No, it’s not what you think. I am not referring to a healthy (and Biblically-mandated) fear of G-d and his Ineffable Name, but an aversion to mentioning G-d as a motivating force in our lives. Joel Alperson, a past national campaign chair for United Jewish Communities, wrote about this in a recent Op-Ed entitled “Don’t fear ‘G-d,’ ‘Torah’ and ‘Judaism’” published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He writes:

I’ve collected the mission statements of the largest 17 Jewish federations in North America, and not one mentions “G-d,” “Torah” or “Judaism.” Nor do the mission statements of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, Hillel, the National Council of Jewish Women, The Wexner Heritage Foundation, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah and the Jewish National Fund. Of all the organizations I looked into, only United Jewish Communities mentions but one of the three words, Torah, in its mission statement.

Mr. Alperson’s theory is that these terms are avoided because they are “more particularistic. Tzedakah [Charity], tikkun olam [Repairing the World] and klal yisroel [the People of Israel] are considered universal and inclusive terms.” He bemoans this phenomenon, and considers this problem to be one with a uniquely Jewish angle. He believes that the reason these terms induce such discomfort is because communal organizations, aiming to serve the breadth of the entire Jewish community, are afraid of any mention of a term that might highlight our numerous and profound internal divisions.

He may be right. But at the same time, I am reminded of an article written over 20 years ago by Daniel Polisar* — today the director of the Shalem Center, and at that time a fellow student at Princeton University. He described an experience in a class in Philosophy and ethics, in which the students were asked to respond sequentially to a classic question of moral and ethical behavior: when confronted by an assailant who orders you to murder another, on threat of your own life, what are you supposed to do?

by Brian Schrauger

The war that Israel keeps losing is the war of world opinion, the war for individual hearts and minds. Consider recent stumbles.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza should have been named “8,000 is enough!” This would have communicated a determination to stop the barrage of missiles from Hamas, using surgical precision to destroy its arsenal, but destroying all of it, not just a part. Enough was enough: 8,000 missiles launched on the nation’s civilian population would no longer be tolerated.

Unfortunately the operation was dubbed, “Cast Lead.” The resulting image in the English-speaking world was not helpful. Lead is a soft metal associated with poison. The implication, then, was an unprofessional plan with ambivalent determination, biased motives and toxic methods.

Odd as it might seem, the recent report that a library at Yemen Children’s Hospital was named after Palestinian suicide bomber Wafa Idris, that terrorist Samir Al-Kuntar spoke at the naming-ceremony and that little girls read poems in honor of the occasion brought back a Shavuot memory.

According to the report, which originated in a Yemeni news service and was translated by MEMRI, the local Province Governor expressed pride “that the Arab nation has stalwart resistance [fighters] like Samir Al-Kuntar.” In 1974, Mr. Kuntar murdered an Israeli father in front of his four-year-old daughter and then smashed the little girl’s skull against a rock with a rifle butt.

Every Jewish holiday is special in its own way, but Shavuot, which falls on May 29 and 30 this year, is unusual: it has no specific “active” observances, nothing like Passover’s seder and matzoh, or Sukkot’s booths or “four species,” or Rosh Hashana’s shofar-blowing.

The 18th century Chassidic master known as Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev perceived something subtle in that fact. Shavuot, he noted, is identified by Jewish tradition as the anniversary of the Jewish people’s acceptance of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Since the act of accepting is an inherently passive one, he explained, the holiday is pointedly devoid of physically active observances. It is a time of receiving the Torah anew, and most appropriately expressed through Torah-study.

Even with the surfeit of silliness passing these days for “Torah commentary”– the manufactured “midrashim,” “original interpretations” and Biblical passages turned on their heads – I was flabbergasted to read a homily disparaging the Chafetz Chaim.

The Chafetz Chaim, of course – Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan – was renowned for his saintliness and sagacity, and for his monumental works on Jewish law, including two on the laws against slander. When the Polish sage died, in 1933, The New York Times’ obituary noted that he had shut down his store when he realized that its success born of his renown was imperiling other local storekeepers’ income.

