Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Was the Holocaust Punishment for Sin?

2013-05-23T07:53:20-04:00

For so many people religion is practiced out of a sense superstition. Like a furry rabbit's foot, it wards off evil spirits. Fulfilling the word of God keeps you from experiencing bad things. So what happens when you're religious and those bad things happen anyway? It must be because you sinned.

I continue to be amazed at how many people see God as 'the great blackmailer in the sky,' a term I first heard from the atheist Oxford philosopher Jonathan Glover in a debate I moderated between him and my friend Dennis Prager. God threatens us with death and suffering unless we follow His will. Insofar as I have recently published a full length book refuting this idea, both Biblically and logically, I will not here address it, other than to focus on the most insidious permutation thereof. And that is the belief that the holocaust was punishment for Jewish sin.

No doubt you've heard this argument before. It's straightforward and it goes like this. The Jews of Germany didn't want to be Jewish any more. They wanted to be more German than the Germans. They changed their names. They assimilated. They married out. The reform movement, which started in Germany in about 1820, expunged all mention of Zion and Jerusalem from its prayer book. Germany and Berlin were the new promised land. In short, the Jews of Germany abandoned God. Worse, they thought they could get away with it. So God decided to teach them a lesson. Just try and forget Me. Here, have a few gas chambers. Let's see how independent you feel when you're incarcerated behind barbed wire? Let's see how much you love Germany when they collectively slaughter your children.

I've heard many variations on this theme. One is that it wasn't assimilation and attachment to Germany that brought the holocaust, but the exact opposite. The Jews were punished for secular Zionism and an attempt to return to the ancient homeland without divine assistance. Another variation, which I heard just recently and supposedly exists on a tape from one of the great Jewish scholars of the 20th century, was that the only way the Jews would ever give up their deep, emotional attachment to the great Torah centers of Europe, like Lithuania, was to see their neighbors shoot their own parents.

Whatever the variation on this theme of the holocaust as punishment, let's be clear. These theories are ignorant, repulsive, and wrong. Ignorant because no human being knows the mind of G-d. Repulsive because they take six million innocent martyrs -- including 1.5 million children - and turn them into culprits responsible for their own deaths. Wrong because they ignore the most basic fact of all, which is this: the majority of German Jews survived Hitler, even though, of course, huge numbers perished.

In 1933 there were 522,000 Jews living in the Reich. By 1939 and the start of the Second World War, 304,000 had emigrated. Beginning in January 1933, when Hitler came to office in a torch lit parade down Unter den Linden, the Jews of Germany knew that they were in the hands of a monster. Almost immediately Jews were beaten in the streets, their businesses boycotted, their Synagogues attacked. By September, 1935 the Nuremberg race laws were enacted. By November 1938 the horrors of Kristallnacht defined the growing Nazi tyranny. And throughout, the Jews of Germany tried to get out. They knew they were otherwise doomed. And while the nations of the world closed so many doors to them, the majority managed to escape.

The people who did not escape were, among so many other millions, the Chassidim and ultra-religious Jews of Poland who had no idea that Hitler had signed a secret pact with Stalin to partition Poland. They had no inkling of Hitler's plan to invade via blitzkrieg on 1 September, 1939 and that they would be caught in his web.

Are we to believe that these Jews who were devout and pious, with deeply sounding Jewish names, who observed the minutiae of Jewish law pertaining to kosher and the Sabbath and prayed thrice daily for the Jewish return to Zion were punished with extinction while the 'sinful' culprits of German Jewry mostly survived? And what of the more than one million children who were gassed and cremated who were utterly innocent of every sin?

The theory of the holocaust-as-punishment is not just abhorrent. It is factually absurd.

But there is more.

Do those who argue that European Jewry were nearly wiped out by God as a consequence of sin really believe they are doing God a favor with this heresy? Do they believe they are defending His reputation? Let's say for a moment that they're right. God bears no responsibility for the gas chambers at Auschwitz because the Jews of Europe had it coming. They earned death by virtue of their iniquity. They deserved to be turned into ash because they had abrogated God's covenant.

Now, how many of you feel like praying to a God who could do that? How many of you feel like loving a God who enacts the death penalty for eating a cheese burger? How many people would want to worship a God who cremates children when their parents drive on the Sabbath?

No, this stomach-turning theory paints God, and the Jewish people, in the worst possible light, when, in reality, it's the Nazis that deserve that opprobrium.

As to God and the question of where He was as the Jews of Europe were slowly exterminated, I will forever believe that we have the right, nay, the responsibility, to challenge and question God on that issue.

I don't know why God allowed the holocaust. Nor do I care. Any explanation would not minimize the horror of it. Nor would it bring back my six millions murdered Jewish brothers and sisters. Indeed, asking for an answer is itself immoral insofar as it is an attempt to reconcile ourselves with the irreconcilable. What we want is for God to fulfill his promises to the Jewish people, that they might live a blessed and peaceful existence, like so man other nations that are not perennial targets for genocide.

True, God has sustained us, for the most part, and we alone have survived from antiquity. We are grateful to God for our longevity. But it should not take the deaths of innocent Israeli soldiers to guarantee our survival.

It is high time that God show Himself in history and bless a people who have been, for the past three thousand years, the most devoted and religious of nations, deeply faithful to God, practicing charity, promoting scholarship, fostering hospitality, and spreading light and blessing to all nations of the earth.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek and The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," is the international best-selling author of 29 books, and will shortly publish "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging G-d in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." His website is www.shmuley.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

When American Ambassadors Were Still Untouchable

2013-05-17T07:28:19-04:00

I just finished one of the best books I've read in a long time, In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, which tells the story of Ambassador William Dodd, President Roosevelt's first Ambassador to Hitler. The book chronicles the slow descent of Germany into Nazi tyranny. One of the most striking features of the narrative is the fear that slowly descends on the German populace as they become terrified of ever expressing an opinion about Hitler and his police state even in the company of close family and friends.

Yet Dodd and his family were utterly immune to such fear. Though they lived in a home that was owned by a Jewish banker; though they regularly hosted journalists who wrote critically of Hitler; though they drove by the home of Franz Von Papen -- the deputy Chancellor -- to show their support even after he had been placed under house arrest by Hitler for his Marburg speech of June, 1934; though Dodd openly snubbed Hitler every year by refusing to attend the Nazi Nuremberg rally where Hitler was celebrated as a god, Dodd never had anything to fear. He did not have to worry that the SA would ransack his Berlin home in the middle of the night. He did not have to fear that his daughter Martha, who even had an affair with Gestapo head Rudolf Diels, would be summarily shot for her increasing disillusion with Hitler's regime. He did not have to fear that the SS would arrest him on his frequent walks through the Tiergarten for a speech he gave on that made subtle reference to Hitler's growing assault on freedom. And he did not have fear that roaming bands of Nazi thugs would attack him for his protests to the German Foreign Minister against unprovoked attacks that threatened the lives of Americans.

And why didn't he fear? Because even a monster as evil as Hitler, arguably the most dangerous man that ever lived, wasn't going to mess with the American Ambassador.

In fact, one of the stories told in the book is the day that Dodd took a walk with French Ambassador André François-Poncet in the Tiergarten when the latter told him he would not be surprised if he would be shot in the street by the SS.

Dodd was astonished. It never occurred to him to ever worry so long as he was the American Ambassador and indeed Hitler and the Nazis never harassed Western Ambassadors.

It therefore matters that just 80 years later a bunch of terrorist thugs can think they can murder an American Ambassador in full site of the world without consequence. American diplomatic staff were once the safest people in the world, representatives of a superpower who would rain hell from the skies should you touch one of their diplomatic staff. But no more.

The growing revelations from the Congressional hearings on Benghazi that the Obama State Department watered down public statements on the attack in order to cleanse them of any mention of Al Qaeda and terrorism is a travesty and shows a lack of moral will to give evil its proper name. ABC News and Fox News reported this past Friday that the departments talking points were revised a full 12 times to purge them of any mention of terrorism. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland asked the CIA to remove mention of their own security warnings about Benghazi. According to ABC News the original paragraph read, "The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to Al Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks."

But Nuland was concerned that the line "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?"

I have earlier written how Ambassador Susan Rice was utterly inappropriate to be chosen as Secretary of State based on her efforts to disassociate the word genocide from the Rwandan mass slaughters of 1994 so as not to commit the Clinton Administration to intervention. In a 2001 article published in The Atlantic, Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning A Problem of Hell and arguably the world's foremost voice against genocide and who currently serves on the National Security Council as an aide to President Obama, referred to Ambassador Susan Rice and her colleagues in the Clinton Administration as Bystanders to genocide. She quotes Rice in the 2002 book as saying, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?" Rice's subordination of a human tragedy of epic proportions to partisan politic interests mirrors the current allegations of denying a terror attack in Benghazi for political gain.

Worse, the attempt to whitewash the Benghazi attacks as merely a protest that turned violent trivializes the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three Americans murdered with him and threatens to cheapen the life of every American diplomat currently serving in dangerous posts. We need to accept that the fear the United States once instilled in those with evil intent against our diplomatic staff has worn thin and the only way to reintroduce that fear is to understand fully what happened in Benghazi and rain fire on the culprits so that this never happens again.

Shmuley Boteach, whom The Washington Post calls 'the most famous Rabbi in America,' served as Rabbi to the students of Oxford University for 11 years where he created the Oxford L'Chaim Society, which hosted world leaders lecturing on values-based leadership. He has just published The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Stephen Hawking Rejects the Zionism of Einstein

2013-05-10T08:21:24-04:00

Has Stephen Hawking really left the company of Albert Einstein, an avowed Zionist who worked to create the State of Israel, and replaced him with the august company of Elvis Costello and other Israel boycotters?

