This week, just after the election, my fine Rabbi gave a very conciliatory and compassionate talk. There was a lot to admire in it. He was speaking to a congregation where likely 95% of the congregants were passionate Kamala supporters. Most of them were deeply saddened, many despairing, some enraged by the election results. He spoke eloquently about how all of us American Jews are on a journey together. He argued we all basically have the same end in sight regarding our religion and our country — being good Jews and Americans, striving to make our religion and country better. The Democrat Jew, he argued, takes a different path to those ends from the Republican Jew. We must respect each other’s paths and love each other as fellow travelers on this journey. He, as our religious leader, was there not to judge but to embrace each Jew no matter for whom they voted.
I respect and admire his sentiments. However, I think it reflects in good measure of what deeply afflicts America and non-orthodox Judaism (as well as mainline Christianity). It is reflective of an America and religious traditions that have weakened due to focusing on the feminine aspects of human nature. In doing so it ignores, denigrates, or discards its vital masculine part. We hear it all the time now — the trope of “toxic masculinity.” We see it in the irrational and intense hatred of the very masculine Donald Trump.
The majority of Americans know that compassion without strong standards is an America lost. The loving God without the judging God is no God at all. Americans let their thoughts about this be known in the landslide election. They demanded a return of the masculine, to standards. This they got in a Republican party chock full of standards — and standards-oriented men like President Trump.
So, I’d say, yes Rabbi, I can, and we all should, feel some feminine compassion for the suffering of our fellow American Democrats and Jews over losing an election. Compassion is fully present in the typical Republican mind just as it is in that of the Democrat. I, however, know that the return of standards is a great and necessary thing for our country. Civilization depends on it. I also know the ends we seek, the Democrat end saturated almost exclusively in compassion and the Republican one balanced between compassion and standards are irreconcilable. We were dying as a country until last Tuesday when the masculine trait of standards was revitalized.
Ted Eytan
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