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Our Rabbi's Message
March 7th 2008
By Rabbi Aaron KriegelTorah in many respects is an intellectual pursuit. Much of what we study has no practical value in this world, and was only relevant when the Temple was standing, and yet we feel an obligation to study. Some people feel the same obligation to complete a crossword puzzle every day. Others focus their interest on forgotten battles of the Civil War. For a moment I would not compare the study of Torah with those pursuits, but at least on one level there is a common value.
We study, do puzzles, search history because all are intellectually stimulating. We do not want to be dumbed down by the news that we read in the papers or see on the TV or listen to on the radio. We want our lives to be better than just listening to the drivel of the mass media.
In a real sense the campaign antics which we witness on the screen every day display the dumbing down of the American mind. How do candidates have the audacity to promote programs to one group and deny those same programs to the next group? How dare they try to change the actions and votes they have done and have committed to in the past? Who do they think we, the American people, are?
The campaigns have become games themselves where the candidates try to obfuscate their pasts and the past of their rivals in order to bring us to the conclusion each in his/her own way is the most suitable to lead. By now I believe that they are twisting us the way the medicine con artists twisted their audiences in order to encourage them to buy medicine which was only food coloring, sugar and water.
How sad that in the America of the 21st century we must rise above the politics of now in order to find meaning in our world. I certainly will vote, but when I vote I hope that the ballot I cast is not part of the candidates strategy to dumb me down and get me to play their games. Democracy can be a delight when the voters are treated better than readers of the National Enquirer. Right now every time a politician speaks I usually do not believe them and usually disregard most of what each politician has to say.
Even for the most irreligious, Torah is more relevant than the words of politicians, and in fact so are crossword puzzles.
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