Now, for the first time in 500 years, people utterly ignorant of the Bible still think of themselves as educated. Stop the defensiveness already.
During November, the head of the Anti-Defamation League declared Christians to be the enemies of Jews. “Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview, to Christianize America, to save us!” he said. He proceeded to name names: “Major players include Focus on the Family. Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association, Family Research Council and more. They and other groups have established new organizations and church-based networks, and built infrastructure throughout the country designed to promote traditional Christian values.”Where do these traditional Christian values come from? Why, from the Bible of course. Remember that book? The one God gave to the Israelites at Mount Sinai a little over 3,000 years ago. Would you tell me please which ‘traditional Christian values” could be opposed by any Jew who took the Torah seriously? In attacking Torah values, the ADL’s leader clearly indicates that his organization is driven by Democratic Party doctrine, not by Jewish values. Jewish values derive from the Bible. But one isn’t supposed to say that.
Have you noticed? In a weird sort of Alice-in-Wonderland reversal of reality, people now utter apologetic disclaimers whenever they quote something Biblical. It wasn’t so long ago that failing to incorporate Biblical metaphors into your conversation labeled you an ignoramus. Now, for the first time in 500 years, people utterly ignorant of the Bible still think of themselves as educated.
Stop the defensiveness already. Whether Jew or Christian, you need to know this book. It is the only book never to be out of print since 1452 when it became the first book ever printed. It is the book in which is enshrined the moral code of western civilization. It is the book which inspired Isaac Newton to probe and reveal secrets of science. It is the book that encouraged Oliver Cromwell to rebel against King Charles 1.
It is the book which stirred Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write, “In the Bible I have found words for my inmost thoughts, songs for my joy, utterances for my hidden griefs.” It is the book from which sprang the Founders’ vision for America. It is your legacy. Know it and quote from it.
I told you all that only so I could tell you this: Biblical morality declares peace to be more important even than truth. Or to put it a bit more accurately, peace is one of the elements that defines truth. If you didn’t understand this, you’d have to accept that God lies. In fact, God appears to have lied to none other than His first devotee, our father Abraham. Here is what happened.
In Genesis chapter 18, God’s angel informed one-hundred-year-old Abraham that during the following year, his ninety-year-old wife, Sarah would have a son. The next verse reads: “Now Sarah was listening from behind the door.” This is followed by Sarah laughing to herself at the very notion of an elderly couple having a son. She explicitly says in verse twelve, “…and my husband is far too old.”
God seems to lie in the very next verse, distorting what made Sarah laugh. “And God said to Abraham, ‘why did Sarah laugh at the news saying ‘How could I give birth with me as old as I am? ” God told Abraham that Sarah laughed at her own age. In fact, she didn’t laugh at the thought of her own age as much as she laughed at her husband being too old. That is exactly what she said in verse twelve . Yet God changed the facts when He reported Sarah’s laughter to Abraham.
Ancient Jewish wisdom points out that the Bible is a moral guide not a history book. Thus it teaches humanity that peace, in this case between husband and wife, is more important than recitation of facts. What is more, it explains that an ultimately truthful report would have to take into account how horrified Sarah would have been had she embarrassed her husband. For this reason, God reported Sarah’s laughter as having been the result of contemplating her own age rather than doubting her husband’s virility.
That is how important peace is to Judaism. Peace isn’t the highest value of all; it can’t be pursued, for example, at the price of betrayal, defeat, or dishonor. But gratuitously picking fights and encouraging disharmony is abhorrent. Doing so to one’s friends is even worse. Peace between American Jew and American Christian is not only achievable, it is a beautiful reality. If you think about it, this peace is an amazing historic development. But more importantly, it is a brotherhood of destiny. What on earth motivates those so-called Jewish organizations who jeopardize it?
If America is to prevail against Islamic terror and once again save Western civilization, American Jews and American Christians must link arms. This great struggle which threatens to plunge, not just Europe but the whole world back into darkness and primitivism is ultimately a struggle between the culture of the Koran and the twin civilizations of the Bible. Only if we, who sprang from the Bible, stand firm can we hope to prevail.
If America is to stand with Israel, American Jews and Americans Christian must link arms. The Washington Post reported how Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of the evangelical American Family Association, warned in a Dec. 5th 2005 radio broadcast that Foxman was fighting the very people who are the strongest supporters of Israel. “The more he says that ‘you people are destroying this country,’ you know, some people are going to begin to get fed up with this and say, ‘Well, all right then. If that’s the way you feel, then we just won’t support Israel anymore.’ “ I know Don Wildmon and he is a philo-Semitic supporter of Israel. He is not saying that he will stop loving Jews and Israel. He is warning that many people finally tire of being endlessly kicked by those they considered their friends, and eventually change their minds.
If America is to restore its culture, banish vulgarity, and resist those who would remake it in Europe’s image, American Jews and American Christians must link arms.
In the face of these mighty challenges, Mr. Foxman of the ADL, and Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Reform Jewish movement see fit to try and destroy peace between American Christian and American Jew. In mid-November, Rabbi Yoffie insisted that anyone who opposes homosexuality is like Hitler. That is right, Rabbi Yoffie is saying that adhering to the words of Leviticus makes me a Nazi!
