Morality in Government

Morality in Government

At http://www.dennisprager.com/trump-adultery-morality/, the conservative Jewish political commentator, Dennis Prager, defends President Donald J. Trump from charges of moral deficiency. Prager believes and assumes that Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal probably did have non-marital affairs with Mr. Trump, but he also argues that political and social leaders should not be judged by the same ethical yardsticks as are religious leaders. Since religious leaders speak about morality, they should be held to the standards that they preach.  Prager astutely observes that religious leaders do not lead population to war nor do they make international treaties, national budgets, or political appointments to power and of patronage. In other words, women and men of the cloth are not hardened by the hard reality of life and death situations. Clergy opinion serves as entertainment, inspiration, edification, and polite, discretionary time coffee table talk.  Since politicians trade in real power, and their decisions really have consequences, they deserve the perks, passes, and privileges that social conventions confer upon their office.  According to Prager,

Adultery is frequently an inaccurate measure of a person’s character. Indeed, many otherwise great men have been unfaithful to their spouse. And while it is always a sin — the Sixth Commandment doesn’t come with an asterisk — there are gradations of sin.”

Prager has self-identified as an informed, committed, Reform Jew, albeit as a political conservative, a rarity among Reform Jewish affiliates. The late Rabbi Jacob Petuchowski, also a political conservative, Hebrew Union College Professor of Rabbinics would probably have disagreed, I suspect, vehemently, with Prager’s tolerance of marital infidelity. To its credit, Reform Judaism’s “official religion” indeed does put a premium on ethics. So, when Hebrew Union College President Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman was discovered to have not observed the Sixth Commandment properly, he was deemed unsuited to serve at the helm of Hebrew Union College.  While it is true, as Prager correctly contends, “there are gradations of sin,” “adultery” is in point of fact amongst the most unambiguously egregious [mKereitot 1:1], and may not be euphemistically dismissed as mere “fooling around.”  How Prager arrives at his conclusion is not based upon biblical principles that I could identify; his standard seems to be borrowed from the libertarian American secular street consensus.  On American TV, theft is deemed to be a greater offense than infidelity; in Jewish ethical theory and practice, marital infidelity is the greater offense.  Prager however appeals to the consensus sensibility called common sense:

Let me give an example of when adultery would be a lower-grade sin: when it is committed by men or women who have taken care of their Alzheimer’s-afflicted spouse for many years and the afflicted spouse no longer even recognizes them. Of course, the healthy spouse could find love with someone else without committing adultery — by divorcing their demented spouse. But few people would be so heartless as to recommend that avenue. At the other end of the sin spectrum would be flaunting one’s adultery, thereby publicly humiliating one’s spouse.

 

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik taught that the Binding of Isaac narrative is the paradigm for all biblical commandments, all of which require, to some degree, a sacrifice of one’s autonomy, will, and discretion. He also regarded that “common sense” can be religiously mistaken.  Leviticus 4:13 and Numbers 15:26 prove him to be on point correct. The religious Jew is called to be heroic, to “do what is right and good,” even if that challenge is inconvenient, inopportune, or physically unsatisfying.

 

The second problem with the adultery-matters-in-a-political-leader argument is that the policies of a political leader matter much more —morally— than that individual’s sexual sins, or even character. It is truly foolish to argue otherwise. Would we rather have as president a person with racist views who otherwise had an exemplary personal character or a believer in racial equality who committed adultery?

 

Prager’s ethic is utilitarian, or socially expedient.  To paraphrase one view expressed in Plato’s Euthyphro, the political gods will a utilitarian ethic because it is good, or useful. This ethic is a tool, and not an end in itself.  This essentially secular ethic will be challenged by the Reform Religious Left as well as the Orthodox religious right.  Politics and utilitarian ethics aim to keep the polity happy, religious ethics aim to chart a course to make people holy.  Prager’s goal is personal satisfaction, religious ethics aim for self and social sanctification. Both Judaism and Christianity argue that “good” gets its goodness by God’s will.

