On Rabbis, Religion and North Carolina Politics

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-daniel-greyber/on-rabbis-religion-and-no_b_3569433.html

Rabbi Daniel Greyber
Rabbi, Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina

Abortion. Moral Mondays. It is one of those times when there is no neutral, when to keep silent also speaks. What's a rabbi in North Carolina to do? Here is what I shared with my congregation this past Saturday:

A friend said to me this week, "You're our rabbi. We're looking to you for some guidance, some inspiration." It was July 4, 2011 when we arrived to Durham from Israel -- two years and two days ago. I am still getting used to the idea that you want me, who reads the same newspapers as you do, to say something about what is happening in those newspapers. To be honest, as I expressed to the congregation during my interview process, I am not really an activist rabbi and this part of the job probably makes me the most uncomfortable, not only because, while I consider myself well-read and try to keep up with what is happening in the news, there are many people in the congregation who are considerably more well-versed in North Carolina politics than I, but also because the whole mixing of religion and politics is fraught with danger, both for politics and religion.

First, religion can stifle political debate. I don't want a society in which politicians make decisions about issues affecting our State by quoting scripture. I love the bible but too often it is a conversation stopper. Someone quotes a verse -- what else is there to say? Too often the use of religious language stops, rather than engenders, the debate that I believe is how we arrive at wisdom. My teacher, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, wrote in his book, To Do the Right and the Good: A Jewish Approach to Modern Social Ethics:

I believe in the Aristotelian model for attaining social wisdom -- namely, that all views should be aired in the marketplace of ideas, with none given a priori authority...I would seek to determine America's commonalities in thought and values inductively, testing for agreement amid the diversity of traditions and attitudes brought to the table. This approach also parallels both the method and "the sound and fury" of each page of the Talmud, where multiple opinions must be heard and evaluated before a decision is made...

In debating critical societal matters, religion should play a role, but I don't think it should play the trump card that it too often does.

more at link

[trotsky]

1. The rabbi echoes what I've been saying in this group (and getting flak for), for years.

However where we part company is this:

So, while I don't want to live in a world where leaders make public policy decisions by quoting scripture or declaring themselves to be morally superior, I also don't want to live in a world where our society makes decisions absent the wisdom of thousands of years old religious traditions.

Why should only "thousands of years old religious traditions" be considered? Christianity isn't quite yet 2000 years old, does it count? Islam is only about 1400 years old, I guess that certainly doesn't.

If I were truly cynical (and I am), I would say that Rabbi Greyber appears to have found a way to have HIS "religious traditions" be part of the equation, but nobody else's.