Mr. Foxman denounced by name, organizations like Focus on the Family. Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association, and Family Research Council. I have spoken for these fine organizations on numerous occasions. Whenever I have done so, my speeches were Torah-based words of an Orthodox rabbi. These organizations which Mr. Foxman not so subtly suggests are anti-Jewish applauded my remarks. I have broadcast and socialized with Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; he is a Bible-loving supporter of Israel and friend of the Jewish people. Alan Sears, the head of Alliance Defense Fund is a dear friend and is deeply committed to Biblical values. His organization does outstanding work and is supported by many members of Toward Tradition as indeed it ought to be. The American Family Association and Family Research Council both stand for the basic unit of social organization—the family. What Jew committed to Jewish values would not support these excellent organizations that advocate for the life model recommended by the Bible?
Peace is a foundational Jewish value. Those who try to bring about peace and maintain it are acting in accordance with Biblical values. Those who undermine it and attempt to replace it with enmity are acting in accordance with some other set of values. I am not sure what it is but I am sure it isn’t Jewish.
The short answer to Rabbi Lapin’s question is:
It is only by stirring emotions and fostering suspicion, that groups such as the Anti-Defamation League can crank up the money machine—which is the life’s blood of special interest organizations.
Abraham Foxman is a bigot and hate-monger. After the ADL published (in 1994) a book, titled, The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America, many national board members across the country resigned the organization in disgust. Foxman speaks of “tolerance” but not for others. The ADL does not speak for the majority of Jews any more than the NAACP speaks for all Blacks. These organizations are quickly becoming irrelevant. Notice that when such groups hold community-wide fundraising events, many of the attendees are not from within the host groups, but rather from the community at large–concerned about their image and that of their businesses by withholding support from these “victimization specialists.”
It is all about victimhood and fundraising. Foxman is a senile sensationalist and should be removed from heading what is actually a left-wing political action committee.
Fortunately, studies indicate growing numbers of the Jewish faith are finding a home not only in the Republican party, but in the conservative wing of the GOP. Witness Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Mona Charen, Rabbi Lapin, John Podhoretz and William Kristol among many others. Ken Mehlman, the head of the Republican National Committee is also Jewish.
The ADL has been about the differences between Jew and non-Jew since its creation at the end of WWII. At that time, it was a reactionary movement of quite rightly angry Jews who felt they had been too long abused by European and American ‘Christians’ and, later, abandoned by them to the depravity of the Holocaust and Stalinist purges. Of course, it was not Christians, per se, who perpetrated either the purges or the Holocaust, but it was the socialist movements growing out of Western culture that were to blame. That was a period of madness so terrible that it has drastically altered the Judeo-Christian landscape. The strong bond that exists today between Christian and Jew, particularly American Christians and Jews, is a direct result of those events and the cultural revulsion that came out of them. Today, the kind of bigotry typical of that era is burned away. But, it is all too easy to forget how pervasive such bigotry was in this country not so long ago, and of which many ‘good’ Christians were guilty. Nor were Jews blameless in the game of bigotry. Despised by white-Christians, we Jews did our share of despising the WASP, the Italian, the Irish, the black, the Chinese, and the Hispanic; and had special names for each. Blacks, Chinese, and Hispanics returned bigotry for bigotry, and it could be dangerous for white or Jew to venture into the ghettoized neighborhoods of another.
The ADL was born at the moment such open bigotry was being transformed into something more diffuse. The KKK and similar openly antagonistic groups were falling into disrepute and finding they had to conceal the identities of members. Yet, bigotry and race-based injustice was sufficiently part of the landscape that the ADL was a suitable vehicle for change. Churches and newspapers overwhelmingly allied themselves with the new movement and against bigotry; and the racist pulpit became more the exception than the norm in large parts of the country. The avowed object for creating the ADL was to fight back against any further abuse against Jews, and the ADL can be credited for bring some of the worst offenders to heel and for changing the perception of the Jew as a low form of life. But, also, it became a champion for blacks, minorities, laborers, and women.
With success, however, there came the problem of changing roles. From champion to watchdog is a step downward. The ADL today is a very small voice in the world. They are greatly overshadowed by organizations like the NAACP, NOW, ACLU, Greenpeace, &c, many of whom have roots in or are modeled on the ADL. Thus, some of their shriller, radical pronouncements may be seen as a kind of “me too” activism”.
Of course, there is a strong philosophical connection between Jew and Christian that is more than superficial. The earliest Christians were Jews or converts to Judaism. Christianity, unlike Islam, is squarely and unreservedly based on the Jewish Bible; with the only substantial addition being the deification of Christ. Thus, there is little philosophical tension (other than the man-god business), and only an historical tension exists between the two creeds. Islam, by comparison, tries to co-opt the Jewish and Christian Bibles without being tied down by their most basic premises; that God loves all his children and holds all of us to the same standard of behavior. Islam pits believer against unbeliever and brother against brother in a way that only brings Christian and Jew together for mutual support. Without this antagonism and with an equal tolerance for pluralism, the relation that has grown between Jew and Christian would easily extend to Muslims. The loyalty of Christian for Jew and Israel is, therefore, as much about preserving the gains of pluralism as it is about common philosophical heritage, a heritage open to Muslims willing to put aside such differences.
There will always be people like Foxman in the world; those who define themselves by how they are different, how they are treated, how they would force others into roles defined by his conception of us. In so doing, Foxman becomes the thing he detests: the bigot, the one who pits brother against brother. In his anger against Christians, he threatens to undo the past good his organization has achieved in bringing us together. Perhaps, he has been captured by his own sense of injustice, chained to a program that has already gone passed its zenith.