|
Pick-and-Choose
Piety Makes Enemies
Rabbi
Daniel Lapin
Toward
Tradition.
Heading an
organization whose entire purpose is to promote friendship and mutual respect
between Jews and Christians, egregious assaults on this friendship really
bother me. As I reported last week, it gives me little pleasure to admit
that most of these assaults come from my side of the fence. Well, here we go
again.
In Bellevue,
Washington,
just a few miles from my home, a Jewish Reform temple has been upsetting its
neighbors by insisting on hosting an encampment of homeless people on its
property. Fearful neighbors in this upper middle class enclave of young
families point to countless offenses, ranging from assault and relieving in
public to drug possession, perpetrated by this group of homeless during their
earlier sojourn on the grounds of a church in a neighboring city.
Last
Thursday, forced to adjudicate between neighbors’ unhappiness and the
fervent do-goodism of the temple, the city of Bellevue
imposed a time limit of 60 days on the encampment—far less time than
the temple requested. The city also imposed a limit on how many homeless the
temple grounds could accommodate, based on the number of toilets and showers
available.
On Monday
the temple filed a lawsuit against the city in King County Superior Court
claiming that the city violated the temple’s religious freedom. I have
already debated this matter on the radio with senior rabbi, James Mirel, who
happens to be a really decent guy and a thoroughly nice person. He claims
that the limits imposed by the city are unacceptable because "The whole idea
of reaching out to the poor and needy is part of our Jewish tradition."
On the air
I pointed out to Rabbi Mirel that very few of the temple’s leadership
and members live within the quarter-mile radius of the temple that experience
tells us will be deleteriously impacted by the presence of a crowd of
indigent squatters. This meant that others would bear the burden of the
temple’s pick-and-choose piety.
I use that
phrase because most Reform temples reject much of Jewish tradition. For
instance, they usually ignore the obligation to live within walking distance
of their temple, as the Sabbath laws dictate.
I felt that
a family that had worked hard, scrimping and saving in order to be able to
afford a home in that locale shouldn’t have their quality of life
destroyed by the local Jewish temple. Especially since the temple was doing
something that zoning laws would prohibit any of them from doing—namely
allowing campers with a history of anti-social behavior to hang-out on the
front lawn.
Needless to
say, the neighbors have protested mightily. They have obtained over 60 pages
of sheriff’s reports of hundreds of run-ins with the law that these
campers have had during their previous stays at houses of worship in King
County.
I have seen these reports and they make for shocking reading.
During our
radio debate, Rabbi Mirel assured listeners that security guards had been
engaged to supervise the harmless homeless. Although I regard the rabbi as a
friend, I couldn’t resist showing him that one of those very security
guards had been arrested at the encampment for distributing illegal
narcotics. This is not very reassuring for the young mother living next to
the temple who called me, sick with worry about her children’s safety.
One of the
most astounding aspects of this entire affair is that almost nobody is
speaking up for the rights of the homeowners in the area. Since when in America
do the rights of the homeless trump those of the homeowners?
Indeed, is
there a right of the homeless to be anywhere other than in homeless
shelters? There is an almost insufferable aura of sanctimoniousness and
self-righteousness about these so-called tent cities. Politicians race for
the television cameras to demonstrate their compassion. Do Americans who
have practiced self-discipline and moral restraint in order to be able to
purchase a home, forfeit their rights to compassion?
My right to
my property’s value is protected from my neighbor’s zealous
efforts to help the homeless by housing 50 of them on his lawn next to the
newly installed porta-potties. Why should my rights be any more vulnerable
if my neighbor happens to be a house of worship? Why is someone, who is
often at least partially complicit in his homeless status, more important
than a homeowner?
Why do some
people feel they owe more compassion to the homeless than to their very own
middle class neighbors?
All these
questions are really only one question—why does the culture loathe
those who have achieved a little financial success?
The answer
is because the culture has rejected the Abrahamitic model of Judeo- Christian
values which promotes work, achievement, private property, and yes, charity
to the deserving. Instead, our left-leaning culture has adopted the
socialistic thinking of the Tower
of Babel.
In that
worldview, scorning the civilized norms of society confers virtue; the
homeless vagrant becomes a hero. To the mandarins of modern Marxism, wealth
is evidence of malfeasance. Utopian believing bureaucrats hate private
property wanting us all out of our cars and into mass transit and regard all
property owners as nuisances who buy absolution for the sin of achievement
with ever higher taxes.
To my
shame, far too many Jews have fallen for the failed promises of socialism
instead of for the rapturous embrace of the Torah as a blindingly
incandescent source of truth. Not surprisingly they then disappoint and
baffle the many Christians who do see the values of the Ten Commandments as
central to our society.
Rabbi
Daniel Lapin, an Orthodox Rabbi in Seattle,
Washington, is author of Thou Shall
Prosper, America's Real
War
and Buried Treasure ,is President of Toward Tradition
and hosts
his own
television and radio shows.
Toward
Tradition is America's leading bridge-builder between Jewish and Christian
communities; spanning the divide between Christians and Jews by sculpting
ancient solutions to modern problems in areas of family, faith, and fortune.
Visit us on the web at: www.towardtradition.org
To schedule an interview with Rabbi Daniel Lapin,
contact Rachael Whaley at (800) 591-7579For free and unrestricted use with attribution
--------------------------------------
To Unsubscribe, please click
here.
![]()
|
