In a few days, it will be my second time celebrating Father’s Day as your dad. What a gorgeous and, at the same time, heartbreaking year it has been.

Last Father’s Day you could not yet walk or talk, and now I watch in amazement as you run, climb, sing, and speak in clear, full sentences. This morning, we took a stroll together down a nature path. You picked up a long stick and tapped it against the ground as we walked, counting forcefully with each tap: “One! Two! Three!” You continued until you reached “eleven,” and then started over again. Our prayer book talks about nissim b’chol yom, everyday miracles, of which this was surely one.

Of course, all this growing has taken place against the strange, bleak backdrop of the pandemic that has lasted most of your lifetime. For as long as you can remember, this has been the state of the world. This year, you did not attend synagogue or school. You did not travel on an airplane or eat inside a restaurant.

It is only in the past couple of months that you have started to spend time with more adults and other children. For most of the past year, it was just the three of us—you, me, and Mom—staying inside together, day after long, tedious day, trying our best to be safe.

For as tough as it has been, I admit that there have been some bright moments of life in “COVID-land.” In no other world would I have been at home to witness your first steps and your first words, to be a part of your waking up, falling asleep, and so many other little moments in between almost every day. My own (truly fantastic) father, your Papa, was not able to do that with me. His father was not able to do that with him. But I got to spend this precious, irreplaceable time with you, and for that, I will always be grateful. As I reflect on this Father’s Day, no gift could be more valuable than this.

If I’m really honest, there was a part of me that was grateful that we could keep you tightly wrapped in our little bubble for a bit longer than we would have otherwise. There was a way that quarantine felt a lot like the first months after bringing you home from the hospital. We barely went out or had anyone else over. Our whole job was to watch over you. I remember the hours upon hours I would swaddle you so tightly in a blanket and walk you through the house, tucked securely in the crook of my arm. In some ways, this year felt like putting you back into that sweet bundle, holding you close and keeping you safe, as the world churned in chaos just outside our door.

If I’m really honest, there was a part of me that was grateful that we could keep you tightly wrapped in our little bubble for a bit longer than we would have otherwise.

I know, though, that keeping you permanently wrapped up tight is not what parents were put here to do. The Talmud teaches that a parent’s essential job is to prepare their children to go out into the world, including offering the highly specific requirement to teach you how to swim (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 29a). The medieval commentators tend to read that provision quite literally, with Rashi (1040-1104) drolly stating the obvious, “that in the event of a shipwreck, it is useful to know how to swim.”

However, I cannot help but read it much more expansively: the commandment to teach one’s child to swim is about a fundamental recognition of the limits of my power as a parent. I cannot be at your side every moment, and there will come a time soon enough when you certainly would not want me to be. My job is to give you the skills, strength, courage, and character to safely venture into the world on your own. Life under lockdown has meant I could put off that job for a little while, but as life continues and more becomes possible every day, my real task as your dad now truly begins.

Maybe it has already begun. A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting together on a big lawn in a park. You began to wander away from me, exploring other patches of grass and searching for interesting rocks and sticks, and carefully eyeing the bigger kids at play. My first instinct was to get up and trot along beside you. But I stayed put and just watched. You ventured farther and farther, fully engrossed in your expedition until you almost reached the other side of the lawn. Then, you suddenly turned back, gave a huge smile, and came running until you collapsed into my arms in a fit of giggles. A few moments later, you stood back up and were off and running again. It was so very sweet to behold.

– Dad

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Rabbi Adam Greenwald is the Vice President for Jewish Engagement at American Jewish University.

Due in part to the recent soaring stock price performances of big tech public companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google, and flush with capital gains tax revenue from the initial public offerings (IPOs) of Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently announced a state budget surplus of $76 billion (corrected by the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office to $38 billion).

Facing an upcoming recall election, Mr. Newsom is quickly passing out money to various constituencies in the form of tax rebates, direct “stimulus” checks, grants to struggling small businesses, residential back rent and utility payment support, and funds for family college savings plans. He also announced plans to send every 4-year-old in California to kindergarten and to extend healthcare insurance to older adults living in the United States illegally. Though much of this revenue cycle “boom” of public spending is arguably unsustainable, the governor is setting a precedent of new entitlements likely to be slashed during any future economic “bust.”

