Truth Over Tribe: A Torah Perspective on the Moral Divide Splitting the Right
We’ve been so focused on the anti-Semitism coming from the Left we forget about the anti-Semitism which classically came from the Right. Well, it looks like it’s brewing again.
Ben Shapiro has been calling out figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens for blurring moral lines in the name of “our side.” When antisemitic, extremist voices like Nick Fuentes are given legitimacy simply because they share some of the same political goals, something has gone deeply wrong.
And yet, others, like Megyn Kelly, refuse to call it out. They excuse it by saying, “We have to fight the Left.” But that’s not strategy; that’s surrender. Because once we decide that anything is justified so long as it helps “our side,” we’ve stopped standing for truth altogether.
We saw this a few weeks ago in the parsha, when Avraham, who deeply loved his nephew Lot, made the painful decision to separate from him once Lot’s shepherds began acting unethically. Avraham said, “Let there be no quarrel between us, but we must part ways.”
Avraham understood that sometimes love and unity means saying: We can’t walk together down a crooked path. Avraham teaches that unity without integrity isn’t peace. It’s just giving up on truth in order to remain in the good graces of those “on your side.”
In just a few weeks, as we light our menorahs for Chanukah, we’ll celebrate the Maccabees’ victory over the Greek Hellenists. In their time, many Jews joined the Hellenists. They joined not out of hatred for Torah, but because they believed Greece represented the winning side. The apocryphal Book of Maccabees I (1:11–15) records their words: “Let us go and make a covenant with the nations around us, for since we separated from them, many troubles have come upon us.”’
They didn’t mean to destroy Judaism. They just wanted to fit in. But in doing so, they lost themselves. It was the few who refused to trade conviction for convenience who ultimately restored light to the world.
The Torah doesn’t ask, “Who’s on your side?” It asks, “Whose side is truth on?”
Anti-Semitism is always evil no matter who spews its venom.
Stay on the side of truth. You may lose a few friends but you’ll keep your integrity.