What exercised the contemporary sermonizer, whose words appeared in an Israel-oriented magazine, was the Chafetz Chaim’s comment on an undisputed halachic ruling, that even a sinner, if Jewish, can be counted as part of a prayer-quorum. The Chafetz Chaim had elucidated the reason behind the ruling: “Even though he is a sinning Jew,” the great rabbi explained, “his holiness endures.”

The magazine-homilist, a Jewish educator, found that statement “not so enlightened,” indeed “particularly problematic in an era when racism has fallen out of favor.”

A winter flurry of “Dear President Obama” letters – in the forms of op-eds and paid advertisements – have swirled around the public square in the days since the 44th president of the United States was sworn into office.

Some of the open letters have concerned Mr. Obama’s economic stimulus plan; others, United States relations with Iran; others still, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whether the President pays any attention to the multitudinous missives is anyone’s guess. But if I had his ear (or his BlackBerry contact information), I think my own message would consist of a simple video clip.

Broadcast on an Egyptian television channel on January 26, barely a week into Mr. Obama’s presidency and on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the clip addresses the destruction of European Jewry during the Second World War – but in a very different way from most Holocaust commemorations.

The video is a sermon offered to the public by an Egyptian Muslim cleric, Amin Al-Ansari; it was translated by the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The gist of Mr. Al-Ansari’s teaching is that the Jews were responsible for the Holocaust, since they had been “killing Germans, kindling civil strife, inciting the people against the rulers and corrupting the peoples.”

[The following piece contains a long consideration of beliefs of other religions. Some of our readers are uncomfortable with such material. They are hereby warned to skip to the next post. The piece is an expansion of one that I coauthored and appeared on the Washington Post and Newsweek blogs last week. All new material is solely my own.]

“Insanity is hereditary. I got it from my children.” So read an old bumper sticker. If insanity can be hereditary, then errors and blunders can perhaps be contagious. We seem to be in the midst of an epidemic of gaffes, and they started at the Vatican.

Days after the deed was done, no one seems to have come up with a plausible explanation for why the Pope decided to make himself a lightning rod for criticism. A week ago Saturday, he revoked the 1988 excommunication of four individuals who had contravened the authority of the Vatican by being consecrated as bishops by maverick French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Lefebvre had acted completely outside the jurisdiction of the Church. One of the four, Richard Williamson, had distinguished himself a short while earlier by claiming that there was no Holocaust; that a much smaller number than six million Jews perished and nary a one in a gas chamber. The Pope went ahead and reached out to him nonetheless, cozying up to a confirmed revisionist and Holocaust denier.

Why did the Pope do it? Pope Benedict has made Church unity a key area of his concern. Lefebvre started an organization of RadTrads – radical traditionalist Catholics – called Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). Today, their ranks have swelled to the tens of thousands, especially in areas in which Catholic enthusiasm is waning. The Pope would like to see these people return to the ranks of the Church. Lifting the ban of excommunication was both an olive branch, and a first step to a negotiated return of SSPX to the authority of Rome. It was aimed far more at the laypeople of the organization than at the four bishops themselves. It is likely that he believes that if they are brought into the orbit of the Church, that many can be weaned away from some of the more bizarre teachings of the RadTrads.

We’ve already gone several rounds on how Bush, McCain and Obama stack up when it comes to Israel. Now that Olmert has finally decided that Kassam rockets raining on Sderot deserve a bit more than improved bomb shelters in response, all our statements about Bush’s amazingly pro-Israel position, and our concerns about Obama, are all-too-rapidly being verified. First, let’s look at the current US Administration’s response to the violence on the Israel-Hamastan border:

The U.S. on Saturday blamed the militant group Hamas for breaking a cease-fire and attacking Israel, which retaliated with strikes of its own during what became the single bloodiest day of fighting in years…

It was “completely unacceptable” for Hamas, which controls Gaza, to launch attacks on Israel after a truce lasting several months, said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

“These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people,” Johndroe said in Texas as President George W. Bush was spending the week before New Year’s at his ranch here. “They need to stop. We have said in the past that they have a choice to make. You can’t have one foot in politics and one foot in terror.”

