Watching a Train Wreck

I love America. I know Jewish history too well to take American democracy for granted. My ancestors were among the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We were, quite literally, the wretched refuse of the old world’s teeming shores. We came to this land and this good and decent people offered us a home. I am acutely aware that I am of the very first generation of Jews, in all the millennia of Jewish history, to put my kids to bed without worry of a knock at the door in the middle of the night.

I am also acutely aware of how fragile democracy is. Democracy is a precarious balancing act. Democracy balances liberty against responsibility, freedom against discipline, the interests of the one against the needs of the many. The ancient Greek philosophers scorned democracy. How could the unlearned, unlettered masses choose leaders? So easily swayed by their passions, how could ordinary folk make wise decisions? Our Founding Fathers, on the other hand, trusted the common sense of common people. They had faith that ordinary people gathered together would come to perceive and pursue the common good. 

I’m worried about our democracy. Maybe the Greeks were right after all. As I listen to the voices in the news I hear passion, emotion, fury, but little reflection and reasoning. Americans, we are told, are angry this year. But who makes important decisions out of anger? We are presented with scapegoats – immigrants, Wall Street, China, Moslems, banks, “Obamacare,” Planned Parenthood, or even government itself. The world’s intricate complexity is reduced to simplistic formulae, “Build a wall!” “Break up the banks!” “Expel the illegal’s!” “Defund and Repeal!” The Bible warns: Beware of binary thinking -- Us/Them. Our People/Those People. The Chosen/The Damned. Beware. Binary thinking is so easy and so tempting. It confirms our resentments, feeds our rage, raises our zeal. It is so easily manipulated. It blinds us and it binds us.

In the Torah we will read this week, the people Israel build a Golden Calf. “Make us a god who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.” (Ex 32:1) Moses is enraged. But more, he is disappointed. The Calf was purely a projection of their fear. It is a symbol that they are still slaves within; bound to their fears and unable to imagine a life of freedom.  Fear, Moses understood, is the enemy of freedom.

America needs two strong political parties. We need strong, smart Democrats and strong, smart Republicans. We need to hear the Democrats’ call for social justice and collective responsibility. We need to hear the Republicans’ demand for individual responsibility and the protection of liberty. We need two strong parties because our democracy lives in the dialectic between them.  We need vigorous principled debate between our parties, between their visions of our shared future. We need nuanced, wise discussion. We don’t need oleaginous promises, crude nativism, chest-thumping nationalism, or more fear. We are the world’s greatest democracy. We deserve better. 

A rabbi does not endorse a candidate or a party. But I do endorse the civic values at the foundation of democracy. Because I’m a Jew and I understand that my fate depends upon the survival of democracy. I’m Rabbi Ed Feinstein. And I approve this message. Shabbat Shalom.