Monday, November 30, 2020

"Yet some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions — as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom! Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals. It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate."




https://youtu.be/wIJ163IOlfY


 

In this past year of change, my mind and heart have overflowed with people. People I think of and pray for, and sometimes cry with, people with names and faces, people who died without saying goodbye to those they loved, families in difficulty, even going hungry, because there’s no work.

Sometimes, when you think globally, you can be paralyzed: There are so many places of apparently ceaseless conflict; there’s so much suffering and need. I find it helps to focus on concrete situations: You see faces looking for life and love in the reality of each person, of each people. You see hope written in the story of every nation, glorious because it’s a story of daily struggle, of lives broken in self-sacrifice. So rather than overwhelm you, it invites you to ponder and to respond with hope.

These are moments in life that can be ripe for change and conversion. Each of us has had our own “stoppage,” or if we haven’t yet, we will someday: illness, the failure of a marriage or a business, some great disappointment or betrayal. As in the Covid-19 lockdown, those moments generate a tension, a crisis that reveals what is in our hearts.

In every personal “Covid,” so to speak, in every “stoppage,” what is revealed is what needs to change: our lack of internal freedom, the idols we have been serving, the ideologies we have tried to live by, the relationships we have neglected.

When I got really sick at the age of 21, I had my first experience of limit, of pain and loneliness. It changed the way I saw life. For months, I didn’t know who I was or whether I would live or die. The doctors had no idea whether I’d make it either. I remember hugging my mother and saying, “Just tell me if I’m going to die. I got taken to a hospital by a prefect who realized mine was not the kind of flu you treat with aspirin. Straightaway they took a liter and a half of water out of my lungs, and I remained there fighting for my life. The following November they operated to take out the upper right lobe of one of the lungs. I have some sense of how people with Covid-19 feel as they struggle to breathe on a ventilator.

I remember especially two nurses from this time. I learned later that following the first examination by the doctor, after he left she told the nurses to double the dose of medication he had prescribed — basically penicillin and streptomycin — because she knew from experience I was dying. Because of her regular contact with sick people, she understood better than the doctor what they needed, and she had the courage to act on her knowledge.

They taught me what it is to use science but also to know when to go beyond it to meet particular needs. And the serious illness I lived through taught me to depend on the goodness and wisdom of others.

This theme of helping others has stayed with me these past months. In lockdown I’ve often gone in prayer to those who sought all means to save the lives of others. So many of the nurses, doctors and caregivers paid that price of love, together with  religious and ordinary people whose vocations were service. We return their love by grieving for them and honoring them.

Whether or not they were conscious of it, their choice testified to a belief: that it is better to live a shorter life serving others than a longer one resisting that call. That’s why, in many countries, people stood at their windows or on their doorsteps to applaud them in gratitude and awe. They are the saints next door, who have awakened something important in our hearts, making credible once more what we desire to instill by our preaching.

They are the antibodies to the virus of indifference. They remind us that our lives are a gift and we grow by giving of ourselves, not preserving ourselves but losing ourselves in service.

With few exceptions, governments have made great efforts to put the well-being of their people first, acting decisively to protect health and to save lives. The exceptions have been some governments that shrugged off the painful evidence of mounting deaths, with inevitable, grievous consequences. But most governments acted responsibly, imposing strict measures to contain the outbreak.

Yet some groups protested, refusing to keep their distance, marching against travel restrictions — as if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom! Looking to the common good is much more than the sum of what is good for individuals. It means having a regard for all citizens and seeking to respond effectively to the needs of the least fortunate.

It is all too easy for some to take an idea — in this case, for example, personal freedom — and turn it into an ideology, creating a prism through which they judge everything.

The coronavirus crisis may seem special because it affects most of humankind. But it is special only in how visible it is. There are a thousand other crises that are just as dire, but are just far enough from some of us that we can act as if they don’t exist. Think, for example, of the wars scattered across different parts of the world; of the production and trade in weapons; of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing poverty, hunger and lack of opportunity; of climate change. These tragedies may seem distant from us, as part of the daily news that, sadly, fails to move us to change our agendas and priorities. But like the Covid-19 crisis, they affect the whole of humanity.

Look at us now: We put on face masks to protect ourselves and others from a virus we can’t see. But what about all those other unseen viruses we need to protect ourselves from? How will we deal with the hidden pandemics of this world, the pandemics of hunger and violence and climate change?

If we are to come out of this crisis less selfish than when we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others’ pain. There’s a line in Friedrich Hölderlin’s “Hyperion” that speaks to me, about how the danger that threatens in a crisis is never total; there’s always a way out: “Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” That’s the genius in the human story: There’s always a way to escape destruction. Where humankind has to act is precisely there, in the threat itself; that’s where the door opens.

This is a moment to dream big, to rethink our priorities — what we value, what we want, what we seek — and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.

God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging and labor. We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to slow down, take stock and design better ways of living together on this earth.

The pandemic has exposed the paradox that while we are more connected, we are also more divided. Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging. It causes us to focus on our self-preservation and makes us anxious. Our fears are exacerbated and exploited by a certain kind of populist politics that seeks power over society. It is hard to build a culture of encounter, in which we meet as people with a shared dignity, within a throwaway culture that regards the well-being of the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and the unborn as peripheral to our own well-being.

To come out of this crisis better, we have to recover the knowledge that as a people we have a shared destination. The pandemic has reminded us that no one is saved alone. What ties us to one another is what we commonly call solidarity. Solidarity is more than acts of generosity, important as they are; it is the call to embrace the reality that we are bound by bonds of reciprocity. On this solid foundation we can build a better, different, human future.

 

 SEE WHO PENNED THIS OP-ED: HINT - NOT A RABBI!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/pope-francis-covid.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Thursday, November 26, 2020

"Temporary" Permission For Religious People To Kill Thy Neighbor, Thy Family, & Thyself!

