Letters
Rabbi Boteach’s chutzpah
I was astounded (although I shouldn’t at this point) at Rabbi Boteach’s chutzpah in bragging about his having criticized a group of Orthodox rabbis in 2017 for accepting all-expense-paid trips to meet with the Emir of Qatar while having recently hailed Benjamin Netanyahu as a savior of Israel, when Netanyahu has been documented as having known about and at least condoned, if not encouraged, Qatar in subsidizing Hamas with billions of dollars since their rule in Gaza began. Yet heaven forbid that Boteach’s precious Bibi face criticism of this “strategy,” let alone the consequences of his actions (like losing his office, facing trial for his long-standing corruption charges, etc). Seriously, Rabbi, who was more likely to cause Israel more problems — a fat and happily corrupt Palestinian Authority or an extremist Islamist group armed to the teeth with billions of dollars of weapons and defense structures (which the Israeli government has known about for years)?
David E. Rubin
The wrong blessing
Now is an excellent time to revisit the traditional “Blessing for the Welfare of the Government” (Hanoten Teshu’a) recited in shul on Shabbat. In short, this particular prayer is inappropriate under any presidential administration.
The current formulation comes from a different time and place (with origins in sixteenth-century Western Europe), where Jewish communities owed their legal protection and physical safety to a king, queen, kaiser, or tsar.
Of course, it goes without saying that we should pray for the welfare of our beloved country, its citizens, elected leaders, and especially its Constitution (to which those leaders, including the president, take an oath).
But there is something very un-American about the words we hear every Shabbat morning — that God “exalt, magnify, and uplift” the president and their ministers, and that God “put into their hearts to deal kindly with us,” as if we depend on their mercy. That these wishes were completely unsuited for our constitutional, monarch-free republic, where the freedom and safety of all its inhabitants is guaranteed by law, was recognized early on in American Jewish history, and over the years, alternate prayers have been composed and used widely, including by Orthodox congregations.
While traditional communities are naturally reluctant to make changes to the siddur, there have always been necessary exceptions. This one is sorely overdue.
David S. Zinberg
Teaneck
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