Voting

Shalom Haverim,

This past Shabbat, Beth El hosted JJ Goldberg, editor of The Forward for the thirtieth and final Eiger scholar-in-resident weekend. Goldberg presented on American and Israeli politics and tied these timely topics to parashat Noah. While he offered a number of insights into today’s election, his editorial from last week helps put into perspective this election cycle:

Who will miss this incessant advertising, the scratch robo-calls and up-to-the-minute polls, or the constant chatter on cable TV? If you expressed even minor interest in a candidate this election season, your e-mail inbox was never empty, Americans have been on election overload… [but] for all that, this year we should count some blessings. For all the ways political campaigns can bring forth the worst in human nature, they also can elevate the best. The 2008 campaign reached and surpassed important milestones while challenging assumptions and changing the way citizens view each other. It will be hard to go back now. The election was long, contentious, messy, sometimes ugly and occasionally enlightening- and it made history. If voting is the central ritual of American civic life, perhaps it’s time for all to say, Amen.

This morning, as my children and I stood in line waiting to enter a Catholic school to vote in a civic election that featured a black man and a woman on the presidential ticket, I sensed the tremendous privilege of living in America in 2008. And when we left the polls, we not only said “Amen” to this long election season but took pride singing “this land was made for you and me.”

Bivrakha (with blessings),
Rabbi Davis