 


"The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Breyer and by him referred to the Court is granted in part. Respondent is enjoined from enforcing Executive Order 202.68’s 10- and 25-person occupancy limits on applicants, including Agudath Israel of America’s current New York-based affiliates, pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this order shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the order shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court. Chief Justice Roberts, dissenting: I dissent for the reasons set out in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U. S. ___ (2020) (Roberts, C. J., dissenting). Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan join, dissenting: I dissent for the reasons set out in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U. S. ___ (2020) (Breyer, J., dissenting). Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan joins, dissenting: I dissent for the reasons set out in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U. S. ___ (2020) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting)."

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/20a90.html

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20a87_4g15.pdf

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Always choose “the harder right instead of the easier wrong” and to know “no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy.”

 

Happy Thanksgiving to All Those Who Told the Truth in This Election

Civil servants, elected officials and judges did their jobs and protected democracy.


With so many families gathering, in person or virtually, for this most unusual Thanksgiving after this most unusual election, if you’re looking for a special way to say grace this year, I recommend the West Point Cadet Prayer. It calls upon each of these future military leaders to always choose “the harder right instead of the easier wrong” and to know “no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy.”

Because we should be truly thankful this Thanksgiving that — after Donald Trump spent the last three weeks refusing to acknowledge that he’d lost re-election and enlisted much of his party in a naked power play to ignore the vote counts and reinstall him in office — we had a critical mass of civil servants, elected officials and judges who did their jobs, always opting for the “harder right” that justice demanded, not the “easier wrong” that Trump and his allies were pressing for.

It was their collective integrity, their willingness to stand with “Team America,” not either party, that protected our democracy when it was facing one of its greatest threats — from within. History will remember them fondly.

Who am I talking about? I am talking about F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, who in September openly contradicted the president and declared that historically we have not seen “any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election” involving mail-in voting.

I am talking about Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — a conservative Republican — who oversaw the Georgia count and recount and insisted that Joe Biden had won fair and square and that his state’s two G.O.P. senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, did not garner enough votes to avoid election runoffs. Perdue and Loeffler dishonorably opted for the easier wrong and brazenly demanded Raffensperger resign for not declaring them winners.

I am talking about Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who not only refused to back up Trump’s claims of election fraud, but whose agency issued a statement calling the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” adding in bold type, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

Krebs did the hard right thing, and Trump fired him by tweet for it. Mitch McConnell, doing the easy wrong thing, did not utter a peep of protest.

I am talking about the Republican-led Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County, Ariz., which, according to The Washington Post, “voted unanimously Friday to certify the county’s election results, with the board chairman declaring there was no evidence of fraud or misconduct ‘and that is with a big zero.’”

I am talking about Mitt Romney, the first (and still virtually only) Republican senator to truly call out Trump’s postelection actions for what they really were: “overt pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and overturn the election.”

I am talking about U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann, a registered Republican, who dismissed Trump’s allegations that Republican voters in Pennsylvania had been illegally disadvantaged because some counties permitted voters to cure administrative errors on their mail ballots.

As The Washington Post reported, Brann scathingly wrote on Saturday “that Trump’s attorneys had haphazardly stitched this allegation together ‘like Frankenstein’s Monster’ in an attempt to avoid unfavorable legal precedent.”

And I am talking about all the other election verification commissioners who did the hard right things in tossing out Trump’s fraudulent claims of fraud.

Asking for recounts in close elections was perfectly legitimate. But when that failed to produce any significant change in the results, Trump took us to a new dark depth. He pushed utterly bogus claims of voting irregularities and then tried to get Republican state legislatures to simply ignore the popular vote totals and appoint their own pro-Trump electors before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 14.

That shifted this postelection struggle from Trump versus Biden — and who had the most votes — to Trump versus the Constitution — and who had the raw power and will to defend it or ignore it.

To all of these people who chose to do the hard right thing and defend the Constitution and the rule of law over their party’s interest or personal gain, may you have a blessed Thanksgiving.

You stand in stark contrast to Bill Barr, Mike Pompeo (who apparently never attended chapel at West Point), Mike Pence, Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Nikki Haley, Kayleigh McEnany and all the other G.O.P. senators and House members, who put their party and self-interest before their country and opted for the easy wrongs. History will remember them, too.

Though Trump is now grudgingly letting the presidential transition proceed, we must never, ever, forget the damage he and his allies inflicted on American democracy by attacking its very core — our ability to hold free and fair elections and transfer power peacefully. Tens of millions of Americans now believe something that is untrue — that our system is rigged. Who knows what that will mean in the long run?

The depths to which Trump and his legal team sank was manifested last Thursday when Giuliani and Sidney Powell held a news conference alleging, among other things, that software used to disadvantage Trump voters was created at the direction of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. It was insane.

As Jonah Goldberg, a conservative critic of Trumpism, wrote in thedispatch.com: “The G.O.P.’s social media account spewed sound bites from Powell and Giuliani out into the country like a fire hose attached to a sewage tank.” Fox carried the whole news conference live — uninterrupted — for virtually its entire 90 minutes.

Shame on all these people.

Sure, now Trump and many of his enablers are finally bowing to reality — but it is not because they’ve developed integrity. It is because they WERE STOPPED by all those people who had integrity and did the hard right things.

And “shame” is the right word for these people, because a sense of shame was lost these past four years and it needs to be re-established. Otherwise, what Trump and all his sycophants did gets normalized and permanently erodes confidence in our elections. That is how democracies die.

You can only hope that once they are out of power, Barr, Pompeo, Giuliani and all their compatriots will be stopped on the streets, in restaurants or at conferences and politely but firmly asked by everyday Americans: “How could you have stayed all-in when Trump was violating the deepest norms that bind us as a democracy?”

