Rabbi Dearest

I was all set to post on something else, but I took a little time to read some stuff while I ate my sandwich (typing is tough with a fist full of lunch), and I came across this column by Janet Tassel on WorldNetDaily's commentary page. It's an open letter to her Rabbi, and it's beautifully written. She captures so much of what's in my heart about what's happening in our society, except that her concern is for where Judaism is going and mine is for Christianity.

Dearest Rabbi,

Do you remember when Alice fell down the rabbit-hole? She was mystified, scared, disoriented – she had no fixed pole of geographical or lexical or moral reference. Well, dear friend, I'm afraid that is how I feel.

I seem to be in a place where words don't mean what they are supposed to mean. Like Alice, I feel "dreadfully puzzled," for the English language is beginning to feel as if it has "no sort of meaning in it." And that does make one feel quite the outsider. I would turn to you, both because, unmoored as I seem to be, I need the fixed moral compass that I would have hoped Judaism would provide, and because you are such a mensch, so sympathetic and good-humored. But alas, old friend, there you are on the other side of the table at the mad tea-party, your loving arms around all the screwballs, with nary a care for me.

I won't post the whole column, even though it deserves to be read in its entirety. Just a couple more excerpts.

So what's a Jew to do? Where do I go to get Truth? Words that mean what they say? I mean, beyond Leviticus, beyond the Sifra – Reform Judaism has effectively discarded those useless dregs anyway. Do I have to go to Chabad to find a rabbi – or anyone – willing to talk about virtue and discipline, about innocence, modesty and chastity; to say here is where the nonsense and obfuscation stop; to say that, whatever the law of the state may be for now, we consider it alien to Judaism, and the culture that nourishes it pagan and life-denying; who will say to our brother or sister homosexual: Here in this synagogue, we love you as a person, whatever you may be doing privately (and please, please keep it private) but you are asking too much when you insist we "celebrate" your "self-affirming" lifestyle, and we absolutely refuse to grant you license to indoctrinate our children.

For "Here in this synagogue," I could just as easily substitute, "Here in this church."

Faith needs to mean something, or it means nothing at all.

As I write this, the United Church of Christ is holding its biennial synod in Atlanta. There, at this moment, they are affirming gay marriage, of course. But more to the point, they are discussing (no, not North Korea, Rwanda, or Sudan) how to divest – in a nice, respecting-differences kind of way – from companies "involved with Israel's occupation, security fence construction, and settlements." This comes barely three weeks after the Massachusetts Conference of the United Methodist Church (another of your interfaith partners) voted to divest, and one week after our friends the Anglicans did the same, a year after the Precursor, the Presbyterian Church..

This at the very moment our beloved Israel is tearing itself into bloody shreds, trying to please and placate all the well-meaning Christians in the world, and the less well-meaning Muslims, of course – as well as the many Jews who are far from depressed at the spectacle, or even at the catastrophe to follow, God forbid. Do I have to remind you who, apart from the survivors and the deeply observant, will be the only ones wearing sackcloth and ashes? Why, those rubes in the dreaded religious right.

Yes, this rube in the dreaded religious right will be wearing sackcloth and ashes if Israel tears itself into bloody shreds, God forbid. Read the whole column (link here). It's a must-read.