I hosted Hawking for a lecture at Oxford in 1998 where I introduced him to 1000 Oxford students. He could not have been more humble and approachable. Aside from his lecture, delivered through his voice synthesizer, on string theory -- little of which I understood but which my students assured me was 'brilliant' -- I remember his love of babies and practical jokes. Our daughter Rochel Leah had just been born and Hawking and his wife asked us if he could hold her. I can still picture in my mind how his wife took the baby, placed her on his lap, and then wrapped his enfeebled arms around the baby, which he stared at with a huge grin for minutes. He was enraptured.

After the lecture was over and as we walked Hawking to his car, he suddenly raced off in his wheelchair to Haagen-Dazs where we consumed in ice cream. His wife chuckled that he loved giving his hosts the slip as he indulged his childlike spirit.

All who heard and met him were deeply impressed with his humility and accessibility.

And now this, digging a knife publicly into Israel's back.

Why would one of the world's leading academic minds condemn the only democracy in the Middle East? Why would he attack a country, situated in a region of such deep misogyny, that celebrates women succeeding in every area of academic, professional, and political life? Why would Hawking pounce on a nation who, with neighbors like Hamas that routinely murder gays on false accusations of collaboration, grants homosexuals every equal right? And why would he condemn a country whose Arab citizens are the freest and least afraid in the entire Middle East?

Could it be because Israel has still not settled the status of the West Bank?

But if that is the case, surely Hawking knows that Israel has seen thousands of its citizens slaughtered in gruesome terror attacks ever since it granted autonomy to the Palestinian authority to control 97% of the Palestinian population?

Could it be because Israel has yet to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state?

But then Hawking is a highly educated man and he knows that after Israel withdrew fully from Gaza -- dismantling its communities and forcibly removing its settlers -- that it lead to tens of thousands of rockets being fired at Israeli hospitals and schools. And besides, Israel has practically begged the Palestinians to come back to the negotiating table without any pre-conditions to discuss just that, the creation of a two-state solution, but the Palestinians have refused.

Perhaps its because Hawking believes the demonstrably false lie that Israel is an apartheid state. But then a scientist like Hawking would check facts before he would embrace such fraudulence and could easily discover that Arabs serve in the Israel Knesset -- where they freely and regularly disagree with Israel -- as well as the Israeli Supreme Court, the civil service, and every other area of Israeli life.

No, one must conclude that for all his academic brilliance Hawking might just be lacking in simple common sense.

In his statement embracing the boycott of the Jewish state, Hawking said, "I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this I must withdraw from the conference."

One would think that Hawking's response to these academics might be a call to, say, Hamas to start using the billions channeled to the Palestinians as the world's largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid into building universities rather than buying bombs, or educating women rather than tacitly allowing the honor killings of young Palestinian women whose only crime is to have a boyfriend. No, Hawking decided instead to condemn the country whose scholars have won ten Nobel prizes, from a population of six million, while the entire Arab world, numbering in the hundreds of millions, have won two, outside the peace prize (another four).

Clearly, a knowledge of physics is no guarantor of a knowledge of foreign affairs.

Since Hawking is so often called the Einstein of his generation, it is worth reminding him that Einstein was a committed Zionist who traveled around the United States with Chain Weizmann to raise money for the creation of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an institution that Hawking now refuses to even visit. In a 1921 letter to his friend Friedrich Zangger, Einstein wrote, "On Saturday I'm off to America -- not to speak at universities (though there will probably be that, too, on the side) but rather to help in the founding of the Jewish University in Jerusalem. I feel an intense need to do something for this cause."

Separately, in a letter to Maurice Solovine Einstein wrote, "I am not at all eager to go to America but am doing it only in the interests of the Zionists, who must beg for dollars to build educational institutions in Jerusalem and for whom I act as high priest and decoy... I do what I can to help those in my tribe who are treated so badly everywhere."

And when in 1948 President Harry Truman recognized the new Jewish State of Israel, Einstein declared it "the fulfillment of our dream."

How unfortunate that a man as visionary as Stephen Hawking can peer so deeply into the universe but it is so myopic as to fail to see the righteousness of Israel's cause even as it stares him right in the face.

Shmuley Boteach, whom The Washington Post calls 'the most famous Rabbi in America,' served as Rabbi to the students of Oxford University for 11 years where he created the Oxford L'Chaim Society,which hosted world leaders lecturing on values-based leadership. He has just published The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Reversing the Corrosive Message of Commencements

2013-05-06T07:33:38-04:00

Twenty-three years ago a young Mormon Doctoral student came to our Friday night Sabbath dinner at Oxford with a Jewish friend. Though I had met Mormons before I had never gotten to know any intimately, let alone the grandson of the Mormon prophet and President of the worldwide church. Little did I realize at the time that this friendship with Mike Benson would be transformative in my life, would lead to a lifelong closeness with the LDS Church, and would culminate in Mike inviting me as commencement speaker at Southern Utah University, where he serves as President, and awarding me an honorary doctorate, alongside golfing legend Billy Casper.

I thought long and hard about my message. I wanted it to be fundamentally different to the corrosive message that is inadvertently offered by so many commencement speakers where they share with graduates the secrets of success. So long as you a. work hard, b. pursue your passion, and c. remain disciplined, you will make money, build a career, and become a success, thereby suggesting that up until now the student in question is undistinguished, anonymous, and somehow unimportant. Professional achievement will put them on the map.

I believe that misguided messages like these are what have led to the profound contradiction in American life whereby we are the richest society in the entire world but also the most depressed. A culture that pushes people to distinguish themselves in order to prove themselves worthy. Thomas Jefferson's immortal words in the Declaration of Independence about the pursuit of happiness is interpreted by most Americans to mean the pursuit of success that will bring happiness. But taking people who essentially feel like they're worthless and making them believe that if they found an internet startup and make billions will bring them happiness is a non-starter. Because the man who is empty on the inside, no matter how many yachts and Telluride condos you shove into him, retains a vacuous crater at his center whereby his feelings of achievement go in one end and come out the other. External accouterments of success are never going to shore him up and make him feel special.

Like so many, I am in awe of Steve Jobs and his achievements. Heck, I'm writing this column on an Apple laptop. But that doesn't change the fact that none of his successes ever brought him happiness and he remained, until his dying day, a pretty miserable creature who treated others miserably, as his authorized biographer Walter Isaacson makes clear.

I wanted to say something profoundly different, that the reason a student comes to Southern Utah University, or any other place of higher learning, is not to acquire the skills by which to succeed but for a different reason altogether. Because you are already special and all you require are the tools by which to develop your limitless potential. There is no one in the world quite like you and you are unique. You have a gift to contribute to the world that no one else has and you squander your potential comparing your gift to everyone else. That there is a place for competitiveness but only in the things that you do -- like sports, making money, or running for public office -- but not in the thing that you are, namely, a person of infinite worth and essential dignity called forth by God for a unique purpose. That there is nothing outside you that can ever add to your value, which comes being a child of God, and the reason to succeed is not to prove yourself but because the world cannot live without your contribution and that without your gift society remains inherently unbalanced.

But as students leave the crib of academia and enter the workplace, entering the highly competitive environment we call capitalism, the world is going to assail that fundamental belief in their uniqueness. You're going to compare yourself constantly to people who are richer than you and more famous than you, prettier than you and smarter than you. And society is going to try and strip away the faith you have in yourself as an individual of infinite significance. You will be told that you have to do in order to be.

A trip to 7/11 is going to remind you by simply looking at the newsstand that you're not on the Forbes 400 list. You're not on the cover of vogue. Life will try to chip away at most important belief you have, namely, that you matter, that you're special.

You will do favors for people and they will forget you. Joseph encouragingly interprets the dream of Pharaoh's chief butler, but immediately upon being restored to his position the Bible says, "And the butler did not remember Joseph, and he forgot him." Not only did he not remember him, he made a conscious effort to forget him. Noone wants to feel indebted.

Young women will give their hearts to a man who may return it in pieces. You will contribute to companies who in an economic downturn will tell you that they no longer need your services.

Some of the setbacks in life, especially when compared to other people's successes, will make you feel ordinary. When Moses sends spies to the promised land to discover how it can best be taken, they return with a dispiriting report, that the land is unconquerable. "We saw giants there and we appeared in our eyes as if were cockroaches, and that's how we appeared to them as well." They saw themselves as pigmies and others as giants. The spies failed at retaining the essential belief that they were exceptional and could succeed at their mission.

Contrast their view of the promised land with that of Martin Luther King, Jr. who, forty-five years ago on the last night of his life, famously spoke of the same promised land and said that God has taken him over the mountain to see it. "What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know ... And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Why wasn't King afraid, especially in light of the horrible fact that a white racist would murder him just twenty hours later? Because the foundation of all human fear is the fear that you don't matter. That you're ordinary. That you're not worthy of love. That you're superfluous, with no unique contribution.

But King had no such fear. In having devoted his life to making other people feel worthy, he found infinite dignity. In conferring dignity on others he achieved immortality.

The ancient Jewish sages said it best: who is exalted? He who makes others feel glorious.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America", served as Rabbi at the University of Oxford for 11 years and has just published "The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." The full video of his commencement speech can be found at http://www.suu.edu/ss/registrar/graduation/. Follow him on Twitter @Rabbishmuley

The Danger of Treating North Korea as Farce

2013-05-02T17:15:52-04:00

Co-authored by Arash Farin

Yet again, the United States, and, indeed the world, finds itself having to confront a dictatorial regime led by a maniacal leader who continuously threatens both our country and that of our allies. Although Iran typically leads international headlines in this arena, the North Korean regime has taken center stage with both provocative acts and thinly-veiled threats.