And if they are deaf to the message being sent from their fellow citizens, then let’s hope some will have to face an interrogation from their own children at the Thanksgiving table this year:

“Mom, Dad — did you really side with Trump when it was Trump versus the Constitution?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/opinion/trump-election-democracy.html

Monday, November 23, 2020

Trump, being the ultimate American Idiot, gave every lesser kind of American Idiot a licence to light little fires of idiocy across the land.

 

How Many American Idiots Are There? 73 Million Plus.

 

This Wasn’t Just an Election. It was a Census of American Idiots.


Image for post

This was no ordinary election. By now, you know that. But I mean it in a slightly different way. Not just that Trump’s still trying to steal it, and the GOP’s in cahoots. No, I mean that this election was something like a census of American Idiots.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you’ve been hearing stories like this. A nurse talks, bewildered, desperate, about people in the Covid ICU. Who are gasping for breath. Plenty of whom go on to die. And as they’re oxygenated and ventilated and intubated, in rage, in fury, they lash out…going right on…denying Covid exists.

What the? How do…deny the existence of Covid…while you’re on your possible deathbed…in the Covid ICU?

And yet you know and I know. This is, unfortunately, tragically, grimly, the phenomenon that I call the American Idiot. The entire world knows by now. Sane Americans shake their heads at such people. But the rest of the world is genuinely staggered, jaw-dropped, banging their heads against the table. How do people even end up like this? So amazingly, well, idiotic? Why does America seem to breed this special kind of person, the American Idiot?

I don’t mean idiot in the way of an insult, by the way. To the Greeks, “idiot” was the ultimate term of scorn. Idiots were the most contemptible people in classical society. Why? The term really means, in the classical context, “people who are consumed only with self-interest.” And to the Greeks, the progenitors of democracy, nobody — nobody was more dangerous than an idiot.

Their reasoning went like this. Should enough of a society be consumed solely with self-interest, a society would soon enough cease to be a democracy. People only concerned with themselves can’t look out for any kind of common wealth or shared interest. They can’t exercise any of the following virtues: courage, compassion, truth, beauty, grace, generosity, kindness, humility, all of which are allocentric, meaning “other-focused,” not egocentric.

So what will happen to such a society? They reasoned that when a society hit a threshold of idiots, it would soon enough lapse into poverty, and then into tyranny. Idiots can’t build a society with any kind of public goods — for the Greeks, that meant things like trust and self-governance. Today it means all those plus healthcare and retirement. Because people wouldn’t be able to provide those things for themselves, as a society, they’d soon enough try to exploit each for them. Society would degenerate into a kind of snake eating its own tail — each person trying to exploit the next. Such a society would lapse into cruelty, hostility, anger, stupidity, ignorance, and folly — barbarism.

And soon enough, a demagogue would come along, who would prey on all those fears — conjuring up imaginary enemies, twisting rage into hatred — and democracy would flash out of existence.

It’s a good theory, when you think about it. What’s remarkable about it is how much more sophisticated and nuanced and intelligent it still is, all these thousands of years later, than what passes for modern economics and political science, which is all too often superficial nonsense. But does the theory hold up?

You only have to look at America, the Land of the Idiots. This election does something remarkable — it gives us a comically exact headcount of American Idiots. There are 73 million of them. That’s how many people voted for Trump.

Am I saying Trump voters are idiots? Of course I am, duh. Again, not as an insult, but as an observation. In the classical sense: people consumed with the narrowest definition of self-interest possible.

Think about the Covidiots for a moment. There they are, in the ICU, gasping for breath…raging at a poor nurse…screaming at her that Covid doesn’t exist. That’s an idiot. It’s someone whose self-interest is so extreme they can’t even admit the possibility that a lethal pandemic exists, because the whole world centres around them.

There are so, so many kinds of American Idiots. The ones who proudly carry guns to…Starbucks…and make their kids do “active shooter drills,” which, for the rest of the world, means that masked armed men burst into schools, pretend to shoot kids and teachers, and they have to pretend to die. The ones who voted against healthcare…again…in the middle of a literal pandemic. The working class heroes who’ve denied themselves retirement for fifty years now…while Wall St laughs. There are the ones who try to pray the gay away and think women should be relegated to child-rearing and domestic chores.

There are so, so many kinds of American Idiots that I’ve barely scratched the surface yet. The truth is that the above kind are the relatively benign ones. Then there are the Proud Boys, literal white supremacists…whom the President put on “stand by.” All those “militia-men,” meaning pudgy dudes with guns playing Rambo. You might think all that’s just a joke, but it’s not — this group is something very much like America’s ISIS. It recently planned to kidnap politicians and assassinate them on live television. They’re domestic terrorists, every bit as extreme as militant Islamic fundamentalists.

What’s remarkable about Trumpism is that it’s the Death Star of the American Idiots. Trumpism unites all the various kinds of American Idiots. In a kind of epic, colossal suicide pact.

What are the American Idiots really fighting for — whether they’re religious fanatics, Covidiots, gun nuts, or bigots? Free-dumb. In the rest of the rich world, freedom now has a modern meaning — it means something like “the set of rights that enable one to enjoy a decent life, from healthcare to retirement to income to childcare to dignity.” But in America, freedom means something so different it’s diametrically opposed: the right to do whatever you damn well please, no matter how harmful it is to anyone else, yourself, your city, town, country, or your loved ones.

Free-dumb is individualism gone thermonuclear, taken to its most absurd outer limits. It means that your right to carry a gun to Walmart is more important than kids getting educations. That you can teach your kids whatever kind of nonsense you want, instead of educating them to be proper members of a civilized society. It means that Justice Amy Coney Barrett can belong to a religious cult with no separation between private and public life — and that’s perfectly OK, nobody should question it. That you can go on “believing” Covid doesn’t exist, while you’re dying of it.

