Howard Dean and the Righteous of All Nations
Josh Marshall points to coverage by The Politico of Howard Dean's comments addressing the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities:
In another statement likely to stir debate among the evangelical Christians his party is urgently trying to court, Dean also asserted “there are no bars to heaven for anybody,” according to the report by JTA, a 90-year-old non-profit organization which calls itself “the global news service of the Jewish people.”
While the comment section of The Politico's report on Dean's address contains admonitions of a presumption on the DNC Chair's part over who qualifies for entry within the pearly gates, Dean really adds nothing to, nor subtracts anything at all from, rabbinic orthodoxy. Although Dean could have innoculated himself from impending GOP talking points now emanating from The Politico's peanut gallery by simply quoting from the Talmud saying, "the righteous of all nations have a share in the world to come," what Dean has ably done is to call into question the absurd notion of those good ol' mythologically hyphenated "Judeo-Christian values."
It needs to be said. There are Christian values and there are Jewish values, and to conflate these in our political rhetoric is a cynical exercise in manipulation -- whether the intent is to contrive a more welcoming environment within the GOP for the intake of tradtionally Democratic Jewish voters, or to implicate American Jews' sympathies toward Israel and Zionism with the support by the Evangelical right for ongoing Israeli occupation and Jewish settlement expansion in Palestinian territories. It needs to be said that there are diverse sets and systems of ethics and values among the American people, and that such diversity reflects the integrity of the Enlightenment principles that the founders and framers have bravely established here. It needs to be said that the United States of America is a peculiar treasure in a human civilization otherwise divied up among competing ethnic and religious national interests, and that what we have here is both unique and fragile.
Good post.
From the title, I had thought you were using the quote "righteous of all the nations" in a different context: the memorial at Yad Vashem to the non-Jews that saved Jews during the Holocaust. I haven't been there, but I have been to the Museum of the Resistance in Copenhagen, seen the extensive exhibits of the mass underground effort that saved the majority of Danish Jews, and value several books on it I bought while there.
The history was moving, but the thing that most brought tears to my eyes was the insistence by the Danes, that when they were recognized at Yad Vashem, they were to be recognized as a country, not as individuals. They described, as an urban legend, the story that when the Nazis ordered the wearing of the yellow star, the King was the first to put one on, saying "no Dane is inferior to any other". There was a strong sense that it wouldn't have been out of character.
It amazes me that while most people are aware of the Danish clash over cartoons of Muhammad, when the Danes did something, as a group, that truly identified them as examples of righteousness. A Danish friend told me a story of a more minor event, where Blockbuster Video had closed its Danish stores. They had decided not to carry Danish-legal pornography, and a spontaneous protest arose: it wasn't for pornography as much as rejecting the idea that someone could decide what Danes could and could not see.
Changing subjects slightly, I was proud to discover that a distant inlaw, Commodore Ben Wyatt, worked closely with Raoul Wallenberg when Ben was US Naval Attache to Spain. Apparently, there was a significant "underground railroad" run by diplomats that believed it was the right thing to do, even though it compromised diplomatic status.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 13, 2007 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful post Howard.
Of course, you did forget to mention that the Danes also speak better English than we do, at least better than some of us who come from New Yawk. :)
Bruce
November 13, 2007 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
A friend of mine got his medical degree via some of the weirder Caribbean schools, so he was required to pass the test of English for Foreign Medical Graduates. Since he was born and brought up in Brooklyn, I was worried for him.
He decided to go to medical school at age 29, which was a real problem. Apparently, he had some old family records that established his family had been driven out of Spain in 1948, so he argued that Cohen clearly was a Hispanic surname that should let him in under the appropriate quota. The note came back "Creative. Nice try. No."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 13, 2007 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Howard,
You tickle me, very funny.
I guess this point has been covered a long time ago, but I always assumed you were Jewish, based solely on your name.
I used think Michael Gerson was, too, but it turned out the name came from a grandfather, or great grandfather, who was.
Your friend Cohen sounds a bit like Woody's Zelig.
January 18, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It needs to be said that there are diverse sets and systems of ethics and values among the American people, and that such diversity reflects the integrity of the Enlightenment principles that the founders and framers have bravely established here.
It needs to be said that the United States of America is a peculiar treasure in a human civilization otherwise divied up among competing ethnic and religious national interests, and that what we have here is both unique and fragile."
Thank you Zionista. We all tend to forget how glorious and unique our foundational principles are. We are different but we are one and hopefully there will always be room for one more at out table. It is a beautiful thing, this extraordinary experiment of ours and, as you write, it is a fragile thing too--like so many other beautiful things.
