Rabbi Jonathan Sacks should listen to his own words and stay out of politics

The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it.” (Albert Einstein)

On the rabbinic license, it should say: “Not only are you not qualified for talking about politics. We hereby explicitly prohibit this rabbi from entering the political debate.”

Again Lord Chief Rabbi Sacks irritates me by giving his outsider opinion about politics, claiming he’s an insider.

How often do I need to say that rabbis are automatically disqualified from saying anything about politics? Someone with a fear of blood should not be a surgeon. Rabbis are (supposed to be) scrupulously honest and saintly. That renders one naive and totally unsuitable in the political arena.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: G-d will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” (Pastor Dietrich Bonhöffer, a rare German church leader who kept speaking out against the Nazi regime.)

This time the good rabbi has talked against US rabbis endorsing Trump or Biden. That seems evenhanded, wise, balanced, peace-loving, calming an overheated debate. But it is flawed nonsense completely.

When facing evil, there is no neutrality. There is no evenhandedness. There is no impartiality. One must choose the side of goodness and speak up against spreading hatred, war-mongering, oppressive notions, etc.

The United States has come at a decisive junction between democracy or Trump, science, healthcare, and life itself or Trump, truth or Trump, and against racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism or for Trump. It’s so simple. If he is blind to that, that means already that he should stay out of politics.

Those who don’t speak up against Trump are part of the problem, on the wrong side of history, complicit. As angry US Black demonstrators shouted this week: ‘White silence is complicity.’

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transformation was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” (Rev. Martin Luther King Jr)

This is the rabbi who wrote in a book (so, it was not a thoughtless slip of the tongue) only 20 years ago that European antisemitism is dead.

The problem with people who deem themselves valid opinion makers is that when they don’t know their ignorance, no size of mistake will prove to them to shut up. So, the only choice there is is to not listen to them.

Instead of advising US Orthodox Jews to not take positions in the 2020 debate, he should keep his political opinion to himself because no good can come from his unwise comments. His opinion degrades Judaism.

His call for Rabbis to be silent comes on top of a long rabbinic habit of not being bold, of Jewish men outside of Israel being cowards (with notable exceptions). (NB: I don’t blame the victim. It is scary to take a clear stance in the Diaspora. That’s not our fault.) We don’t need any additions to this.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, an almost daily blog contributor to the Times of Israel, and previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is (partly) generated by AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. He doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit about what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and education contribute to his visions. * If you don't know the Dutch, get an American peek behind the scenes here: https://youtu.be/QMPp6h6r72M * To find less-recent posts on subject XXX among his 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. Yet, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people who don't deserve that. He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust, and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * His most influential teachers (chronologically) are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. * One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. He loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, anti-elitism, anti-bigotry and supremacy, for Zionism, Intersectionality, and non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, empowering therapist. 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