Skip to main content

The Election through the Torah's lens.

If we see Judaism as central to our lives, we see everything through the lens of Torah , a Torah that also espouses certain universal values relevant to all Humankind.. Hence, in this election season we ought to think of the following:
These universal values are defined by a sophisticated understanding of the Noahide laws as per the Rama (Teshuvah 10) and the Lubavitcher Rebbe 's many talks on this issue:
The Noahide laws demand
1. Belief in G-d
2. Not to Blaspheme (To believe G-d is just)
3. Not to murder - and we know that insulting someone publicly is equivalent to murder
4. Not to steal or be dishonest in any way, avoid paying our obligations etc.
5. Not to engage in forbidden relationships
6. Not to eat a limb from a living animal, which is seen as including any unnecessary destruction of any flora or fauna (eating is fine) or annihilating a species or damaging the environment in ways not needed for human sustainment
7. To have courts of justice which means also: A just and equitable society, giving charity yourself and having society ensure a social safety net ,not lying, keeping your promises, respecting the dignity of other human beings, respecting the elderly and those who do good deeds for society etc.
As Jews we have an obligation to push for these values in any society we live in. We must seek leaders and functionaries who violate these values the least.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Those Days at This Time - Chanukah Redux

  Our Chanukah Message, and for this year, and an announcement of new classes at Bnai Torah Boruch Hashem! “In those days at this time” So goes the Refrain of Al Hanisim – the additional prayer we add to the Amidah and the Grace after Meals During Chanukah and Purim. Chanukah is about the attempt to destroy Judaism and co-opt the Jews of the Land of Israel into the idolatrous, immoral, hedonistic and polytheistic Hellenist world. Our enemies, the Seleucids -with an empire centered in Syria, sought to use both the blandishments of societal acceptance and when that failed, force of arms and persecution to coerce us towards this goal. They desired that we bow to the prevailing values and beliefs held by the whole world -except for us Jews. In effect they said: “How can it be that you have the Chutzpah to believe the whole world is wrong and you are right?”. We responded that – “This is indeed the case, which is why empires, kingdoms, values and beliefs come and go, but our nation, ou...
Post a Comment
Read more

Some thoughts on the death of an arch-terrorist

For all of us who were old enough to understand what those terrible towering billows of smoke drifting from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn, visible from as far away as Connecticut, and worldwide electronically meant on 9/11, the death of Osama bin Laden cannot but strike a chord in that place in our hearts that seek to see revealed justice in this world. After all one of the basic tenets of the Noahide the universal law of humanity is - “Shofech dam hadam beadam damo yishafeych” He who spills the blood of man, his blood shall be spilled”. Yet we understand that this is not out of a Divine concession to a desire for revenge, vengeful feelings are unworthy of human being (kedoshim). Rather we grasp that there is no place in the world for a person who does not respect the image of G-d that is each one of us. The murderer all the more so the cold blooded ideological murderer says: “I decide the value of a human being”. This is a more direct denial of g-d than even Idol worship, which simply...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Light Within the Darkness

  This has been a very challenging year for Mishpachat Beit Yisrael – “The Family of the House of Israel” -the entire Jewish people. However, the reason it has been such a difficult period since Shemini Atzeret (10/7), is precisely because we are a family. We don’t always agree with each other, we don’t always stay connected, but we are always bound up in the reality of our relationship. One never stops being a parent, or a child, or a sister, or a brother. We rejoice in the joys of our fellow Jews and mourn with them in their sadness of loss. This then is a actually the dark lining of a beautiful reality. We care deeply about the tragedies befallen Jews we never met, whom we didn’t even know existed because we are part of a greater, indivisible whole. G-d says to us “Atem Edai” – “You (Israel) are my witnesses”. Our existence testifies to G-d’s existence, to G-d’s Providence and to G-d’s deep concern with what human beings do with their lives. G-d is One, Indivisible, yet the Sour...
Post a Comment
Read more