After
observing the reprehensible lack of moral clarity on display when the
presidents of three prestigious universities – Harvard, University of
Pennsylvania, and MIT – were recently
called to testify before Congress, it is evident that decades of brainwashing
by leftist woke radicals has succeeded. The DEI (diversity, equity and
inclusion) policies, beloved by woke liberals, which use race and gender as
weapons to enforce intellectual conformity, have succeeded in destroying
honesty, justice, and morality – so much so that these presidents were simply
unable to condemn the antisemitism rampant in their schools. Kudos to
Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik for exposing the moral turpitude in the
leadership of our Ivy League universities.
DEI requires adherence to Critical
Race Theory (CRT), which posits that White people are oppressors and colonizers,
and therefore Israel, like America, is an evil colonizer of innocent victims.
And Jews in America, being successful, are considered among the white
oppressors and therefore can never be victims, even as they are being attacked.
America’s top universities have embraced the post-truth era. Many schools and
universities are now fully enveloped in the 1619 Project, a revisionist history
that prioritizes ideology over historical truth and accuracy and, in the
process, degrades and diminishes America’s founding fathers.
Interestingly, there is a huge moral
divide between younger Americans and those over 50. Older Americans grew up in
a time when truth, honesty, and morality were understood to be an objective
standard for proper conduct. It occurred to me that one possible reason for America’s
descent into moral chaos was caused by the removal of G-d from what once was a
G-d-fearing country, based upon core Torah principles.
Over 60 years ago, when the fight to
end prayer in public schools was raging, with many atheists and well-intentioned
Jews at the forefront, the Lubavitcher Rebbe came out strongly in favor of
nondenominational prayer recitation in public schools. The Rebbe said, “From
the viewpoint of Torah, I firmly believe that reciting a nondenominational
prayer in school is in the best interests of the United States.”
The Rebbe continued, “There are a
vast number of children in public schools who do not receive any religious
training or instruction. It is vital that children have a recognition of Divine
Authority and obedience to it by expressing dependence upon G-d.” The Rebbe
felt that, in order to have an anchor for moral behavior and for the good of
the country, children needed to have a connection to G-d. He said, “Juvenile
delinquency, disillusionment, insecurity, and confusion” had begun to creep
into the generation of the 1960s, and therefore G-d must not be removed from public schools. In 1962, the Rebbe said, “It is
hard to believe that the police and law enforcement agencies will succeed in
deterring delinquency and crime even if there were enough officers to keep an
eye on every recalcitrant child. Such children will not be impressed if
admonished that law breaking is an offense against society. Therefore, it is
imperative that we engrave upon the mind of every child that wrongdoing is an
offense against the Divine authority. Children need to be trained from early
youth to be aware of the ‘Divine eye that seeth and the Divine ear that heareth,’
We cannot leave it to law enforcement to be the keepers of ethics and morality
for our children.”
The Rebbe continued, “The success or
failure to bring up moral children lies in an awareness of a Supreme authority.
At a minimum, daily prayer in public schools for a vast number of children is
the only opportunity for cultivating such an awareness.” Unfortunately, in 1962
the (liberal) Supreme Court, obviously lacking the Rebbe’s foresight, ruled
against daily prayer in public schools. We are witnessing the consequences of
that decision.
While the removal of G-d from
schools came first, it was followed by demands to remove G-d from every aspect
of American culture. The woke liberal goal was to make America a secular
society. By the turn of the 21st century, the removal of G-d from
American democracy was complete. In place of G-d, the secular “humanists”
turned man into his own deity. When that happened, all objective standards of
proper conduct were lost. Narcissistic behavior became the norm, and serving
one’s body became paramount. Without G-d, hedonism was normalized.
In a G-dless environment, there is
no objective truth. Therefore, anything and everything became possible and
acceptable. Boys can be girls, girls can be boys, men and women can enter into
same-gender marriage, and good, bad, right, and wrong became interchangeable. It
is therefore not surprising that the top liberal universities, seeing
themselves as the defenders of the faithless and having discarded G-d, embraced
axiological hedonism. Without a Divine moral compass, humans sink into an abyss
of confusion. It is no wonder that depression and suicide rates are
skyrocketing, as are alcohol and drug addiction.
* * *
You may have observed that the
Islamofacist Hamas rallies are filled with “useful idiot” woke liberals,
including (but not limited to) feminists, LGBTQIA, and the MeToo movement. They
are among the people calling for Israel’s demise. These fools empower and
enable the Islamofacists in the USA, Canada, the UK, and the Western European democracies.
Any rational person recognizes that there isn’t one Islamic democracy in the
world. The useful idiots would be put to death were they to visit any Muslim
country. Any relatively normal person might ask, “If there are 1.8 billion
Muslims in the world, occupying 49 countries, why won’t any of them absorb
Palestinians? The answer is clear: They don’t want them. In 1970, Jordan chased
the PLO and Black September out because they destabilized the country.