As the dust settles on this year’s election season, it’s worth reflecting on one aspect of the campaign that holds particular relevance for the Jewish community: the way in which the principle of separation of church and state, a longtime sacred cow of Jewish communal life, was unceremoniously put out to pasture.

For many decades now, the secular Jewish establishment and non-Orthodox religious movements have invoked the Constitution’s Establishment Clause to fight tooth-and-nail against government aid to yeshivos. Yet, along came a candidate named Barack Obama and the tantalizing possibility of a liberal Democratic rise to power, and, suddenly, this hallowed concept disappeared from the collective American Jewish consciousness.

This year’s Democratic convention was so suffused with religious content that it could have been mistaken for a camp revival meeting, except that this one featured even more rabbis than pastors. Then again, it was that convention’s nominee, Barack Obama, who told a Greenville, South Carolina church last year that he is “confident that we can create a kingdom right here on earth,’ and asked the congregation to “pray that I can be an instrument of G-d.” Hillary Clinton, for her part, told a campaign forum that “you can sense how we are attempting to inject faith into policy.” Nary a peep was to be heard from Jewish proponents of strict church-state separation in response to either statement.

A prominent Reform clergyman, David Saperstein is tapped to give the invocation before Obama’s acceptance speech to 80,000 at Invesco Field? No problem, since, as Saperstein explained, it is “so ingrained in American life that it cannot be perceived as a political endorsement.” Nine separate faith-related events during the convention? That’s OK too, according to Saperstein, since “people can choose whether or not to go” and there “are forums being held on other topics.” That sure is a new tune – or should we say “hymn”? – the Reform movement is singing.

A Letter to the Editor in the Baltimore Jewish Times, December 5, restates a common theme in modern Jewish thought: whereas assimilation and low birth rates are lowering the Jewish population, we should be as welcoming as possible to prospective converts. Now, they argue, is the time to lower the barriers to entry for anyone wishing to identify with the Jewish people.

Jews make up less than two percent of the American population and less than one quarter of one percent of the world’s people. Each year, assimilation and low birth rates lower the Jewish population, both in relative and absolute terms. We are becoming fewer and fewer and yet there are some among us who would reject the handful of brave souls who wish to identify as Jews.

One can only wonder how the above writer would disparage the attitude towards conversion of Rabbi Tzion Levi, zt”l, who led the Jewish community of Panama for fifty-seven years. A short news item in Mishpacha, December 3, remarked on his petirah (passing), and included the following:

Rabbi Levi laid down the law on conversions. He decreed that no conversions were to be performed in Panama; whoever wanted to convert would have to go to an Orthodox beis din (religious court) outside the country. Afterward, the person would be required to demonstrate for two years that he/she lives a Torah life, before being accepted as a Jew by the community.

From the agitation and anger of the crowds, the din of the car horns and the shouts of “Civil rights now!” and “Bigots!” one would have been forgiven for thinking that the protesters were denouncing some horrific assault on human freedom.

But no, the demonstrations – and church vandalisms and business boycotts – were in protest of California voters’ passage of the November ballot measure known as Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Any two Californians can, as before, register as “domestic partners” and have the very same rights and responsibilities as married couples under state law. All Proposition 8 sought to do was preserve in law what the word “marriage” has meant for millennia.

Those, though, who were unhappy with the electorate’s decision wasted no time in taking to the streets of dozens of American cities and towns to rail against the audacity – the bigotry, as they proclaimed it – of considering gender germane to marriage.

In some cities, tens of thousands turned out for raucous rallies; in many instances, epithets were hurled at counterdemonstrators and even uninvolved bystanders. Although protesters claimed the mantle of the American civil rights movement, several black observers of the Los Angeles demonstration had what has been called the “N-bomb” dropped on them by infuriated demonstrators – a presumed tribute to the fact that blacks voted 2-1 in favor of the proposition. A San Diego family with a “Yes on 8” sign on their front lawn had their car’s tires slashed. A San Francisco area group launched a campaign to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon Church because of its support of the marriage initiative. Graffiti was spray-painted on a Mormon church near Sacramento. A group of about 30 activists from a group called “Bash Back!” stormed into a Lansing, Michigan church, unfurled a rainbow flag at the pulpit and proceeded to disrupt services by banging on cans and shouting.

