Posted by
Member of the Tribe on Sunday, November 09, 2008 4:39:24 PM
Jewish theology places more weight on actions and results than on intentions for two very pragmatic reasons:
- intentions may be an indication of results, but then again they may not
- effects matter more than intentions
Although Jewish and Christian theology have much in common, there are
important differences beyond white bread vs. matzah, Pat Boone vs.
Jackie Mason and Santa Clause vs. Hannukah Harry ("yes, Rachel, there
is a Hannukah Harry"). As an example, even the seemingly identical
concepts of Jewish tzedakah and Christian charity - both could
be very loosely defined by, or at least characterized as giving to the
poor - have an important distinction.
Charity is "giving from the heart," a beautiful appeal to the good in
humanity to, if you'll briefly pardon the expression, "share the
wealth" with the less fortunate because it feels good. The focus is on
the giver's good feelings and altruistic intentions. It rests on the
assumption that training the heart to be altruistic will ultimately
result in good deeds. Certainly, to the extent that results stem from
intentions, charity will make the world a better place.
By contrast, tzedakah is less focused on the giver's intentions. Tzedakah
stems from the Hebrew "righteousness," essentially meaning "do the
right thing," whether you want to or not. Give, even if you give
grudgingly, because it's the right thing to do.
This conjures the imagery of the "harsh 'Old' Testament" as it is
sometimes characterized in Christian theology, in which the pre-Jesus
Jews grudgingly tithed to the poor without joy in their hearts (when
they weren't dodging lightning bolts, famines or Philistines).
However, we really don't know how much (or little) "joy in their
hearts" those ancient Hebrews experienced when they had to tithe
because the Torah told them so. For that matter, we neither know nor
can we measure how much "joy in their hearts" modern Christians - or
Jews, for that matter - comes from charitable giving or doing tzedakah.
This is why the concept of tzedakah also focuses less on the
donor than the donee. Conditioning and shaping the donor's intentions
is certainly a collateral benefit of tzedakah, but it is not the primary purpose. Tzedakah is meant to accomplish something tangible - tikkun olam, or world repair. It's nice if the donor feels good, but better if it accomplishes something for the donee.
Jewish theology does not ignore intention. Maimonides assigned a higher value to an anonymous gift than one of equal value for a naming opportunity. But the point is that, while intentions cannot be accurately quantified, results can.
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Like most contemporary Jews, I took it as an article of political faith
that American political conservatives in general - and Republicans in
particular - were greedy selfish gun-totin' bible-thumpin' "fat cats"
who crushed the rights of the working poor under their limousine
tracks. But of all the things that defined conservatives and
Republicans, none stood out more than racist. The racism dovetailed
nicely with the rest of the narrative. No other group has a higher
correlation with working poor than blacks, so it made sense that about
95% of African Americans (almost 98% in the 2008 presidential election)
reliably vote for Democrats.
Needless to say, the three most important influencers of public opinion
- the news media, academia, and entertainment media - play a role in
advancing this narrative. Spokespersons for the black community are Al
Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Advocates of black self-empowerment like
Bill Cosby, Tom Sowell, Shelby Steele and Clarence Thomas are "Uncle
Toms" who are "selling out" to "the man." Mysogynistic rappers and the
purveyors of hate and victimization are "keepin' it real," and anyone
who dares observe that Affirmative Action, ebonics, "community
organizing," substance abuse and having children out of wedlock hasn't
exactly advanced the plight of most African Americans is - you guessed
it - a "racist."
How many McCain voters prefaced the defense of their unenlightened,
non-PC position with a required "it has nothing to do with his name or
skin color?" Was it protesting too much or was it thoughtcrime created
by the media, Hollywood and academic elites that anyone not voting for
Obama had to be a racist? By the way, whatever happened to the "Bradley
effect" http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/persistent-myth-of-bradley-effect.html (not to mention those "rigged" Diebold voting machines - I suppose they all malfunctioned)?
But, again, it's hard to measure the hearts and intentions of voters
(you were beginning to wonder when I'd connect all of this up), but
much easier to measure the results of policies. As a reward for getting
this far, I will prove it to you.
