In Response to the "Matzav"

Today, I was attacked in an ad-hominem way on the popular "Charedi" news website matzav.com.  You can read the article here.  I have submitted the following letter in response to the editor, and assume they will publish it.  After all, it's a general rule in journalism that one who is attacked is given a right of response.  I publish my letter publicly because I was attacked in a public forum.

Dear Concerned Yid,

A few points in response to your letter published today on Matzav.com:

1)  First, I'd like to address the substance of your claims.  Throughout your article, you made many false assumptions.  If you're truly as concerned as you claim to be (I have no way of knowing, but you do), you might take the time to verify assumptions before publishing them on the internet.  You could have contacted me, if you're truly concerned, and seen whether your assumptions were correct.  After all, the seal of Hashem is emes, and Jews should strive to be honest and accurate in what they say.  This is prudent and religious all in one.

You posit that my support for civil same-sex marriage is a remnant of my "liberal beliefs" and "background" left over from the days before I was observant.

Truth is, while I used to be far more liberal politically than I am today, I've opposed same-sex marriage publicly and privately for as long as I've been old enough to have an opinion on the subject.  In recent months, however, I've changed my mind, specifically because of my religious observance and affiliation.  As an observant Jew, I appreciate more than ever the protections of the First Amendment.  In the United States, our small minority religion is afforded tremendous protection.  Thousands of our Jewish brothers now refuse to work on Shabbat and holidays, knowing full well that their government will support their religious convictions and penalize anyone who tries to discriminate against them by firing them or refusing to hire them.    Our rituals (brit milah, kosher slaughter, etc.) are protected by the government, and our institutions receive support, honor, recognition, and even funds from states and the federal government.  Jews in public schools are no longer coerced into Christian prayer, and a general spirit of tolerance and understanding has allowed our people a golden age like none other in the diaspora.  This is true on both a governmental and social level, and has become an important part of the fabric of our country.

Therefore, it is our obligation to argue for the protection of minorities, be they religious, ideological, etc., and to advocate to prevent the use of religious doctrine in legislation at all levels.  If the state has the power to legislate marriage based on Judeo-Christian religious principles, then there's nothing to stop the state from regulating other areas of life based on religious principles, Judeo-Christian, Christian, or otherwise.  That's only a stone's throw away from the days of "the lord's prayer" and all the rest.  It's bad jurisprudence, bad for the Jews, and coerces people against their will, which is not helpful religiously either.

One more thing.  From a purely political perspective, it's not necessarily a "liberal" argument to argue for same-sex marriage.  I'll note that there was unanimous support for same-sex marriage among conservative republicans in RI's State Senate, based on a mixture of conservative and libertarian principles.  Conservative - If gay men and women are involved in relationships (which is a given), isn't it better for them to form committed monogamous relationships with stable family structures?  Libertarian - the state ought to stay out of defining, encouraging, or manipulating people's sexual or social preferences, especially if they're doing so based on religious convictions in possible violation of the First Amendment (the Court will tell us about that shortly).  I argued as I did largely because of my libertarian political leanings, not that it should matter, not liberal ones.          

2)  A few pieces of advice.  If you want to engage in an ad-hominem attack against someone, sign your name to it and face the consequences, positive and negative.  Doing so anonymously is cowardly and characteristic of the culture of fear that pervades our community lately.  Let's be mature enough to have important conversations with each other using our real names please.  This is true both locally in the current argument and generally in broader Jewish scene.

Also, if you want to critique and argument or position, fine.  In that case, you should state what you think I advocated, explain why you think it's wrong, and support your position with reasons and sources.  For a more complete argument, you might even offer self-critique, explaining the weaknesses of your own position.  All of the personal attacks, prejudicial comments, guilt-by-association character assasination mumbo jumbo (IRF Liberal Left Wing Loving Call His Rabbis Revoke His Degree Public Consequences Chillul Hashem etc.) distract from the content of the actual debate, and are not befitting of reasoned and enlightened discussion.  Orthodox Jews should be interested in serious discussion on the merits of the issues rather than vague and uninformed generalizations.  Erev Shabbat Shalom.

Sincerely,

Barry Dolinger, another concerned Jew  

Has God Moved?