Bruce
November 13, 2007 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
You express, most elegantly, what I generally try for, rather than yet another ethnic state. My feelings aren't uniquely directed at Zionism, but equally at the Slavic, Balkan, and African tribalism. As Clemenceau is reputed to said, "Mon Dieu! Must every little language have its own country?" Mind, he also is supposed to have said "a language is a dialect with an army."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 13, 2007 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, Howard, the Unitded States is special and unique in creating a nation based on an idea (ie, liberal Enlightenment). Meanwhile, the rest of human civilization (I deliberately try to avoid using words like "the world" in these discussions) goes on, for good or ill, quite content in its system of ethno-national competition.
And can you appreciate the irony of the French statesman saying it in French?
November 14, 2007 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, you see me advocating that uniqueness be spread, not forcibly, but I continue to question the extent to which the US should be subsidizing states based on ethnicity or religion. That doesn't mean not cooperating with them.
I'm more flexible on supporting countries with different political structures. Many Asian countries have different values; while Singapore is on the authoritarian edge of democracy, its citizens seem desirous of their form of government. It was Bui Diem, IIRC, when Ambassador to the US from South Vietnam, who said "Dignity. We value it more than your freedom."
Irony tends to be present, by default, in most French political statements. I'm told I would feel more tolerant had I traveled outside Paris. I can't think of a city in which I felt less welcome.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 14, 2007 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh Zionista...what values and ethics do you have that Christians don't have? What values and ethics do Christians have that Jews don't have?
All we seem to do is pick apart the fabric of humanity - we look at the threads and find the different ones and pull them, and tease them out and contrast the colours and the warps and instead of weaving together a human narrative, we're tearing it apart. Why can't we look for that one sacred thread that unites us all and that is the desire to be better than we are. Isaac Asimov said that humans had better stop looking for God and start thinking that they are God and act appropriately. If we would want God to treat us fairly and justly and compassionately, then we must be fair and just and compassionate.
Human beings may have different beliefs, but we all love and grieve and are lonely and happy and want companionship and fairness and justice. Why do we look for ways to differentiate and isolate ourselves over beliefs that are so fleeting and malleable in comparison to our evolution as a species, something we all have in common.
Millions of years of evolution and for what? So that we can destroy each other over whom God loves the most. Which of your children do you love the most? Which child can you spare, which of your children is unworthy of your love, which child looks different from you and shouldn't be loved as much, or is damaged or thinks differently or is so bad that the child cannot be loved?
Tell me what those values are that makes Christian values so different from Jewish values? Do Christians love their children more than Jews do, do Jews want a better world for their children than Christians do?
This is all so disheartening...we are so different in the kindnesses we do for each other but our cruelties grow more alike every day.
November 13, 2007 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
BevD,
We do see alot more orange jumpsuits these days than ever before.
But seriously, I have not posted this as a comparison-contrast between Christian and Jewish ethics. That would be too easy, and many of us have already done that and been there in MJ Rosenberg's Ann Coulter discussion. Rather I posted this as a condemnation of the tendency of our punditocracy and communications industry to cynically exploit every opportunity to hyphenate these religious traditions whose theologies are fundamentally at odds. Nevertheless, I am impressed by your hard work and determination to miss the point.
November 14, 2007 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, my apologies for missing your point - of course, the reason why Americans made the label popular in American politics in the 1930s was as a statement of solidarity with the Jews against nazi persecution. It was an acknowledgement of the Christian roots in Judaism and a common heritage of laws and commandments. Perhaps the punditocracy does exploit the phrase, on the other hand, it might be an attempt to be politically correct. or be inclusionary, or a common unthinking habit of reference.
Yes, we do see a lot more orange jumpsuits these days - which may be that our need to better ourselves more often than not is expressed in materialism and physical adornment because idealism is scoffed at and mocked.
(As to the last comment, I'm going to chalk that up to a misunderstanding of meaning and refrain from answering in kind - I've never found that to be helpful.)
November 14, 2007 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
BevD,
Maybe I am wrong to presume that diversity is a liberal Enlightenment value. Would it really spoil any sense of inclusion to approach either traditions of Christianity or Judaism according to their respective merits; and what exactly is the value in promoting unanimity and conformity?
November 14, 2007 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Diversity isn't limited to Judaeo-Christian religions, although a fair number of politicians forget, conveniently, that Islam is part of the family of Abrahamic religions. Spirituality, of course, isn't limited to Abrahamic traditions.
A few years ago, then-Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican at the time but now, no longer in office, a Libertarian, attempted to ban Wiccan observance from military bases. When GWB, as Governor of Texas, was asked about the issue, he said ""The military should rethink their position. That's not a religion." I don't remember much said against these positions in Congress, by either party.
