration. But if these opposites occur, then the moral character of the individual or group is dismissed by religious observance, and we have certainly been mistaken in our faith (Orot HaKodesh 4e).

We are following the path of Avraham who asked, “Shall the Judge of all the earth not act justly?” (Genesis 18:25), as we continue to challenge all dogmas to achieve the full truth. We should bear in mind that Avraham came from Ur in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq. This region has for millennia been plagued by absolutist god-kings who waged brutal wars on one another. Even when codes of law were created, they often reinforced the extreme powers of the monarch. We should be grateful that we emerged from this land as a people of faith, law, and morality, while acknowledging that we did not always measure up to those ideals. We should remember that the best purpose for studying our sacred texts is not to puzzle over troublesome passages or justify the behavior of another era, but to become motivated to act, today, in the true spirit of tikkun olam.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of "Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America."

0 Comments — Leave your comment