While Islamofacists prefer to kill Jews,
they don’t mind killing other Muslims. Dictators in Muslim countries have
killed hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists. Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s
ruthless dictator, has murdered a third of a million of his Muslim citizens and
displaced over 14 million – and no one protests. Oil rich countries like Qatar
and Saudi Arabia like to present themselves as respectable, while funneling
huge sums of money to terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. With unlimited
funding, these terror groups have infiltrated the United States and other
Western democracies. They have succeeded in corrupting the media and many
government officials. In so doing, they have made it culturally vogue for the
post-truth generation to hate Jews and Israel.
It is not surprising that students,
on top-tier campuses, who have been nurtured on moral relativism cannot
distinguish between good and evil. Indeed, neither can their teachers, as was
clearly demonstrated at the recent Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.
Morality, decency, and ethical behavior are all gifts given to man by G-d in
the Torah. America was constructed upon the laws and commandments of the
original Testament (Torah). America’s founders were people of stature who
acknowledged G-d in their lives and in our Declaration of Independence, which
states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” When these
famous words were written, the framers of our republic accepted, as fact, that truth was self evident. They were
referring to G-d-given truth. Unfortunately, without G-d, there is no absolute
truth. Ergo, truth is no longer “self-evident” to many.
* * *
George Washington wrote, “The duty
of all nations is to acknowledge, obey, and be grateful to Almighty G-d.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II, who became
the 34th president, said, “Without G-d, there could be no form of
American government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme
Being is the first – the most basic – expression of Americanism. Thus, the
Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with G-d’s help it will continue to be.”
Eisenhower said those words in June 1954, when he signed a bill that added the
words “under G-d” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
Harry Truman, at his first State of
The Union address, said, “I pray to G-d constantly for guidance. I hope you’ll
do that too. Then this great country which G-d has chosen to lead the world to
peace and prosperity will succeed in that undertaking.”
Harry Truman had moral clarity when
it came to wartime decision making. After the surrender of Germany, America was
preparing for Operation Olympic, a Normandy-style invasion of Japan. Experts
estimated that the Americans might suffer up to 500,000 casualties and the
Japanese up to 10 million deaths. Unlike the German soldiers, who surrendered
when facing obvious defeat, the mentality of the Japanese was to fight to the
death for their revered Emperor. Their kamikaze pilots were proof of that
point.
On July 16, 1945, a team of
brilliant scientists conducted the first successful test of a nuclear weapon in
the desert of New Mexico. At the time, there were only three bombs built: the
test bomb and two others. The two remaining bombs were shipped in top secret to
Tinian Island in the South Pacific. In early August, Truman warned the Japanese
of horrific consequences if they failed to agree to an unconditional surrender.
There was no response. On August 6, a B-29 bomber dropped the first bomb on
Hiroshima, causing incredible destruction. Truman awaited a reply to his demand
for an unconditional surrender. None came. On August 9, a B-29 dropped the
second bomb on Nagasaki. The Japanese promptly surrendered, ending World War II.
On August 9, a telegram arrived at
the White House from Samuel Cavert, director of an organization called the
Council of Churches in America. Mr. Cavert was very critical of President
Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs. On August 11, Truman wrote this to
Cavert: “My dear Mr. Cavert, I appreciated very much your telegram of August
ninth. Nobody is more disturbed over the use of atomic bombs than I am, but I
was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl
Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. The only language they seem to
understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal
with a beast, you have to treat him as a beast. It is regrettable but
nevertheless true. Sincerely yours, Harry S Truman.”
Truman’s reply is timely, as Israel
is also dealing with a beast that must be treated as such. Israel is risking
many young lives by holding back and not obliterating Gaza.
The United States is in trouble. Too
many young people of the current and up-and-coming generations – both those who
are seemingly well educated and those who are virtually illiterate – have no
standards to measure right from wrong. They cannot recognize even that which is
obviously evil. That’s why many cities are ruled by gangs and governed by those
who seek to defund police and support criminal behavior. Our only hope can be
found somewhere in the middle of America – among those hard-working youngsters
who come from stable homes, where G-d and country matter. If you exit the liberal
coastal cities and travel about 80 miles inland, you will find these Americans.
They possess common sense and have been taught to be respectful. Yes, such
individuals still exist. I find it refreshing when I get away from the crime-infested
woke liberal cities and meet good, solid, decent people who possess common
sense. There are still Americans who embrace traditional values.
* * *
The Torah teaches that man is made
in G-d’s image, not vice versa. Throughout the ages, unfortunately, many Jews
and non-Jews have attempted to justify their aberrant behavior by recreating
G-d in the image of the popular societal norms of the day. For many Jews, when
mitzvos clashed with their personal views, they simply reinterpreted mitzvos to
mean something else or ignored them completely. History has proven that G-d’s
law stands forever no matter what humans might think. We Jews are descendants
of Yaakov, and the promise that Hashem made to Yaakov still endures: “I will
give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants
will be as the dust of the earth, and you will be strong to the west, to the
east, to the north, and to the south. I am with you, and I will guard you
wherever you go. I will bring you back to the land, for I will not abandon you
until I have carried out My promise to Avraham.” (Vayeitzei 28:13).
May Hashem grant victory to the
descendants of Yaakov. May He bless and keep our brave soldiers, and may the
hostages be redeemed.
Am
Yisrael Chai!
