Worldview Contrasts at Chanukah: Obama and Cruz

In his Washington Post column, law professor David Bernstein takes note of how the respective Chanukah messages of Barack Obama and Ted Cruz to the Jewish community accurately illustrate the chasm separating their worldviews.

Mr. Cruz spoke of the history and some of the themes of a real holiday known as Chanukah (with kudos for that likely due to Nick Muzin, the candidate's Orthodox, rabbinic seminary-educated top aide). Mr. Obama — the same one who told us back in 2012 that he "probably knows more about Judaism than any other president" -- addressed a make-believe Unitarian-like holiday with the secularized name, Hannukah.

It should be noted that President Obama doesn't always botch the spelling of Hebrew words beginning with "Ch." Just last week, he sent out a Democratic Party fundraising email with the subject line reading "Chutzpah," decrying Senate Republicans for passing a bill "to try to repeal Obamacare — a bill they knew that I would veto as soon as it landed on my desk. . . . you've gotta give these folks credit for their chutzpah." While he got the spelling of "chutzpah" right, his use of that word to describe an attempted use of the democratic process to repeal a law most Americans have consistently opposed, encapsulates all we need to know about the imperial Obama presidency.

Professor Bernstein observes that Obama invoked "vague, and vaguely agnostic, and universalistic Sunday school platitudes," in which the Divine is absent, and the lessons for us are the gauzy ones of being "the engine of the miracles we seek" and "unyielding advocates for the fundamental dignity of every human being." Does that include, Mr. President, the monsters in ISIS?

Cruz's "Chanukah," by contrast, is "both a specifically Jewish celebration and a 'testament to G0D's providence.'" Its lesson is "that Jews must be protected from their modern enemies," since "the Jewish position in the world is hardly so secure that [we] can ignore the fate of the Jewish people in favor of a purely universalistic ethic."

Indeed, while Cruz mentioned the Jewish people five times, Obama's message seemed virtually airbrushed of Jews, to the point that he spoke of "the Maccabees' struggle to free a people from oppression." Which "people" is that? That's anyone's guess.

Bernstein correctly observes that the two messages were crafted to appeal to the people most likely to politically support their respective authors. And in the president's case, those are "the culturally Jewish, universalist, theologically liberal or atheistic Jews who see in Judaism primarily a call to pursue 'social justice,' and who often believe that Jews, as 'white people,' don't come within modern liberalism's concern for marginalized groups."

Perhaps that's true of secular Jews, although recent statistics showing that Jews led all other groups in America last year in the number of attacks perpetrated against them should give pause. But religious Jews, like other believers, are certainly one of today's more marginalized groups — with the culprit being modern liberalism itself.

A family friend of ours, Ms. Sarah Rossen, is pursuing a graduate degree in social work, and one of her professors asked her students to write essays describing ways in which they feel oppressed. To her great credit, Sarah took the opportunity to write of how as a result of the

religious beliefs that come with my identification as an Orthodox Jew, I have definitely felt some level of oppression. Given the fact that I live in New York City in 2015, the overwhelming majority of people around me hold very liberal views. I have never been one to be heavily involved in politics. However, as a follower of tradition and the Torah (Bible), my views on the world are much more conservative than many people around me. My belief in G0D and His providence over our world is essentially the reason I choose to live my life the way I do….

From personal experience, I have found that once the word G0D is thrown into the mix, people stop listening or automatically scoff at anything I want to say. Often times, people who are believers in G0D are seen as radical, judgmental, and otherworldly. I have personally felt that my opinions are automatically shut down because I'm religious. The fact that, for the most part, I don't subscribe to the typical liberal viewpoint on important societal issues, places me in a different category. I am "outdated." I "harbor hate." I "don't believe in equality."

If social work is about helping individuals, families and communities, why can't someone with more conservative views be active in this field? I have the same desire as everyone else to better our society and help improve the lives of other people.

And to her professor's credit, Sarah received an "A" for her paper.

One additional striking contrast between the two messages bearing great contemporary relevance is that Cruz stressed religious freedom, speaking of "the miracle that enabled a freedom-loving people…to… once again freely worship the G0D of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and that "[t]oday, the Jewish people, together with freedom-loving people around the world, once again find their religious faith and liberty under attack…."

In Obama's words, however, there was talk of tyranny and persecution, but no mention of any religious context. This was, once again, both ahistorical regarding Chanukah and clearly reflective of his priorities. After all, it's fair to say that never before has religious liberty come under such sustained assault as on this president's watch.

Just a few weeks ago, the same Professor Bernstein wrote that as much as

[a]ssaults on religious freedom are becoming ever more common. . . . they pale in comparison to the ultimate threat to religious liberty in the U.S., the desire by many on the secular left to deprive churches and other religious organizations of the right to choose their own clergy free from government interference.

While that threat may seem farfetched, . . . no lesser power than the Obama administration has weighed in, arguing to the Supreme Court that the Free Exercise Clause does not protect the right of religious bodies to decide who should serve as their priest, minister, or rabbi. Until President Obama was elected president, federal courts consistently, indeed unanimously, held the constitution's Religion Clauses protect the right of religious organizations to choose their religious staff free from the interference of secular law.

Bernstein goes on to discuss the Supreme Court case of Hosanna-Tabor, in which the Obama administration argued that the ministerial exception, which gives religious organizations complete autonomy over the hiring and firing of religious staff, should be rejected entirely, so that, for example, "a very liberal jurisdiction such as San Francisco could require the Catholic Church to hire male nuns or female priests, and the church would have no constitutionally valid freedom of religion defense."

He writes that "the government's position was [so far] outside the mainstream" that even the liberal justices "were incredulous at the government's position, and, indeed, the Obama administration lost the case by a 9-0 vote. But, Bernstein writes, the

bad news is that, even though the argument failed to get any votes this time, the issue will inevitably come back to the Supreme Court in the future. By then, restrictions on religious freedom in the name of prohibiting "discrimination" may have become so commonplace that doing away with the ministerial exception could seem like the next logical step.

So the next time someone tells you that there is no war on religious freedom in the United States, ask them if they've heard of a case called Hosanna-Tabor.

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Eytan Kobre is an attorney practicing in Brooklyn, New York. He studied at the Yeshiva of Staten Island and Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah. A graduate of the Fordham University School of Law, he previously practiced law with two Manhattan firms and served for several years as associate general counsel at Agudath Israel of America. He is an editor at Mishpacha magazine, where this first appeared.