Thus far, the US and its allies have taken a "wait-and-see approach", which, it seems, has only hardened the North's resolve to establish itself as a dominant player in world affairs and a nuclear-armed nation. As the world stood by and watched, North Korea launched a satellite into space in December of last year and conducted another nuclear test this past February. Although it has vocalized its plans to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, the conventional wisdom is that the North's technological advances have yet to create a nuclear warhead capable of fitting on a missile which can reach the US.

And, as if the world needs more pseudo-pundits addressing the situation, Iran's foreign ministry has ironically asked both sides to use restraint and not promote "provocative behavior." As foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, "We think that the event that is intensifying between North Korea, South Korea and the United states should be controlled as soon as possible. Both parties should not move toward a corner in which there is a threatening climate."

Although the US can hardly afford to open a new front internationally and remains mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fact remains that Kim Jong Un continues to be caricatured by the press and not taken seriously enough. On April 7th, Saturday Night Live ("SNL") opened with a fake press conference where Kim Jong Un brags about his sexual prowess and fist pumps Dennis Rodman towards the end of his address. While this is typical SNL fare, it is emblematic of the world's failure to truly fathom the grave threat represented by maniacal figures like Kim. As if to make matters worse and again reinforce this image of two clowns hanging out, Dennis Rodman traveled to North Korea in February where he called Kim "a friend for life" and announced plans to "have some fun" with Kim in August, saying he "just wants to be loved". Episodes like this may end up creating an air of oblivion about what is truly going on behind the scenes and lulling the world into focusing on the amusement of the affair as opposed to Kim's nefarious intentions.

History has a habit of repeating itself, and we know from our experiences in the past that leaders who were not taken seriously while issuing existential threats often desire to carry them through. History is replete with examples of various countries placating or satirizing Adolph Hitler, who simply pursued his vision with uncanny fervor and focus. In 1940, Charlie Chaplin created the film, "The Great Dictator", where he expressed his views through what has been called a "satirical attack on fascism." Although creating a comedy about Hitler was very controversial, Chaplin stated "I was determined to go ahead," "for Hitler must be laughed at." In the film, Chaplin casts "A Jewish Barber", who also plays the dictator "Adenoid Hynkel" and parodies Hitler. As history would tell, society could ill afford to stop and laugh at a jingoistic megalomaniac like Hitler. The world waited, appeased, and ran away in fright until we no longer could, and by that time, Hitler's Generalplan Ost, or Grand Plan to dominate Central and Eastern Europe and ethnically cleanse Jews and others in its wake had already had a devastating impact. The Holocaust was Hitler's answer, and for the rest of the world, it was too late. In this same time period, caricatures of Mussolini and Stalin were also readily available during their regimes, helping mask the true dangers these tyrants posed not only to their citizens, but to the world at large. Stalin, of course, was one of the most murderous dictators in history who cause the death and suffering of tens of millions through his forced labor camps and purging "enemies of the people". Mussolini was also known to severely torture or imprison his opposition, in addition to framing and murdering them at a later time. His secret police exerted influence over most aspects of daily life and were in charge of ending any anti-Fascist activity.

Among the most worrisome aspects of Kim Jong Un's regime is his inexperience and youth, as he is only 30 years old and thus the world's youngest head of state. Of course, North Korea's lack of respect for human rights and attacks on its own people have been well documented. As an example, in early January 2011, the North Korean regime began either executing or detaining around 200 protégés of both Jong Un's uncle-in-law Jang Sung-taek and O Kuk-ryol, the vice chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea, in an effort to rid the country of potential competitors to Kim. The regime is known to continue its heinous policies of killing defectors, organizing public executions and sending the populace to prison camps. Perhaps the most heinous of the crimes perpetrated by the North Korean regime is the mass slaughter of its own people. Up to about three million citizens are estimated to have perished through hunger, as its million-man army is fed and the populace is starved. Indeed, it was only a few days ago when a secret video shot in North Korea from the Chinese border showed a starving 10-year old boy left for dead in the street, while sacks of rice are unloaded near him to feed the army. Ordinary citizens, themselves suffering from starvation, simply meander by with no regard. Estimates are that millions of others live close to starvation and children are left to suffer from malnutrition due to being orphaned or having their parents imprisoned. The regime uses starvation to control the population, leading some North Koreans to resort to cannibalism or eating tree barks. According to Pastor Kim Seung-Eun, a cleric who has helped North Koreans flee, "One man was shot dead, executed because he ate half of another human being and sold the rest as meat. People are living like animals in that country." The video also shows a North Korean prison camp where laborers are forced to carry wood to repair a bridge and dig crops out from frozen land.

Media reports indicate Kim is thought to have been involved in the bombardment of Yeonpyeong and the Cheonan sinking to burnish his credentials and pave to way to a seamless transition of power from his father. He seems to have received the attention of the right crowd when the ruling Workers' Party said in an editorial "We vow with bleeding tears to call Kim Jong-un our supreme commander, our leader."

Beyond the threat Kim poses to his own population, he continues to antagonize world powers, including the US. On March 7th of this year, for example, he threatened the US with a "pre-emptive nuclear attack" and to "wipe out" Baengnyeong Island, where battles have broken out before.

In addition, just a few days ago, the Pentagon's intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency, announced that North Korea probably has a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a ballistic missile, although its reliability is low. Although James Clapper, the director of national intelligence indicated this was not the consensus view of the US intelligence community, this has only heightened tensions on both sides and the US has increased missile defense systems on the west coast and the island of Guam.

As the rest of the world, both allies and enemies, await the outcome of the near-brinksmanship being pursued by Kim, the North Korean regime needs to be viewed through the prism of the past. Too many times, the world has learned the hard way by "turning the other cheek" while dictators terrorized both their own people and other nations who were fully capable of putting a dent in their plans. The path we forge as a nation has important implications not only for the Korean Peninsula, but for our relations with the Middle East, China, Russia, and other potentially aggressor nations. Iran, in particular, is watching closely.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," is the international best-selling author of 29 books and the winner of the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He has just published "The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering". Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

This post was co-authored by Arash Farin, an investment banker based in Los Angeles. Arash Farin has degrees from The Wharton School, Harvard Business School, and also attended Oxford University, where he was President of Rabbi Shmuley's L'Chaim Society, the forerunner to The Jewish Values Network.

One Strike and You're Out?

2013-04-29T08:06:42-04:00

The news over the last few weeks of the sock puppet scandal of Rabbi Michael Broyde is disturbing, but not for the reasons you might imagine. On the face of it, this is the story of a Rabbi regarded as brilliant and erudite, both in Jewish and secular law, who destroyed his career by using an alias to engage in online Rabbinical conferences and discussions. Furthermore, his denial of the alias sealed his fate. He was forced to resign from the Beth Din of America, where he was one of its most prominent judges, and his name has become sullied.

I do not know Rabbi Broyde and cannot recall if we ever formally met. But I do know this. The growing American and Jewish culture of 'one-strike-and-your-out' is tragic and disturbing.

Say a Rabbi like Broyde makes a terrible mistake. He assumes an invented identity on the Internet and even uses it -- so it is alleged -- to promote his candidacy as potential Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. Does that mean he has nothing left to contribute? That because we discover he can be deceitful that it negates any good thing he may have done? Does he really now have nothing more to teach us? And should this be the end of an otherwise distinguished career?

Whatever happened to the idea of repentance, predicated as it is on the larger idea that a man is not merely the sum total of his most recent actions. That there is something that lies beneath his mistakes, a plane of innocence, into which he can tap in and resume his course on the path of righteousness.

By all accounts Broyde was a pathfinder in areas of Jewish law. By all means, let him be censured and punished for his error. Rabbis must act with ethical excellence. Let us also encourage him to go for counseling so that he can heal from his mistakes. But then let us allow him, should his repentance be complete, to resume his communal offerings and be restored to a position of significance.

New York is right now speculating whether Anthony Weiner will run for Mayor. His poll numbers are growing stronger. That gives me hope. He had a sex scandal where he tweeted pictures of his crotch to women who were strangers. He then denied it and was caught. He paid a huge price, losing his congressional seat and faced public disgrace. I personally have never cared much for Weiner or his politics. I am a Republican and he is a partisan Democrat. But enough is enough. Stop punishing the man. He has suffered enough. Allow him to contribute, now, to the public good and stop reminding him always of his failures. I do not wish to live in a world where a man is only remembered only for his mistakes and never for his virtue.

I am a Jew and as such I am part of a religion that has no perfect Jesus figures. In Judaism no woman is divine and no man is the son of God. In the Hebrew Bible everyone is flawed and everyone makes mistakes. Moses, the greatest prophet that ever lived, was so imperfect that God denied him entry into the Holy Land, the only personal wish the lawgiver ever had. Yet we Jews do not remember him for his errors, but for the glorious deliverance he gave our people from Egypt and for the even more glorious Ten Commandments.

Three years ago I traveled with a Christian evangelical organization to Zimbabwe to distribute food and medicine. In Harare I met three young doctors who were volunteering. They spoke of the difficulties of treating AIDs patients in one of the poorest, most oppressive societies on earth. "But what about medicines?," I asked them. "Do you have any antiretrovirals?" "Oh," they said, "those we have in abundance, teeming from the shelves, thanks to the Clinton Global Initiative." And yet some want to remember the former President just for Monica Lewinsky.

I for one never focused my ire on President Clinton for his sex scandal and saw it more as a sad and private matter. I was much more interested in his failure to stop the Rwandan Genocide, and I am pleased to see that he is attempting to repent of that monumental failure with his focus on saving as many African lives as possible.