The front-page headline in the New York Post was striking: “A-Rod brainwashed by Kabbala. Wife blames Madonna, sues for divorce.” I did a double take.

Who is A-Rod? He is Alex Rodriguez, the star third baseman of the New York Yankees, who commands a $300 million contract and is considered the best baseball player since Willie Mays.

Who is Madonna? She is the aging Hollywood pop star who has been dabbling in what she calls the secrets of the esoteric Kabbala and makes sure the world knows about her secrets.

What is Kabbala? The short answer is that it is the overall term for ancient Jewish mystical lore. The long answer is that it is the study of the cosmic ramifications of our behavior, of the hidden meanings behind the biblical text and of the almost inconceivable meticulousness with which human beings must align their actions with the demands of the Torah. That is to say, one cannot even begin the study of Kabbala unless one is thoroughly conversant with Torah, Talmud and the codes; is personally pious and dedicated to spirituality; and is deeply learned in the ways of God. Neither Madonna nor A-Rod seems quite to match these qualifications.

Many years ago, while a rabbi in Atlanta, I answered a knock on my door one Shabbat afternoon. Standing in front of me was a fine-looking couple – obviously non-Jewish.

“Shabbat Shalom, rabbi,” they said, and asked to have a word with me.

I sensed that they were missionaries and asked them what the subject was. They replied that they wanted to talk to me about the “Son of God.”

I suggested that while I respected their personal beliefs, in Judaism there is no such thing as a son or mother of God, that ours is a very strict monotheistic faith, and that our God is one, not two, and not three. I added that before attempting to convert Jews, they should consider converting Christians to Christian teachings, because throughout history, Jews had seen very little of Christian love and of turning the other cheek.

I have a son approaching Bar Mitzvah age, which means he will be needing Tefillin shortly. My mother mentioned that her grandfather’s old Tefillin were in a package in a basement. I had never known of them before, but as you can imagine was excited to learn that they existed. Well… when I opened the bag my wife and I were dismayed. The batim, the boxes, were green. Mold green. We thought that after years in a wet basement, all was lost.

When I opened them, however, I got a surprise in the opposite direction. Not only were the parshiyos (the written parchments) in decent condition, but the writing was truly beautiful. I showed them to an expert sofer, who restored them. They are perhaps 150 years old, and the writing, he said, was only used by a pretty elite group. The batim were constructed from multiple pieces of leather, which we wouldn’t use today with such fine parchments. But what we found inside them were hidden gems. “He spent his money on the writing,” said the sofer. And who knows… what spiritual impact might have been felt from that level of sacrifice for the sake of a Mitzvah, four generations later?

The parshiyos are written in the Ksav, the font, attributed to the Alter Rebbe of Lubavitch.

When I read the responses to my earlier post, “A Hopeful Sign for Chabad?“, I was extremely pleased to see the fiery denunciation of the ‘Meshichist’ wing from commenters who identify with Lubavitch. I think a tad more forbearance is appropriate towards those other commenters who previously encountered opinions similar to Eli Soble’s from far more prominent figures within the movement. The fact that the JPost found no one better known than Soble to voice this tripe is a hopeful sign, but we cannot pretend that it has always been so.

Dear Sean,

I know this might sound strange coming from a father who’s far from a religious Jew, but now that you’re dating, there’s something I need you to understand.

The single most important decision you’ll ever make in life will not be about your education or career but about whom you’ll marry.

Because who your wife is will determine, more than anything else in your adult life, the person you become, the family you’ll raise, what you’ll leave on earth when it will be time to go. I know the end of life isn’t something you probably give much thought to. Not many of us do, at least not until we became sick or old enough to see it hovering on the horizon. But a final day does arrive, sooner or later, for each of us. And when it comes, very few of the things we thought made such a big difference will seem to matter at all anymore. And other things we never gave much thought to will suddenly be very important. We’ll want to look back at our lives and feel that, in those areas, we pretty much did the right thing.

In a 1938 essay, Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, the spiritual and political leader of the Indian independence movement, counseled Jews in Nazi Germany to neither flee nor resist but rather offer themselves up to be killed by their enemies, since their “suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy.”