Let's imagine that you are one of those racists. Not the phony ones the
mainstream media insisted slipped behind the curtain on November 4. I
mean the right-out-of-Central-casting Southern drawlin' white hooded,
gun-totin' bible-thumpin' illiterate (except for the Bible) cowardly
hypocritical misogynistic card-carrying KKK member. It's 1965 and the
Civil Rights Act has just been signed into law, on the strength of
Republican votes (you mean Republicans voted for it in greater
proportion than Democrats? In both the House and Senate? I didn't learn
that in school! or read about it in the paper, or see it on TV, or...).
Anyway, looks like just about all of the things that made life fun have
just become illegal.
Now, let's say you're at least as high up in the Klan as, Robert Byrd
was. [You mean U.S. Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia? Whose name
graces practically every government building, highway, dam, school,
food stamp distribution center, etc., courtesy of your tax dollars? Who
led the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act? How come the
media, schoolbooks or TV don't mention that?]. So you call a strategic
planning meeting of the KKK, and the leadership (being illiterate)
hires a fancy pants Washington consultant to research how they can keep
Negroes in their place.
They didn't have Powerpoint back then but they did have tabbed
notebooks, so at the following KKK strategic planning meeting, the
consultant passes them out, explaining that he had to do a little "out
of the box" thinking (an expression that would gain popularity in a
couple of decades). "If you want to keep Negroes in the ghetto," he
explains, you have to keep them as poor as possible. In this notebook
is an eight point program, with the details of each section behind the
tabs:
- since marriage is the key to family stability and economic
advancement, let's pay them not to get married and financially
encourage them to have as many children out of wedlock as possible
- since teaching someone to fish rather than handing them one could empower them, lets give them just enough food to survive
- let's warehouse them in massive public housing projects that will
not only destroy their sense of self worth but ruin the entire
neighborhood. Don't be daunted by the trillions of dollars it will cost - the "fat cats" who live off the sweat of the working people will pay for it
- every ghetto neighborhood should have an abortion clinic, like Margaret Sanger said, in case point 1 gets out of hand and they start multiplying too fast Margaret Sanger Founder of Planned Parenthood In Her Own Words
- even though they're inferior, every so often a clever one pops
up. We'll take them and require schools and employers to push them
ahead of more qualified workers and students. This will put them in
positions where they will likely fail, or have their success attributed
to "Affirmative Action." Not to mention the resentment it will cause the people who are pushed out of line (we'll have the newspapers tell em' they're paying the price for slavery)
- let's destroy their culture by dumbing down their language and having Hollywood sell them music and movies that glorify misogyny, victimization, promiscuity, crime, prostitution, substance abuse, violence and everything we can think of to reduce their dignity
- we have to convince them that their only salvation comes from the government. They must be utterly convinced that they are incapable of achieving anything for themselves and have no hope of betterment except for government handouts, set-asides and preferences
- we have to completely neutralize them politically by locking them into the Democratic party so they will be politically irrelevant. Just make sure they see that all of their government goodies are courtesy of the Democratic party
With dramatic pomp and circumstance, he concludes with: "Gentlemen, I present the 'Great Society'"
Remembering the point about clever ones, you ask if any of them -
seeing through the scheme, will raise their voices in protest and warn
the rest. "That's the real genius behind our program!" he replies! "We
can co-opt some ward hacks as "leaders" who will denounce them as
'Uncle Toms.' We can very effectively silence any opposition that way."
You snicker at the delicious irony.
OK, that scenario is probably just as fanciful as the standard
Hollywood fare, which reliably contrasts small minded, bigoted
conservatives with brilliant, witty and compassionate liberals. More to
the point, it focuses on the intent of the liberals who cooked up this
multi-trillion dollar, quasi-Socialist scheme for dis empowering
generations of African Americans.
We really don't know what their intent was. In fact, I'd be willing to
stipulate that the majority of politicians who foisted this explosion
of government had the very best of intentions. It seems implausible
that they could have contemplated just how this massive redistribution
of wealth (much of it from productive taxpayers to a bloated
bureaucracy, rather than the poor) would backfire against the very
population they intended to help.
And yet, whether it was a dedicated compassionate liberals or
diabolical racists seething with hate, the results are precisely the
same. If you're an African American, isn't that what matters?