                

http://www.jidaily.com/9fdb1?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=55f31d74b6-Insider&utm_medium=email

In the article linked above, Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo poetically shares his conclusion that God has "hired movers" and left the Synagogue and other places of established religion.  His points are basically threefold: 1)  God desires true seekers, and they are now largely found elsewhere, be it cafes, non-traditional minyanim (prayer quoroms) and batei midrash (study halls), and elsewhere.  2)  Traditional Jews continue to flock to God's old address, so to speak, but our prayer and service of God is (on the whole) absolutely and totally devoid of anything meaningful or experiential. 3)  Observant Jews are basically in a state of denial, focusing far too much energy on contrived questions and legal quandaries while willfully ignoring big-picture items that ought to form the loci of our observance.

As a Synagogue Rabbi, I've written about  many of these themes in the past, and think that this article is a must-read for all people of faith.  Practically every sermon I give includes a different impassioned plea for meaningful prayer and substantive religious encounter with the trans-formative awe of the divine; our observance is meant to serve that encounter, the encounter in return designed to radically alter our actions in this world for the good.  Whether it's had any affect good bad or otherwise I cannot say, though I know it has had an impact on my life in profound ways.  Personally, creating a meaningful observance and prayer space has been the primary function of my rabbinate and even this blog; it also happens to be one of the central points of our mesorah (tradition).

The next several blog posts will dwell on different aspects of this theme, but there's one I'd like to share today. It is widely known that Lag Baomer (the 33rd day of the omer count) is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the great mystic and possible author of the Zohar.  Often ignored is that it's also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Moshe Isserles, known affectionately as the Rema, the great mystic (yes, he also spent most of his time delving into kaballah) and authority of Ashkenazic Jewish law and custom.  In light of this article, I thought that the beginning of the legal code he authored are instructive.  We'll comment how he chose to open his great legal encyclopedia.

"שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד - I am ever mindful of the Lord's Presence" (Psalms 16:8).  He goes on to write that this is the most important rule of the Torah, because a person who lives with God-consciousness does not act the same way as one who lives without such consciousness.  Such a person will be humble, kind, and eager to serve God.

Why did the Rema begin a legal work with ostensibly non legal advice?  The answer is obvious.  Judaism and Jewish law represent a religious legal system, and the aim of that system is to foster a constant awareness of God and the resulting behavioral affects.  It's an easy question whether we're doing any of these well - we're not.  We certainly fixate on the law, even obsess, and in the modern day, seek new strictures and creative legal arguments all in a well-meaning effort to safeguard God's commands.  In all of this, the point is missed, masses leave or are uninspired, and the religious experience becomes dry and loses its efficacy.

It's easy to say "woah unto us."  The harder question, though, is what bold solutions and adjustments are needed to preserve and advance our tradition, one that teaches that the center of it all is an awareness of God's presence in our lives so deep that it affects all of our interactions profoundly.  

Mitnadvei Chutz La'aretz - The Power of the Individual

As it is Yom Hazikaron, the day when we remember those who have defended Israel, it's important for all of us to take some time out of the day to remember and learn about those who defended and continue to defend our people.  I was moved by the above video about MaCHaL, a group of about 4,000 volunteers who went to Israel to fight during the War of Independence in 1948.  So important was MaCHaL to the founding of the air force, in particular, that English and not Hebrew was actually the language of operation for the then-nascent Israeli airforce.  

Watching the video, I was struck by two things in particular.  Most heavily, I was first struck by the  the power of just a few individuals.  How just a handful of individuals, foreign volunteers no less, were able to to use leftover German plane parts, engage in risky combat tactics, and successfully hold off an Egyptian army of 10,000 is a testament to the Jewish spirit and the importance of what these men did.  In a world where individuals are increasingly invisible and human contribution seems less and less valuable, this was a powerful and emotional reminder that the actions of each of us really do count; sometimes, small acts of heroism that go barely noticed in the fog of war change history dramatically for millions of people.  Would we even have a state without the heroic actions of the pilots in the video?  What if they hadn't gone to fight?

Second, there actions serve not only as a source of pride, but as a clarion call to each of us.  What are we doing, what are we sacrificing to aide the survival and growth of our people?  Though it's primarily a day to remember the sacrifices of others, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives, it's also a day to consider our own contributions and how we carry on the legacy we've inherited.  Even if we're not fighting in the army, there are important things we can and should be doing for the Jewish people.  As someone who does not live in Israel, it's all too easy for the national and familial bonds that holds us together to remain unrealized beneath the surface.  These foreigners felt a sense of obligation to the Jewish people even from afar and acted on it.  Query: What actions can we take, locally or nationally, for the benefit of the Jewish people?