Recently, we had a disruption of the first Congressional invocation given by a Hindu cleric. My personal feeling is that the Congress does not need its own chaplains or invocations; there are abundant places of worship on Capitol Hill. I make exceptions for government chaplains in the military, because it is a legitimate First Amendment issue for service members to be able to get religious counsel wherever they are deployed, and there are few rabbis in Iraq.
Hinduism is a major world religion rarely considered, and there is much the same sort of non-inclusion about Buddhism and other Eastern religions.
Not all religions share the same theologica traditions, but they are more likely to share some, but not all, goals for social justice. Of course, there will be clashes about such trigger points as birth control and abortion, school prayer, evolution, etc., but, more often than not, these are issues specific to conservative Christians. You don't have to be Christian to recognize the message in "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's".
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 14, 2007 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Howard,
Wtf is "Judeo-Christian religion"? But of course diversity is not limited to Judaism and Christianity. Howard Dean's address to the United Jewish Communties General Assembly provides a basis for this particular example.
November 14, 2007 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Judaeo-Christian religion is a common enough term, referring to all the variants of Judaism and Christianity, although there are people who argue that Mormons and other groups are not Christian. Frankly, I find it a term that is a way of excluding Islam from a family of religions with a common root.
I'm not familiar with Howard Dean's address. What did he say that was applicable to religions that were neither Jewish, Christian, and perhaps Muslim?
It's rather rare to find politicians paying any particular respect to religions outside these two or three families. Frankly, I'd just as soon not hear about religion of any sort from politicians, but clarity about policies. Nevertheless, I find neopagan and traditional Asian religions often attacked without a word of protest from any political party.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 14, 2007 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aye, it usually takes a lawsuit to get politicians to recognize other sanctioned religions. The VA's settlement recently to allow the pentagram on Wiccan and Pagan headstones (after a seven-year legal struggle, regardless of First Amendment protections) is one such example.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity
Where everybody knows your name...
unless you use a pseudonym
November 14, 2007 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was a little unnerving to find a Satanist priestess being approved to perform marriages. Her theology wasn't the thing that scared me, but that she was a grandmother named Rosemary. I'm trying to picture the collision between evangelicals and Rosemary's Baby's Baby.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 14, 2007 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric Stepp,
And the ruling was certainly one fine day in America. More info here.
November 15, 2007 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Howard,
I could not agree more. But when the national Democratic Party has outreach to fundamentalist Christian communities on the agenda, it's gonna happen.
Further, I agree entirely about the disrespect, and alarmingly casual acceptance of ridicule, toward atheists, agnostics and minority faith traditions.
November 15, 2007 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're right about the outreach. With perfect timing, a fundamentalist friend of mine just invited me for Thanksgiving.
Chris and I squabbled on newsgroups for years, until, one day, he stopped quoting Scripture at me and said a few things about his personal ministries, witnesses, or whatever the right term may be. We had been discussing public healthm, and he, with no medical qualifications, went on a mission for mass immunization in some very rural parts of South America. As you may know, through immunization, the Western Hemisphere is very, very close to the total eradication of polio. With other international efforts, it may be the second disease to join smallpox as things wiped off the face of the earth.
We started talking about work he did in jails, and he was remarkably realistic about the rate of recidivism and the likelihood prisoners were in religious activity to get a better chance at parole. He simply hoped that here and there, he was right in finding some people that wanted to turn their lives around--and job skills were even more important than religion, right at that point.
So, when we started agreeing about desirable social outcomes, we started being friends. We agreed to disagree about certain issues such as abortion, but concentrated on what we had in common.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 15, 2007 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
there is much the same sort of non-inclusion about Buddhism and other Eastern religions.
I'm sure you aware that Buddhism is not a religion at its base -- it's a philosophy and way of life. I'll concede that it has been corrupted into a religion in much of southern Asia.
January 19, 2008 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that either Christianity or Judaism is a unique concept. Both religions are woven narratives of many different religions and cultural influences, from the Jewish incorporation of Egyptian monotheistic cults and Babylonian creation myths and those traditions and legends they picked up in intra and inter tribal encounters. The Christian religion developed in much the same way by drawing legends and traditions from other cultures and religions. Most religions share this development and evolution, so I don't look at religions as unique expressions of values and ethics particular to one people, I see religion as the answer to the human need to explain the unexplainable and a wish to be a part of something greater and better than themselves.
I did not say that their was value in uniformity and conformity, I said the value lay in solidarity and understanding of each other as human beings.
November 14, 2007 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
BevD,
And we accomplish this by conflating and confusing two distinct theological traditions...?
November 14, 2007 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
They already are conflated and confused.
November 14, 2007 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they are conflated, they are conflate wrongly.
This is not to say they aren't strongly related; they are. But they aren't the same; and the differences are important, at least to the people who practice the two religions.