Free-dumb, this fanatical ideology of toxic individualism, is what unites the American Idiots. They’re all pursuing some flavour of it. And what Trump did was give all the various kinds of American Idiots the license to be as extreme in their pursuit of free-dumb as they ever wanted, and then some. Don’t want to wear a mask? Great! That’s your choice. Don’t want to believe in science? No problemo! Don’t think minorities are human beings? Excellent! Are women just there to bleach their hair and serve men? Well done!

Trump, being the ultimate American Idiot, gave every lesser kind of American Idiot a licence to light little fires of idiocy across the land. And now they’re burning out of control. America can’t get a grip on Covid, because the Covidiots keep right on spreading it…since they don’t believe it exists in the first place. Politics is burning down, since the vast majority of Republicans apparently believe the election was rigged. Society can’t make any progress, because the idiots block even the smallest iota of it, crying like big slobbering babies that their free-dumb is under attack. The smallest kind of cultural progress — gay rights, womens’ rights — are at constant risk of reversal, because the idiots can’t abide anyone else being a true equal, since the world has to spin around them, and their ignorance, stupidity, rage, and superstition.

How did all this come to be? Trump printed a licence for every American Idiot to go out and set fire to their own neighborhoods, sure — but why did they think that was a good thing to do? Because America’s a country so backwards it’s hard to explain just how the American Idiot ends up thinking the bizarre things they do. Certainly, the internet reinforces it. Visit an American bookshop, and most of the best-sellers are fanatical right-wing screeds. And American education is something you can opt out of.

So American idiocy is a kind of complex cultural problem right about now. The American Idiot is, we know, three things. One, less educated, as in, often, not very educated. Two, white. And three, downwardly mobile. Those give us standard explanations — the downwardly mobile lash out at even more powerless groups in society, in resentment and rage at their fall. That explains Trumpism’s virulent hate and bigotry.

But what explain Covid patients…on their deathbeds…denying Covid exists?

I think that in the end, all this goes right back to slavery. It set up a kind of Nietzschean-Darwinist dichotomy, which America has never overcome. The strong survive, and the weak perish — deservedly so. Either you’re strong or you’re weak. The weak are subhuman — they deserve their exploitation, abuse, and suffering, because they are liabilities and burdens the rest of us must carry.

If you believe that moral logic — even if you don’t really know you believe it, if it’s something you’ve just imbibed from your parents and elders and towns and cities, like breathing in the air — where do you end up? You end up with five super, super toxic qualities. One, you’re toxically indifferent: you’re unable to care about anyone else very much, because for you, suffering is a form of weakness. Two, you’re toxically fatalistic: you believe everyone deserves what they get. Three, you’re toxically individualistic: you believe that nobody deserves anyone else’s support. Four, you’re toxically reductive: you believe life is black and white. And five, you’re nihilistic: you believe that nobody has any intrinsic worth or value, not even yourself.

You become a kind of twisted, absurd moral caricature, in other words. You think kindness is denying people healthcare — because it teaches them a lesson. You think compassion is making kids pay lunch debt — because it teaches them “fiscal responsibility” (and no, that’s not even what fiscal means.) You think that to show caring, concern, empathy, thoughtfulness or curiosity is weakness. And you think, as you get a lethal disease, and you gasp for breath, that this can’t be happening to you, that it doesn’t exist, because you’re not one of the weak, the hated subhumans — that’s what being intelligent is.

This is the kind of person the world laughs at. Not in glee, even, anymore — but in horror. The world laughs because to most of the rest of it, people so twisted are genuinely almost impossible to believe in. Such people don’t seem to exist — at least in large social blocs — anywhere else in the world.

I’m not kidding. In Pakistan, for example, I can literally buy machine guns or even grenade launchers at the market. But nobody’s shooting up schools and carrying them to Starbucks. Nobody’s suggesting that they’re more important than education, healthcare, or jobs — no, not even the conservatives.

The only real analogue the world has to the American Idiot, really, is movements like the Taliban, or ISIS. Movements who are so fanatical that they develop what Americans call “alternate belief systems.” They believe 72 virgins await them in heaven. The American Idiot believes Covid doesn’t exist, and they can’t get it. That a gun, not healthcare, will protect them from frailty. What’s the difference, really? Not a whole lot. Both of these social groups have developed something like mass, collective delusions, which they cling to inextricably, which nobody can prise away from them, superstitions they believe have the power to save them, which just means make them supreme. It always comes back to supremacy, this problem of human stupidity.

So were the Greeks right? Take a hard look at America, the Land of the Idiots. This election was a census of them, which gave us a precise headcount. America has 73 million American Idiots. What do you about that many idiots? People who vote, ardently, cheer on, applaud, crave, their own self-destruction? Because — just as for ISIS or the Taliban — it’s the one thing that proves their own supremacy, the ultimate test of strength and manhood and all the rest of it? What do you about people so foolish they don’t “believe” in the virus that’s putting them in the ICU?

I have some good news, and I have some bad news. The bad news is that nobody knows. Extremists and fanatics like this destroyed the Islamic world in record time — no, it wasn’t always the backwards place it is now. The good news is they tend to self-destruct. Idiots are martyrs. ISIS and the Taliban are happy blowing themselves up. American idiots are happy denying themselves healthcare and retirement and getting Covid. But also spreading it. The question is, then, how many of us go down with the idiots, as they self-destruct?

The Greeks were right. There is no greater curse for a society than a surplus of idiots, and no greater danger to it than it crossing a threshold of enough idiots. They do lead a nation to ruin, by way of indifference, fatalism, nihilism, selfishness, stupidity, brutality, and violence. They are unable to exercise the basic virtues of goodness, truth, compassion, wisdom, kindness, and concern. This most ancient of political theories — how strange that it’s turned out to be the most accurate one of all. After all, you only have to take a look at America to see it, laughing and shaking its head, down the millennia.

https://eand.co/how-many-american-idiots-are-there-73-million-bded995868cf

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Cuomo did not, the state stressed, blame the spread of COVID-19 on the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. And if anything, the state observed, the executive order treats religious gatherings more favorably than secular activities that involve comparable risks – such as plays, concerts, spectator sports and movies – by allowing them to remain open, with limits on attendance.

