How Hanuka Saved the Soul

                                                           

Hello, it’s been a while  

I withdrew from the world on a walkabout for a period of time.  I am back, and feel like Woody Allen in “Sleeper” who awakens to a topsy-turvy world.  In Woody’s case, medical science finds that junk food is actually healthy for people.  In my case, the constitutional protections of due process and separation of powers turned on their head; a blog for another time. 

Not exactly a blog to rival Woody’s “Sleeper”.  Then again if I had his comedic talent I would not be wasting it on blogging.  And yet with me, unlike with Woody, you get my musings for free.  And, as importantly in these times, my writings are from a person who is not a known or suspected pervert or predator.

  

Turning from the profane is the heart of the Hanuka story, a holiday vastly underrated and mischaracterized.  Hanuka is considered by most, a minor holiday inflated to ease Jewish children’s jealousies over Christian gift giving during the Christmas season.  Nothing is further from the truth.

In reality, the possibility of western civilization hung in the balance while the events surrounding Hanuka played out.  The spiritual language and images used in music and art; the illumination of the interior soul by artists, writers, and poets, all absent from the world without Hanuka.   Shakespeare, Bach, Van Gough, Maya Angelou, to name a few, never to be.   Such is the import of Hanuka.

The de-emphasis of the historical truth of Hanuka occurred around 200 years after the events of Hanuka.  A Jewish uprising against the Roman Empire ended in a disastrous defeat.  The Romans avenged the insurrection by obliterating Israel as a nation and driving the surviving Jews out into the diaspora.

Traumatized by the consequences of armed insurrection, the Rabbis of the diaspora downplayed the militaristic role in Hanuka’s history and emphasized God’s role.  The Hanuka story transformed into an apocryphal tale where God performed miracles for the faithful.

By downplaying the armed insurrection, the reason for taking up arms was lost to the story.  In actuality Hanuka was all about war -- a civil war, a cultural war, a war to preserve ethical monotheism.

 

During the time of Hanuka, Hellenism prevailed throughout the known world thanks to the conquests of Alexander the Great.  Greek philosophy and culture focused on understanding and perfecting the physical world.  Whatever could not be measured or observed was rejected.  Greek gods reflected and explained observable phenomenon.  The sun arced across the sky.  Why?  A god drove it in a chariot.  The world always defined by and explained by physical objects or concrete gods.

 

Jews were not immune to the Hellenistic influence.  Many adopted the philosophy that physical perfection and physical beauty are the true goals of human existence.  Even Israel’s high priest was a Hellenist.  As such, he brought Zeus into the Holy Temple and sacrificed a pig on the Temple’s alter.

The materialism of Hellenism was anathema to traditional Judaism with its emphasis on materialism over spirituality, and belief in many gods rather than the one true universal God.  Tension between the Hellenists and traditionalists was palpable, and combustion inevitable.  War sparked when a soldier of the ruling Assyrian empire attempted to force conversion onto a charismatic local priest named Mattathias of the house of Maccabees.  Rather than converting, he and his sons, slew the soldier and the conflagration erupted. 

 

The Maccabees, prevailed, beating back the Assyrian military and slaying the Hellenistic infidels.  The first act after victory was to purify the Holy Temple and rededicate it to God.  A feast lasting eight days followed.  The menorah lit on each day of the holiday.  The only religion practicing ethical monotheism was saved, along with the related concepts of eternal soul; holiness; spirituality; the pure and the profane.

  

Ethical monotheism became the organizing principle for western culture.  Judeo-Christian values under-girded the legal system.  The biblical concept that all humanity is created equal, all with the spark of God within, profoundly impacted the arts and led to the democratization of society; the unshackling of slavery; and the freedom to follow whatever path one’s talents and inclinations lead.  

So on Hanuka, as the lights of the Menorah burn outward to illuminate the darkness, I remember what the small band of Maccabees accomplished and turn inward.  Turning to the light within that illuminates my humanity and serves as my bulwark against a soulless, material world.     

