Rabbi Jacobson,
I own Wisdom of the Rebbe and have collected all of your Week In Review over the years.  I read them over and over.  I attended your last lecture at Sharei Tefilla when you came to Seattle.

Now I'm sitting here in my long johns and corduroy jeans and jacket and bathrobe.  I'm a retired teacher.  My Medicare bill keeps going up in double digits and so do my health care premiums.  All this while the top few percent of the nation got huge tax cuts and will most likely get them permanently now that Bush and his Republicans got elected.

As a retired teacher I like the concept of an education president.  I like the concept of No Child Left Behind.  But Bush's huge tax cuts put Washington State is in a budget crunch and our Democratic mayor was forced to cut programs drastically, cuts that include teachers salaries that we overwhelmingly approved to increase with cost of living.  And classroom size has increased.  Is this fitting with faith and moral values?

And this in today's online NY Times:

BAGHDAD, Nov. 6 - Desperation settled over the citizens who remained on Saturday in Falluja, the rebel-held city on the brink of being invaded by thousands of American soldiers and marines, as violence erupted in another Iraqi city that the Americans thought they had secured a month ago.

It goes on to report 20 policemen blown up and U.S. Servicemen wounded in Sammara the city our military "crushed" in October.  Not to mention the newly equipped hospital just built in Falluja now also blown up.  And Doctors Without Borders left the scene last week.

Have you seen the photos of babies, children, and women blown apart, both the living and the dead?  All this because the U.S. Is addicted to oil.  Because we can't shake the addiction and find alternative sources of energy.  Don't you see any relation to the countries we've gone into and oil?  There is a recent book I think called "Blood Oil" that goes into this in detail.

Is all this integrating faith and reason? 

Just this week the head of the U.N warned Bush against the folly of an attack on Falluja.

Not to mention the poor off the rolls of welfare and working but their families not able to eat three meals a day.

"Faith, moral values and G-d are the most important priorities in our lives.

This is President Bush's mandate."

"Let us work on integrating faith and reason."

Do you think those of us who did not vote for Bush did not do so because we reject G-D in our lives?  I reject someone who professes faith in G-d and yet can do cold and even terrible things to people and reward the rich.

Kindly unsubscribe me.

Joel Dames

Simon writes:

Dear Joel,

Thank you for writing. Your words were very moving to me, and I appreciate them deeply.

I feel that I owe you an apology.

By no means did I mean to suggest, that the 55 million voters who voted against Bush or for Kerry voted against G-d in our lives. Absolutely not! Millions of people of faith -- including observant Jews -- voted for Kerry for good reasons. Indeed, some may even have seen in Kerry a deeper commitment to religious freedom.

The fact now is that the election is over. We can either be bitter about it, or do everything in our power and use all our influence and strength to ensure that faith in G-d compel this nation to become more generous, and demand that we live up to the social equality that G-d expects of us. That to me is the true integration of faith and reason.

I have more to say on the topic, but enough rambling for now. If you would like to hear more, I will be happy to write.

Above all let me say this. Since you are familiar with me and my writings, you must know that nothing is more important to me than preserving and honoring the dignity of every person I come in contact with, and learning something from every experience. I respect you as an individual and your viewpoint, regardless whether we agree or not. Conversely, I am deeply hurt if I feel that I have offended you.

In that spirit, I reach out to you and welcome and encourage both being challenged and challenging in return. I therefore really would appreciate the opportunity to continue communicating with you, and hearing from you as well. I am not offended, but if you stop receiving these e-mails, I won't hear your thoughts, which I cherish. In other words, I need you to help keep me in line and help me clarify these ideas.
 
May our example help the world come to experience true peace and co-existence the way G-d always intended it to be,

Respectfully,

Simon Jacobson

Joel writes:

Dear Rabbi Jacobson,

Thank you so much for you most thoughtful reply.  I am deeply moved and certainly want to continue receiving your weekly emails. I will feel free to express my opinion in the future if I feel I need to do so.  You touch the lives of many with your emails, Week in Review, and books and it is good that you accept and even desire feedback from your readers.   I believe we are one and must focus on that concept rather than on the ideas and philosophies where we may or may not differ.  I must remind myself to do this, especially after reading your reply.

Joel

Dear Rabbi Simon Jacobson,

On November 5, 2004, your "Wisdomreb" email was entitled AMERICA SPEAKS : Do not fear G_d. In it you mentioned that you had voted against the liberal establishment of the East and West Coasts, ie. for George W. Bush. You wrote that you had taken this opportunity to to make the case for Faith.

