Wednesday, September 02, 2009

From the 9 days to Elul

The month of Elul has a mystical ability to draw each and every Jew closer to his Creator. This year, many of us are still shaking from the events that occurred during the 9 days in which a number of Jews were arrested for money laundering and one bizarre horrible arrest of someone (I can't bring myself to say Jew) who was allegedly profiting from selling human organs. This person was accused of profiting from pressuring people into making an organ donation and then pocketing large sums of money for his efforts. I don’t know this person so I do not know if the accusations were truthful or not.

Sadly, we all know that there are widespread problems with religious people thinking that money laundering (among other illegal and dishonest behavior) is a great way to make money. If this was really investigated thoroughly many people would be indicted and the Minyans in the Federal Jails would continue to thrive. What I do know is that the fiction makers in our midst were hard at work trying to explain away these arrests as just another form of anti-Semitism, and of course, insisting that these accusations – even if true – were an aberration instead of the tip of an ethically challenged iceberg.

There is something else that I believe everyone completely missed. President Barack Obama truly showed his desire to turn his back on the State of Israel for the sake of his desired relationship win with the Muslim world. Obama has shown an amazing ability to produce absurd fiction in his quest for self promotion (including his “health-care” bill that will destroy the US healthcare system). Obama has shown the same lack of integrity and honesty that so many in our community are doing by not facing our own communal dishonesty head-on with the strength and light of the Torah.

We need to evaluate actions (including crimes) without the bias of considering whether or not the criminal is part of our religion. We need to shed our bias completely and strive for complete honesty. This is especially true in people’s willingness to ignore and gloss over the accusations of Rabbinical sexual abuse. Now we see that powerful influential people – including the current (pathetic) leader of the free world – are willing to do the same to us. Obama's past and relationships with biased people should have been a clear indication, but yet so many people supported this person - who now, we see, is showing his true colors. We are now stuck with a man who is truly (literally) a racist for President of the United States.

Let’s be clear. The Jewish community has a vast majority of people who are honest, kind and loving. But we are also biased in that we will do anything to avoid what we think is a “chillul-Hashem” (desecration of G-d’s name). Sadly, that means that we are not always fair in our judgments. Now Obama is showing us the same treatment and we need to wake up fast and start being fair and unbiased in all of our dealings. That may take a new generation of Rabbinical leaders and hopefully a new US President (before the US is destroyed by the current inept and incompetent administration). Let’s work on being the Light unto the Nations that we were meant to be. That includes judging actions in a fair and unbiased way.

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