Rabbi Eliyahu Stern: June 2006 Archives

Israel's response to the recent kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit by invading Gaza is nothing shocking or all that new. It is what is: the latest incarnation of the cycle of violence that continues to cripple the Middle East.

Is Israel justified in taking such actions? Ultimately, justice in the context of Middle East politics will only only be understood in retrospect. That said, there is something about Middle East politics that instinctively makes all of us fall back into the blame game, justifying our behavior based on what was done in the past instead of waiting to see what happens in the future. Are we right in falling back into the blame game? No, but such is politics. So, excuse me for saying so, but Israel not at fault in this fiasco.

It's a shame Palestinians have to suffer, but no one forced them to elect Hamas or empower its leadership. We make choices and have to learn how to live with them. Each choice we make in life has repercussions. If the Palestinians cannot even take responsibility for the very people they freely elected into office, can they be trusted?

Not to hold Palestinians responsible for their government's actions is either to make them into fools who neither know what they say or understand what they do, or to abet and support the terror that they have unleashed on Israel. While in theory I am all for granting humanitarian aid to Palanstinians, practically such aid looks more and more unlikely.

Those we elect represent us and speak on our behalf. The Palestinian people need to uproot and denounce Hamas. Until that happens, what kind of humanity would Israel and America be supporting by giving aid?

We all wish Israel did not have to take such steps, but I also wish the Palestinians never elected Hamas. Once again, we are back to square one, and all that I can think of is that its their fault!

One of the many rituals surrounding death in the Jewish tradition is the practice of going to a mourner’s house during a seven-day mourning period called “shiva.” The mourner sits on a low stool and he/she is comforted by friends, relatives, and loved ones.

Not only, however, are there rules and rituals involving the mourner but also those who come to visit him/her. The visitor is instructed that he/she should not speak to the mourner unless addressed by them. I always found this law to be a bit bizarre. The thought of coming into someone’s home and awkwardly sitting there in silence can make everyone feel so uncomfortable.

As Americans, we are accustomed to saying hello and at least a few simple words of comfort to the bereaved. But the older I get and the more funerals and shiva homes I attend, the more I see the deep wisdom in this mandated silence.

The other week, my friend went to pay his condolences to relatives of his that had just experienced the tragic death of their teenage son. While there he witnessed what he described to me as “a horrific moment.” One the visitors who felt the need to say something told those the mourners that their child had died because God wanted him closer to Him. He went on to further suggest that the mourners should be happy just to have had the child in their lives for so long and that everything that had occurred was God’s will.

While all of his words have sources in Jewish tradition, they were just about the stupidest and most insensitive thing one could have said at that moment to the father. The father burst out in pain, “How do you know what God wants? What are you saying…you're sick…how can you say this about me, my child, and God?”

Too many times one enters mourners’ homes and feels the need to put into words that which is unspeakable. As my father Rabbi Shalom Stern likes to say, words are our way of controlling things and there are some things in life we just can not control. Death is one of them.

On today’s New York Times op-ed page, David Dow writes a very interesting but ultimately morally flawed article on the death penalty. In short, he suggests: Instead of focusing on the issue of whether or not someone convicted of the death penalty is innocent or not, “Abolotionalists... ought to focus on the far more pervasive problem: that the machinery of death in America is lawless, and in carrying out death sentences, we violate our legal principles nearly all of the time.”

Dow might be right that the bureaucratic machinery of American jurisprudence makes the death penalty a precarious punishment at best, but I would go a step further: The bottom line is that the death penalty only provokes more violence on top of violence. When one human being kills another, it shows that he/she is morally bankrupt; when a state sanctions the killing of another human being, it shows that humanity is morally bankrupt. (For more on the immorality of the death penalty see Sister Helen Prejan's writings.

The rabbis of the Mishnah (Makot 1:10) debate both sides of the issue, with Rabbis Akiva and Tarfon arguing that they would never have allowed anyone to be killed under Jewish law. On the other hand, Rabban Gamiliel suggests that had they done so, they would only have increased the murder rate in Israel.

Rabban Gamilel is statistically wrong. According to Roger Hood, “Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: ". . . it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."(from "The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective," Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 230) You can find statistics on the death penalty here.

The death penalty is nothing more and nothing less than a pathetic and morally bankrupt legal mechanism for people to play out their most animalistic impulses.

I can’t stand people who invoke moral obligations regarding providing humanitarian aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.

I am sorry, but a group that demands my destruction has no right to make moral and ethical claims on me or anybody else.

Suicide bombers and ethics are incompatible languages. That said, there is still good reason to support humanitarian aid to Palestinians, while at the same time punishing Hamas.