When all hope is lost, a Jew about to be killed “al Kiddush Hashem” — as a Jewish martyr — is indeed to reach for serenity, even happiness, at the opportunity to give up his life because of who he is. When Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, the great Lithuanian Jewish religious leader and scholar, was murdered by Hitler’s henchmen in 1941, he reportedly told the students about to be killed with him that “In Heaven it appears that they deem us to be righteous because our bodies have been chosen to atone for the Jewish people… In this way we will save the lives of our brethren overseas… We are now fulfilling the greatest Commandment… The very fire that consumes our bodies will one day rebuild the Jewish people.”

But Jewish martyrdom is not something to be courted. And so Mr. Gandhi’s advice for Jews during the Holocaust was, even if consonant with his personal beliefs, from Judaism’s point of view profoundly wrong.

And Gandhi’s advice was even more disturbing in light of his admission, in that same essay, that the “cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me.” Jews, he said, should “make… their home where they are born.” It is, moreover, he went on, “inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs.”

From the Jewish Council for Public Affairs:

January 19th is one of the most important contests in the Democratic and Republican quests for their parties’ nomination for the presidency. It is also Shabbat.

This year, the Nevada Democratic and Republican parties have decided to hold their primary caucuses on a Saturday, with citizens required to report by 11:30 and 9:00 AM respectively, right during morning religious services. When I called the political parties in Nevada to inquire as to whether or not there were measures being taken to help accommodate those observant Jews who wished to participate in the caucuses, I received mixed results… Neither had an adequate answer as to why the caucuses had to take place on a Shabbat morning.

Nevada has one of the fastest growing Jewish populations in the country, and its 65,000-80,000 Jewish community members are expected to have a disproportionate impact on the results. I do not know how many of these Jews are observant enough to be effectively barred from participating in the caucus. I do not know how many of these Jews will be pushed into the uncomfortable position of choosing between attending synagogue and participating in a cherished American civic tradition. I DO know that it is highly unlikely that the state’s political parties would choose to hold these caucuses on a Sunday morning during church services.

This morning I counted. There were at least ten times the Hebrew name of Jerusalem, or its synonym Zion, passed my lips. Before breakfast.

There was “Jerusalem, praise G-d,” “May You shine a new light on Zion,” “the Builder of Jerusalem,” and many more throughout the Jewish morning prayer service.

And then there were the other references to Jerusalem but without her name, like “May it be Your will… that the Holy Temple be rebuilt, speedily in our days” and “the city called by Your name.”

After a bowl of cereal, the blessing “Al Hamichya” would mention Jerusalem two more times. And for any meals including bread that might have followed, one of the main blessings that comprise the grace after meals would have the Holy City as its subject as well, beginning with a reference to “Jerusalem Your city” and ending “Who in His mercy builds Jerusalem.”

Time Magazine’s cover story this week provides an opportunity for what Einstein (and others) called a “thought experiment.”

Time examines a different side of Mother Teresa. A veritable icon of spiritual strength and confidence in the eyes of the public, she spoke privately of a spiritual angst over the last fifty years of her life, in which she could not feel the presence of G-d. Remarkably, this dry period began just as she had extracted permission from her superiors to begin her ministry to the poorest of the poor on the basis of the direct communications she claimed receiving from G-d. Till the end of her days, she wrote to a string of confessors and confidantes about her unrequited love and her inability to pray. She questioned her very belief at times, but her faith trumped her doubts. During the entire period, she knew only one period of spiritual peace – five weeks in 1959.

Response to these revelations is predictably varied. Atheists like Christopher Hitchens believe that she secretly had discovered the “truth” (c”v); believers see her story as the triumph of faith over inner darkness.

Here’s the experiment. What if a Jewish Teresa had reported the same feelings? What would we have told her? What concepts and images would we have invoked for her, to help her through her crisis? I ask the question not because it is our place to comment on the inner workings of a faith system that is not ours, but because answering it may help us better understand the tools we have available to us as Jews, and to help those in similar straits.

One can’t help but feel sad for Noah Feldman. In spite of his considerable professional accomplishments – a law professorship at Harvard, three books, a slew of well-received essays and a fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations, to name a few – the young Jew is clearly stewing. A bubble of his own imagining has burst in his face.

