July..August 2004 - תַּמּוּז .. אָב .. אֱלוּל תשס״ד Tammuz..Av..Elul 5764

Politics and religion have been separate in American campaigns in most of recent history. Most of this has been due to the constitutional separation of church and state, which until recently was understood to mean that houses of worship could lose their tax-exempt status if they became overly involved in political campaigns. Most clergy people understood this to mean that we were permitted to advocate for political causes but prohibited from endorsing candidates from the pulpit.

Most synagogues and many churches followed these rules meticulously. Many democrats preached at Afro-American churches and republicans received support from the televangelists and other ultra-conservative pulpits. Synagogue pulpits were pretty much reserved for the “Is It Good for the Jews?” politicking. Most often this meant measuring a given candidate or party up against the platform position on Israel. Some rabbis, (this one included), gave an occasional sermon about the social justice of a given proposition or initiative, arguing that civil rights and economic justice are also Jewish concerns.

This election cycle is different. The courts at the prompting of the Administration have ruled that churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship have the freedom of speech to endorse political causes and candidates.

Ironically the first ones to weigh in this year are the Catholic bishops who have written opinions stating first that politicians and then parishioners that oppose Church doctrine cannot or should not receive communion. [This means that a Catholic cannot ingest the Eucharist of wafer and wine, a critical part of their worship. Preventing a Catholic from communion is comparable to barring a Jew from attending services.] This is more than endorsing a political position against abortion or against stem cell research, this is coercing parishioners to follow Church doctrine or be cut off from access to God. This is more than a rabbi condemning the President's war in Iraq; it would be like the rabbi placing anyone who disagreed with him or her under herem (ban) forbidding any good Jews from having contact with the banned Jews. It is near impossible for either of these prohibitions to be enforced in an open society, but the fact that religious institutions are trying to enforce political discipline is more than a little frightening.

While I have very strong personal political views, and I am not very good at hiding them from you, every political view is welcome in the Jewish community in general, and especially at Temple Beth Sholom. I will continue to discuss the Jewish values that I believe are at stake in the coming election, (and it will certainly not be limited to which candidate is better for Israel), but I will expect you to search the Jewish tradition and to stand up for your values in these discussions. May God grant us the wisdom to choose candidates who will benefit our society, our country and the world.

Shalom, Shalom --

—Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, Ph.D., D.D.

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