Mary Katherine Ham notes that dissent -- “formerly the highest form of patriotism” -- suffered a “precipitous decline in repute since the beginning of the Obama administration, a decline that in August deepened into a nosedive.” She catalogs the various things that Democratic politicians have called dissenters at town hall meetings over the past month:
[T]housands of . . . Obamacare critics flooding town halls to make their dissent known had been called "extremist mobs" by the Democratic National Committee, pawns of the insurance industry by Senator Dick Durbin, "un-American" by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, "brownshirts" by Representative Brian Baird of Washington, "manufactured" and "Astroturf" by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "evilmongers" by Senator Harry Reid, accused of "fear-mongering" by the president, and been deemed "political terrorists" by Representative Baron Hill of Indiana.
I understand the part about un-American extremist mobs, brownshirts and political terrorists, engaged in manufactured, Astroturf fear-mongering, but really -- what standing does Senator Reid have to call his fellow Americans “evilmongers?”
For that, you need a rabbi.
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, in an essay on the week’s Torah portion (“Ki Tavo”), which centers on Moses’ recitation of the blessings and cursings of obeying or disobeying the Torah’s commandments, discusses the relevance of all this to the High Holidays and a certain current political discussion:
We are almost at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We are deep in the month of Elul, the time when we prepare our minds, bodies and souls for the upcoming days of prayer, teshuvah (repentance) and renewal. Now is the moment to ask hard questions, big questions, intense questions and, at times, uncomfortable questions. . . .
I wrestled with how to approach this parasha: Should I talk about the first fruits and the blessing we say as an introduction, which acknowledges our history and connects us to our people throughout the ages? . . . Or maybe I should focus on how a lack of sensible and universal health care in and of itself is bad enough, but the spurious vitriol and lies being spewed by those opposed to it is enough to see this as a curse we are wont to have wrought on ourselves?
See what I mean? Instead of a blatantly political condemnation of “evildoers” by a senator, you need a blatantly biblical condemnation by a rabbi of the lying, vitriolic, spurious people who “spew” about the “sensible” universal health care currently on offer -- a condemnation of them as a “curse” on the rest of us, by someone whose specialty is evildoers.
We are going to have to wait until after the High Holidays to name a winner in this Obama-inspired competition, but I doubt that any of Rabbi Grater’s 999 other colleagues are going to be able to beat this.
Comments