העורך Editor

Rabbi Uri Sherki (the name is French, so excuse my spelling) often remarks that he is asked why rabbis comment on politics, and he answers, “What, then, should rabbis deal with?”

Of course, the questioners are here being polite. Instead of using the term “מתעסקים”, they might use the ruder “מתערבים”, since it’s more of an accusation than a display of respectful curiosity.

In explanation, Rabbi Sherki notes that any system that has laws for polities must have a political program. And Judaism has laws for the whole polity. In other words, the laws are aiming at some new order, in the instrumental sense.

(I don’t care to credit the accursed source the rabbi brings for this insight.)

This is all very important and correct.

(“Law as a Means to an End: Threat to the Rule of Law” by Brian Z. Tamanaha may be worth a look.)

Yet I think the question cannot be dismissed, either. The “question” is based on the sobering realization the political field itself is impossible to navigate with justice.

Here the layman’s intuition is correct (although he may feel that what is forbidden to the rabbis is permissible to himself).

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Therefore, I suggest you write for Hyehudi.org, gain some practice, then start your own site.

נו, “מרקסיסט” זה מי שמתקשה בהגיית האות נו”ן…

Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky (p. 6 here):

Reb Yaakov then continued, You know, when I was a boy growing up, I had a friend. He was always a little more than I was, and did more than I did. He was a year older: I was 10 and he was 11. He wore long payos, I didn’t. He wore a gartel, and I didn’t. Last summer when I was in Eretz Yisrael, I met him again. He was living in K’far Saba and I paid him a visit. While talking to him I found out that things had changed and that, unfortunately, he was now turning on the lights on Shabbos. He turned to me and he asked, ‘Yankel, what’s happened to us. “Ich bin doch altz geven frummer” (Wasn’t I always frumer than you??!!), to which I replied [and here Reb Yaakov smiled and there was a glint in his eyes], “Ye, ye du bist takke allz geven frummer, ich bin obber alz geven kluger.” “Yes, yes you were always frummer but I was always kluger (wiser).”