I was shocked. You, my highly regarded ex-secretary to the Rebbe, Director of the Meaningful Life Center, insightful expositor of Yiddishkeit, had voted for that Texan Cowboy Oilman. To me, the results of the 2004 Presidential Election were deeply disappointing. Mostly, because it was an affirmation of the US role in the Iraq War in which the ongoing process of International remedy was cut short by the Administration's decision to assert America as the superpower leader, perhaps with a manifest destiny of empire. The Administration hastily characterized the UN as being irrelevenat. The geopolitical situation involving the rich oil resources of the area were probably a factor.

This attitude prevailed through the quick military victory, but began to weaken as the Iraq mess grew larger and seemingly more intractable. Overtures were then made to the UN and the International community.

The Administration also prepared legal documents to circumvent the Geneva Convention by setting a basis for the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo. On the domestic front, the Administration severely curtailed civil liberties by the sweeping provisions of the Patriot Act. It undercut hard-won efforts to preserve the health of the natural envoronment. And, in general, the Bush Administration maintained the long Republican Party tradition of affinity with Corporate interests and disregard for those of Labor. A major goal during 'the next four more years' is to privatize (ie. make unavailible to those who might need it most) the Social Security System.

I am a first generation American Jew. My father was from Krasnoe a shtetl in the Ukraine. My mother was from Orsha a city in Belarus or White Russia. They were each the youngest of a large family and were in their early twenties they emigrated to America to join some of their brothers and sisters who had come earlier. This was at some time after the Bolshevik regime was established.

My father worked as a presser in a clothes cleaning shop; at night he studied accounting at New York University. My mother had earned a Soviet degree in dentistry. It was not recognized in America. She worked together with other young Russian women in a shop that strung necklaces. Each was payed by the piece; the young women pooled their wages and divided the pool equally. My parents met at a Jewish social group in New York City. When my father graduated from NYU, the Depression was underway. My mother and father married and decided to see if things were better in California. For their honeymoon they hitch-hiked across the country to Los Angeles. I was born in Boyle Heights, a part of East LA where there was a Jewish enclave amidst the predominantly Mexican population.

I recall the rented house on Stone Street off Wabash Avenue where we lived. Stone Street went up a steep hill and ran for a block or so atop the hill. I liked to throw my large ball down the hill and watch it roll far, far away before it was gone. I recall the hullabaloo when the colored garbage men came each week. Cans clanged loudly, dogs barked, the voices of the garbage men rang out and their white teeth shone brighly. I recall playing 'house' with the girls on the block; at two, I was much better for them than any doll could be.

There were also intimations of the hard depression times: my father sometimes discouraged when returnng home in the evening; an angry exchange at the door between my mother and the landlady.

When I was three years old, we moved form Stone Street to Malabar Street. About a year later, times became very hard for us. My father developed tuberculosis and had to stay at a special treatment place. I was sent off to a special camp in Tejunga in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. My parents knew American English very well, but they had decided to impart their Yiddiskeit to me by speaking mostly Yiddish at home. I was fluent in Yiddish with only a smattering of English phrases at my disposal.

At Camp Tejunga, no one spoke Yiddish. The love that pervaded our family was not to be found at Camp Tejunga. Instead there was discipline which included tan uniforms, decorum at the cafeteria meals, and at night instructions to kneel by the bed, put my hands together and to pray - whatever that meant?

Things began to get better for my family and for the country as a whole. My father recovered from tuberculosis. He started a cleaner's supply business. I came home from Camp Tejunga and entered the 3rd grade at Malabar Street School. I recall hearing President Roosevelt on the radio. It seemed like he was talking to me and my family about how hard the times had been and how the Democratic New Deal was beginning to make things better. To us (and to the American Jews and working people in general as I learned later) President Roosevelt was a great leader who cared.

The Democratic Roosevelt Administration was the birthplace of many beneficialprograms we now tend to take for granted: the Social Security system, progressive taxation, affordable health care, a viable labor situation with a minimum wage, and safeguards for the environment. Labor Unions and ethnic groups became a significant part of the base of the Democratic Party. This included American Jewry: 82% of American Jews voted for Roosevelt in 1932; this grew to 90% during the presidential elections during the war years. American Jewry was largely within the liberal establishment, the liberal establishment which you now decry.

This had not always been so. The principle of "two Jews - three opinions" assured that Jews, while more involved in areas such as labor and civil rights, were active in all segments of the political spectrum.

