If you continue to vilify ‘the Goyim’ that way is it really a surprise that even a devoutly religious Jew that prays 3 times a day and is meticulous in ritual observance thinks it’s perfectly fine to cheat ‘the Goyim’? ‘As long as they don’t get caught?’ Is not this view bolstered when a Chasidic Rebbe is found guilty of a an elaborate tax fraud and money laundering scheme?
The message taken is that if a Chasidic Rebbe thinks it’s OK to defraud the government then it’s OK for me to do it. The only thing he did wrong was getting caught! I know he apologized for the Chilul HaShem he made. But he did not say that what he did was wrong. If I recall correctly he basically said that if you want to avoid going to jail, then before attempting anything – get a lawyer so you can stay within the letter of the law.
This was completely ignored by Rabbi Zweibel. So while I agree with his message, I am disappointed at yet another platitude coming out of this august body. We need more than yet another admonition about making a Kiddush HaShem with our behavior instead of making a Chilul HaShem. There needs to be concrete steps taken by rabbinic leadership to change the way some in the Orthodox world think.
You can’t continue to promote statements like ‘Halacha He, Esav Soneh L’Yaakov’. Because if you keep hammering people over the head with the idea that ‘the Goyim’ hate us, you perpetuate the feeling that it is OK to cheat these people because ‘they hate us anyway’!
This should have been stated clearly from the podium. We have to get serious about changing attitudes. True the idea that ‘the Goyim hate us’ has legitimate roots in the centuries of Jew hatred in Europe that culminated in the Holocaust. You can’t blame people for believing that ‘the Goyim’ hate us after that.
But America of 2014 is not Europe of 1939. Instead of focusing on past hatred in Europe and erroneously transferring that onto the American people we ought to be focusing on truth. The American people do not hate us. They have only the highest regard for Judaism. Recent polls have shown that Judaism is the most admired religion in America. This in spite of the seemingly endless parade of Orthodox Jews committing crimes and misdemeanors. Sexual or financial.
The American people know that not all Orthodox Jews are crooks. They do not all paint us with a broad brush. Senator John McCain made this very observation when asked about the crimes of another Orthodox Jew, Jack Abramoff. The American people are fair.
If we want to continue to command the respect of our fellow citizens, we need to do whatever it takes to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again. That starts with our religious leaders calling a spade a spade and making sure that the classroom is no longer filled with the message that ‘the Goyim’ Hate us. They don’t. But if things like this keep happening, their attitudes may change. And who would blame them?