In 1997 UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks penned a secret letter wherein he accused Britain's most famous reform Rabbi, Hugo Gryn, of being 'a destroyer of the faith.' Gryn, a holocaust survivor with whom I was friendly, had just passed away. Anglo-Jewry was aghast. As an orthodox Rabbi who was regularly invited to speak before reform communities, I defended the Chief Rabbi with every breath I had. Sacks was, and remains, one of the most eloquent apologists for Judaism in the English language and, arguably, its finest writer. He made a mistake. He repented. It was time to move on.

Far more important was Sacks' omission in combating the growing anti-Semitism that blossomed during his tenure, and with just a few months left to his Chief Rabbinate, it behooves a man of such extraordinary eloquence to fill that void in his leadership. He must devote the majority of his remaining time and speeches in the UK, before he executes his plans to move for half of each year to the USA, to condemning the Israel hatred being spawned on UK campuses that saw even Oxford University vote in February to ban Israeli academics.

Had I been told that a University where I served as Rabbi for half of my adult life would actually conduct a vote as to whether they should ban Israelis from attending I would never have believed it, especially in the year 2013.

There is only one person who can really make a difference, given his gargantuan standing in academic circles. And that is Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

As the great sage Hillel said, "If not now, when?"

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," is the international best-selling author of 29 books and the winner of the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He has just published "The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering". Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

And Hate the Sinner Too

2013-04-21T21:59:26-04:00

Let me surprise you for a moment. The reason that tragedies, like the outrageous terrorist bombing in Boston this week, continue to take place is not because the world lacks love but rather because it doesn't have enough hate. Living in a Christian world that teaches us to 'love the sinner,' we find excuses for evil and refuse to dedicated ourselves fully to its destruction.

North Korea is a case in point. As the young, brutal, dictator Kim Jong Un threatens the world with nuclear Armageddon, we continue to make him the butt of late-night jokes. As the world stood by and watched, North Korea launched a satellite into space in December of last year and conducted another nuclear test this past February. It has vocalized its plans to attack the United States with nuclear weapons and is building missiles to achieve that end.

Still, we refuse to hate the man, depicting him rather as a moron who watches movies with Dennis Rodman. Visiting North Korea in February, the NBA space alien called Un "a friend for life" and announced plans to "have some fun" with Un again in August, saying he "just wants to be loved." Through all this one of the world's deadliest dictators inspires laughter rather than loathing, engendering entertainment rather than contempt. Forget the fact that his father starved three million people to death in order to feed his million-man army, a policy that the young monster continues, or that he terrorizes South Korea and the rest of the region. It's an amazing thing. To be part of a regime that has slaughtered millions of people and to remain a fun curiosity to the rest of the world rather than an object of the deepest revulsion.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also regularly portrayed as, at worst, a clown and is given podiums at America's leading universities. Iran adds to this comedy with its foreign ministry recently scolding both America and North Korea to use restraint and not promote "provocative behavior." As foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, "We think that the event that is intensifying between North Korea, South Korea and the United states should be controlled as soon as possible. Both parties should not move toward a corner in which there is a threatening climate." Our reaction to such absurdity is to look upon the evil and lethal regime of Iran as a collection of buffoons. But make no mistake. They are deadly serious.

Sadly, the refusal to hate evil has become de regeur in world diplomacy. Speaking of the arch-murderer Hafez Al Assad at the time of his death, President Clinton said, "I have met him many times and gotten to know him very well. We had our differences but I always respected him." Respected the man who mowed down thousands of his own people with tanks in Hama? And was your refusal to abhor the man perhaps responsible for why his son thinks he can get away with the same thing?

Forgetting how to hate can be just as damaging as forgetting how to love. Immersed as we are in a Christian culture that exhorts us to "turn the other cheek," this can sound quite absurd. Yet exhortations to hate all manner of evil abound in our Bible. God Himself hates every form of wickedness as harmful to mankind. Thus the book of Proverbs declares, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." Likewise, King David declares regarding the cruel: "I have hated them with a deep loathing. They are as enemies to me."

Hatred is a valid emotion, an appropriate response, when directed at the truly evil. Contrary to Christianity, which advocates turning the other cheek to belligerence and loving the wicked, Judaism obligates us to despise and resist evil at every turn. In my book Kosher Jesus I explain that Jesus said to "love your enemies," not God's enemies. The former are those who steal your parking space. The latter are those engaged in genocide. Likewise, when Jesus said "turn the other cheek," he meant to petty slights and insults, not to mass murder.

When I served as Rabbi at Oxford the BBC had me discussing the tragic bombing of a gay pub that killed three people. I referred to the bomber as a wicked abomination. On the line was President Clinton's spiritual advisor at the time, Pastor Tony Campolo, who cautioned that we had to love the bomber in the spirit of compassion and forgiveness. In England, I remember so vividly as victims of IRA terrorist attacks, who lost fathers or husbands, often immediately announced their forgiveness and love for the murderers.

This is insane.

The individual who, motivated by irrational hatred, chooses to murder innocent victims is irretrievably wicked, has cast off the image of God from his countenance, has irreversibly compromised his humanity, and has forfeited his place in the global human community. Of the terrorists who bombed innocent runners in Boston I say we have an obligation to destroy them before they destroy us.

Amid my deep respect for the Christian faith, I state unequivocally that to love the terrorist who bombs a marathon or the white supremacist who drags a black man three miles behind a car, is not just stupid, it is deeply sinful. To love evil is itself evil and constitutes a passive form of complicity.

The Talmud certainly teaches that the object of hatred should be the sin, not the sinner, whose life must be respected and whose repentance effected. The Bible teaches that it is forbidden to rejoice at the downfall of even those sinners whom it is proper to hate: "Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth." However, this attitude does not apply to impenitent and inveterate monsters who pay no heed to correction. For us to extend forgiveness and compassion to them in the name of religion is not just insidious, it is a mockery of God who has mercy for all yet demands justice for the innocent. To show kindness to the murderer is to violate the victim yet again.

I am waiting for an American political leader of either party, in the wake of a tragedy like Boston, to stand up and say, "America hates terrorists and will pursue them to the corners of the globe to purge them from the earth." President Obama's comments, by contrast, that "We will find out who did this and we will hold them accountable," could have been said about someone who painted graffiti on a subway. It just isn't strong enough.

Yes, I know the old Bob Dylan song, that if we take an eye for an eye we'll just end up blind. But hating evil is not revenge but rather about upholding the infinite value of life and preserving justice.

The immorality and stupidity of pacifism is something that even brilliant men can get wrong, most notably Albert Einstein. "I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist." He believed that the moral nations of the world should disarm, that is until Hitler started putting children in gas chambers. It was then that he alerted President Roosevelt, in August of 1939, to the imperative of the United States getting an atomic bomb before Germany.

Let us never forget the immortal words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," is the international best-selling author of 29 books and the winner of the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and has just published "The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering"

Adelson: From Caricature to Life

2013-04-17T07:59:31-04:00

In the interests of full disclosure, let me first offer that Sheldon Adelson and members of his family donated to my campaign for Congress when I was ran last year (yes, I know I lost. But 'Shmuley for President 2016' is just three years away). Furthermore, as was widely reported, he and his wife Miriam donated to an independent super PAC that backed my candidacy. In addition, on June 4th in Times Square the organization of which I am Executive Director, This World: The Values Network, together with Rambam hospital in Haifa -- one of the Middle East's largest and most respected medical campuses -- will be hosting an International Champions of Jewish Values Awards Gala. The honorees are some of the world's most distinguished individuals, with Nobel Laureate (and my personal hero and mentor) Prof. Elie Wiesel being given the 'Champion of Jewish Spirit' award, and my friend Dr. Mehmet Oz, the world's most famous physician, being recognized as 'Champion of Human life.' The award for 'Champions of Jewish Identity' will go to Sheldon and Miriam Adelson who are being recognized for their vast contributions to Jewish identity worldwide.

Having offered that disclosure, I was happy to see that, as part of Adelson's recent testimony in a breach of contract lawsuit filed by a former consultant, people were finally able to see the human being that lies behind the caricature.

On the witness stand, Adelson was humorous, engaging, relaxed, endearing, and utterly himself. "Even successful companies and wealthy people are entitled to justice," he said, referring to his reasoning behind taking the stand in his own defense. His testimony included affable one-liners that could have easily been mistaken for a late night talk show's opening monologue. "I came from the other side of the tracks," he quipped. "In fact, I came from so far on the other side, I didn't know the tracks existed." And again, "I would have been a rags-to-riches story, except my parents couldn't afford the rags ... So I'm a less-than-rags-to-riches story."

Those of us who know Sheldon have always been amazed at how he is depicted by some in the media as a mean-spirited, heartless mogul pulling political strings and throwing his weight in campaigns in order to elect lawmakers who favor lower taxes.

That fraudulent caricature overlooks the true essence of a man who is one of the world's most generous benefactors of charitable causes and one of the foremost Jewish philanthropists of all time. The media neglect to mention that Adelson contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to programs such as Birthright Israel ($180 million), the Adelson Educational Campus ($80 million), holocaust memory ($50 million to Yad Vashem), and Hebrew Senior Life in Boston ($20 million).

Adelson founded and supports the Adelson Drug Rehabilitation Clinics in Las Vegas and Tel Aviv, run by his wife, a highly respected authority in addiction medicine. Together, Sheldon and Miriam have committed hundreds of millions of dollars to approximately 200 scientists from nearly 70 medical research institutions via the Adelson Medical Foundation, with many of the scientists having lauded their financial support as having changed the ways in which medical research is conducted. And this is just a snapshot of his charitable giving.