             

          

The Trump Travel Ban Is No Laughing Matter

The Laurel and Hardy rollout of Trump’s temporary travel ban of immigrants from seven mostly Muslim countries left our country with a fine mess.  A hundred or so Muslims detained at U.S. airports, untold numbers of Muslims traveling abroad prevented from returning home, and tens of thousands of Muslims legally in our country believing they are second class citizens and residents.

All of this could have been easily avoided had the President followed some simple rules of leadership.  Prior to implementing the executive order, seek counsel and input from cabinet members and legislative leaders knowledgeable about the appropriateness and ramifications of the order.  At the time of implementation, explain to the public the rationale and purpose of the executive action.  

Had Trump taken those steps, the executive order would have included carve-outs for legal residents and visa holders.  The public announcement would have provided the rationale for the order -- a pause in immigration to allow the current administration to review the soundness of existing vetting procedures for immigrants coming from countries acknowledged by the previous administration as countries of concern.

To make matters worse, when the disastrous roll-out received justifiable criticism, the pompous Oliver Hardy-like Trump treated the critics as naïve, child-like, Stan Laurels.  Trump mocked the senate minority leader for his crocodile tears when discussing the impact of the ban on Muslim citizens and publically rebuked members of his own party as being weak on immigration when they criticized the executive order.  Then Trump morphed from Oliver Hardy to the autocratic Richard Nixon, and fired the acting Attorney General who questioned the legality of his order.

The President has yet to transition from Trump the campaigner to Trump the President.  His spontaneous and unfiltered over the top rhetoric and mocking humor entertained and engaged the faithful at his rallies.  Now, as President, Trump must fulfill two roles that are at odds with his campaign style.  As Head of State he represents, by manner and deed, the values and ideals of America.  As Chief Executive he sets the legislative agenda and faithfully implements the laws of the land.

Time is running out for him to right his ship of state.  Wary conservatives were heartened by his cabinet choices that by and large are seasoned, steady, thoughtful, and intelligent individuals.  His announced legislative agenda for the economy and the emphasis of choice and competition in replacing the current health care law represented mainstream conservative principles. 

Now, his slapdash, undisciplined performance during his first week in office has reignited fears that Trump as entertainer and autocrat in chief will define his presidency.  If so, the joke will be on you Mr. President, for as the Apprentice President you will hear your own words turned back on you … You're Fired.   

The Trump Inauguration: To Go Or Not To Go, That Is The Question

We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal.  This is the bedrock value upon which our country was founded, and the basis for all of our constitutional rights and protections. 

The equality of humankind is a universal truth of all the great religions – Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.   Created in the image of God, we are all God’s children no matter our race, gender, nationality or station in life. That does not mean that we are all equally likeable or that we all act in humane and decent ways.  Thus the conundrum facing decent people, how to respectfully treat those who do not respectfully treat others.

The bible lays out the aspirational goal -- love the other as thy self.  It is not a commandment to love the lovable other.  That is what decent people naturally do.  Rather, a commandment to treat the unlovable with the love/respect accorded to all of humanity.   It is a recognition that our inclination is to be wary of the other, to attribute negative characteristics to the stranger, and to disparage those who do not meet our expectations.

The requirement to love the other falls most heavily on religious leaders, the representatives of the religion.  Commandments are more than aspirational goals for religious leaders.  As the community role models, following the commandments is a necessary way of living.

Still, love the other does create dilemmas for religious leaders.  I recently heard of a most poignant one.  A rabbinic student came to a rabbi that I study with and asked for my Rabbi’s advice on whether to say the traditional prayer of mourning for her father.  The prayer is said in a public setting to honor the dead.  Her dilemma, her father had repeatedly raped her as a child.  My Rabbi was flummoxed and had no good answer.  Ultimately the rabbinic student came to her own resolution.  She did say the mourning prayer, not for the father she had but for the father she wished she had.

Our political leaders face a comparable dilemma.   A deplorable person is about to ascend to the highest office in the land.  Attending the inauguration implicitly honors a man not deserving of such respect.

Yet, the inauguration ceremony is not about any one person.  It represents the stirring ideals of the Gettysburg Address – “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people”.  Political power is transitory, given to our leaders by we the people, but only for a finite period of time. 