My favorite Middle East analyst, David Makovsky, along with Elizabeth Young and Michael Herzog, do a fine job at laying out the complexities of the issue and explaining the political and economic reasons for why Israel and America aught to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians but remain firm on Hamas. The bottom line is that:

"Even with Hamas in power, the international community does have in interest in retaining some level of funding for Palestinians. The first of these is humanitarian assistance—food, water, and basic services—to protect against a crisis. The second category includes funds targeted to reinforce non-Hamas reformers and others who are committed to a more humane and liberal Palestinian society, to nonviolence, and to a two-state solution. Just as outsiders support democrats and liberals in authoritarian regimes, so too does the international community retain an interest in investing in those Palestinians who, despite their government, share the fundamental objective of peace and reconciliation. Similarly, the international community has an interest in ensuring that Hamas not vitiate the very political institutions that are enabling it to assume power, lest it preserve its hold on power in the future. Supporting democratic mechanisms in the PA, so that there is a system for rotation of power in the future, without supporting the Hamas-led PA itself is no easy task and deserved strict scrutiny and oversight."

Most important, Makovsky & co. don't go soft on Hamas like Robert Mally, who in the New York Review of Books foolishly suggests that Israel and America should engage Hamas, bring them into the political process, and attempt to moderate their views....Keep dreaming, Robert.

By the way recently I have started reading a new blog, http://www.kishkushim.blogspot.com/ that offers a very balanced and sane analysis of Middle Eastern politics.

Recently, there has been a spate of sexual abuse cases surfacing within the Orthodox community. These cases have come to the fore primarily through the constant pressure of blogs. Blogs are an important check for religious democracy. Traditional communities by their nature can be incredibly insular, preventing the type of healthy critique that keeps all structures of power honest and modest.

Before I go on I just want to say this is a very complicated issue and in the near future I hope to write more on the complexity of this matter.

Back when I was a student at Yeshiva University, Gary Rosenblatt, the editor of the Jewish Week, reported on Rabbi Baruch Lanner, a longtime establishment rabbinic figure in the Modern Orthodox world. For years, Lanner had been abusing children in camps and schools. Most suprising, however, wasn’t Lanner but the crony system that allowed and tolerated his behavior. Those such as YU Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Mordechai Willig defended him, and Willig was appointed head of an official Jewish court that was responsible for looking into the matter.

As the head of the court Willig, mocked and reprimanded those who questioned his judgment on the matter or brought charges against his buddy. What was so disturbing was not that Willig made an honest mistake and was trying to defend his friend, but that long after the proof was on the table and obvious to all, he continued to defame the media and those who challenged his rulings.

A few months after the story broke, I wrote an article in the YU student newspaper, the Commentator, applauding the work of Rosenblatt and others who had the guts to finally break the story. Most important, I argued that the Lanner case teaches us that the secular media can have the spiritual potential to save the sacred from itself.

When my article appeared, I was lambasted and denounced by those such as Willig. Willig threatened to get funding cut for the student newspaper. Ultimately, the editor of the student newspaper sheepishly ran for cover, distancing himself from my article. The editor was so scared that he could not even muster the courage to critique or challenge Willig or Lanner. That year my piece was the only piece the Commentator wrote on the issue.

It was as if there was no outlet to let people know what was happening. There was a tautology of evil with no way to question anything that as taking place. For more than a year the rabbis and Rosh Yeshiva continued to defend Lanner and mock Rosenblatt as a heretic and hater of Torah values. They claimed the criminal investigation was a conspiracy against Orthodox Jews. The whole situation was so sick and disturbing, yet all we could do was wait until Rosenblatt got around to looking into the matter further. Finally, after mounting public pressure and Rosenblatt’s courageous op-eds, Willig was forced to get up in front of a packed beit midrash (house of study) and beg forgiveness for his actions.

As a student, what was most frustrating for me was that I felt as though I was living in the twighlight zone, with no way in or out. Not only was there no way of letting the community know what was really going on, but even within the walls of the university, students were too scared to say a word. There is little doubt in my mind that had students been blogging in those days, the situation would have been radically different.

It was only after the Lanner affair that those such as Steven I. Weiss started blogging on the politics and day to-day happenings in Jewish life. Recently, others in Brooklyn and other Orthodox enclaves have followed his lead, creating a new power dynamic within the community.

To be sure, blogs are not a panacea, and sometimes, like all good societal medicines, they can have dangerous side-effects. Lies, rumors, and fiction are rampant on blogs, and real people's lives can be destroyed because of the lack of standards endemic to the medium.

While bloggers like Weiss make a mistake or two here and there and are often too quick to condemn or praise, they are essential for creating a culture of critique. To be continued…..