Sheldon and Miriam regularly welcome America's "Wounded Warriors" for "Salute our Troops" stays at the Venetian and Palazzo hotels in Las Vegas. The soldiers and their spouses are flown in and provided with weekend accommodations and VIP treatment in recognition of their service and sacrifice.

As a Rabbi I am particularly grateful to the Adelsons for the gargantuan sums they contribute toward programs that foster Jewish identity among the world's Jewish youth, like Birthright Israel, and I write this column because, although people can strongly disagree with Sheldon's politics, those of us working in the Jewish community should give thanks to those who love the Jewish people and dedicate their fortunes to seeing an ancient people survive and prosper.
I have twice led Birthright groups to Israel. The program is near miraculous. No people on earth offer its youth a free ten-day trip to an ancestral homeland so that they can soak in their ancient history and values. But without the Adelsons Birthright would be offering the trip to just a fraction of the more than 350,000 who have already attended.

Yet, in spite of it all the world's perception of Sheldon Adelson seems mostly shaped by his campaign contributions to the Republican Party. Even the 50,000 jobs he has created thorough Las Vegas Sands has not blighted the concerted assault on his name as he has been depicted as a GOP money man with little regard for the destitute or the poor. But if his agenda is, as some critics say, to hold on to his money, how does that explain the hundreds of millions he continually gives to charity? Could the explanation possibly be that he believes, with other Americans, that private philanthropy is more effective at solving social problems than government bureaucracies? Could it be that his promotion of conservative fiscal policies echoes, as a man who is self-made and whose father drove a cab, a belief in the dignity that comes from personal endeavor and self-reliance? Might it not be possible that he is one who believes that we all seek personal, financial, and spiritual redemption, although we prefer that it come first and foremost through our own devices? And even if people disagree with those conclusions and harbor a markedly different political philosophy, does he deserve to be hated for those principles?

Adelson is also condemned for his strong support of Israel and the more conservative policies of the Netanyahu government. But I too am an advocate of great caution in Israel's relationship with its neighbors. As a Jew my Torah teaches me, as its first principle, that every Palestinian and Arab, like every Jew, is created in the divine image. We are all equally God's children. But I share the conviction that Israel's many attempts at peace and territorial concessions have led, not to an end of conflict, but tragically to dead Jews and a never-ending stream of rockets fired at Israeli hospitals and schools.

Let us also not forget that Adelson criticized many of the social values of the Republican Party (just as I did throughout my campaign) before it became fashionable to do so.

As someone involved in Jewish communal and public affairs, who has advised him to be more proactive in responding to media distortions (as a world-renowned Jewish philanthropist he owes it both to himself and the Jewish community), I have had the opportunity to get to know Adelson on a personal and professional level. Above all is his commitment to family. Here is a man who chose to have two sons at a later age when most men of his wealth are basking in their success on yachts and villas along the French Riviera.

But as a child of divorce perhaps what leads me to most respect Sheldon is the steadfast love and respect on display for his wife at all times. Indeed, in his testimony many of his witticisms were about how much he obeys his wife. When Judge Rob Bare, instructed Adelson to "do one thing at a time" and focus on the line of questioning while refraining from taking notes on the stand, his response was, "Your honor, I think you have something in common with my wife. She doesn't want me to do two things at once."

In a world where many men who make fortunes find it difficult to sustain a commitment to a woman, it's inspiring to see a billionaire who believes his foremost achievement is his marriage to his wife.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," is the international best-selling author of 29 books and the winner of the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and has just published "The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering". Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Pushing Israel to Apologize, Will Obama Also Press Erdogan on the Armenian Genocide

2013-04-11T11:32:11-04:00

Co-authored by Arash Farin

President Barack Obama's first trip to Israel since he became president had the potential to yield many tangible results, not the least of which could have been a demand on the part of the leader of the free world that Hamas revoke its genocidal charter against Israel.

While it produced many inspirational moments, important symbolic gestures, and an eloquent speech before the Jerusalem Convention Center, its carefully staged photo opportunities seem, in retrospect, to be somewhat ephemeral, and the pressure for Netanyahu to apologize to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan ultimately, we believe, counterproductive.

Israel and Turkey, of course, have had a tumultuous relationship in recent years. Although the two countries were allies for many decades, based on security ties, Erdogan has gone out of his way to cause relations to deteriorate and antagonize Israelis. He has repeatedly and unfairly condemned Israeli policy on every level, accused Israel of crimes against humanity (after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in response to Hamas' launching of rockets in 2008), and even stormed out of a conversation with Shimon Peres at Davos in 2009, humiliating the venerable Israeli leader and Nobel laureate. In November2012, he accused Israel of state terrorism and of an "attempt at ethnic cleansing." As another example of Erdogan's vitriol, in February of this year, while speaking in Vienna at the official opening of the fifth UN Alliance of Civilizations Global Forums, he called Zionism "a crime against humanity."

The distrust between the two countries culminated in May 2010, when, in a brazen maneuver, a flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief sought to challenge Israel's blockade of Gaza - designed exclusively to keep bombs out of Hamas terrorist hands - and refused to allow inspections by Israeli forces. (IHH is known to be a jihadist organization cloaked in the mantle of a charity, and it is a member organization of Union for Good, whose president is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood's top sharia jurist. The U.S. Senate also voted in June 2010 to recommend that Obama investigate IHH as a first step before labeling it a terrorist organization.)

Warnings from Israel to the Turkish flotilla to turn around were ignored, and the militants on board, wearing orange life vests, protective vests, and gas masks, attacked Israeli naval commandos who boarded the ship. The Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, was full of activists armed with iron bars and knives, a curious collection of equipment for humanitarians delivering relief supplies. In the ensuing standoff, as Israel tried to defend itself, tragically nine Turks died.

Had the flotilla succeeded in breaking the Gaza blockade, Israel could have looked forward to even more bombs and rockets raining down on its hospitals and nurseries.

In September 2011, a United Nations report mentioned "serious questions about the conduct, true nature and objectives of the flotilla organizers, particularly IHH." A BBC documentary also sided with Israel, and determined that Israel had responded to a violent premeditated attack. As further corroboration of the Turks' intent, Israel released nearly 20 videos, made using night-vision technology, that showed activists beating Israeli soldiers with metal pipes and a chair and a soldier being pushed off the deck and thrown onto a lower deck headfirst, nearly dying. Lastly, in June 2010, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released footage of a rally on board the Mavi Marmara before the raid in which the IHH president declared to dozens of activists, "And we say: 'If you [Israel] send the commandos, we will throw you down from here to the sea and you will be humiliated in front of the whole world.'" Participating passengers chant "millions of martyrs marching to Gaza!"

While Obama's attempt to strengthen ties in the Middle East is understandable, what is less logical is his attempt to strong-arm Israel into apologizing and making concessions, as Erdogan outlined a series of conditions for full normalization with Israel, including compensation to the victims, and, more significantly, a lifting of the naval blockade of Gaza.

The episode with the Mavi Marmara should have been part of Obama's calculus during his trip, as it sheds light on Turkish behavior toward Israel as well as on other examples of Turkey's stubborn denial of historical facts, including its refusal to speak honestly about its role in the Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1923, which resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

If Obama were true to his word as a presidential candidate in 2008 and interested in a significant success in the Middle East, he should have pushed Erdogan to reciprocate and apologize to the long-suffering Armenians for this first genocide in modern history. As discussed in a resolution by the House of Representatives, this massacre is "documented with overwhelming evidence in the national archives of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, the Vatican and many other countries..." To win support from Armenians while running for office, Sen. Obama said on January 19, 2008, "Two years ago, I criticized ... the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term 'genocide' to describe Turkey's slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915.... The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence... As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian genocide resolution, and as president I will recognize the Armenian genocide."

But instead of working to fulfill his promise, President Obama and his administration repeatedly have avoided the term "genocide," and worked behind the scenes to prevent Congress from recognizing it. Indeed, although in March 2010, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 23-22 on a resolution to recognize the Armenian deaths officially, the administration came out swinging. In Guatemala, she told reporters, "The Obama administration strongly opposes the resolution that was passed by only one vote by the House committee and will work very hard to make sure it does not go to the House floor." According to the Associated Press, "a senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said there was an understanding with the Democratic leadership in Congress that the resolution would not go to a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives."

After the vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador to the United States and warned the Obama administration about the ramifications if a vote ever reached the House floor.

As displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as Hitler prepared to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, he dismissed objections by saying "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" setting the stage for the Holocaust. Ronald Reagan recognized this threat in 1981 when he said, "like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it -- and like too many other persecutions of too many other people -- the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten."

More than 20 countries and 42 U.S. states already have recognized the events of 1915 as genocide. As Obama seeks to shape his Middle East policy and consider his legacy over the next four years, he should consider the promises he made as a young candidate and recognize a massacre that never should be forgotten.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," has just published his newest book, "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. Arash Farin is investment banker based in Los Angeles. He has degrees from The Wharton School, Harvard Business School, and also attended Oxford University, where he was President of Rabbi Shmuley's Oxford student organization.

Victoria's Secret Lingerie Line Targeting Teens

2013-04-08T14:03:50-04:00

It speaks volumes about a culture when a President, whom by all accounts is personally honorable, is forced to apologize to an attorney general for commenting favorably on her physical appearance, while, in the same week that same culture defends lace trim thongs for teen girls with 'Call Me' on the front and lace back underwear with the word 'Wild' on the back.

Welcome to America and it's increasingly bizarre relationship with women's sexuality.