What he imagined was that, in its embrace of both Judaism and elements of contemporary culture, the “Modern Orthodoxy” of his youth granted Jews license to abandon as much of Jewish religious observance as they deem appropriate. Expressing his anger – coolly, to be sure, but the hurt seeps thickly through the poised prose – in a recent New York Times Magazine piece, “Orthodox Paradox,” Professor Feldman describes how the Boston Jewish school he attended as a child and teenager went so far as to crop a class reunion photograph to omit him and his non-Jewish Korean-American fiancée , whom he later married.

But the Photoshopped portrait is only the professor’s anecdotal hook. What he really resents is that his erstwhile school, along with some of his mentors and friends, spurn him for his decision to marry outside his faith.

No one, he admits, is rude to him. None of his former teachers or friends, he writes, would refuse to shake his hand. But he knows that they deride him for the life-path he has chosen. And that offends and perplexes him.

Encouraged by a number of my congregants, my wife and I recently visited the impressive ‘Sacred’ exhibition at London’s British Library. Billed as ‘the rarest and most exquisite sacred books and manuscripts presented and explored, side by side, in a major UK exhibition for the first time’, it didn’t disappoint. Balanced between Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy books, the 202 exhibits are absolutely magnificent (get a taste of them here) and left me wanting to return to see them again soon. As the exhibition doesn’t end until 23rd September, if you live in the UK or are planning to visit, do make it a priority. I hope to get there at least once more.

I was especially taken with the calligraphy, the accuracy and beauty of which defy description. I am not particularly skilled with my hands: I actually struggle to read my own handwriting. In comparison, the control, artistic flair and accuracy required to produce an illuminated manuscript are quite breathtaking. I am, of course, familiar with beautiful safrus (Hebrew sacred calligraphy), but I have never been exposed to exquisite scripts from other religions written in other alphabets; I found learning about their manufacture fascinating (see here) and consider the final products a remarkable testimony to human ingenuity.

The layout of ‘Sacred’ is also most attractive: the manuscripts are interspersed with religious artefacts, all of great beauty and some of major significance (for example, an original entrance-curtain from the Kaaba in Mecca). There is also tasteful background music, as well as carefully arranged lighting and projections; it’s clear that a huge amount of thought and effort has gone into arranging the exhibition.

While, understandably, great care was taken to avoid mentioning areas of violent religious conflict, the curator was bold enough to address an obvious question: why there are so few very early Jewish manuscripts. In at least one place, the display informs the reader that the extreme rarity of early Jewish manuscripts is explained by the practice of mediaeval Christian authorities of collecting them up and burning them.

What if the Palestinian lobby threw a party, and no one came?

They did, and that’s pretty much what happened. The fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day War was supposed to be marked last weekend by large protests in cities around the world. They were hoping for massive crowds. Instead, the scheduled mass hate-fest against Israel could better be described as a wake for serious Palestinian support.

The DC gathering – hyped for months in advance – was a complete bust. Reports from sources sympathetic to the pro-Palestinians claimed attendance at 5000, which would have been pitifully insignificant. People who were there (and some subsequent pro-Palestinian reports) claimed that the more accurate figure was below a thousand, which is risible. Photos and eyewitness reports support the smaller number. It looked like a high-school reunion for baby-boomers who were coping with early-onset senility by joining ANSWER, cheered on by the usual assortment of Communist and Socialist Party lifers.

The turnout in London, although higher, amounted to just a few thousand. The papers, not too many of which are exactly friendly to Israel, did not seem to mention it. If events scheduled in other parts of the world – Rome, Brussels – even occurred, no readers (at least English language ones) found out about them.

by David Klinghoffer

Americans like to think of our university system as a haven for unimpeded truth-seeking, where tenured professors press the boundaries of knowledge, no holds barred. The picture is attractive but false when it comes to scholarly consideration of big questions such as: Is the universe meaningful?

Just ask Iowa State University astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. His troubling case is a parable illustrating the limits of academic inquiry, and not only at ISU. Despite a stellar research record, Gonzalez is being forced out of his job for expressing his view on a scientific matter possessing religious implications.

