Fill the Evangelical Vacuum

I waited my whole life to turn 40 because of the Talmud's promise of wisdom. I was tired of being a flawed man of promise, an imperfect composite of seriousness and some silliness, insight and ignorance. I wanted to live life in the illuminated spaces, immunized against folly and resistant to error. I waited for wisdom to cover me like a shield, to finally provide me with as much guidance in my own life as I tried to provide others in theirs.

Only, it didn't come. As I turn 41 next week, I look back at the year that passed and remain amazed (ashamed?) that so many of my inbred flaws remain so tightly fastened to me. Wisdom has not pried them loose.

What went wrong? If the pinnacle of wisdom is the discernment that life must be dedicated to a cause higher than oneself, than I have fallen short because I have not transcended a desire for recognition. To be sure, I devote my life to healing shattered hearts and mending broken spirits. But, as Harry Truman said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. " Alas, I still care, even if it is much less than before.

But perhaps the meaning of the rabbinic saying that with 40 comes wisdom is that it comes in one giant nugget, one great truth, which is life-changing. For me, it was the knowledge of what it is that I truly want to be.

LIKE MOST people, I am the aggregate of many disparate parts. But 40 revealed to me my innermost desire, my irreducible essence, and it is this: the desire to serve as an exponent of Jewish values. I now know that whatever credit I want for my work, I want Judaism to get even more. A baton of continuity was been handed to me as a member of my people, and I wish to ensure that the light of Judaism burns more brightly because I once held its torch.

The time for spreading Jewish values to a global audience is now; the epoch of Judaism as a great light is finally upon us. And we must all join in spreading its radiance.

Last week Pat Robertson surprised the American electorate by endorsing Rudy Giuliani for president. How could America's best-known evangelical leader back a candidate who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights?

For three decades, opposition to abortion and gay marriage have constituted the predominant American religious definition of moral values, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. But here is the foremost evangelical leader acknowledging that morality is so much more.

For the past two years I discussed the subject of humility with Rev. Robertson for a book he was writing. Robertson is a great defender of Israel, a sincere friend of the Jewish people, and a formidable Bible scholar.

I made the case to him that the emphasis on these two issues was harming America. That the divorce rate was at 50 percent. That exploitation of women for commercial interests is central to the culture. And that an unbridled lust for money was making America into a nation of shallow materialists. But all of this was being ignored as we focused on gays and embryos.

The rise of Giuliani, with his refusal to follow Mitt Romney in pandering to evangelical morals, bespeaks an American weariness of these over-hashed issues and a thirst for a more holistic set of values. But now that the repudiation of evangelical morality has left a gaping hole, who and what are to fill the vacuum? Enter the world's oldest monotheistic faith and the earth's most family-oriented community.

IN ALL history, there have been only two individuals who have believed that Judaism had something profound to say to the mainstream, non-Jewish world. The first was Paul of Tarsus. The second, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Paul somehow believed that pagans would warm to the Jewish message of one God and the spiritual demands of a faith-based life. But in order to make that message more palatable, Paul made what we Jews consider unacceptable accommodations, namely, deifying Christ and deemphasizing ritual and acts in favor of faith.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, by contrast, was the first Jewish personality with a worldwide following to talk about bringing unadulterated biblical values to a mainstream non-Jewish audience. The Rebbe hammered the point repeatedly during his internationally televised speeches. Yet, it remains the one aspect of his visionary program that Chabad, after his death, has all but ignored.

Indeed, last weekend's International Conference of Chabad's Worldwide emissaries, which offered panels on subject as diverse as campus activities to life insurance policies, did not provide for a single discussion on bringing Judaism to mainstream, non-Jewish culture.

And yet there is no more effective method of inspiring Jews to reembrace their tradition than to demonstrate its mainstream, universal application to a world that is sorely in need of healing.

America needs new values. Judaism can provide them.

We should begin with a program to make the Jewish Sabbath a mainstream American tradition. Nothing could benefit the American polity more than a single day a week in which phones, electronics and, above all, the TV are turned off. Husbands and wives would start communicating. Parents and children would start playing. Men and women would start reading. And fragmented communities would start coalescing.

WE KNOW how do to everything in America except get along, and it is becoming clear that the loving glue that had people gravitating toward one another is now being undone by the dangerous antimatter of mindless electronic escapism and impulse purchases. Let the Sabbath be the new social glue that counteracts the obsession with movie theaters and shopping malls.

I can see a national campaign of newspaper advertisements and classes in synagogues and JCCs around the country, offered specifically for non-Jews, to discover the treasure that is the Jewish Sabbath. I can see books and articles encouraging families all across America to invite five friends over for a weekly Friday night meal that encourages both hospitality and serious conversations, a renaissance of salons of the past. And through the shared experience of a holy day, we might all just become wiser and more enlightened.

The writer's upcoming book is The Broken American Male. He has just launched The Jewish Values Network.' www.shmuley.com

Comments

[Schaz]

NABNYC puts it well.

I'll be honest -- on reading "America needs new values. Judaism can provide them.", which the rest of the post serves to argue, my first thought was, "How is that really any different from Coulter saying we should all be Christian?"

[NABNYC]

We have a civil society, not a theocracy.

Our government exists as a civil institution. Its responsibility is to collect taxes, then allocate those funds to pay for building roads and bridges, contributing to the schools, helping the people, paying for defense. That's it. Our government has no responsibility to provide for the religious instruction of the people. That is a private matter.

Unfortunately we have a terrible confusion in this country by which politicians and religions have attached themselves to each other, each intending to gain more power and influence, but the effect of which is to tarnish both.

I don't care who Pat Robertson "endorses" to run for political office. He should spend more time praying and trying to solve the riddle of why he is such a nasty pathetic hateful human being, and spend less time trying to corrupt my government.

As far as Guiliani goes, who cares who endorses him. He's a liar, a cheat, associates with criminals. Do you really think he was unaware of Kerrick's activities? He not only contributed to or caused the deaths of many of New York City's finest, he then turned around and set up his own businesses and used insider information to profit from the 9/11 tragedy. He is a bad person.

As far as values go, this is not really a religious issue. Values generally consist of those things we all accept as important to a happy life: good health, food, shelter, work, family, friends. A fair and just society free of corruption. Leaders who do not accept bribes to sell out their own people. Unfortunately so few religions ever even approach talking about these true values, the things we need in order to live, and instead focus on minutia that divides us based on gender, race, or heritage.

I wish to God that religion would stay out of my government. I'm so sick of the corruption to both institutions from this very ill-advised association.

[Advocate123]

I guess Winston Churchill read the Talmud.

If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart.
If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.
- Winston Churchill

Advocate123
http://copiousdissent.blogspot.com

[Desiderata]

I'm glad you are so in touch with your faith, Rabbi; but have you done any market research to determine if enough people would be willing to invest in your ideas or be frightened away by them?

[Lon]

Are you really suggesting that Robertson supported Guiliani because he does not pander to evangelical values? That seems to be the suggestion here, but it is a rather silly one.

My guess is that Robertson endorsed Guiliani because he thinks he is the only one that could beat Hilary Clinton next year, and he sees Clinton as a greater threat to evangelical values (or perhaps just to his personal fortunes) than Guiliani. That might be wrong, but it makes a lot more sense than the idea that he supports Guiliani because of his break from evangelicalism rather than in spite of it.