Did President Obama mean anything nefarious when he praised California Attorney General Kamala Harris as "by far, the best-looking attorney general ... It's true! C'mon." I doubt it. Still, he apologized because, however innocent, it wrongly sexualized a woman who ought be judged entirely by her professional performance. Too many women are hired based on their capacity for window dressing with places like Wall Street apparently being some of the worst offenders.

But what is a more harmful transgression in the ongoing sexualization of women? A comment about a mature, brilliant, and fully grown female as also being attractive, or one of the America's most famous undergarment companies targeting teens with green-and-white polka-dot hipsters reading 'Feeling Lucky?'

Recently a teen girl came to see me. She had been sexually violated by a boy her own age whom she had considered a friend. After reporting the incident to the authorities, she wished to discover how she could recapture her innocence. "The world I inhabit is all about me and my friends being as sexually alluring as possible for the boys in our class. It felt good to get attention. I never believed it could end in something like this. Now I'll never trust a man again."

Now, granted, sexual assault is an extreme manifestation of the increasing sexual exploitation of young girls and, ultimately, regardless of the cultural factors, a man must never harm a woman, failing which he must face severe punishment. But have we no responsibility as a culture for the portrayal of girls as a boy's playing from an increasingly young age, and do we really believe that the growing degradation of women has no consequences?

Victoria's Secret PINK label, with its new Bright Young Things Campaign, is a particularly egregious offender. Now, I am no prude and I welcome beautiful and sexy lingerie for women. I want to live in a world where a wife is always attractive to her husband and vice versa (although men wearing lingerie is probably a step too far).

But for goodness sake, do fifteen year olds need thongs with the words "Call me" on the front? Do they need the words "I dare you" printed on their backsides? Or "Let's make out" printed on the most private parts of their bodies? Does any of this square with the message we're trying to send to teen girls that they should be valued for their minds before their bodies?

And lest the argument be made that the PINK line is only for college-aged girls, Victoria's Secret Chief Financial Officer Stuart Burgdoerfer made it clear that the PINK lingerie line seeks to reach a teen audience. 'When somebody's 15 or 16 years old, what do they want to be? They want to be older, and they want to be cool like the girl in college, and that's part of the magic of what we do at PINK,' he said.

As a father raising six daughters, I know that young girls are very attuned to the messages that surround them. My missive to my daughters is that I, their father and not some boy, is the one to love and validate them through their teen years. To seek approval and popularity from young men during their development years would only exploit their insecurities and vulnerabilities. But if they wait until there are adults they will have the inner strength to choose a man based on virtue rather than desperation. They will find a soul mate who respects them rather than a man who takes advantage (as if their father would ever allow that in the first place).

But it's everywhere. James Franco's new film Spring Breakers which I have not seen, is apparently so exploitive of teen girls, depicting them in the most debauched and degrading light, that even mainstream reviewers, not easily shockable, are shocked. Writing in Cinemablend.com, Sean O'Connell said, "Spring Breakers feels like the floor of a Tampa Bay strip club. It's sticky, slimy, dirty and has seen far more depravity and corruption than one should handle."

And why should any of this matter? Isn't it just part of the ongoing campaign on the part of the purity police to demonize the sexual revolution and keep our libidos in chains? But whatever your feelings about how permissive or repressed our society is, certainly not in the 60's, 70's, 80's ,or 90's was the sexualization of women this young. Noone ever dared depict teen girls en masse as slutty and intended primarily for sexual play. No, there was a line that was drawn. That's why porn is called Adult entertainment.

Not any more.

Writing in Slate Amanda Marcotte defended things like salacious slogans on teen lingerie by noting that the average American has sex by 17 and seven out of ten are sexually active by 19. Teenagers "need this time to experiment.... there's no harm giving teenagers a little freedom to do the growing up they need to do." But portraying teen sex as something utterly harmless flies in the face of the data retrieved by the National Longitudinal Survey or Adolescent Health which found about 25% of sexually active girls to be depressed all, most, or a lot of the time, while 8% of girls who are not sexually active feel this way. Suicide rates are also significantly higher for sexually active teens. And this is aside from the risks of pregnancy and STD's. Sex conjures up the strongest human emotions and it's intended for the time in our lives when we are mature and strong.

But while sexualizing teens did not rock her boat, Obama's comments about Harris deeply upset Marcotte. "It's a shame to have him undermine his enlightened policies with comments that highlight women's ever-present decorative duties--especially when we know for a fact that such remarks erode women's opportunities and even their own sense of deserving equality."

Surely logic would dictate that however misguided the President's comments they are utterly insignificant compared to the ongoing campaign to make our girls into sexually active women well before it is healthy or appropriate for them to be so.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi," is the international best-selling author of 29 books and the winner of the American Jewish Press Association's Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He has just published "The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering". Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Belittling Tormentors Allows Us to Be Free

2013-03-31T21:18:42-04:00

A friend from New Jersey, who lived through Hurricane Sandy, as did I, called and asked me why God did not send a similar storm against Egypt and Pharaoh. "One plague and that would have done it," he said. "The Egyptians would have been begging to let the Jews go. So why did God insist on 10?"

I answered him that there are two kinds of freedom. Political freedom and psychological freedom, freedom of the body and freedom of the mind. If G-d's intention was to simply liberate the Jews from the slavery of Egypt, He could indeed have sent a single catastrophic event against them, like a hurricane, a tornado, a tsunami. It worked against Japan when two devastating atomic bombs brought the Japanese to unconditional surrender.

But even as the Jews were liberated by an external event, they would have remained mentally enslaved.

Here's why.

Slavery is an institution that is maintained through fear. The slave dreads his master and therefore does his bidding. The German philosopher Hegel said, in essence, that way back at the dawn of history everyone was equal. But one day, two primordial combatants had a fight. As they struggled over whatever the issue was -- a cave, a woman, a hunt -- one of the combatants became fearful of the other and in that moment the relationship of master and slave was born.

But G-d's intention was that no man should have any master except God alone. That's why there are so many exhortations in the Bible to live boldly and cast away all fear, as I detailed in my book Face Your Fear.

And it's not just a physical master that we should not fear. The woman who goes on a date cannot fear being judged by the man whom she will meet. If she does she'll be nervous, betray insecurity, and surrender to a physical side of the relationship that might impede the development of true intimacy. A wife cannot fear her husband . That's what leads women to remain in abusive relationships. A man cannot fear his boss. If he does, he will allow himself to be exploited and abused and his job will become a form of slavery.

Overcoming fear is the only road to true equality and liberty.

One of the most effective methods to triumph over fear is to cease mentally aggrandizing the object of your fear. The Israelites looked at the Egyptians as supermen. They had built the ancient world's most glorious civilization. They won wars and established a vast empire. They beat the Jews mercilessly and dominated them completely. So G-d's plan in sending the plagues was so humanize the Egyptians in Jewish eyes so such a degree that the fear would disappear. IN order for the Jews to be liberated not just politically and externally but mentally and psychologically, the Jews had to see the big and strong Egyptians become utterly helpless, vulnerable, and powerless.

In this context, we can begin to understand the ten plagues and their order. First, God attacks the Egyptians water supply by turning the Nile river into blood. There is nothing quite so feeble as a man who is desperate just for a drink of water. Extreme thirst becomes all consuming and demonstrates our total dependency on something that is usually abundant and economical. But even this the Egyptians could not provide for themselves.

Next, the plague of frogs had the robust and resilient Egyptians freaking out over reptiles. Like an elephant that's afraid of a mouse, Egyptian might was exposed as a fraud.

After that came the plague of lice, with the Egyptians taskmasters who once seemed so mighty itching uncontrollably and being utterly humbled by a tiny insect. Next, wild beasts roamed through the land and the Egyptians ran scared like frightened children.

You get the picture. The story culminates with the Egyptians being afraid even of the dark, like small kids, and then, the last plague, confronting the fear of death, that which reminds us all of our vulnerability and mortality. Through this process, the Jews saw the Egyptians for what they were. Just another group of petrified humans who had gained dominion over another people by being vicious bullies. But there were easily bullied themselves.

One of the mysteries of the Second World War is why Franklin Delano Roosevelt insisted on the unconditional surrender of the axis powers. Surely the war would not have dragged on as long, his critics say, if he had come to some sort of armistice with Hitler and Mussolini. Millions of lives might have been spared. So why did he take such an extreme position?

But Roosevelt would have none of it.

Hitler terrorized the world and, through his mass rallies, blitzkriegs, and panzer divisions gave off the aura of having built a nation of invincible Neitzschean ubermenschen. What Roosevelt wanted was not just the physical liberation of Europe but the psychological freedom of the entire world. He needed to bring Germany to its knees, to hold up Hitler like a rat in his bunker, in order for all the world to see that Hitler's superiority was a farce and there was no need to ever fear him. Indeed, the freedom from fear was one of the four freedoms that Roosevelt famously promised America in his 1941 speech.

The same applies to the destruction of so much of Japan, whose Emperor was revered as a god and whom MacArthur purposely humiliated by insisting he come to visit the General in order to show the Japanese they need never fear him again. The famous picture of the diminutive Emperor standing next to the tall and stately general almost makes a mockery of Hirohito.

One of the tragic curiosities of the Civil War is that even after 600,000 Americans died, in essence, to end slavery, it simply continued largely through the institution of segregation and Jim Crow. Why didn't the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13^th Amendment work?

I believe the reason is the same. Lincoln was a great man and he sent the northern armies into battle to rescue the Union and to free the slaves. But what he granted was political freedom. Shortly after the war criminal organizations like the KKK sought to reestablish black fear of whites so that slavery could be practiced by other means.