The governor has also been touting the state’s $116 million vaccine incentives program, which has provided $50 prepaid grocery cards to two million newly vaccinated people. Newsom has appeared publicly to announce lottery drawings for floor seats to a Los Angeles Lakers game and tickets to Disneyland, Legoland and SeaWorld. California’s Vax for the Win program is enticing residents to get a Covid-19 vaccination by dangling “California Dream Vacations,” such as a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage, among other hotel packages, along with culinary expenses and other freebies. The state is throwing in $2,000 cash to cover the travel costs of winners. Other drawings will reward up to 30 people with $50,000 cash prizes, and another 10 people will win even larger cash prizes of an astonishing $1.5 million each.

What is going on here? Is California truly golden again, so soon after the governor, using “emergency powers,” issued executive orders for stay-at-home lockdowns and mask mandates that kept students away from public schools and congregations banned from religious services, as well as sharply restricted commerce resulting in massive small business failures and job losses?

A Bloomberg opinion piece argues that California has come out of the COVID-19 pandemic in excellent shape, marked by innovation, productivity gains, and rising economic growth as public companies have gained market share and hired new workers. The renewable energy sector has been particularly strong in recent years, and is slated to be boosted further by some 200 earmarks totaling almost $1 billion to California as part of the highway infrastructure spending bill pending before the U.S. House of Representatives. The recipients of all of this federal taxpayer largesse include electric vehicle charging stations and bike trails in Napa Valley’s wine country and in Menlo Park (favored by Facebook employees).

Though long discredited as a boondoggle featuring massive cost overruns and cronyism, the high-speed railway project in Central California (what critics deride as “the bullet train to nowhere”) has just received a further $1 billion grant from the Biden administration’s Department of Transportation.

Unfortunately, unless you are a vaccine lottery winner, a highly-paid employee of a publicly-traded technology company, or a lobbyist for or beneficiary of federal taxpayer earmarks for the green energy industry, you may not be fairing quite so well.

Average citizens in California are not benefitting from the skyrocketing state budget, long known as a target for waste, fraud and abuse. Instead, they have suffered in recent years from energy blackouts, raging fires, continuing drought, public health concerns arising from a growing homeless population, and public safety concerns over riots, rising crime rates, and the early release of violent criminals.

Average citizens in California are not benefitting from the skyrocketing state budget, long known as a target for waste, fraud and abuse.

It is the tens of millions of citizens working daily to afford the high cost of living, along with the now decades-long underperformance in state education, that has been the relentless focus of scholar Richard Rider, chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters, who catalogues and frequently updates the statistical studies that document the economic life of Californians.

Rather than the sunny rhetoric meant to boost a governor whom some two million registered voters have now petitioned to recall, it is these numbers that reveal a staggering story of struggle.

Rather than the sunny rhetoric meant to boost a governor whom some two million registered voters have now petitioned to recall, it is these numbers that reveal a staggering story of struggle.

Taxifornia

Californians are by far the most highly taxed in the nation (21% higher than 2nd place Hawaii). While seven states have zero state income tax, and two more tax only dividend and interest income (not capital gains), tax brackets for those earning under $50,000 annually start at 9.3% and rise to 13.3%. California has the highest state sales tax at 7.25%, not including local sales taxes, which also average in the top 10 nationwide. California’s corporate income tax rate of 8.84% is the highest in the continental west.

California ranks in the top five states for highest annual cost of owning a car. The state has the nation’s highest “gas pump” tax at 81.45 cents per gallon (plus a unique 10-12 cents per gallon “cap and trade” tax). The national average is 52.18 cents. Yet California has the 2nd worst highways in America. California’s driving tickets are confiscatory, with red-light camera tickets now costing $500 each. The next highest state fee is $250, but most are around $100.

The median California home costs 2.4 times more than the national median home price.

The average “impact” fees in California for building a median single-family residence ($758,990 as of 2021) varied from 6% ($32,880) to 18% ($98,640) per home, about double the fees charged by the next most expensive state and more than triple the norm among jurisdictions that levy such fees (many governments east of the Sierras charge little or no fees). The fee is part of the purchase price, so buyers even pay an annual property tax on the fee. California ranks 50^th worst for people’s debt-to-income ratio, and 49^th worst for percentage of home ownership.

The top CEOs surveyed ranked California “the worst state in which to do business” for the 17th consecutive year. In addition to high occupational licenses for hundreds of categories of small business operators, California has an expensive small business $800 minimum corporate income tax, even if no profit is earned, and even for many nonprofits.

