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Fear-mongering to win results is false victory
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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, which started the evening of Oct. 13 and ends Tuesday, reminds us that this dependence is illusionary. The holiday asks us to live for a week in huts made of ticky-tacky, 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 as the cause of 9/11, or of our internal struggles during the Vietnam 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.
May God continue to bless and guide America.
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hilton Head Island ,SC
Bluffton, SC
Savannah, GA
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA
via Shamash on-line class service