Go Down Moses . . .

This article I authored was published in the Jewish Voice and Herald on Friday, March 15, 2013.  I thought it worth reproducing here. 

Last year, President Barack Obama concluded his Passover Seder with an interesting addition.  After the singing of Had Gadya (traditionally the final song in the Seder service),  participants in the White House Seder took turns reciting sections of the Emancipation Proclamation, thus creating a bridge between the core message of Passover, a distant and remote cultic festival of an ancient people, the Israelites, and the powerful modern outgrowth of the same concept of racial equality. President Obama’s serving as the Seder leader further reinforced this message.

While many staffers joked that gefilte fish wasn’t usually on many White House menus, the conclusion of the White House Seder affords us the opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of Passover.

As United States citizens, western Jews tend to speak of Passover in western terms.  Clearly, the holiday is about the benefits of freedom and the evils of slavery.  It also celebrates the triumph of the oppressed, and refutes the notion that “might makes right.” Egypt was the most powerful nation in the ancient world, while the Israelites were just a petty tribal family, oppressed and enslaved because of their minority status, unique identity and strange customs.

All of these notions speak to the heart of core liberal democratic values, so it is easy to simply assume that this is what Passover is about. However, that offers only a partial – and misleading – picture of the meaning of the holiday, and it behooves us to consider the holiday’s full meaning and its implications for our lives.

God’s language when he first commands Moses is instructive:
“Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is my first born-son.’  I have said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may worship Me,’ yet you refuse to let him go.  Now I will slay your first-born son.’” (Exodus 4:22-23)

In this statement, all of the emphasis is, surprisingly, on worshipping God, with no reference to the immorality of forced physical labor or the unconscionable notion that humans can own other humans as physical property.

Further, throughout the story, as the Egyptians are being afflicted with plagues, Moses’ request to Pharaoh is simply to allow the Israelites a holiday to worship their God: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews: Let My people go to worship Me.’’” (Exodus 9:1)

In the well-known Civil War-era slave spiritual, though, Moses is alleged to have said merely, “Let my people go”; the song omits the conclusion of his request: “to worship [God].”

According to the biblical text, Moses’ complaints are not centered on the immorality of slavery but rather on the affirmative notion that God must be worshipped; slavery merely obstructs the path.

Generally speaking, the civic culture of the United States is one of personal autonomy rather than responsibility to others.  The U.S. Constitution carefully and deliberately grants each of us specific rights to which we are entitled.  It does not demand that we vote, serve in the military or do much service to our fellow citizens, other than leaving them alone.

The Passover story compels us to build on our beloved freedoms by asking ourselves the simple question, “to what end?”

Freedom from the constraints of physical and emotional oppression is a necessary first step; this point is easy to emphasize and relate to, especially in our society.  That freedom fundamentally requires us to worship God through the pursuit of a moral and ethical life is too often overlooked and too easy to forget in our society.

“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”(Exodus 29:20)

The goal of freedom is the exercise of responsibility.

Time, which has a way of turning things on their heads, allows for the creation of circumstances previously unimaginable.  During the Seder, symbols such as the maror (bitter herbs), haroset and the broken middle matzah compel us to imagine the life of a slave devoid of hope, and require us to confront those elements in our lives to which we are still enslaved.

At the same time, the four cups of wine, festive meal, presence of family and friends and yes, the matzah again, confirm our current freedoms and markedly changed circumstances.  In ancient times we were at the bottom, but today we are on top.

Perhaps the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation at the Passover Seder represents more than a superficial connection to modern notions of freedom.  Once, we were slaves, freed by the proclamation of God through his prophet Moses.  Today, we are empowered, free to liberate others and issue proclamations of our own.

Guest Post: Celebrating the Sigd Holiday in Jerusalem

Today, it is my pleasure to share a guest post from my esteemed friend Shai Afsai, who has done excellent work covering the Ethiopian Jews and their unique heritage.  As Passover rapidly approaches (did anyone really need to be reminded?), redemption is a theme on the minds of many.  What follows is an article about the Ethopian Sigd holiday, commemorating a different redemption, the return to Zion from the Babylonian captivity.  Shai Afsai and Matan Graff will be presenting photos of the Sigd by Gidon Agaza (mentioned in the article) at the Providence JCC Gallery, with the opening on Monday, March 18th, from 7:00 - 9:00 pm. 