 

New York tells justices not to intervene in conflict over attendance limits at worship services


New York tells justices not to intervene in conflict over attendance limits at worship services

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the Supreme Court on Friday to stay out of the state’s battle with two Orthodox Jewish synagogues in New York City over an executive order that limits attendance at houses of worship as part of an effort to combat the coronavirus. Cuomo told the justices that because of “continued progress in containing COVID-19 spread,” the restrictions that the synagogues asked the court to block no longer apply to them.

Cuomo, a Democrat, issued the order at the heart of the dispute in October. The purpose of the order and the initiative that the order implemented, Cuomo explained in Friday’s filing, is to identify clusters of COVID-19 cases, to take “short-term aggressive measures” in and around the areas where those clusters are located to prevent the virus from spreading, and then to monitor the cases to determine how to proceed from there. When a cluster is identified, the area immediately around the cluster is known as a “red” zone; the area around the red zone is known as an “orange” zone, and the area around the orange zone is known as a “yellow” zone. Attendance at worship services is limited to 10 people at religious institutions in the red zone and 25 people in the orange zone. Attendance in the yellow zone is limited to 50% of the building’s maximum occupancy.

The synagogues challenged the 10- and 25-person restrictions in federal court in New York, arguing that the restrictions make it impossible for them to hold services for all of their congregants. The district court denied a request to block the enforcement of the order, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit declined to step in while the synagogues appealed. The synagogues then came to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking the justices to put the restrictions on hold or, in the alternative, grant review without waiting for the 2nd Circuit to rule on their appeal.

In a filing by New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, the state emphasized that its efforts to control the disease are working. As a result, the state explained, the synagogues (and the rest of New York City) are now in yellow zones, where houses of worship are restricted to 50% of maximum occupancy – a limit that the synagogues are not challenging.

But in any event, the state continued, both the district court and the 2nd Circuit rejected the synagogues’ assertion that the executive order was motivated by hostility toward the Orthodox Jewish community. The different zones, the state noted, affect various businesses and religious institutions. Some zones do not contain any Orthodox Jewish communities, while some Orthodox Jewish communities are “left untouched.”

Although Cuomo, in an October press conference, acknowledged the prospect that his order could affect worship services, the state added, he “made clear that the order did not target any gatherings because of their religious nature.” Instead, the state explained, the order was focused on “mass gatherings” – such as at houses of worship – because of their “super-spreader potential.”

Cuomo did not, the state stressed, blame the spread of COVID-19 on the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. And if anything, the state observed, the executive order treats religious gatherings more favorably than secular activities that involve comparable risks – such as plays, concerts, spectator sports and movies – by allowing them to remain open, with limits on attendance.

The state also pushed back against the synagogues’ suggestion that blocking enforcement of the restrictions would bring the state “into line with the approaches of other States.” “The approaches of other states,” New York told the justices bluntly, “are not working,” as current COVID statistics reflect. Even if “public officials in other states may deem certain measures sufficient to protect their own citizens,” New York concluded, that “does not prevent New York State from pursuing a different public health strategy.”

Finally, the state rejected the synagogues’ suggestion that the court should take up their appeal before the 2nd Circuit can decide it. Because the 10- and 25-person limits do not apply to the synagogues now, the state noted, there is no urgency to their request; moreover, the 2nd Circuit has agreed to fast-track their appeal, with oral argument scheduled for Dec. 18.

The state made similar arguments on Wednesday in opposing a request by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn to lift the attendance limits. In its filing in that case, the state praised the steps that churches have voluntarily taken to try to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. But those measures, the state argued, should not provide an exemption from the attendance limits: Among other things, those protocols have not yet been independently tested in COVID hotspots. And the state is not required, it continued, to “negotiate COVID-19 restrictions for each and every house of worship on a building-by-building basis.”

Shortly after filing its opposition on Wednesday, the state sent a letter to the court to inform the justices of the changes to the classification of the areas where the diocese’s churches are located. As of Nov. 20, the letter explained, “none of the Diocese’s churches will be affected by the gathering-size limits it seeks to enjoin.”

This post was originally published at Howe on the Court.

The post New York tells justices not to intervene in conflict over attendance limits at worship services appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

Friday, November 20, 2020

OPPOSITION TO APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF INJUNCTION OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE, CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT

 No. 20A90

Supreme Court of the United States 

AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA,et al., Applicants, V. ANDREW M.CUOMO, 

Governor of New York, Respondent. OPPOSITION TO APPLICATION FOR WRIT OF INJUNCTION OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE, CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT

 

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20A90/161415/20201120135238857_20A90%20Respondent%20NY%20Br%20in%20Opposition.pdf

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Even before the corona pandemic, the ultra-Orthodox community was traveling on an unsustainable trajectory. Their high birth rate, lack of secular education, and dependence on social welfare posed enormous challenges for the frum. The pandemic only exacerbated these challenges a hundred-fold.

 


● Survival of the Frummest ●
 
By: Rabbi Yossi Newfield
 
For long stretches of Jewish history, being a practising traditional or religious Jew meant living a life in accordance with Mosaic law, but not in overt conflict with the surrounding culture. At times, to reduce conflict with the dominant culture, rules were amended to allow the Jewish people to live more peacefully with their Christian or Muslim neighbors. It is for this reason that Rabbeinu Gershom (circa 1000 CE) took the unprecedented step of outlawing polygamous marriages despite their permissibility under Mosaic law, since in his time Christian Europe had banned polygamy.
 
Rabbis of all ages understood the delicate balance they had to tread between staying true to Mosaic law and its Talmudic interpretation and at the same time recognizing the facts on the ground. The extensive rabbinic responsa literature extant attests to the creativity, if not brilliance, of rabbinic leaders in trying to find practical solutions that allowed the Jewish people to survive the long and arduous exile.
 