According to the Tax Foundation, California’s 2020 “business tax climate” ranked second worst in the nation, behind New Jersey. In 2021, the American Tort Reform Foundation ranks California the “worst state judicial hellhole” in the U.S.California also has the second highest workers’ compensation rates (as of 2018), some 169% of the median state rate. Yet benefits are low and lawyer’s fees are high.

Poor Results

As of April 2021, California ranked almost dead last in employment rate (Hawaii is worse) at 8.3%. The California unemployment rate is 43% higher than the average of the other 49 states. Despite the applauding of California as the fifth largest economy in the world, when adjusted for population and cost of living, California’s median household income ranks 48th out of 50. Only Oregon and Hawaii rank lower.

California public school teachers are the third highest paid in the nation, averaging $85,892. (The national average is $65,090.) California teachers earn 38% more than the average in the other 49 states. Yet, California’s student tests scores have consistently ranked 48th out of 50 states for grades four and eight math and English. Though California community college tuition and fees are the lowest in the nation (and free for those who fill out a “can’t pay” form), the state drop-out rate is over 25%. California annually spends by far the most of any state on policing and corrections.

California’s (2019) poverty rate is the worst in the nation at 17.2%, 45% higher than the average for the other 49 states. California has 12% of the nation’s population, but over 43% of the entire country’s TANF (“Temporary” Assistance for Needy Families) and welfare recipients. That’s 5.6 times the percentage of recipients found in the other 49 states.

California’s residential, commercial and industrial electricity costs soar way above the national averages. As the state’s increasingly dangerous drought worsens into a true water crisis, expect the costs of hydro-power to escalate, with stresses on the state’s infrastructure driving up agricultural, business and residential costs of water and power.

California’s residential, commercial and industrial electricity costs soar way above the national averages.

With a very troubling long-term public pension crisis looming alongside the high annual cost of living in California, it is no wonder that after the recent U.S. Census the state is losing a U.S. Congressional seat for the very first time. In one recent twelve-month period, California ranked 50th of all states with the highest net departures over arrivals.

This includes the young, the educated, the entrepreneurial, the wealthy, and middle-class retirees desperately seeking a lower cost of living. California was recently ranked as the third worst state in which to retire by Kiplinger. Only New York and New Jersey ranked lower.

The rich got richer, increasing market share as “essential employees” and connected political players during the pandemic. But for the not so elite, the California dream has sadly become increasingly unattainable, and California’s temporary budget surplus is no panacea for obviously disastrous public policy results.

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Larry Greenfield is a Fellow of The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship & Political Philosophy.

This week’s Torah reading contains an exceptionally puzzling passage. We are told about the complaints of the Jews, who are thirsty and worried. Moshe and Aharon are told by God to “take the rod and assemble the community, and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water.” Moshe hits the rock twice, and it gives forth a copious amount of water.

Immediately after this miracle, God says to Moshe: ”Because you have not believed in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you will not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

What did Moshe do wrong? This passage challenges every interpreter. Don Isaac Abravanel mentions eleven interpretations of this passage. And there are yet more. One opinion he cites says perhaps Moshe didn’t sin at all, and the Torah is blaming Moshe for the sins of the people. A clear explanation remains elusive.

Rashi offers one of the stranger explanations. He says Moshe’s sin was hitting the rock after he had been specifically commanded to speak to the rock. Rashi says: “For had you spoken to the rock and it had given forth [water], I would have been sanctified in the eyes of the congregation. They would have said, ‘If this rock, which neither speaks nor hears, and does not require sustenance, fulfills the word of the Omnipresent, how much more should we!’” 

Rashi’s explanation seems more puzzling than the passage itself! The Ramban points out that God had asked Moshe to carry his stick to the rock; wouldn’t that imply he was supposed to hit the rock? In addition, considering that the rock is an inanimate object, what difference does it make if he speaks to the rock or hits it?

When you consider the wider context, Rashi’s explanation is even more perplexing. In a prior section of the Torah (Exodus 17:5-6), Moshe is commanded to produce water for the congregation by hitting a rock. Why would this time be different?

Perhaps the best way to read Rashi is to see this as an allegory on leadership. Moshe’s audience is not the rock; it is the people. Whether he hits the rock or speaks to it tells us everything about how he will lead the people.

Leaders use different tools to influence their followers, and those methods run on a continuum from coercion to persuasion. Warm words are used to persuade, while a swinging stick is used to coerce. A leader must adjust his methods according to the audience: for certain audiences one needs to carry a big stick, and for others, it is critical to speak softly.