Celebrating the Sigd Holiday

Shai Afsai

“I arrived at the end,” 21-year-old Orly Sahalo said of attending the Sigd holiday in Jerusalem for the first time last year, “and I missed out.”

This year, encouraged by her boyfriend, photographer Gidon Agaza, she turned up early at the Armon Hanatziv Promenade, where thousands of Ethiopian Jews gathered to celebrate the Sigd on November 14th.

“I had chills.  I came and saw all of the women dressed in white, lifting their hands, and saw the qessotch [i.e., priests, who are the traditional religious leaders of the Jews of Ethiopia] using musical instruments, just as written in the Bible,” Sahalo said, referring to the drums and trumpets that accompanied certain prayers.

Sahalo also prepared herself for the occasion this time.  “I did my homework and attended events so that I could understand the holiday.  I wanted to be able to answer questions about the Sigd if people happened to ask me, and to know for myself what was practiced in Ethiopia and what the source of the holiday is.”

 

One of the many educational and cultural events leading up to the holiday in Israel took place at Ramat Gan’s Bar-Ilan University, on the eve of the Sigd.  There, Mula Zerihoon, a 40-year-old qes ordained in Israel, explained the origins of the holiday to the students and soldiers in the audience.

“The Sigd holiday is based on the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, when after 70 years in exile, the Jews returned from Babylon to the Land of Israel,” Qes Mula said.  “In Jerusalem, they held a day of fasting, repentance, Torah teaching, and prayer.  This is the source of the Sigd holiday of the Jews of Ethiopia.”

Chapter 9 of the Book of Nehemiah records that on the 24^th of Tishre “the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Torah of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God.”  That 6^th century BCE assembly culminated with the Jews publicly recommitting themselves to their covenant with God.

The annual Sigd celebration now normally takes place 50 days after Yom Kippur, on the 29^th of Cheshvan.  It begins with fasting and repentance, but concludes with a festive meal following the Sigd’s annual renewal of the covenant.

Among the Sigd’s central themes is the Jewish longing to return from the exile to Jerusalem.  In Ethiopia, the Sigd was celebrated atop mountains, which were ascended by foot.  “When we climbed the mountain, we felt Jerusalem in our heart of hearts,” said Qes Mula.  “This deeply impacted our Judaism.  Jews came from afar, two or three days on foot, on horses, and on mules, in order to have the chance to hear Torah from the qessotch.  The people learned and were strengthened.”  Often, worshipers took home some soil from the mountain on which the holiday was celebrated.

Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv Promenade, currently the primary pilgrimage site of the holiday, offers an unobstructed view of Jerusalem’s Old City.  On the day of the Sigd, dozens of qessotch from across Israel assembled there beneath colorful umbrellas, on a platform draped by the flags of Israel and Jerusalem.  Chanting in Ge’ez, the qessotch praised God, and asked for forgiveness and blessings for the Jewish people.  Biblical passages telling of the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile were read to the congregation in Ge’ez, and then translated into Amharic.

Throughout the morning and afternoon, 28-year-old Gidon Agaza snapped pictures of the qessotch and worshipers.  “I have been attending for 13 years,” Agaza said.  “Each and every year that I come, I am moved anew to see the mothers praying from their hearts.  I have a large archive of Sigd celebrations.  I need these photographs in order to explain to people about the Ethiopian community and its traditions.”

At a nearby educational tent, Shoshana Ben-Dor and Ziva Mekonen-Degu taught the Sigd’s Ge’ez prayers, with transliterations and translations into Hebrew, to some 80 visitors, most of whom were young adults.  In collaboration with the qessotch, the two women have been preparing a Sigd siddur (prayer book) — the first of its kind — which is slated to be published by next year’s festival.  The prayers will be written in four columns, in Ge’ez, Ge’ez transliterated into Hebrew, Amharic, and Hebrew.  They hope this will make the holiday accessible to more Jews.

Ben-Dor, the director of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ), believes that all Jews would benefit from the Sigd’s celebration.  “The Sigd brings together elements that exist in several Jewish holidays in a way that no other Jewish holiday does,” she says.