This state of affairs continued until the times of Rabbi Moshe Sofer (1762–1839, also known by his main work as the Chatam Sofer), who vigorously opposed the innovation and change in Jewish communal life promoted by the Enlightenment Movement. The Chatam Sofer claimed that anything new or novel is forbidden – חדש אסור מין התורה. Today's ultra-Orthodox community are the heirs of the Chatam Sofer's rejection of much of the modern world. The rejection of science, democracy, and secular education can all be traced back to the Chatam Sofer's ambivalence and rejection of modernity and all of its blessings.
 
This is not to say the Chatam Sofer did not have a reason to be wary of modernity. The wave of assimilation in Germany and other countries surely highlighted the challenges of staying true to the Torah while simultaneously living and being a part of a liberal democratic order. Nevertheless, blindly following the Chatam Sofer's ethos of prohibiting innovation is wrong, and ultimately, self-defeating, as the current haredi lifestyle can not be indefinitely sustained.
 
Upon closer examination, though, changes have occurred in both halachic practice and Torah learning in ultra-Orthodox society. In the pre-Enlightenment era, a traditionally religious Jew was expected to keep basic rabbinical law (halacha). Only a small number of the most devout kept the most stringent opinion (chumrah) on any given question. Today, the difference between the halachic practice of the average man and a select few ultra-pious individuals has vanished. Now, all community members are expected to observe the most stringent opinion in every case and circumstance. Hence, glatt kosher meat has become today’s communal norm. This is also the reason behind the numerous new stringencies observed on Pesach. What used to be the practice of a tiny minority of families has now become the norm throughout the ultra-Orthodox – and especially hasidic -- world.
 
Equally restrictive is the intellectual narrowness and outright rejection of the rational tradition that not so long ago was an acceptable position within rabbinic Judaism. Today, the views of the medieval rationalists such as the Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim, the Ralbag on the Torah, and the theology of Don Abarvanel are almost entirely ignored within frum society. Instead, they have been replaced with the legends of the Baal Shem Tov, miracles of the Arizal, and stories of the incredible diligence in Torah study of rosh yeshivas. As far as Jewish law goes, even Rav Moshe Feinstein, the leading haredi posek of post WWII America, is considered too lenient and ‘modern’ by many.
 
The anti-science posture of the ultra-Orthodox community can best be illustrated by the example of the Chabad movement – which to outsiders may seem to be relatively modern. However, following their deceased rebbe's lead, Chabad adherents continue to believe in a discredited geocentric model of the universe. In other words, they reject the scientifically accepted Copernican view which states that the earth revolves around the sun (at least until Einstein came along). Despite their outwardly modern appearance, internally Chabad members still subscribe to an ancient and discredited model of reality.
 
Even before the corona pandemic, the ultra-Orthodox community was traveling on an unsustainable trajectory. Their high birth rate, lack of secular education, and dependence on social welfare posed enormous challenges for the frum. The pandemic only exacerbated these challenges a hundred-fold.
 
The ultra-Orthodox love affair with Trump is not surprising to say the least, as he is a defender of their isolationist, anti-science, anti-democratic, and frequently racist, faith. But Trump's reign is coming to an end, whether he likes it or not. With Trump gone, the ultra-Orthodox will have to eventually tackle their problems on their own. One thing is certain -- the process won't be pretty.
 

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

"We are resisting the evil edict of a Jew-hating tyrant in order to save our children and our religion! "

 

Hosting Illegal Yeshiva in his Basement – Response

A couple weeks back, Forward.com posted an op-ed by an Orthodox Jewish father explaining why he is risking a fine by hosting a yeshiva in his basement.  The article can be found here:  https://forward.com/scribe/457121/why-im-risking-a-15-000-fine-by-hosting-a-yeshiva-in-our-basement/.  Comments responding to his post were, to put it mildly, negative and accusatory.  I would like to suggest that we read his account a little more carefully and empathetically.  It provides insight into the pressures and dynamics of the current circumstance in which so many parents find themselves.  It is a very sad article, yet it is good to have it out in the open.  I encourage you to read his article before you read my response.

* * *

It is extremely difficult to raise children, especially during hard times. The author (“Anonymous”) describes experiencing a significant parenting challenge. His response is to accept the offer of a workaround that frees him from having to confront this challenge and that absolves him from the parental responsibility to work at solving it.  Unfortunately, that workaround is both illegal and dangerous.  The school should never have offered him this option.

Rather than judge Anonymous and condemn him as a public health menace, it would be more constructive to analyze the situation that led to his dilemma and to unpack it, with empathy, since he certainly represents thousands of other parents experiencing a similar parenting challenge.   His experience reveals some of the gaps and failures in our communal and educational systems – specifically in supporting and educating parents – that require attention and ought to be addressed.

School-Parent Expectations and Support

Anonymous is not the first person to discover that it is hard to motivate children to daven[1].  Parents and educators struggle with this challenge.  It is the subject of countless parenting seminars, educator conferences, research articles in Jewish education journals, even doctoral dissertations.

In our Orthodox communities, parents are able to mostly offload this responsibility onto schools and camps.  Some of these institutions are more successful than others at tefila[2]  education.  Parents are generally not confronted with our struggles with tefila education.  But once schools closed for the pandemic, many parents like Anonymous had a rude awakening. 

Anonymous tells us that during the months school was closed, his children “had nothing to drive them to get up” on time.  His son “had been neglecting his prayers.”  That is to say, Anonymous expected his 11-year-old son to be motivated and disciplined enough to perform the sort of davening at home – on time – that he was able to do (or that Anonymous imagined he was able to do) at yeshiva.  When his child failed to meet these unrealistic expectations, Anonymous and his wife felt helpless and inadequate.  He contrasts this with the “enormous sense of pride and accomplishment” he had felt back when his son was small and the expectation was “simply repeating a single sentence that he had heard every day since he was born.”

