Love yourself so you can love others

Whenever I fly on United Airlines and listen to the video on safety, I’m bored. But the image of the mother putting on her oxygen mask first, before she puts on her child’s, reminds us that the caretaker must be in good shape in order to take care of others.

The family unit, the cornerstone of human civilization and even of the animal kingdom, is the foundation upon which humans seek to fulfill their potential. So we broaden our horizons into the larger world carrying our family’s DNA as part of our “signature.” For us Jews, the family expands into our Jewish “tribe,” however manifested, whether through synagogue, social groups, Jewish community and connections to Israel. The sage Hillel captured this hierarchy of identity when he wrote in Pirkei Avot: “If I am not for myself who will be for me.” You need to have a strong self, imbued with the love provided by your family and support of your inner circle, before invoking Hillel’s second aphorism: “But if I am only for myself, what am I?” We need to expand our concerns beyond our network to help humanity.

Let’s test this supposition.

Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, captured the headlines when she expressed concerns about her safety were she to attend the Michigan Democratic convention, filled with haters of Israel. This was also  in the aftermath of the attempted bombing of a synagogue. Amazingly, she invoked the lesson of Purim to prove that Jews have a “moral imperative” to prioritize the “needs of the world” above “even our own survival.” Other than her faulty logic in assigning imperatives to non-surviving people, she draws the exact opposite of the intended lesson of Purim. As Rabbi Steven Burg wrote: “the story was one of saving the Jewish people and standing up to one of the world’s largest antisemites… That’s what we need to learn from this. We need to keep the Jewish people and Israel safe, and then we can go out and build the world into an incredible place, as Jews have traditionally done.”

What we are increasingly observing among Jews is the preeminence of universalism, not  supplementing Jewish particularism but superseding it. As Nahum Kaplan observed: “Instead of Judaism providing an independent moral through which progressive politics are judged, progressive politics become the framework through which Judaism itself is interpreted.”

So the lessons of the Holocaust are universalized, downgrading its uniqueness; the story of Exodus becomes the rationale for liberation movements against colonial powers; and tikkun olam supersedes the observance of mitzvot. How many b’nai mizvah projects focus on meeting Jewish needs?

Jewish nationalism becomes parochial if not dangerous, and anti-Zionism is differentiated from antisemitism. How the eradication of the Jewish State is not antisemitic is mystifying.

In a previous column, I described how Jewish support for the Democratic party became political orthodoxy and part of the social fabric shared with neighbors, colleagues, and friends. I, too, am a registered Democrat. I have not changed, but the Democratic party has: dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate have voted against providing Israel with defensive arms. They have either been misled or persuaded to accept libels against Israel, including allegations of genocide. Yet in 1948, when the State of Israel was founded, Arabs made up about 12 percent of its population; today, they account for more than 20 percent. Meanwhile, virtually no Jews remain in Arab countries after being driven out by pogroms. The openly genocidal aims of Iran and Hamas are obscured by chants of “Free Palestine” and “globalize the intifada.”

Even in our own 11th Congressional District, which is represented by the Israel-hating and Mamdani fellow traveler Analila Mejia, the prevalent voice I hear from fellow Jews is that the Democrats have to take both houses to confront Trump. While I’m no fan of Trump, don’t we have the responsibility of electing a pro-Israel and moderate voice to represent us, such as Joe Hathaway?

Most Democratic voters are not sympathetic to Israel, unlike Republicans. I shudder what a Democratic controlled Congress, in which the center of gravity has gravitated to the far left, Israel-bashing faction, will wreak against Israel and Jewish interests.

At the height of the red scare in the 1950s the progressive playwright Lillian Hellman wrote to HUAC amidst the hysteria of Communism in our midst: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”

At a time of unprecedented antisemitism we must protect our tribe so that we can also be “a light unto the nations” as we have through the millennia.

Love ourselves so that we can love others.

Max Kleinman of Fairfield was the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest from 1995 to 2014. He is the president of the Fifth Commandment Foundation and consultant for the Jewish Community Legacy Project.