“It has the aspects of repentance, asking for mercy, and hoping that God has forgiven us that are found in the High Holidays.  It has the mourning for Jerusalem found in Tisha Be’av.  It has the returning to Zion found in Yom Ha’atzmaut.  It has the covenant and giving of the Torah found in Shavuot. The Sigd is the only day in the entire calendar that brings these all together — and also includes an annual renewal of the covenant,” Ben-Dor explains.  “There is an importance in the Sigd for all Jews.”

Orly Sahalo was especially impressed by the activities for children and young adults at the Armon Hanatziv Promenade.  “They will learn, and this holiday will have a continuation,” she said.  “I was also moved to see the qessotch distributing handfuls of Jerusalem soil to the worshipers.  People are able to take a piece of Jerusalem home with them, just as in Ethiopia they were able to take home soil from the mountain on which the Sigd was held.”

This article was originally published at http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/5493/features/the-sigd-festival-comes-home-to-jerusalem/

Was Haman An Antisemite?

"Sometime afterward, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite; he advanced him and seated him higher than any of his fellow officials.  All the king's courtiers in the palace gate knelt and bowed low to Haman, for such was the king's order concerning him; but Mordechai would not kneel or bow low.  Then the king's courtiers who were in the palace gate said to Mordechai, 'Why do you disobey the king's order?'  When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordechai's resolve would prevail; for he had explained to them that he was a Jew.  When Haman saw that Mordechai would not kneel or bow low to him, Haman was filled with rage.  But he disdained to lay hands on Mordechai alone; having been told who Mordechai's people were, Haman plotted to do away with all the Jews, Mordechai's people, throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus." (Megillat Esther, JPS Translation)

This week, we will read Parshat Zachor, commanding us to erase the memory of Amalek, the evil nation who attacked the Jewish people (women, children, elderly) from the rear on their way out of Egypt.  That specific reading is read on the Shabbat before Purim specifically because Haman is described as a descendant of Agag, an Amalekite leader.  It is for this reason that the custom has developed to blot out the name of Haman during the reading of Megillat Esther with groggers, bullhorns, and a whole host of other sound producing machines.  As might be expected, the noisemaking aspect of this imperative has been seized excitedly by children, who listen eagerly for the name of Haman, waiting eagerly for the hint of Haman's name.

Conceptually, Haman is understood not only to be a genetic descendant of the Amalekites, but a ideological one as well.  He is presumed an anti-semite, and often cited as a paradigmatic example of anti-semitism throughout the ages.  In fact, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik felt that it was Haman's anti-semitism, not his descent from Agag, that established him as a bona fide Amaleki.  "Amalek is not purely a genealogical halacha but rather an ideological one." It is in this vein that Adolf Hitler and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others.

Now, Amalek is often said to have had a deeply ingrained hatred for the mission of the Jewish people, opposing the notion that a loving God runs the universe and the events therein.  In fact, it is often told that the gematria of Amalek and "safek" (the Hebrew word for doubt) are equivalent.  When we look at the description of Haman, this is not an adequate description of his motives and behavior.

There is nothing in Megillat Esther that would suggest that Haman hated the Jewish people because of some inherent quality of ours.  Rather, Haman was a power-hungry adviser who likely wanted the kingship for himself.  He had illusions of grandeur, which is likely the reason he demanded everyone bow-down to him in the first instance.   When Mordechai refused to comply, he stood in opposition to Haman's egomania, and was targeted for punishment, as were his people.  The Jewish people were inconvenient and in the way, though the reader gets the sense that it didn't really matter that it was the Jews.  In fact, the Jews are described as "Mordechai's" people specifically to emphasize that this has more to do with Mordechai than the Jews per se.  To bolster the point, ask yourself the following simple question; would Haman have hated the Jewish people if he never met Mordechai?  Since the answer is no, it stands to reason that Haman did not have a deep prior hatred of the Jewish people.

Truthfully, Haman's "anti-semitism" has much more in common with many modern enemies of the Jewish state, and as such, the lessons are even more important.  Many (though obviously not all) enemies of the Jewish people or the Jewish state use the Jewish people as a convenient distraction from the social, economic, and ethnic problems that plague their countries.  The Jewish people are an effective weapon in the arsenal used by modern day power-hungry rulers to prop themselves up throughout the mideast and the world.