The following is a brief historical Presidential voting record of American Jews. Recently in the '90s, the Jewish vote for president has been running at about 80% Democratic; Kerry's 76% was almost in this level. However, in 1916, Woodrow Wilson won with only 55% of the Jewish vote. In 1920, the Republican Harding was elected President; the Jewish vote was 43% for Harding, 38% for Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate. In 1928, Hoover became President, though the Jewish vote of 72% was for Al Smith. As mentioned, Jews especially supported Franklin Roosevelt with votes of up to 90%. In the '50s, the Jewish vote for Adlai Stevenson dropped to about 60%, with Eisenhower averaging about 38%. The '60s witnessed a return of strong Jewish Democratic voting with 80 to 90% for Kennedy, Humphrey and Johnson; Nixon was still electected. In the '70s and 80s, the Jewish vote for a Democratic President averaged roughly 60%

With the advent of World War II, America rose out of the depression. and began its journey to become the most prosperous and influential of nations. America was once again a land of opportunities for all, including American Jews. From early involvement in the labor movement, the garment industry, show business, and as small businessmen. American Jews eagerly sought higher education and enetered the fields of law, medicine, publishing and other knowledge based endeavors. Norman Podhoretz, who became the editor of Commentary Magazine at age 30, termed his success (and that of many other American Jews) as "Making It". "Making It" meant upward social and economic mobility. "It meant being rich rather than poor; it meant giving rather than taking orders; it meant having some unqualifiedly delicious fame."

However the main stream of Jewish political activism remained liberal. The activism most importantly includes running for significant State and Federal Government positions. There are some 26 Jewish members of the House of Representatives, and 11 Jewish Senators. Over half of the Representatives are from California and New York. The Jewish Senators are prominent and influential: Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein from California, Russell Feingold from Wisconsin, Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey, Carl Levin from Michigan, Charles Schumer from New York, and the lone Republican Arlen Specter from Pensylvania.

Who can forget Senator Joseph Lieberman being nominated Vice-President with Al Gore, winning the popular vote, the Pat Buchanan 'butterfly ballot' in the Jewish areas of Florida, the heavy-handed Supreme Court quashing the legally mandated recount. Joe Lieberman just missed becoming the first Jewish American Vice-President. Is this the liberal establishment which you voted against?

Two Jews, three opinions. On the conservative wing, Commentary Magazine was founded after World War II by the American Jewish Committee, largely a group of prominant Jews of German origin. It covered world social and political issues as well as Jewish literarature and politics. Commentary was strongly anti-communist, perhaps soft on McCarthyism. In 1970, Podhoretz helped to form the Neoconservative movement in the US. Today, Commentary Magazine is characterized as "a neoconservative publication taking a special interest in Jewish affairs." While no longer the Editor, Podhoretz serves as the Editor-at-Large which allows him to publish articles as he wishes. His recent articles deal with the Moslem fundamentalist world actions and how to deal with them. Podhoretz uses the term World War IV for the situation, implying a very extensive and broad scope in dealing with the Moslem Fundamentalist world. The Jewish neoconservative advisors (these usually seek office through appointment rather than election) to President Bush and his Cabinet have a close interest in Commentary Magazine. Perhaps "Making It" has extended from individual upward mobility to the stature of the United States itself - the only Superpower, seeking to assert itself (not always wisely), and perhaps on the brink of a new and unusual kind of Empire.

Returning to AMERICA SPEAKS : Do not fear G_d. In which you wrote that you had taken the opportunity to to make the case for Faith. The words 'G_d', and 'Faith' are so, so important, yet are highly subjective. In one or you responses, wrote of enlightenment as the ability of 'radical amazement and reverence', and 'childlike naive wonder and awe'. You continued with " perhaps that is just another name for G_d? G-d is a loaded word which can and does mean different things to different people. Adin Steinsaltz writes that some people of very deep Faith do not participate in organized religion, yet thir Faith is neither remote nor absolute; rather (from the Torah) "it is not in Heaven . . . neither is it beyoond the sea, but it is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart that you may do it".

Within Judaism, it is easier for me to find meaning in the words HaShem and Emunah. Even here, there are times of seeking. Outside of Judaism, within the American mainstream, I find that for me the best approach is to maintain a separation in religious matters, and therefor to strongly advocate a wider separation between State and Church. Better with no school parayers, with a Pledge without "under G-d", without a Constitutional Amendment mandating such infringements.