Admitting Our Faults Out Loud

By Rabbi Mark Borovitz

I am thinking about life, as usual. The difference is I am not obsessed with my life, rather, I am thinking about the lives of others and the world. I was reading David Brooks in the New York Times this week and he was talking about how we either find solutions to problems or we don’t. In speaking about President Obama's Community College Initiative, he rightly pointed out that most students receive some assistance in the form of Pell Grants, etc. What they need is living expenses. The Federal Student Loan Program is very costly to pay back, and almost impossible without a substantial income. Private loans are out of the question for the people who need assistance most. Yet, we continue to look for “sound bite,” “simplistic” solutions to complex problems.

It doesn't matter if it is our children, the poor, an enemy, we just want to throw money at it and have it go away. In Iran, we are talking about easing more sanctions—they don't give full access and we have no idea how to deal with the people who attacked our embassy. They have not changed, yet if we throw money at them, they will like us. I am so enraged over this thinking because it is the thinking that led me down the wrong path over 50 years ago. We don't have to pay anyone to like us. We don't have to compromise our principles for someone to like us. NO, we have to be honorable and true to principles like caring for the widow, the stranger, the poor and the orphan. We have to treat each other with decency and love.

We have to stop buying lies. We are so used to being deceived, that we have become immune to the words of others. Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is wrong to go over the President's head. John Boehner is using him (and Bibi is using John) for political purposes. The Christian Right wants Armageddon, they want to convert the Jews— is this really friendship? No, this is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” We live in a situational world not a principled world. Bibi participating in this smells again of his need to meddle, as in the last presidential election. However, President Obama did not hold it against Israel in supplying the Iron Dome. Is it a principle of Judaism to embarrass someone who has protected you for your entire existence? I must have missed that one, in Rabbinical School.

What am I getting at? We are in a crisis that says “find a quick fix” and “make it simplistic” instead of simply dealing with all the complexities of each and every facet of human existence.  There is not loyalty to principles, only loyalty to personalities in the moment, and onto the next personality, in the next moment… and our world is falling apart.

I challenge John Boehner to do a Chesbon HaNefesh, an accounting of his soul, and publicly admit where he has missed the mark and where he has hit the bull’s-eye. I challenge President Obama to do the same and make the State of the Union a speech that truly reflects the entire state, including the errors. I say to Bibi—Don't do to others what is hateful to you, as Rabbi Hillel taught. You would be enraged if someone invited a head of state to address the Knesset without your approval and invitation. All this is done by people who are on the public dole; they take money from the U.S. taxpayers and call it wages or foreign aid. Bibi takes money from American Jews and doesn't want my opinions nor do his allies want to call me Rabbi. I challenge all of us to engage in this same Chesbon HaNefesh as well.

The deceptions we put up with in others are the same deceptions that we put onto others. We live a fear-based life, the fear of being real, imperfect and living our principles. We are afraid of being real so we continue to buy the lies of others and tell our own. We talk the talk of recovery and transparency yet we hide from all, including ourselves. We know we make mistakes, everyone does, yet we blame others, the Democrats, the Republicans, etc. We all want to say WE HAVE THE ANSWER, follow us, yet we are not even asking the right questions. We know that God is perfect, yet it is rare for a leader to take responsibility for errors, companies pay fines and don't admit guilt. If, in a free society, some are guilty and all are responsible, as Rabbi Heschel teaches, then with the blame game that is going on, maybe we are not a free society.
Here is the point of this blog (whew, finally figured it out:)) When we have to deceive ourselves and others, when we live situational ethics, when we don't live a principled life, we are slaves! We have gone from the unalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence to prejudice, willful blindness, blaming others, “solutions” that rob others of their humanity and serving only the elite. This is the society that produces destruction, not creativity. We need to go back to the root of humanity— we are not meant to be alone— and realize that we have to become a society that works together for the good of all. We have to go back to being a country that welcomes “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” as Lady Liberty says.

We do this by being Addicted to Redemption. Not just our redemption, but the redemption of all. Last Sunday night, Beit T'Shuvah honored a man who took Rabbi Heschel's words so much to heart, that he, along with Lucas Benitez and Greg Asbed, changed the Tomato Farm Workers lives in South Florida. Jon Esformes made a difference because he participated in his own redemption and lives a life of principle, purpose and passion. There are many others who do the same. I propose a new federal holiday—Yom Kippur—where all lawmakers and all citizens have to do inventory, make amends and honor the good they have done in the past year. For our politicians, they have to do it out loud, toot their horn and do T'Shuvah for their errors. Then, the United States, like the Israelite People of Old, will be a nation of principles, a nation of change, a nation of God.