Yes. God chose us in Him even before the foundation of the world. Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore, it doesn't depend upon the one chosen but on the Chooser.
Where Did All the Anti-Semites Go Last Tuesday?
By Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Statistics about the election have been cascading down upon us like a heavy Pacific Northwest rainstorm. However one astounding fact about the 110th Congress has been studiously avoided. Never before in American history have so many congressmen and senators been Jewish. At least thirteen United States senators are Jewish as are more than thirty congressmen. In addition, many powerful committee chairmanships are to be held by Jews.
Nearly 10% of the seats in the United States Congress are to be held by Jews whose numbers in the population at large are barely over 2% and few consider this worthy of mention. That is strange. What could account for such reticence?
After all, some of us Jews are quick to denounce those who speak of "Jewish power," whether in Washington D.C. or in Hollywood, as anti-Semites.
One possibility is that Jewish commentators who noticed this anomaly decided discretion was the better part of valor. After all, some of us Jews are quick to denounce those who speak of "Jewish power," whether in Washington D.C. or in Hollywood, as anti-Semites. Such commentators might have believed that if they remained mum on the topic, perhaps nobody would notice the dramatic rise of "Jewish power."
Meanwhile those commentators who are not Jewish might have been dissuaded from mentioning this interesting Election Day result for fear of being smeared as anti-Semitic.
Of course, another possibility is that to most Americans, Jews are so accepted that dicing the election results by religion is utterly boring. Hello everybody! Jews are over represented in national politics just as they are on university faculties and just as they are on the Forbes 400 list. Yawn.
For me there is another possible reason for why few were interested in the religious make up of Congress.
The chasm cutting through Congress does not divide Jew from Christian. It divides those who see Judeo-Christian values as vital to our nation's survival from those who view such values as primitive obstructions to progress. There are Jews and Christians on both sides.
Yes, it is true that Americans of Jewish ancestry are disproportionately represented in the 100th Congress. But why does this fact not fill my heart with pride?
Yes, it is true that Americans of Jewish ancestry are disproportionately represented in the 100th Congress. But why does this fact not fill my heart with pride?
Because I am not a primitive tribesman or a bigoted racist, that's why.
Allow me to explain. Primitive people form alliances purely on blood. They depend upon their relatives and distrust everyone else. As these primitive societies begin to grow, their families become extended families and then tribes. To this day, many entire countries such as Saudi Arabia are tribally based. If you are not born into the right tribe, you are forever an outsider.
On the other hand free societies base their alliances on shared ideas, values, and beliefs rather than on blood.
Nazi Germany established a blood-based, racial society which operated on the same brutal rules as employed by Saudi sheiks or tribal tyrants in Africa. German Jews whose families had lived in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne or Nuremburg for centuries and who were deeply immersed in the music of Mozart and the poetry of Heinrich Heine were tortured and expelled by illiterate street thugs who knew nothing of German culture and cared less. The Nazis made blood and tribe count for more than ideas and values.
To me, Judaism is a unique covenant with God. That means that it is even more than a religion. It is certainly considerably more than an ethnicity or a race. Judaism surely means more than an urban tribe whose men are circumcised and who celebrate the coming of age of their young thirteen-year-old warriors with ostentatious extravaganzas.
Thus, to me and surely to most thoughtful people, the importance to me of my representative in government is not his ethnicity, his race, or his color. It is whether or not he shares my deepest values about government.
Thus, to me and surely to most thoughtful people, the importance to me of my representative in government is not his ethnicity, his race, or his color. It is whether or not he shares my deepest values about government.
Does he feel that the proper role of government is a limitless quest to improve the lives of its citizens? Or does he believe government ultimately incapable of such utopian grandeur? Does he know that American vitality depends upon Judeo-Christian values shaping our culture rather than MTV doing so? Will he place freedom ahead of security if forced to choose? Does he see the traditional family, in whose warm embrace all the desirable traits of good citizenship are nourished, as the only essential building block of society? Or does he welcome immorality masquerading as rights? Does he know that only private citizens working hard can create wealth for society while all that government can do is hinder that struggle by taking money from some and doling it out to others?
So the real question is not how many Jews there are in the 110th Congress. It is far more useful to ponder the beliefs of many of those in the incoming Congress.
So the real question is not how many Jews there are in the 110th Congress. It is far more useful to ponder the beliefs of many of those in the incoming Congress. Consider what they feel about business, family, the role of religion, and whether they believe redemption is best offered by God or by government.
The sad reality to me as a rabbi, a teacher charged with the education of his people, is that far too many American Jews are utterly ignorant of their covenant. Many more American Jews could tell you the name of Jesus' mother than could identify the mother of Moses. Many American Jews have tragically abandoned the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, replacing it with the fundamentalist faith of secular liberalism.
To me, the real reason that nobody much cared about the number of Jews in the 110th Congress is that the overwhelming majority of them tend in thought toward secular liberal beliefs and in action toward the doctrines of the Democratic Party. If you doubt this, just imagine how the New York Times might have reacted had forty members of the 110th Congress been Orthodox Jewish Republicans.
So I am a little saddened by the large influx of Jews onto Capitol Hill. Not because I don't like their ethnicity, but because I don’t care much for their values.
So I am a little saddened by the large influx of Jews onto Capitol Hill. Not because I don't like their ethnicity, but because I don't care much for their values. However, as saddened as I am by the election results of last Tuesday, I am practically prancing in the sunshine compared to those who make their living fighting anti-Semitism in America. For them, last Tuesday was bad news.
To them I ask only this: Where were all the anti-Semitic voters last Tuesday? How many Jewish congressmen, Jewish senators, Jewish governors, and Jewish members of the United States Supreme Court would there have to be before you would concede that we live in a blessed and close-to-perfect country in which institutionalized anti-Semitism is nothing but a long-gone, bad memory?