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JEWISH RENEWAL: RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: SUKKOTH+ ELECTION 2008
Dear Editor:
For most of us, we are living in a time, when things we depend on: our savings, our homes' values, even our nation's position in the world, are being drastically challenged. The Jewish holiday of Succoth, starting the evening of 10/13 , reminds us that this dependence is illusionary. The holiday asks us to live in huts made of ticky-tacky, for a week, where we can see the sky through the roof, to remind us, that dependence on anything other than Providence, is folly.
Succoth comes at the end of Yom Kippur when the Hebrews would send a scapegoat, with all of the sins of Israel placed upon it, into the wilderness to be devoured. As a Rabbi, I am reminded, that much too often Jews have been made the scapegoat for the ills of the world, be it the Bubonic plaque, or 1933 Germany's economic ills.
We see scapegoating in our present political campaign. Some are blaming others to be the cause of 9/11, or of our internal struggles during the Viet Nam war. Others are singling out one group of immigrants as the cause of our economic woes. Rallies appear like Hitler's Nuremberg musterings. Cries of '' Death to Jews,'' have a candidate's name inserted instead.
Judeo-Christian ethics teach that the ends do not justify the means. Just as a Sukkah built on the Sabbath, the Talmud teaches, when work is not permitted, builds just an out-building, an election won by deceit, hate-mongering, and fear-promoting, is nothing more than a psychological Putsch.
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
Savannah, GA
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