Esther was able to deal with Haman by explicitly exploiting his worst character traits and the flaws of her husband, the king.  I encourage my readers to look through Megillat Esther this year and to suggest (in the comments?) ways in which Esther did just this.  We should all learn from her perception and tact.          

     

Even More Unfair . . .

Hi All.  My last post discussed my thoughts on the situation at the Kotel plaza, and what I believe to be unfair and counterproductive policies there.  This post will continue to discuss the same geographic area from a completely different angle.  

As some readers accurately pointed out, there are much bigger injustices occurring at the Temple Mount.  While I chose to focus on the internal issue, as its generally better to focus on internal improvement rather than outside castigation, I've decided that the points raised by several readers deserve to be heard as well. 

And now, onto the substance.  Jews tend to focus on the Kotel, the Western or Wailing Wall.  In fact, when one visits the Kotel, it's not uncommon to see Jews kissing the wall, placing notes containing prayers in the cracks of the wall, and other such gestures of veneration.  The prayers of the world's Jews are directed towards Kotel, or so many think.  In reality, our prayers are directed (or supposed to be directed) towards the location of the Kodesh HaKodashim, the Holy of Holies, which was located somewhere near the center of the Temple Mount, and represented the resting place for no less than God's presence on Earth.  Many decisors of Jewish law are actually of the opinion that someone who prays at the Kotel should direct their prayers towards the center of the mount (on an angle to the left of the wall) rather than at the wall, as is the common custom.  All of this to say that we've mistakenly elevated the value of the Western Wall in our mind above the immensely significant heritage of our two past Temples and the true import of the site.  

Now, on the Temple Mount itself.  The Dome of the Rock (constructed as a political monument in the year 692 c.e.) rests on the most important spot in the national and religious heritage of Israel and the Jewish people.  In addition, the comparatively smaller and more recent Al-Aqsa mosque sits oblique to the Dome as a place of Muslim and only Muslim prayer.  

Though there are many complaints one could fairly lodge (such as truth about the actual importance of the site in Muslim theology and history), I'll focus on the main one.  Though Jews and other non-Muslims can tour the Temple Mount under the close watch of Israeli authorities at designated times, they cannot pray there.  This is strictly enforced by the Israeli authorities, as part of an agreement they voluntarily entered into with the WAQF, the Muslim authorities who control the site.  When tour groups go up, they watch closely to make sure no one talks or so much as dares to pray or do something that would offend the Muslims.  This is true not just for Jews but for all non-Muslims.  Imagine, for a moment, all non-Jews being banned from Jewish holy places, and a unit of armed officers watching closely to enforce the ban.  We would never do such a thing, as we believe that our God is the only God, and therefore everyone's.  He cares about all people, and desires their heartfelt prayer.  In fact, we earnestly pray for the day when all nations will come to our Temple to pray to the one God.  "[M]y house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isiah 56:7).  It's with this thought that we conclude prayers on Yom HaKippurim and other holy days, representing our sublime yearning for unity in the face of our human condition and the existence of one omnibenevolent God.    

As Abraham Joshua Heschel eloquently stated at a 1963 conference on race and religion, "What is an idol?  Any god who is mine but not yours, any god concerned with me but not with you, is an idol."

The Islamic rule stands in sharp and shocking contrast.  This highlights an important general point about religion.  Some faiths use religion and God generally as ideas to belittle others and promote themselves.  This is the creed of many outside of our faith, and though it is not our creed, manifests itself too often within the Jewish community.  True faith enhances all of our lives and allows us to work together.

Now, the thought that Israeli authorities would enforce such a blatantly racist and unfair agreement on behalf of the Muslim authorities is quite disturbing in its own right, and seems to represent the worst violation of the the Rabbinic idea that one should not sin, nor aide in the commission of one.  The Israelis are guilty as accomplices.  That we can actively enforce a ban on prayer for all non-Muslims is a violation of the most basic ideals of the Jewish faith, yet also of western democractic ideals.  

Unless the issue is brought to light and people make their voices heard, the status-quo will remain.  Frankly, Muslims will make more noise and will be more upset about a change to the current standard than Jews and others are currently, and so they will continue to "win" for fear of the consequences.  It's long past time Israel made some fairness one of its mainstream political demands, and certainly time for Jews, believers in God, and others who value democracy to make their voices heard.