It was only when, 90 years later, Martin Luther King sent black children into battle against Bull Connor's dogs and fire hoses that African Americans saw firsthand that these seemingly gargantuan, Paul Bunyan-sized racists, were really pathetic, scared thugs who would ultimately bend before the will of children.

And that's when the abomination and plague of American slavery finally came to an end.

Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," has just published his newest best-seller, "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." He is currently writing "Kosher Lust." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

The Noise That Drowns Out All Peace

2013-03-28T08:44:40-04:00

Followers of the Passover story can rightly wonder why frogs were such a terrible plague. Was God really showing His power to the Egyptians by sending against them an army of amphibians? Would the nation that would eventually produced Cleopatra, who purportedly killed herself by grabbing a poisonous snake, really have cared?

But the true plague of the frogs was how the din of their incessant ribbetting robbed the Egyptians of all peace. We who inhabit the modern world have a unique understanding of the utter agony represented by a world that is never silent.

When the United States invaded Panama in 1989 to oust General Manuel Noriega, he took refuge in the Vatican Embassy. The United States Army brought huge loudspeakers and blasted AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" in order to drive him out of his refuge, a tactic that was also employed by the FBI at Waco.

Forty years ago John Lennon made the observation that when he grew up what was always heard in the background of homes was the soothing crackling of a fire, only to be replaced by the incessant noise of televisions that are always blaring in the background.

That noise has actually so much closer today with ear buds that pumps music directly into our eardrums. The net result is that we are rarely ever afforded any peace.

Even today harsh interrogations methods against terrorists involves keeping them up for days by constantly blasting music which drives them to the bring of insanity. Many argue that this is a form of torture.

The inability to ever shut out noise is a plague. But beyond the pain caused by the utter lack of peace there is the further consideration of the drowning out of the inner voice of conscience.

Each of us is immersed in a culture that throws various voices at us. Hollywood and the fashion industry hits us with the aesthetic voice, telling us that what most matters is beauty. Best to spend our time in front of a mirror and at a gym. Wall Street and Madison avenue hits us with the monetary voice which tells us that the most important thing in life is money and affording the material objects that will bring us pleasure. Washington and politics hits us with the power voice which tells us that the most significant thing in life is acquiring dominion over others. And the NFL and NBA hits us with the physical voice which whispers that life has meaning through great athleticism. We should be spending our time on the sports fields.

But beneath all these noises which are so central to the fabric of modern life and its aspirations is the inner voice of conscience which whispers to us that we are born for lives of compassion and goodness. It's nice to be pretty. But it's even nicer to be nice. It's wondrous to be sporty and adventurous. But even more spectacular is to teach our child how to throw a spiral and catch a ball. Through doing so we grant our children a feeling of significance. It's a blessing to be wealthy. But even more important is to live lives of charity and humility where we make others feel that they matter too.

There is no human being that is born without that voice and to the extent that it is lost it is because it is drown out by all the other voices that surround us.

The Egyptians, like all human beings, had an innate sense of morality and fair play. So how could they have enslaved a helpless people? Because the soul's voice of fraternity and brotherhood was drown out by Pharaoh's voice of dominion and power. As the Bible related, "Look, he said to his people, the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country." The Egyptians allowed the foreign voice of the will to power to override the voice of sensitivity of compassion. In this sense, the racket of the frogs-plague was an external manifestation of what had already occurred. The Egyptians could no longer hear the inner song of their own souls. They could only hear the clamor of the artificial, external voice that slowly erodes our spiritual peace.

I once counseled a blended family that was being ripped apart by a teenage girl who irrationally hated her stepfather. While her mother, after being alone for some years, had found companionship and love with her new husband, she felt torn between her role as mother and wife. I stayed with the family for a day and saw that while her mother prepared dinner and set the table, the girl sat on a couch with her iPod ear buds in her ears and painted her toenails. I asked to speak to her.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be a fashion designer," she answered.

"That's not what I asked. I asked you what you want to be, and you answered about what you want to do."

"What are the choices as to I want to be?," she inquired.

"Only two," I said. "You can either be a good person, or a selfish one."

"I want to be a good person," she said.

"Then how is it," I asked, "that I just watched you turn your mother into your maid?"

She thought about the question and said she didn't know. "I'll tell you," I said. "Each of us is born with an inner voice that tell us to be a good daughter. To open our hearts to other people's needs and wants. Your mother wants to be a loving parent, but she is also a woman and does not wish to be alone. You love you Mom and your heart tells you to be there for her, offer her comfort for the painful she's endured, and generally make her life easier. But there is so much foreign noise in your life that you have no peace with which to hear your true voice. Turn off the music. Listen to your mother when she asks you to help around the house, and listen to her silent plea to support her in her new relationship."

It's amazing how when all the ribbetting is silenced, we begin to hear an old, familiar tune: the melodious song of our own souls.

Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," has just published his newest best-seller, "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." He is currently writing "Kosher Lust." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

An American Tragedy in Steubenville

2013-03-17T23:02:36-04:00

A significant number of American values failures came together to create the tragedy in Stuebenville, where two teenage High School football stars, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, were found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl.

Foremost among them is the American tragedy of sexualizing teen girls at an age where they are not yet women. Madonna sexualized herself in her mid-twenties. Brittney Spears brought the age down to about eighteen. Not young enough for you? Miley Cyrus reduced it further to sixteen. One wonders when our culture will feel that even sixteen is not a young enough age to sexually exploit girls.

Then there is the issue of sports as an emerging religion where those gifted to be athletes feel a sense of entitlement that often has them crossing lines to their own detriment. The idea that two high school football stars would think it acceptable to post pictures of a nude 16-year-old to their friends on social media shows how they thought the normal rules did not apply them. And this would be true even if there weren't the far more serious conviction on rape. How sad that two young men have ruined their lives and done so much damage to a defenseless victim.

Next is the growing culture of alcohol abuse by minors. Alcohol played a central role in this unfolding tragedy with the essential argument on the part of the prosecution that the girl in question was so drunk there was no possible way she could give consent. One wonders why our youth are so inclined to heavy drink. Is it mere experimentation or is something deeper at work? Are they at already, at so young an age, as unhappy as adults who have been battered by life and are therefore drinking negative emotions away? After all, no one in America really portrays the teen years as a bowl of cherries.

I passed my later teen years in an all-male environment in Yeshiva where the focus of my life was study. I certainly was a lot happier than the co-ed environment in which I was immersed in my early teen years where peer pressure, popularity among the girls, and a general self-consciousness made my life less enjoyable than it should have been.

Then there is the general tragedy of the absence of responsible parenting in America. The biggest question for me in this heartrending story was where were the parents? Where were they when the three teens left one party at 12:30am to go to another? Where were they to monitor extreme drunkenness on the part of people not old enough to vote?

Many African-American young men are not raised with a father's guiding hand. I was astonished, therefore, at the honesty displayed by Malik Richmond's father, Nathaniel, when he said in a CNN interview that he had walked over to his son right after the guilty verdict and told him he loved him, essentially for the very first time. "I haven't been involved in Malik's life like I should have been at those early years. And I want to stress that parents should be more involved in their child's life... be a parent and not a friend."

No one is better qualified to address this issue than President Obama who also grew up without his father and is by all accounts a very loving and involved parent himself. The president has addressed the subject only lightly, but it's time that he make this an all-out campaign.

But the greatest tragedy made manifest in Steubenville is the attitude of teenage men toward girls. Immanuel Kant wrote that the definition of immorality is treating a fellow human being as a means rather than an end. The abomination of American slavery was that a white child was taught to see a black child as a walking bale of cotton. Slavery trained a white man to see a black woman as lacking the same spark of the divine that lent him his humanity. When he looked upon the woman, she was stripped of her own dreams, her own opinions, her own aspirations. She was nothing but an extension of the white slave owner's drives and ambitions. Like a third arm she existed to simply to do his chores.

Something analogous is happening with the growing sexualization of women wherein teen boys are being taught to see young women not as their equals but as the walking fulfillment of their sexual desires. This is an issue I addressed a few years ago in a full-length book called Hating Women, but it only gotten worse. I had a 17-year-old boy, from a leading prep school, tell me how angry he was at a sixteen-year-old girl he knew because she had gone out on a date with a friend of his and had not given him anything sexual. "Not even a hand job. Can you believe it? She's just a c---tease." He said this with righteous indignation. A girl like that, who refuses to play the roll accorded her by a secular society that uses women's bodies to sell beer, cars, and everything in between, is often called a 'b---h' for not playing ball. Who does this uppity girl think she is anyway, not to give men their rightful due?

That this is attitude is becoming prevalent among teen boys is evident from how the two accused sent pictures of a drunken girl to all their friends, posting them on the internet, and there was no outrage. Just another guy feeling entitled to see a girl as some drunken 'dead body' who was there for his erotic enjoyment.

There was a time when men were raised to be gentleman. Society impressed upon them the need to nurture, protect, and take care of women. Yes, I know it all sounds pretty mushy today, and many a woman would dismiss such sentiments as patriarchal, patronizing and hopelessly sexist. But is it really too much to ask that when a girl is drunk and helpless, a young man feels the obligation to get her safely home to her parents, enjoying their thanks and the feeling of being a gentleman as something far more pleasurable than whatever sexual thrills her drunkenness can provide?

We males combine within our person the carnal desires of the animal as well as the spiritual transcendence of the uniquely human. The struggle between the two is felt within us constantly. Employing our freedom to choose moral behavior over outrageous indulgence is a serious battle and one that should be helped by an overarching culture that trains boys from their earliest days to respect women as equals and to see in them a divine image rather than the breathing realization of an erotic urge.

Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," has just published his newest best-seller, "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." He is currently writing "Kosher Lust." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Religious Sexual Repression and the Responsibilities of the New Pope

2013-03-11T09:16:13-04:00

Whoever the new Pope will be, he will have the chance to address the 900 pound gorilla staring down the Catholic Church, namely the constant sexual abuse scandals. I am a Jew who wishes to see the Catholic Church flourish. I count myself fortunate to have met Pope Benedict prior to his resignation and remember his humility, graciousness, and warmth. As I travel the world I am awed by the global network of schools, orphanages, and hospitals run by the Catholic Church. No other world body even comes close.

But much of that is being eclipsed, be it fairly or otherwise, by the seemingly never-ending sexual scandals that bedevil the Church. Even in the brief interregnum between the announcement of Benedict's resignation and its taking effect, we witnessed the sudden resignation of the leader of all Britain's Catholics who confessed to a thirty-year history of abuse.

The Jewish community is likewise not averse to sexual scandal and in the New York area we recently witnessed the tragic story of a Rabbi found guilty of abusing a girl and being sentenced to 130 years in prison. This followed several other stories of Rabbis or religious Jewish teachers being found guilty of abuse of both boys and/or girls.

When I published Kosher Sex in 1999, I did so not in the hope of addressing sexual repression in religion. Precisely the opposite was true. It was to a secular, mainstream, and sexually free society that I offered a philosophy of how sex could recapture its power to induce emotional intimacy. My purpose was to demonstrate how sex is a motion that brings forth and even greater emotion and that there are specific sexual techniques, like eyes-open sex, that serve as emotional threads bonding husband and wife to one another rather than the empty physical experiences couples have today that lack both passion and intimacy.

But within a few weeks of publishing the book I began receiving a steady stream of emails, nearly always with pseudonyms, from very religious couples around the world, both Jewish and Christian, asking specific advice about curing sexual dysfunction in their relationships. They wrote to me because the answers they were getting from their clerics often lacked a human dimension. Many Christians were being told sex is mostly for procreation and many orthodox Jews were being told that nearly everything is forbidden in the bedroom. Both groups were being misled. The Bible makes it clear in Genesis that sex is primarily for intimacy rather than children: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and leave his mother. He shall cleave to his wife (a clear sexual euphemism) and they shall become one flesh." (2:24) This pivotal idea is echoed in the Bible having no word for sex other than "knowledge." So why were religious couples being consciously misled into believing that passionate sexual expression was mostly circumscribed and that sex had to take place in the missionary position in the dark?

Fraudulent sexual teachings in religion have destroyed countless lives and extinguished countless marriages. Worse, false and repressive piety may also be the cause of some of the aberrant sexual behavior we are seeing in otherwise Godly men and women. Is clerical celibacy in the Catholic Church one of the prime things that leads to abuse? No one knows fully. Is sexual suppression in some religious Jewish circles, that could never be countenanced by Jewish law, the reason that more stories of abuse are emerging? Nothing can be said for sure. There may be other, stronger forces at work.

But this is certain. Sexuality strikes to the very heart of the human condition. A healthy, positive, and fulfilling sex life in marriage is not a luxury but a necessity which the Bible recognizes in innumerable instances and which forms the basic narrative of so many Biblical marriages, like the famous story of Isaac being 'sexually playful' with his wife Rebecca.

It is beyond the scope of this column to examine the many historical and theological reasons that the Catholic Church made clerical celibacy obligatory rather than an optional encouragement about a millennia ago. Less so is my purpose to preach to another faith about what their basic tenets ought to be. But it is my purpose to make clear that any religion that bases itself on the Hebrew Bible cannot escape the Bible's healthy encouragement of carnal intimacy being the central staple of a husband and wife's loving connectedness.

When Kosher Sex was first published I experienced severe attacks from some Rabbinical colleagues who thought the subject unseemly. But where were married couples supposed to learn about sex? From a Rabbi or Hugh Hefner? From Biblical and Jewish sources or internet porn? Thirteen years later the book is standard issue for countless religious Jewish and Christian couples who are marrying, even though the religious market was not the readership for whom it was written.

But it is essential that more Rabbis, priests, and pastors start teaching their congregants of the glories of sex in marriage and the need for physical desires to achieve their fullest satiation within the confines of a loving and committed relationship. A man who is in love with his wife and concentrates his fullest erotic attention on her is living a holy life. The tenth commandment makes it clear that we are not to covet our neighbor's wife which, by direct implication, means we sure as heck out to be coveting our own. We don't need more horror stories of husbands who are porn addicts or religiously committed teachers and counselors taking advantage of their charges.

As the world's foremost religious figure, no one can do more to address carnal repression in religion than the new pope whom, if he chooses to ignore the sexual crisis facing the Church, will be absconding on the responsibility of leadership. Great crises often bring forth great men and it is my firm hope that the new Pope will, with God's blessing, rise to the occasion.

Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," has just published his newest best-seller, "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." He is working on his next relationships book "Kosher Lust." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

Tribute to my Wife on our 25th Anniversary

2013-03-06T08:29:52-05:00

A century is a large amount of time and any significant slice thereof is itself significant. A child of divorce whose parents' marriage ended after 13 years can be forgiven at his own sense of astonishment that his marriage has, with God's infinite blessing, reached the quarter century mark.

Those who know us would congratulate me, but they would give all the credit to Debbie. There are those women, stable and sturdy, capable of sharing their lives with wounded men and restoring them. There exist in this broken and hollow world creatures of light who can give chase to the darkness in a man's shattered heart. There are human seraphs the wings of whose healing glow can gently touch a man's pain and make it vanish.

Debbie and I come from opposite backgrounds. My parents love me infinitely and have both been remarkable sources of inspiration. But the conflict I witnessed as a child was ultimately internalized. A child of divorce is born on the front lines. Witnessing his parent's hurt, he is essentially denied a childhood, forced as he is to become something of a caregiver to his mother and father. Seeing that the world is harsh rather than tender, he puts his guard up and is unaware of a time when he allowed himself to be completely vulnerable.

Mine, like many children of divorce, is a life built on a bedrock of battles and it shows in some of the confrontations I have been prepared to endure for convictions I strongly believed in. But when you're a young woman who stems from a marriage that is all sweetness and harmony, it can be an awakening to follow your newly-wed husband across the world from Australia to Oxford, England, right after your twentieth birthday. I was ready for the mêlée. Debbie was wondering what she had got herself into.

That she won over, and continues to win over, all whom she meets, due to her kind and giving heart, was perhaps predictable. Any one of the thousands upon thousands of people whom Debbie has hosted for Shabbos dinners over the last twenty-five years can bear testimony to the warmth of her hospitality and glow of her smile. But that she would flourish, amid an essentially shy nature, as a role model to countless women of how to be retain their essential femininity in an aggressively masculine age, was something that softened her entire environment. That she has done so while being the mother of nine children makes the achievement all the more remarkable.

Men ultimately fall in love with those women who bring out their best qualities. Among the innumerable stories I can recall was the time an important politician was coming to our home for Shabbos, and, since she was arriving with a large retinue, I asked Debbie to cancel our regular guests, among which was an elderly woman with no place else to go. Debbie told me she would, and that I was fortunate since, with even her own place empty, since she would be eating at the elderly woman's apartment with her, I could have fit even more important people that Shabbos. "I remember when every soul was equal to you, Shmuley. That's the man I married, and that's the man you're going to be."

After our engagement we had a stormy period and I thought of calling it off. I interpreted Debbie's gentility as detachment. I needed more than I felt she could give me. As I said goodbye to her and dropped her off, perhaps for the last time, I saw that her eyes were bloodshot. She said, "I know that you're going to do great things in your life. I look forward to reading about it. Some people just have it. You're one of those people. Goodbye." In my stubbornness I drove off but stopped two blocks later. In my agony, two things went through my mind. First, causing pain to one so noble and gentle was a sin against God and goodness. Second, her words pierced the cynical layer of doubt that lacquered my soul and made me believe that God had given me, like everyone else, a unique gift. I turned the car around, begged her forgiveness, and we married a short time later.

At the Bat Mitzvah celebrations we have had for our daughters I have given each the same blessing. "There are those who seek attention, and then there are those, so strong in themselves, that they never require the validation of others. There are those who live life in the spotlight and those who, possessed of so much inner light, instead shine it on others rather than spending their lives absorbing it. My blessing to you is that you grow up to be like Mommy. Be one of those who radiates, and never pilfers, the light. Grow up to be like your mother and you will make me the proudest father alive."

She has been the light of our family's existence ever since.

There are three reactions to seeing a beautiful snow-covered peak. The first is the utilitarian. The mountain is so beautiful, to what practical, selfish use can I put it, like charging people for a chair-lift ride to the top. The second is the reaction of insecurity that leads to craving dominance. Look at the enormity of that mountain. I feel so small in its presence. I better climb it to prove my superiority. But the third is a reaction of pure awe and wonder. To simply sit back, behold the mountain in all its majesty and allow it to render you passive with its grandeur.

These are the three stages that we men go through in our lives with women. First, recognizing a woman's beauty we seek to possesses it. Second, recognizing the power and hold the feminine has over us, we feel challenged and weak and therefore seek to dominate it. But then we reach a point in our lives, recognizing the awe-inspiring majesty of the woman who is our wife, that we just sit back and behold, amazed and grateful to Almighty God that, though we were never worthy, He gifted us men with soul mates so that we are never alone.

"I give praise you oh Lord, that in my affliction, you have sent a salvation."

Shmuley Boteach, "America's Rabbi" whom The Washington Post calls "the most famous Rabbi in America," has just published his newest best-seller, "The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering." He is working on his next relationships book "Kosher Lust." Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.