In 2004, Gonzalez co-wrote a book called “The Privileged Planet.” He argued that life on Earth and our ability to make scientific discoveries about the cosmos depend on a host of incredibly improbable planetary conditions, suggesting intelligent design rather than a cosmic accident.

It is hardly surprising that one of the most outspoken evangelists of atheism would have less-than-kind words about a man who empowered religion in American politics. But writer Christopher Hitchens went even beyond his usual eloquent obnoxiousness by commencing his comments in Slate about the late Jerry Falwell by asserting that “the discovery” of the Baptist minister’s “carcass” has significance mainly for “credulous idiot[s].”

The word chosen by the petulant writer to refer to Reverend Falwell’s mortal remains is telling. As a self-declared and proud “antitheist” whose most recent book carries the subtitle “How Religion Poisons Everything,” Hitchens has no reason to view human beings as different from animals in any essential way. It is a stance that can lead to things like Princeton ethicist Peter Singer’s support for killing severely disabled babies and the unconscious elderly. As Professor Singer has explained: “The life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog or a chimpanzee.” If antitheist Hitchens asserts some inherent human specialness, he is not only insufferable but inconsistent.

Reverend Falwell, by contrast, made his reputation by forcing the American body politic to consider that the human sphere, by virtue of a Divine plan, is uniquely, meaningfully different from all else on earth. The idea that men and women possess a spark of the Divine, that our lives hold the promise of holiness, is the beta-point – after the alpha affirming God – of religious belief.

Which is why Falwell, who coaxed religious Americans to raise a voice they hadn’t known they possessed, focused largely on issues that spoke to the holiness of human life. Like the preciousness of even its potential, and how the act able to create new human beings should be regarded as something more than a meaningless equivalent of its analogue in the animal world.

Fatwas from Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s most prestigious university, are seldom the stuff late-night comedy is made of. A recent ruling about women working in offices with unrelated males is going to entertain the sleepless this week. Beyond the humor, the reaction in the Arab world is perhaps more important for exposing the fault lines of contemporary Islam. As usual, it may be the Jews who are to blame. Really.

According to a recent report on Memri’s website, Dr. Izzat Atiyya, head of Al-Azhar’s Hadith Department, addressed shari’a’s ban on women working in private with a man not of her immediate family. He opined that the legal objection could be overcome by making the unrelated male a part of her family, and this could be achieved simply by having her breastfeed him.

The source of the ruling is a hadith attributed to Aisha, wife of Mohammad, which tells of Salem, the adopted son of Abu Hudheifa, who was breastfed by Abu-Hudheifa’s wife when he was already a grown man with a beard, by the Prophet’s order. “The logic behind [the concept] of breastfeeding an adult is to transform the bestial relationship between [two people] into a religious relationship based on [religious] duties,” explained Atiyya. He was quick to address squeamishness about accepting the premise behind the ruling. “The fact that the hadith regarding the breastfeeding of an adult is inconceivable to the mind does not make it invalid. This is a reliable hadith, and rejecting it is tantamount to rejecting Allah’s Messenger and questioning the Prophet’s tradition.”

There are added dividends from this procedure as well. “After this, the woman may remove her hijab and expose her hair in the man’s [presence].”

Well, not exactly underground. More like street-level. To be exact, the first floor of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where the Jerusalem Prayer Banquet took place, and where I got to listen to and interact with hundreds of Christian Zionists during a dinner that lasted as long as a New York chasuna. This was followed by a smaller, but even more intense gathering at the Israeli Consulate the next morning, where I was part of a panel on anti-Semitism, and what supportive Christians can do about it.

I will hold back the analysis and the conclusions that might be drawn, and present just the flavors and textures. The reader can come to his or her own conclusions; I suspect that there will be some healthy debate in the comments to come.

First, though, a small quiz. You will be graded. Approximately how many evangelical churches world-wide have officially signed on to the annual day (first Sunday in October) dedicated to showing support for and commitment to Israel and the Jewish people? Guess. What seems reasonable? What order of number? Are we dealing with a few score, or a few hundred?

You’ll have to wait for the end of this piece to get the answer, unless you cheat and scroll down.