Posted on 03/30/2004 8:59:11 AM PST by churchillbuff
by Jonathan S. Tobin
The first time I heard Rabbi Daniel Lapin speak, he told a story that struck me as odd.
...[snip] Rising to address a gala luncheon, Lapin sounded the message that all people of faith had more in common with each other than with their nominal co-religionists. To reinforce this point, Lapin confided that he and his wife had chosen for their children to be born in a Catholic hospital that had a cross on the wall of every room rather than at Cedars-Sinai, a Jewish hospital in Los Angeles where he then lived.
Why? Because abortions were conducted at Cedars-Sinai, a practice the Lapins could not countenance.
...[snip]I thought it odd that someone seeking to bring his political message to a wider Jewish audience would think that most Jews would share his sensibilities.
Not so much about abortion, mind you, but about the crosses – a symbol of faith and love for Christians, but one that history has left most Jews viewing differently.
I was reminded of this by Lapin's recent spurt of public visibility during the dispute over Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
...[snip]Lapin has spent the last year piggybacking on the controversy in a vain attempt to pump some life back into his long-expired attempt to make Toward Tradition into something other than a marginal group with virtually no influence among Jews.
From his new base in Washington state, where he hosts a radio talk show, and on venues such as the Rev. Pat Robertson's popular Christian television show The 700 Club, Lapin has been seizing every opportunity to blast the Anti-Defamation League for expressing concerns about the movie, accusing it of fomenting controversy for the sake of raising funds.
While it can be argued that ADL was an unwitting foil for Gibson's clever promotion strategy, the willingness of Lapin to tirelessly shill for Gibson is nothing less than appalling.
Is there anything to be said in the man's defense?
Lapin's friend, film critic Michael Medved, who also hosts a radio talk show, has said that anger over The Passion is a distraction from the more pressing threat of anti-Semitism from the Islamic world and leftists in Europe. He's right, though that shouldn't obligate us to be silent about anti-Semitism when it crops up in the US.
And Lapin is right when he points out that Jewish groups have been reluctant to listen to the concerns of conservative Christians, who are ardent supporters of Israel, when they complain that much of our popular culture treats their religion with disdain, if not outright contempt.
But Lapin's key point seems to be that Jewish complaints about The Passion will inspire anti-Semitism. Lapin himself has repeatedly stated in the past that he believed Jewish liberals are the cause of anti-Semitism, a view that rationalizes hatred and seeks to unfairly stigmatize a segment of the Jewish community. Anti-Semites cause anti-Semitism; nothing liberals, or any other Jews do causes it.
As it happened, Lapin's popularity among some Christians put him in a position to do some good during this dust-up. He could have used his standing in that sector to educate others about the history of Passion plays and the dangers of anti-Semitism. He might have pointed out that Gibson's film will be used differently in places other than the United States, where Jew-hatred is growing.
Instead, he and some of his followers wound up propping up precisely those forces that have worked against the historic shift away from the Christ-killer myth.
Lapin's indefensible descent into attacks on his fellow Jews provides an example of what happens when we allow political ideology to cloud our reasoning.
Like those on the other end of the spectrum who sometimes prioritize liberal alliances at the expense of the defense of Israel, Lapin has got it backward when he treats a Jew-baiter as off-limits for criticism because it suits his political agenda. The man who set out to defeat Jewish liberalism has become an unwitting parody of its worst excesses.
The writer is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
Is this writer saying that all Jewish people have to think alike? Sort of like all black have to think alike - and watch out, Clarence Thomas .
Lapin isn't the only Jew who feels this way. (I, for example, agree strongly with him.) But this opinion doesn't "rationalize hatred" - if you want that, just listen to someone from Europe give their opinion on Israel. And that "segment of the Jewish community" - e.g. the socialist segment - can destigmatize itself in the same way that other socialists can destigmatize themselves: by giving up on a bankrupt and ultimately nightmarish philosophy.
I think it odd that Tobin thinks that Rabbi Lapin's first desire is to only say things that are pleasing to his Jewish audience. The truth is truth, even if others don't esteem it as such.
Which is?
If especially "liberal" Jews are bent on labeling, defining, and crucifying Christians on a cross of anti-Semitism, they are, to put it mildly, not making any friends.
Not to mention the incredible streak of racism throughout the author's theme, for which, he may be more accurate titled "exclusivity editor," not "executive editor."
To be blunt, the author is claiming that millions of Christians hate him are are to be feared, because by extension, all Christians are alike ... like German Christians in NAZI Germany.
German Christians should have known better and resisted un-limited government's growth to the extent that said government committed mass murder.
Indeed, Jews, especially liberal Jews, should know better than to support un-limited government, and they should be strongly resisting government by judiciary, lest government grow further and intrude in our lives, striking fear among neighbors that strips them and us of the will to resist police statism and political correctness.
Indeed, our Jewish brethren, well, you would think that they would have figured that out by now: The dangers of pursuing world socialism and un-limited government --- the same governments that have supported the P.L.O. and Arafat and the death of millions of Jews throughout the last, and now the beginning, of these centuries.
Works for me. Why should Jews want to abort Jewish babies other than to save the life of the mother anyway. It's not like there have not been many adversaries trying to do that all along.
Of course, they probably provide abortion services to the public ...
Sometimes ?
Sometimes ???
Secular Jews (e.g., Frank Rich at al.) seem to have a very serious problem with Rabbi Lapin -- who is ardently orthodox -- in the same way that, say, Unitarians might have a problem with Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Secularism of whatever stripe is a frank bid to de-divinize and de-spiritualize human and social life. The secularist resents anything that tends to put a brake on this process. They think love of God and a life of the Spirit are hopeless, hokey superstitions and that mankind ought to put his faith in reason, science, and technology as the only reliable sources of human "progress."
In other words, what they want is to topple God from His throne, and hoist Man onto the vacant seat: The de-divinization of the world is preparatory to the divinization of Man -- or at least, of certain men (e.g., Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, Clinton -- not all men qualify to be "as gods").
But ya know, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear": God is God, and man is man. Good men like Daniel Lapin and Mel Gibson are abused and excoriated for reminding us of this central (and quite unavoidable) fact of life.
Simply put, that fact of life is heresy to socialism, which believes, ultimately, that men can and should be gods.
Actually thoughtomator, the thought has occurred to me that socialists only believe that some men should be gods (e.g., themselves). The rest of men must be ruled -- "for their own good." (Because they're just too stupid to figure out how to get things right and do things for themselves, especially those religious fanatics....)
And as for the "silk purse" business, lots of these people believe that science can make a silk purse from a sow's ear, in principle, if not -- YET -- in fact. The expectation seems to be: Just give us more time, and we'll figure out how to do it.
To me, it would be a fool's errand to try: Things are the way they are, and not some other way, because God made them to be the way they are. Some people might find that a detestable thought, because a wholly unjust violation of man's supposedly unlimited "freedom." Some men keenly feel constrained and agitated by the mere notion of God, of the Creator. They find the idea unbearable, and even personally insulting.
So they create Second Realities, and try to go live in them. But here again, we have the "silk purse/sow's ear" conumdrum rearing its ugly head....
Certainly, those Jews who concern themselves more with symbolism than substance might not share his sensibilities.
You, dear BB, are a silk purse. As for me ...
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