Where did Anonymous acquire these expectations?  How much did the school educate the parents about home davening expectations for one’s children in general? Is it fair to ask teachers to provide realistic guidance and expectations to parents when they, themselves, elicit davening behavior through methods unavailable at home?

This father focused his article on his son, and on davening[3]; but parents have been struggling with various behavioral expectations, both religious and non-religious.   What sort of support did schools provide parents during the months school was closed?  Merely sending home star charts with lists of daily tasks for tracking children’s successes and failures, compliance and non-compliance, is not only woefully insufficient; in many families during the recent shut-downs, it became a source of stress and feelings of inadequacy, a brightly colored rebuke hanging on the refrigerator.

In what ways could the school – and other communal institutions – have tried to help Anonymous to feel proud and accomplished as a parent by providing the requisite skills and guidance? Is the yeshiva inadvertently conveying the message that a full and healthy Judaism isn’t possible for children if they are at home with their parents and not in school?

I ask these rhetorical questions not to criticize but to encourage schools to think about their chinuch[4] partnership with parents in a new way.  But it is not only on schools.  Our communities should be able provide the sort of parenting support and training that goes beyond hiring a speaker to give a 7-part lecture series.  The experience of parents like Anonymous exposes one of the gaps in our communal support[5] for families, upon whom there are so many stresses, even without the extra stress imposed by Covid19. 

“This seven-month layoff has been more than trying for my children,” Anonymous writes.  Based on his article, it has certainly been at least as trying for him and his wife.  Is it possible that the school in the basement exists for their benefit at least as much as for the benefit of their children? 

Remote Learning: Schools and Parents Balancing Risks

Davening was not the only concern Anonymous expressed when contemplating another extended school closing.  Anonymous is not the only parent in New York concerned that his children are falling behind educationally due to school closing or reliance on distance learning during this pandemic.  I assure Anonymous that his children are not the only ones who experienced a pandemic-setback in mood, social skills, and self-regulation as well.  These are indeed serious concerns.

I am not sure what effort his children’s school was making to address these concerns, however, because Anonymous declares that the school rabbis and principals “understand that remote-learning does not work.”  As an educator, I find that statement very troubling, and not least because I have recently heard it elsewhere, bandied about as an axiom.  Remote learning is not ideal as an all-day, long term approach.  Most of us are not that great at it yet.  But there are competent and creative ways to provide effective remote learning, and it is the responsibility of schools to find out about them and prepare themselves to deploy them should it be necessary.  There are technologies that can be used without exposing children to the internet.

Besides, the choice isn’t either 100% remote learning done poorly or stuffing a teacher and 27 kids (above age 10 especially) into an enclosed basement without social distancing or souped-up ventilation.  Masks are good, for sure; but even surgical masks are inadequate protection[6] for this set-up 6.5 hours a day at a time of community spread.  Why did they not at least hold these classes in the back yard, which would reduce risk significantly and be legal, for as long as weather permitted?  There are great personal microphones for teachers, usable with masks.  Why no dividing kids into smaller “pods” to minimize risk?

Let us continue to read carefully, because Anonymous does not seem to have come up with this outrageous plan by himself.  He is thankful to the school for “decid[ing] to set up classrooms in people’s homes,” and for refusing to accept the “edict” of the duly elected governor.

The school has given Anonymous more than a solution to his parenting challenges; they have also provided him a familiar Jewish narrative in which to embed and thus justify his action. We are resisting the evil edict of a Jew-hating tyrant in order to save our children and our religion!  It is easy to slip this on and feel as virtuous as a Maccabi, especially if one is risking substantial financial loss.  This school has unethically placed a michshol[7] before struggling, stressed-out parents.  Will the Board of Directors cover the fine if it is levied? Insurance, legal fees?  Can they absolve him and his wife of guilt feelings if ch”v someone sickens or worse as a result of this stunt? Are they even paying to clean Anonymous’ basement floor? Anonymous doesn’t say; but he is grateful to the school for putting him and his wife in this position.

Meanwhile, the school as an organization has seemingly been too inflexible to rise to the challenge or to productively adapt to changing circumstances.  Why bother to train teachers in new instructional strategies that would make them successful in a situation that school districts across the country are also confronting?  Why bother to work with communal organizations to provide parents with tools and support that would free them of some of their dependency and make them better partners in the chinuch of their children?  Why bother with these when one can simply flout the law (turning otherwise law-abiding parents into calculating, garbage-shlepping scofflaws) and get away with doing exactly what one has always done?

I believe Anonymous truly has been convinced that he is doing what is best for his children’s “spiritual, mental, and physical health.”  No longer is he helpless; now he is “moser nefesh[8]” for his children and his faith.  He is proving to all that, in his words, “our teachings mean more to us than money.”

This mesiras nefesh, however, does not strengthen his family or make them more skillful parents.  It does not push his kehillah[9] to do a better job of stopping the virus’ spread so that schools can open and stay open.  It does not push them to address the stresses of today’s Orthodox families.  It is an escape to a pretend world in which we can imagine ourselves heroic martyrs battling an old, familiar enemy.  It is an indulgence in the fantasy that financial martyrdom is the sufficient and laudable response to whatever problems we face.

As a mechaneches[10] I feel obligated to remind us that there is actually a very real world with very real dangers and challenges, and the Torah places upon us the very real responsibility to face them without flinching and to identify new solutions in accordance with Torah values.  The Neviim[11] were actually very explicit that merely sacrificing huge quantities of expensive property at the Bais Hamikdosh[12] is the easy way out; changing our ways, as individuals and as communities, is the hard work that the Creator values.  To paraphrase them, we ought to be prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable; conducting ourselves with utmost integrity; valuing justice over power; and having the courage to face adversity without turning to the nevi’ei sheker[13] telling us what we wish to hear.  To save lives rather than to risk them.  To take responsibility rather than to shift blame.  To honor our elders rather than put them in danger.  To conduct ourselves honorably rather than draw the ire of public officials upon ourselves.  These are standards to which we should hold ourselves and one another.