A leader must adjust his methods according to the audience: for certain audiences one needs to carry a big stick, and for others, it is critical to speak softly.

In Moshe’s early career, he had to be a leader who carried a big stick. When Moshe initially refuses to lead, he says it is because he is “not a man of words.” The Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 3:14) explains that God responds to Moshe that he doesn’t need to speak. In dealing with a dictator like Pharaoh, a man accustomed to the master-slave view of politics, all Moshe needs is a big stick. Pharaoh is not open to persuasion and will only respond to brute force.

Even Moshe’s leadership of the Jews after leaving Egypt is based on brute force. As former slaves, they respond best to strength and coercion. Similarly, at Mount Sinai, the Talmud says the Jews accept the Torah under duress (Shabbat 88a).

In this context, we can understand why in the Book of Exodus, during the first year in the desert, Moshe is commanded to hit the rock. Moshe must lead a reluctant assembly of former slaves, a people who only know how to respond to coercion; leadership for them requires a powerful show of force.

But the event at Mei Merivah takes place in the 40th year. This is a new generation, born free in the desert. They too must follow; but this is not the time for coercion. Here, a new generation must be convinced to be self-reliant and strong, and that can only be accomplished with persuasion and education.

Rashi incisively leads us to the core of the Mei Merivah issue. In the 40th year in the desert, big stick leadership will diminish the second generation’s ability to hear God’s voice.

Moshe’s sin is nearly imperceptible from the text, because it is unique to his situation. As a leader overseeing generational change, he was expected to understand that some generations require the big stick, while others require soft words. And because Moshe cannot pivot to the leadership of speaking softly, another leader must bring the second generation into Eretz Yisrael.

Moshe’s sin is nearly imperceptible from the text, because it is unique to his situation.

For the last 200 years, Orthodox Jewry has been trying its best to adapt to a new reality. In the medieval era, certain judicial rights were granted to the leadership of the community, and Jewish leadership within the ghetto could certainly pressure and coerce their members into observance. But after the Emancipation gave political rights to the Jews in Western Europe, the ghetto walls came tumbling down, and the position of Orthodoxy diminished.

Many recognized that political rights would change the religious landscape. As Napoleon was marching toward Russia, the rabbis of Russia debated whether they should pray for him to defeat the hated czar, Alexander I. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe of Chabad, said that he was praying for the czar to be victorious. He explained that he had seen a vision of the future on Rosh Hashanah, and “was shown that if Bonaparte is victorious, the wealth of the Jewish people will be increased and the dignity of Israel will be restored. The hearts of Israel, however, will become more distant from their father in heaven.” It would be difficult to lead the Jews into a new world and persuade them to follow in the ways of their ancestors.

Generations later, all Jews would be liberated, and grow more distant from heaven. But the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away 27 years ago this week, was one who understood better than anyone how to adapt the message of Torah to the modern world; and he did so brilliantly, using down-to-earth lessons from baseball and profound insights from physics. He understood that a new vocabulary needed to be used, and that every Jew needed to learn how to reach out to others. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his biography of the Rebbe, begins with a chapter entitled “A Rebbe for the New World,” a description that recognizes how difficult it is to teach ancient wisdom to a very different generation of Jews. And the Rebbe recognized his mission encompassed all of humanity.

In one of the more powerful stories in the book, Telushkin tells of advice the Rebbe gave to Shirley Chisolm, the newly elected congresswoman from his district. As Telushkin explains, Chisholm was “the first black woman elected to Congress. … [she] lacked the power to stop senior and influential southern democratic congressmen, many of whom in those days were racists, from assigning her to the agriculture committee, an intentionally absurd appointment for a representative from Brooklyn. … Chisholm, who wanted to work on education and labor issues, was both frustrated and furious. She soon received a phone call from the office of one of her constituents: ‘The Lubavitcher Rebbe would like to meet with you.’ … Chisholm came to 770. The Rebbe said: ‘I know you’re very upset.’ Chisholm acknowledged being upset and insulted. ‘What should I do?’ The Rebbe said: ‘What a blessing God has given you. This country has so much surplus food, and there are so many hungry people and you can use this gift that God’s given you to feed hungry people. Find a creative way to do it.’”

And so she did. Together with farming state sponsors, Chisholm would introduce the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which would feed millions of people.

This is just one example of how the Rebbe’s persuasive leadership would be transformative for Jews and non-Jews alike. Remarkably, a new generation in the new world could still follow a Rebbe, because they were ready for a different kind of leadership.

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Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.