To take a stab at your question at the top of the thread, Christianity is a universalist and evangelical religion. Its goal is to spread the word of Christ to all people.
Judaism is much more a particularist religion. Jews don't seek converts and even try to turn them away (as part of the conversion process).
There are universalist "seeds" within Judaism. The Jewish people are supposed to be a light unto the world. And notions of the Messianic era (may it come quickly) and about the world to come also contain universalist messages. Michael Lerner's Tikkun is another example.
So one can see how these universalist seeds grew to full flower within Christianity. Secular versions of the Jewish outlook in Marxism and Ethical Culture are also flowerings, IMO. New Jewish thought, say Michael Lerner's Tikkun and the like, is also much more universalistic than traditional Jewish thinking.
But still, Christian and Jewish values or perspectives on universalism are largely different. Perhaps that's because Jews consider themselves a people distinct from other peoples, whereas Christians don't, as far as I know. In some ways, this difference in values creates two sides of the same coin: At bottom, all people are all the same. But as you travel down to the bottom, they are very, very different from each other, and you ignore those differences at your peril.
(As we learn every day in our "foreign policy" adventures.)
I'm sure you know the famous Talmudic story in which a gentile comes to Hillel and asks him to explain Judaism while standing on one leg. Hillel tells him that Judaism can be boiled down to the golden rule (though stated in its negative form--do not do unto others what you would not want done unto you) and adds, "All the rest is commentary. Go and study."
Most people focus only on the first part of the story. They think that being a Jew is merely a matter of following the golden rule. And of course most religions have some version of the golden rule. But the last two sentences are very important, especially the command to go and study. Being a Jew is a lot more than being a good person. Studying the "details" IS important--whereas Paul, the great universalizer, wanted to do away with all those "details."
I think the negative formulation of the golden rule is also an important difference in values. The Jewish perspective is much more conservative; much more "isolationist" in its approach. There's an assumption in the negative formulation that we shouldn't try to impose on others what we want for ourselves. They might want something different. How can we know or presume to know what they want or need?
Nevertheless, our lives do affect other people's lives. We can't get away from it, and so SOME empathy is required for right action in the social sphere. Refraining from potentially noxious action is the best course and involves the least amount of presumption that we know best what others need and want.
Sort of a Jewish version of "do no harm."
January 19, 2008 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read in context, Dean's comments do seem to represent an inclusionary effort:
“The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” ~~ C. G. Jung
November 14, 2007 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wordie,
I believe BevD refers not to Dr. Dean's comments, but to the phrase "Judeo-Christian" as an attempt at being "inclusionary."
Further, I am here to praise Dr. Dean's avoidance of the phrase precisely because its rejection advances genuine inclusion and diversity, as opposed to the cynical use of nonsense like "Judeo-Christian."
November 14, 2007 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I think that was what BevD was saying too. But I think it's useful to see the entire Dean statement in context.
As BevD notes, there's been a long-time effort by some Christian leaders to stress that the roots of Christianity lie within Judiasm. Christian Bible studies, for instance, often stress that Jesus was himself a Jew. So I'm not so certain that there's a case to be made that the use of the term "Judeo-Christian" is cynical. Rather, it seems to be a sort of innoculation against the antisemitism of the past (it's harder to hate Jews upon realizing your own guy was one), and an effort to put Christianity in it's historical context. The intent here seems entirely benign.
Of course, that may be part of what's led to the new interest in Israel by that subset of Evangelical Christians who are actively working to bring about Armageddon and the Rapture (to which there is absolutely no reference in the New Testament, btw), so perhaps you're right that there's a downside as well.
“The healthy man does not torture others — generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” ~~ C. G. Jung
November 14, 2007 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wordie,
Indeed. Not only in the geopolitical realm of foreign policy, but regarding domestic policies as well. Consider, for example, the consistent exploitation of the phrase in attacking the teaching of evolutionary science as somehow inconsistent with "Judeo-Christian" values, principles, whatever. I can't speak to Christian theology, but there is substantial support in rabbinic responsa, Jewish ethical texts and particularly in the poetic imagery of medieval Jewish mystical traditions, for what we know today as evolutionary science.
November 14, 2007 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the other hand...
I remember sitting at a table of eminent Orthodox rabbis--everyone was very "black" except for me--and the guest of honor--who was revered as the smartest of the smart--was saying how, incredibly, there were "still" some people who held to the view that Creation was some sort of accident, or the product of unintelligent design.
To be honest, I was kind of shocked. I was pretty sure that Kant had demolished the argument from design back in 17XX. But everyone at the table nodded their head in agreement and smiled the smirk of those who take pity on their lessers.
January 17, 2008 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink