Tiger Clergy

April 04, 2011 by Yitzchok Adlerstein

Continued from Page 1

The statement did try to push back from its equivocation. "Regardless of how justifiable it may seem, violence is condemned in holy scripture in all the Abrahamic traditions—Christian, Muslim, and Jewish." Nice try, but no cigar. There ought to be no room for pulling back from absolute outrage about things like terrorist acts aimed at civilians, mass murder, and genocide. The sum effect of all the flip-flopping in the church statement is to have the moral seriousness of a mother trying to get her three-year-old to finish her peas and carrots. "I sort of know that you won't really eat all the good stuff on your plate. But you really ought to." This is not the stuff that real moral leaders are made of.

Qualifiers, alternative points of view, and complete relativism work well in academia, but not in the pews. People in places of worship expect to hear guidelines that are not followed by weasel words that suck the life out of their moral weight. Apart from their suitability as menu items for observant Jews, our judgment of clergy ought to be clear. Tigers are kosher; weasels are not.

Page: 2 of 2

4/4/2011 4:00:00 AM

Jewish

The Velvet Kippah

Amy Chua

Violence

Clergy

Jerusalem

Morality

Parenting

Relativism

Sacred Texts

Judaism

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About Yitzchok Adlerstein

Yitzchok Adlerstein is an Orthodox rabbi who directs interfaith affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and chairs Jewish Law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He is hopelessly addicted to the serious study of Torah texts.

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