It wasn’t very long ago that the idea of government funds helping parents who choose private religious schools for their children was anathema. That’s blessedly no longer the case. To read about what may lie on the horizon, please click here.
Category Archives: Politics
Scandal With CAIR
On a recent Friday night, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held its “30th anniversary gala” in Washington, DC. Too bad you probably missed it.
Something the celebrants didn’t know was that some bad news (at least for them) lay on the horizon. To read what it was, please click here.
Wolves, Wolves Everywhere
With all the wacky wokey warriors spewing hatred for Israel and Jews on college campuses and city streets, one could be forgiven for not noticing the proliferation of anti-Semites on the other end of the political spectrum.
But they’re there, and, in a way, more threatening. You can read about some of them here.
A Chance for Parents to Opt for Religious Schools
A piece I wrote about the future of school choice is here.
Thank You, President Biden
In the maelstrom of what passes for political discourse these days, the Jewish imperative of hakaras hatov is too often missing in action. A piece I wrote about the outgoing administration is here.
Ha’azinu — When Bravado is Banned
It’s odd that, when Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua transmit the shirah of Haazinu to the people, the Torah refers to Yehoshua as Hoshea (Devarim 32:44), his original name. Moshe, of course, had changed his eventual successor’s name 40 years earlier.
Rashi and others suggest that the use of Yehoshua’s original name alludes to the fact that, even as he was about to become the leader of Klal Yisrael, Yehoshua’s original name is used to show that he maintained the humility that had always been part of his character.
A twist on that observation is suggested by Meshulam Fayish Tzvi Gross (who had a weekly chavrusa in Kabbalah with Rav Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn; and who, as Herman Gross, patented several inventions).
In his sefer Nachalas Tzvi, Rabbi Gross calls attention to the differential of circumstances between when Moshe changed Yehoshua’s name and when, in our parshah, the latter’s original name is employed.
When Hoshea bin Nun was faced with the need to stand up to the other scouts of Eretz Cna’an, to have the independence, clearheadedness and courage necessary to state the facts about the land, Then, Moshe was telling Hoshea, who was exceedingly humble (as Sifri in Shelach notes), to recognize his greatness, his ability to oppose the other meraglim’s report, to not succumb to peer pressure, to have full confidence in himself.
Moshe expressed his hope that Hashem would aid him in that. And so he added a hint to Hashem’s name to Hoshea’s – saying, “May Hashem save you from the intrigue of the scouts” (Sotah 34b).
Now, though, as Moshe is preparing Yehoshua to lead the people into Eretz Yisrael, posits Rabbi Gross, the Torah uses Yehoshua’s original name pointedly, as a message to him – that the independence and bravado that were necessary back when the land was being scouted are not longer needed for – in fact, in a sense diametric to – the assumption of leadership.
A true leader needs what was Yehoshua’s essence: humility.
It’s a lesson that most contemporary leaders seem ignorant of, and would do well to absorb.
© 2024 Rabbi Avi Shafran
SAVE is Moot
Marta, a Honduran noncitizen immigrant who lives in a suburban Atlanta apartment complex, just wanted the two men who appeared at her door and said they were there to help Latinos navigate the election system “to go away.” Fearing she might be deported if she said the wrong thing, when they asked her if she had registered to vote, she just answered yes, hoping that would satisfy them.
It did indeed, though not the way she thought. The men, who surreptitiously videotaped the encounter, were working with the Heritage Foundation on a quest to reveal the extent of noncitizen voting, which is illegal (other than in a few local municipalities for local offices). The group eventually posted a video showing Marta and other noncitizens who also said they had registered to vote.
In truth, though, Marta (who, for obvious reasons, did not want her surname to be publicized) was not registered to vote and had never tried to register in the nine years that she had lived in the United States, according to a private fact-checking group brought in to investigate. Two other women who were featured in the video were also tracked down and confessed to having lied about registering to vote. State investigators found no evidence that any of the seven people on the tape had ever registered to vote.
Nevertheless, the video concluded that, “Based on our findings, the integrity of the 2024 election is in great jeopardy.” Elon Musk, X’s owner, helped the video go viral (it amassed more than 56 million views).
The issue of noncitizens preparing to vote in droves in November is on the political front burner. It has, in fact, held up approval of the federal budget. Because, appended to the budget proposal has been the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” or SAVE, which would require voters to present proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, in order to be able to vote.
Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson failed to pass a six-month extension of government funding with the measure, insisted upon by former President Trump and many Republican members of Congress, attached. Early this week, Congressional leaders reached an agreement (without a SAVE component) to keep the government working for three months, pushing final budget decisions until after the election.
Politics aside, though, the SAVE provision seems sane. Noncitizens should not be permitted to vote.
And they are not. There is already a federal law that penalizes any noncitizen who tries to vote. Illegally voting in a federal election can land a violator in prison for a year, and a noncitizen found guilty of voting faces deportation and denial of future immigration status. That, opponents of SAVE contend, is more than sufficient deterrent.