Anonymous, by the way, is not the first father to commit an illegal and highly irresponsible action when an opportunity arises to do what he perceives to be in the best interest of his children.  The school unethically used its perceived moral authority to convince him to ignore his conscience.  His choice can be understood, but not justified, and certainly not emulated.  This is all very, very not okay.

[1] Pray (Yiddish)

[2] Prayer

[3] This focus is itself worth exploring.

[4] Education

[5] Imagine if the model of chosson or kallah classes were adapted as parent classes for couples blessed with their first child.  What an additional blessing if it became the norm for first time parents to learn from a non-judgmental teacher about basic principles like a child’s need for attachment, love, security, and structure, especially if that person were available over the years to coach and support them.

[6] Plexiglass does not replace social distancing and is ineffective against aerosolized droplets.

[7] Stumbling block

[8] Self-sacrifice

[9] Community

[10] Jewish educator

[11] Prophets

[12] Temple

[13] False prophets

 

About the Author:
Dr. Shani Bechhofer is an independent Jewish education consultant and researcher in Monsey, NY. In addition to working with schools on strategic leadership, training and coaching principals, evaluating agency and foundation programs, and researching the Bais Yaakov movement, she is a local community advocate for good government and intercultural dialogue in Ramapo, NY.
Related Topics

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/hosting-illegal-yeshiva-in-his-basement-response/?fbclid=IwAR0Ru4fClXyaBJgynVKcMTDHZSfizbho5Ou-a5cZ-pfdpaq5HRkoF7qH1uQ

Thursday, November 12, 2020

For millions of people, a dark cloud had been lifted. A majority of American voters had rejected a cynical manipulation that sowed division and fear.

 

Rabbi Yosef Blau

The ethical cost of Jewish communal support for Donald Trump 

 

Orthodox Jews can defend their support of Trump in several ways, but they risk losing themselves if they commit to this kind of problematic personality for the long run.

As my wife and I sat down for Shabbat lunch, we heard the sounds of a celebration. We sensed that the networks had announced that Biden had won. After Shabbat ended, we learned that similar spontaneous celebrations had taken place around the country.

For millions of people, a dark cloud had been lifted. A majority of American voters had rejected a cynical manipulation that sowed division and fear.

* * *

After the election, we do well to consider why a choice was made, as the process itself can have ongoing implications.

President Donald Trump is a polarizing figure. The Jewish voters split their votes as a result of wildly differing attitudes toward his candidacy. In Israel, polls showed overwhelming support, reflecting the feeling that he was a consistent proponent of the policies of the Israeli government. Many Orthodox Jews in America agreed with this evaluation. Some Orthodox Jews supported Trump because of his approach to religion and state and his appointment of conservative judges. They considered these valid reasons to vote for him.

But many Jewish voters were disturbed by his personality. Trump openly defied accepted norms of behavior. He was crude and rude, disparaging those who opposed him and using name-calling instead of arguments. Cynically assuming that all are corrupt, he had no compunction about using his position for personal gain. Trump has been accused of serious sexual misbehavior, as well as financial illegalities.

Politics, for Trump, is a form of war where winning is all that matters. He sees life in transactional terms. He will support the policies desired by religious denominations, while not conducting himself in accord with their expectations of upright behavior. Trump prides himself as a businessman who beat the system. He went bankrupt many times, yet never personally paid the price.

Many of his Jewish supporters acknowledge these character faults, but argue that the policy gains outweigh them. Yet it is embarrassing to justify supporting a candidate because one benefits from his positions on issues that are particularly important to the voter, while knowing that the candidate’s flaws hurt others. Rather than appear uncaring, one easily resorts to explaining that these perceived flaws are not really as serious as they seem, and are even virtues when viewed from a different perspective. In Israel, no one wants to be a freier, which is loosely defined as a sucker, incapable of playing the system, who instead abides by the system’s rules. Someone who has successfully avoided paying taxes, has refrained from paying bills, and emerges stronger from falling business is seen as a winner.

A significant Haredi rabbi explained Trump’s crudity as normal for the rich. Perhaps an alternate rationale for excusing Trump’s behavior is that a non-Jew can do what he wishes, and not worry about criticism. Moreover, if dishonesty is a given, being open about dividing the world between supporters and enemies — who don’t deserve proper treatment — is an expression of authenticity. Since the other politicians are equally corrupt, Trump gets credit for not being a hypocrite.

In broader circles, knowing that Trump is vengeful, his followers have learned to accept his reality. We are witnessing, post-election, Trump essentially refusing to accept defeat. He asserts fraud without providing proof because it is inconceivable that the majority of voters chose his opponent, whom he had derided, and not him.

Pragmatic political alliances should not replace moral and ethical standards. When a religious community becomes committed to a problematic personality for practical gains, it risks losing its fundamental character. Mentalities develop over time and can become entrenched. Yet a single event will not by itself lead to national change. It may be an inflection point. Religious leaders may begin to reconsider a transactional relationship with government and show concern for decency and ethical and moral standards. In Israel, there may be a realization that the anti-freier doesn’t always win.

We hope that this support of Trump has been a unique situation and the religious leadership will communicate that it is limited; otherwise the future damage will outweigh the benefits.

About the Author: Rabbi Yosef Blau is the Senior Mashgiach Ruchani (spiritual advisor) at Yeshiva University, and a partial resident in Jerusalem. 
 
 
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-ethical-cost-of-jewish-communal-support-for-donald-trump/?fbclid=IwAR1AV2Aw2xIqrsAKtR8jkKhVyc7NMyZwVoN8nxh43tSixTGWIFG_cSxrHlY