Though I'm by no means a religious person, my evil Republican brother is. Last night, he suggested I watch a homily recently presented by reform rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of New York's Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. His topic was our life in America today.
He noted that we've been hammered by so many crises in recent years, from the Ukraine invasion to Iranian transgressions that we've become catatonic. We've been peppered by attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve, the courts, the Justice Department and our NATO alliance. "But take heart,. At least Greenland will soon be ours. The easy way or the hard way."
Without mentioning him by name, he compares Donald Trump to Melville's Ahab, who "never thinks. He only feels gnawed within and scorched without the infixed unrelenting fangs of some incurable idea. The Greenland whale is deposed. The great sperm whale now reignth."
He's especially discouraged by an explosive surge of anti-Semitism in the US, which actually pales in comparison to what is happening in Europe.
"Jew hatred is a warning sign that something rotten is metastasizing in society itself," he thundered.
While our lives go on unchanged, he warned that will change as the "intense winds of social change" batter down our doors.
Despite this chaotic atmosphere, he noted that the common denominator between religion and politics in a free society is the moral code. "None of the institutions of our democracy can survive without a keen sense of our moral obligation. Once people lose trust in the goodness and decency and fairness of governmental and non-governmental institutions, disintegration sets in."
He quotes a saying in the Mishna (oral Torah?) advising people to pray for the government. "If it were not for the government, people would swallow each other alive." But the powers of government can be misuse, so these immense powers must be exercised justly.
Rabbi Hirsch noted that, in the Torah, "might makes right" has no place. "Upright makes right is the Jewish way." When force is necessary, it should be wielded as humanely as possible.
He lamented the excessive use of force by masked immigration agents in Minneapolis but also slammed past administrations who failed to control our borders and past Congresses who failed to resolve the legal status of undocumented residents who have been here for decades. Instead of resolving these matters, American politicians have instead torn us apart. He did concede that immigration policy requires a compromise between mercy ("an attribute to God himself") and justice (justice, shall you pursue") While there is much room for disagreement and debate, "we do not have to accuse our opponents of evil or enmity."
He said that in the debate about policy, there should be no room for "arrogance, conceit, pride, contempt, indifference, scorn. And shouldn't we be able to agree, that in the debate around immigration, there is no room for prejudice, xenophobia, and the appeal to baser instincts?"
He notes that the Torah commands us to love the stranger 36 times. "Loving your neighbor is mentioned only once. It's because strangers are much harder to love than those closer to you." He said Jews especially need to try to love the stranger because they were strangers in the land of Egypt and "know the heart of a foreigner."
While he supports the right to protest, he stressed that all protest and opposition must be nonviolent. If tainted by violence, it will never gain the support of a majority of Americans.
He recommended the advice of Jewish sages. "A brute cannot be righteous. An ignoramus cannot be pious. The impatient cannot model behavior. And in a place where there are no decent human beings, strive to be a decent human being. Avoid intolerance, prejudice, and especially hate. Do not hate your kinsmen in your heart. Hate is too heavy a burden. It consumes both the hated and the hater. If you are to be free, you must be free of hate."
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