Rabbi Joshua Waxman: December 2007 Archives

With the Iowa caucuses just two short weeks away, the candidates are all scrambling against the clock to get their message out. And with Christmas as the backdrop, it seems that several of the candidates are trying to use the opportunity to outdo one another--to show the evangelical base in Iowa just what good Christians they are.

Mike Huckabee has most recently taken center stage after a surge in the polls. His quick wit and folksy manner have helped broaden his popularity beyond the evangelical community. But as the New York Times Magazine noted in a recent profile, this lulls many Americans into failing to realize just how conservative his religious views are. He was one of three Republican candidates at the time who acknowledged not believing in evolution at a debate in May and, according to the Times profile, “he considers liberalism to be a cancer on Christianity.” At the same time, Mitt Romney has been talking up (and distorting) his faith in order to make him more appealing to evangelical Christians who remain deeply suspicious of his Mormonism. (It was in that same Times profile that Huckabee implied that Mormons believe Jesus and the devil are brothers. He has since apologized.) At least John McCain has had the good grace to stop pandering to the evangelical base, as when he declared America a Christian nation.

While Rabbi Grossman’s sentiments are certainly heartwarming and worthy, and I tend to agree with Rabbi Stern’s analysis of the Adler-Askari incident, I don’t think this story proves that anti-Semitism is rampant on the Upper West Side of New York City--only that violent and ignorant punks exist anywhere and will happily beat the daylights out of a total stranger at the slightest, or no, provocation at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to take away in the slightest from Askari’s bravery. Intervening when someone is in danger, putting yourself in harm’s way for a stranger is an act of heroism. And when the victim belongs to a group toward which you might have some adversity, then that act is all the more heroic.

I was as aghast as Rabbi Stern was by Christopher Hitchens’ article on Hanukkah in Slate from last week. Not because of the venomous rhetoric or offensive bombast--this is Hitchens' stock-in-trade and without it it’s not clear anyone would know or care what he says.

What I found so appalling in Hitchens’ piece was how dramatically mistaken he is in his misguided efforts to uncover "the true meaning of Hanukkah." Looking back at the historical events surrounding the birth of the holiday, Hitchens envisions Hanukkah as a victory for narrow-minded and superstitious fundamentalism (i.e. the Maccabees) over enlightened philosophical reason (i.e. the Seleucid Greeks, the victory over whom Hanukkah celebrates). Since enlightened philosophical reason is better than narrow-minded superstitious fundamentalism in Hitchens’ book, ipso facto anyone who celebrates Hanukkah is a retrograde philistine, Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

It seems each day we hear about the continued consequences of our dependence on oil as a source of energy--the greenhouse gas emissions that come with burning fossil fuels, the devastation to local communities and ecosystems of exploring for and extracting oil, the soaring costs as we pursue increasingly rare stockpiles, and the supporting of brutal regimes to keep the oil flowing.

What are the alternatives? Some trumpet nuclear power as the solution to our clean energy needs, but nuclear fuels also creates greenhouse gases as well as toxic waste byproducts. Some say ethanol is the solution, but this too involves massive carbon emissions in its production and undermines the availability of staple crops. Some promote solar or wind power, but these technologies have proven inadequate and unreliable for our power needs.