 

For Prager, the moral compass is based upon his subjective, ethical taste.  Prager has

 

considerably more moral contempt for the media’s and the left’s obsession with Stormy Daniels than I do for Donald Trump for his alleged night of sinful sex with her. That “60 Minutes” correspondent Anderson Cooper and many in our country found it acceptable to ask a woman, “Did he use a condom?” on national TV is a far graver reflection of America’s moral malaise than a man having a one-night affair 12 year ago.

 

Prager does not explain why a tasteless, crass question posed by a prurient reporter is more contemptible than an actual act of adultery. I am not aware of the principle that there is a statute of limitations on the consequences of wrongdoing.  America’s moral malaise is that the secular public square no longer sees itself to be a nation “under God.”  This American culture no longer sees itself as being under God’s eye, affirming that “there is a Judge and there is a judgment,” that all humankind will have to give an account to an all-seeing Ultimate Auditor.

 

My dissent to what seems to be a secular rather than religious ethic being duly noted, Dennis Prager’s complaint, that President Trump is being held to a different moral standard than liberal politicians is very well taken. Heroes of the “moral” political Left, the advocates of equal rights, opportunities, education, wealth, and income generally do not believe in equality of personal moral responsibility. Somehow, the President is criticized for doing what Martin Luther King, Bill Clinton, and John and Ted Kennedy had all done: acts of serial adultery.  When Al Frankin asked why his sexual offenses required that he resign from the Congress while Mr. Trump remains in office, his question is good, even if his behavior is not. My Jewish ethic requires one sacred, single, equal for all moral standard, “with liberty and justice for all.” Justice does not mean “just us.”

 

Dennis Prager is inciteful by being insightful. He rightly asks:

 

And, by the way, if sexual infidelity invalidates the character and, therefore, the worthiness of a politician, why doesn’t it invalidate the character and worthiness of an editor at The New York Times or The Washington Post? Why aren’t their sex lives investigated? They have, after all, more influence than almost any politician.

 

For full disclosure, my personal politics are located on the moderate Right.  Talking the talk does require walking the walk. Judaism calls this “walking” halakhah. The fact that heroes of the Left get a pass because they are clever, charismatic, and iconic does not justify his—or her—misdeeds and may not be used to justify the wrongs of the Right.  While I applaud Mr. Trump  for bringing back jobs to America and his leadership in defeating ISIS, his divisive rhetoric is frankly not helpful, his profanity is unworthy of his office, and his history of serial infidelities not only brings one to question a moral change of heart [mYoma 8:9], but raises the gnawing and annoying question, “If you are willing betray your spouse and the God you proudly profess, will you cheat Mr. John  Q. Public as well if doing so is to your material advantage?” Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore reflects a commitment to political self-interest and political advantage, hardly a higher sense of calling. A city on a hill cannot be built on an ethical refuse dump. All too often our politics, like our pieties, are talking point narratives with which we present ourselves in everyday life. We manage to manage impressions that we would like others have of us.  The wrongdoings of the Left do not and may not justify—or excuse—the wrongdoings of the Right. If we claim to be better, we have to be better.

 

American, and indeed Western heads of state, are the latter-day incarnation of medieval knights.  They are warriors who, like Gilgamesh of ancient Sumer and Al Franken of Minnesota, believe that they are all entitled to the “attention” of available libidinal partners. When King David lived by that pagan “Tradition” in his rooftop encounter with Bathsheba, that a person with power may treat an “other” as an object to be desired, exploited, and then discarded, the prophet Nathan, speaking as God’s spokesman, intervened.  Of course, competency to do the job is a condition for keeping the job.  But if one walks on the path of the just, one walks in a way that will fight genocide and inequality with the same moral conviction and authority with which Joseph refused the faithless advances of Mrs. Potiphar [Genesis 39 :8].  If King David does not get a pass for adultery, neither do MLK, JFK, Bill Clinton, Al Franken, or Donald J. Trump. Religious conservatives must be particularly watchful, proactive, clean, careful, principled and sincere. Being aware of their limits, they must always be repulsed by wrong doing. True leaders are supposed to be morally good people, leading others not by succumbing to temptation but delivering their charges from evil to wholesomeness that is holy, free and ennobling.