And SAVE’s requirement to prove citizenship, they add, would disenfranchise millions of voters. Less than half of Americans hold passports, and obtaining birth certificates, which few people have handy, can be time-consuming and requires payment of a fee.
But whether those critics are correct or not, is noncitizen voting a problem in the first place?
According to the libertarian Cato Institute’s Walter Olson, “Those who levy sensational charges [of widespread illegal voting] should bear the burden of proving them. But they haven’t.”
Even the Heritage Foundation itself has documented only 23 cases of noncitizens voting – over the course of two decades.
There have been glitches, though. Oregon’s DMV has revealed that, due to a “data entry issue,” it mistakenly registered at least 306 non-citizens as voters since 2021. The error was caught, though, before any of those registrants had a chance to try to vote.
More than any previous presidential election season, this one’s fuel seems to be fomenting fear. Each candidate doesn’t just tout his or her accomplishments or qualifications, and doesn’t just attack the opponent’s. Each claims that if he or she loses the election, the country will be destroyed, pushed off the brink into dictatorship or anarchy or fascism.
And unfounded fears of things like noncitizens voting en masse ratchet up the fear factor.
Despite all the panic-purveying, though, and whoever wins, let’s hope that, post-election, the republic will not only, b’ezras Hashem, survive but thrive.
© 2024 Ami Magazine
Pondering the Season – Electoral and Jewish
You probably think that there isn’t anything that an impending presidential election might have to say to us about the aseres yimei teshuvah. Ah, but there is.
Those of us old enough to have been observers of politics back in 2004 might recall the now largely-forgotten “Dean Scream.” Howard Dean, then the governor of Vermont, was seeking the Democratic nomination for President. He blew his chances in a matter of seconds.
It was at the end of an address that, in an attempt to show his enthusiasm, he let loose a roar somewhere between a jihadi war cry and a leafblower. That decision to express himself in that way left the public – a public that, at the time, still expected a degree of decorum from candidates – wide-eyed with something other than wonder. Some called it the candidate’s “I Have a Scream” speech.
Then there were other blown-in-a-moment presidential campaigns, like that of Maine governor and four-term Senator Edmund Muskie, who, in 1972, defending his wife’s reputation, seemed to shed tears, which some American voters felt disqualified him. There was also Gary Hart’s 1988 marital indiscretion (ah, times were so different back then) and, the same year, Michael Dukakis’s donning of an ill-fitting combat helmet, which helped sink his bid for the White House.
See where I’m going? No? Understandable. Let me spell it out.
Every one of us, too, in our personal lives, comes face to face at times with opportunities of our own that, wrongly handled, can lead to places we don’t want to go. And, rightly handled, benefit our spiritual growth.
And we are vying for something much more important than a mere nomination for public office. We’re in the race to fulfill our missions in this world.
In the bustle of everyday life, it is all too easy to forget that decisions we make, sometimes almost unthinkingly, might be crucial ones, that seemingly minor forks in the roads of our lives can, as Robert Frost famously put it, make all the difference.
Seizing an opportunity to do something good changes one’s world. Letting the opportunity go by unaddressed – which is also choice, after all – does the same. Offering an encouraging word can make a great difference. Doing the opposite can be as self-destructive as Howard Dean’s scream.
As Chazal teach us, “One can acquire his universe” – the one that counts: the world-to-come – or, chalilah, “destroy” it “in a single moment.”
We can even, through sheer determination, create our own critical moments. Consider the case of the “conditional husband.”
A Jewish marriage is effected by the proposal of a man to a woman – the declaration of the woman’s kiddushin, or “specialness” to her husband – followed by the acceptance by the woman of a coin or item of worth from her suitor. If the declaration is made on the condition that an assertion is true, the marriage is valid only if the assertion indeed is. Thus, if a man betrothes a woman on the condition that he drives an electric car, or still has his own teeth, unless he does, they aren’t married.
The Gemara teaches that if a man conditions his offer of marriage on the fact that he is “a tzaddik,” even if the fellow’s reputation isn’t flawless, the marriage must be assumed to be valid (and requires a gett to dissolve it).
Why? Because the man “may have contemplated teshuvah” just before his proposal.
That determined choice of a moment, in other words, if sincere, would have transformed the man completely, placed him on an entirely new life-road. The lesson is obvious: Each of us can transform himself or herself – at any point we choose – through sheer, sincere will.
And potentially transformative situations that present themselves are hardly uncommon. When we make a decision about where to live or what shul to attend – not to mention more obviously critical decisions like whom to marry or which schools our children will attend – we are defining our futures, and those of others. We do ourselves well when we recognize the import of our decisions, and accord them the gravity they are due.
Ksiva vachasima tovah!
© 2024 Ami Magazine
Ugly Fringes
We have Tucker Carlson to thank for creating some long-needed pan-partisan unity of late. To read how he managed that, please click here.
Slippery Slur
Did you know that the Torah says to vote for Kamala Harris? Or that she’s a radical socialist? Me neither. And what “socialism” encompasses might surprise you. You can read my thoughts on the matter here.