Attending the inauguration bears witness that the institutions of our country are stronger than any one man.  I want our leaders to attend, not only when it is easy to attend, but also when it is not easy to attend.  Especially when it is not easy to attend, for not attending disrespects our country’s ideals.

 

Hopefully those considering against attending will follow the lead of the rabbinate student who found the resolve to participate by considering the ideal rather than the actual.  I want our leaders to place the country’s ideals above their own feelings and judgements.

 

And bearing witness is why I will be watching the inaugural address on Friday.  Something I do not always do.  Will you join me? 

Israel -- Falling Support and Rising Anti-Semitism

Support for Israel has changed substantially over time.  From its birth in 1948 until “The Six Day War” support was unquestioned.  Two pillars undergirded the unconditional support -- the moral imperative derived from the Holocaust, and the existential threat posed by powerful Arab enemies surrounding the then weak and vulnerable Jewish state

The narrative began to change following the “Six Day War”.  Israel convincingly won the war and captured both the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  The David vs Goliath view reversed.  Israel became the Goliath, with its more powerful military.  The Palestinian Arabs, subjected to the humiliations of an occupying force, became the David.

With time and distance, the impact of the Holocaust faded.  Born decades later, a whole generation knew the Holocaust only from the cold pages of history.  The emotional connection replaced by an objective view. 

The generational split was most pronounced between the WW II generation and the millennials.  The WW II generation, the parents of the baby boomers, were either holocaust survivors, or had family members or friends murdered in the death camps of Nazi Germany.  Being Jewish, belonging to a synagogue, and seeing Israel’s survival as an essential safety hatch for Jewish survival was unquestioned.  To do otherwise denigrated the memory of the dead burned in the ovens.  Every Jew who assimilated or did not fully support the Jewish homeland was considered a symbolic victory for Adolph Hitler.

Religious doubts brought on by modernity hardly effected the World War II generation.  It was their children, the baby boomers that questioned the role of religion in a modern scientific world.  Many of the boomers became culturally Jewish, and this trend towards secularism accelerated with their children, the millennials.

With secularism came a shift in moral thinking.  The old moral divide of good vs evil was replaced by the new moral code -- strong vs weak and rich vs poor.  As such, the more powerful Israel was held by many on the secular left to a different standard of behavior than that of the weaker Palestinians. 

Witness the reactions to the Gaza war between Hamas and Israel.  Israel was criticized for the number of Palestinian casualties caused.  The body count defined the moral behavior of the two sides of the conflict.  With the lopsided Palestinian death count, Israel fared poorly in the court of public opinion.

 

Left out of this calculus was the moral view of good vs evil.  The disproportionate loss of life was an intentional Hamas strategy.  They placed their SCUD missiles in large population centers to ensure large loss of Palestinian lives, and daily launched the SCUD missiles from these population sites towards towns in Israel.

Faced with a “Sophie’s Choice” between saving the lives of Israelis or Palestinians, Israel tried to do both.  Deploying their anti-missile system to shoot down incoming SCUD missiles, and using their guided missiles to target the SCUDS without hitting Palestinian civilians.  Prior to launch, Israel warned the population to leave the area, only to be thwarted by the inhumanity of Hamas which prevented its citizens from evacuating. The missiles were not always accurate and there was loss of civilian life.  At the same time Israel deployed its anti-missile system to destroy incoming Hamas missiles.  Many, but not all, Hamas missiles were destroyed mid-air, preventing many Israeli deaths.  

The immorality of Hamas’ actions was summed up in one pithy sentence by the Prime Minister of Israel.  Israel used missiles to protect people, Hamas used people to protect missiles.  Nevertheless, through their evil strategy, Hamas had the “moral” victory it sought -- the optics of death and destruction by a powerful enemy against a weak and vulnerable people. 

The optics played well in the U.N. where Israel was condemned for its actions.  Indeed Israel has been condemned and sanctioned more often than any other member of the U.N.  The latest being the resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a flagrant violation of International Law based on the justification that the West Bank is “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.   

The U.N. justification twists the history of the West Bank for its twisted purpose of condemning Israel.  The West Bank was never Palestinian Territory, but an occupied territory of Jordan.  The West Bank was acquired by Israel in the course of defending itself in the 1967 Six Day War. International Law provides that territory seized in a defensive war may be occupied for defensive purposes, and that security measures may be implemented within that territory to defend against any future attacks.

The U.N resolutions against Israel bear heavily on the politics within the U.N. – politics grounded neither in history nor law, but rather in anti-Semitism.  How else to explain a different legal and moral standard applied to Israel than to any other nation state. 

By the moral standard of body count, there are many nation states that are far more immoral than Israel.  The most recent being Syria, bolstered by its allies Russia and Iran.  Using chemical weapons, barrel bombs, guided missiles, regular bombs, and starvation sieges, over 400,000 civilians have been killed in Syria.  Compare that to the U.N. count of 1462 Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza war.

Yet Israel has been singled out for far more sanctions or criticism than Syria, Russia, and Iran combined!  Consider the U.N. resolutions adopted during 2015, the last year I could find such a count.  Israel was singled out 20 times for criticism, Syria once, Iran once, and Russia never.

2015 was not an anomaly but rather part of a larger pattern to discredit and delegitimize Israel, the only State in the region which protects human rights.  De-legitimization is a troubling trend that has greatly infected the secular youth of our country, often through the educational environment of our liberal colleges. 

Once again the Jews are the canary in the coal mine.  How Israel will continue to be viewed and treated will say a lot about the value of the world body and the values of our colleges and country. 

For those wishing to read a short impassioned historical justification of the legitimacy of Israel’s actions in the Middle-East, check out this web site: 

http://bigarticlesoftheweek.blogspot.co.il/2017/01/an-open-letter-to-theresa-may.html    

Hat tip to Judy Gedali for telling me of the website                  

Putin Smarter than Obama and Trump?

Trump’s recent tweet on Vladimir Putin, again raised legitimate concerns about the president-elect’s favorable bias towards Russia and the advisability of conducting foreign policy via tweets.  Setting aside these concerns, Trump’s assessment of Putin as being smart is very accurate.

Putin is much shrewder than Obama in international affairs.  Putin thinks strategically while our President thinks tactically.  Witness Putin’s versus Obama’s approach to the civil war in Syria.  Obama’s statement, “Assad must go”, was his initial foray into the Syrian civil war.  This tactical statement gave verbal support to the opposition.  

Unfortunately it was not followed up strategically.  Obama ignored the advice of his Secretary of State and his Secretary of Defense to arm the Syrian rebels.  The chance to overthrow Assad lost.  Later it was strategically impossible to arm the opposition who became contaminated with Islamic terrorists.

The President drew a red line regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria.  Without regard to strategic consequences, Obama cancelled promised military action to uphold the red line.  Obama’s feckless behavior projected unreliability to our Middle-East allies and weakness to our enemies.

Putin acted strategically.  He offered to broker the removal of Syrian chemical weapons.  Acceptance by the U.S. of Russia’s role resulted in several strategic advantages for Putin.  It ended the U.S. push for international isolation of Russia for its use of military force in Crimea and Ukraine.  It inserted Russia back into the middle-east after thirty-five years of absence.  What followed was closer ties to Syria and its ally Iran, and the establishment of a Russian military base in the heart of the Middle-East. 

The roles of the U.S. and Russia in the Middle-East flipped.  Russia was now the key player in the Middle-East.  The U.S. marginalized.  In the past, Middle-East negotiations often took place in the United States.  This time, the peace negotiations between Assad and the rebels was on Russian soil.  The United States was not even invited to participate.  

Putin’s and Obama’s actions over Russian interference in the Presidential election will hopefully be instructive to our next President.  Acting tactically, Obama publically rebuked Russia rather than just relying on retaliation through secret cyberattacks.  Hoping to hamstring Russian relations with the next administration, Obama kicked out Russian ambassadors.  

Acting strategically, Putin did not respond in kind.  He did not retaliate by removing U.S. ambassadors from Russia.  In the process Putin projected statesmanship and removed a potential black cloud hanging over relations between Russia and the next U.S. administration.

Trump then made his infamous tweet about how smart Putin is.  Going forward, the question is this.  Will Trump, with his inflated ego, realize that Putin is so much smarter than him?