Moving from Philadelphia to southwest Florida involved some Jewish culture shock. From the difficulty in getting kosher meat to Barnes & Noble being the best (read only) Jewish bookstore in town, it was a different world. Some of those changes were expected. Others were not.

Joe Paterno is the winningest coach in the history of college football. CBS sports wrote that it would be "impossible to overshadow Paterno's achievements in the sport over his Hall of Fame career." I can agree that almost nothing could do that. Overshadowing his success would take something horrific like looking the other way as his defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, molested young boys. Lo and behold, that's exactly what Paterno did.

I still remember the conversation I had with my rabbi, Rabbi Howard Kahn, alav hashalom, to tell him I wanted to become a rabbi. The first thing he said was, "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told my son. Find something else. Be the president of a synagogue and drive the rabbi crazy, but find something else."

Later this month, the United Nations Security Council will vote on the Palestinian Authority's petition to have a state declared in the West Bank. The results of that vote are not in question. It is highly unlikely that the resolution will pass. If it does, the United States will exercise our veto. It is not that the United States is opposed to the two state solution. Both the US and Israel favor the two state solution. But the future Palestinian state must come after the Palestinians make peace with Israel. Instead, Mahmoud Abbas has decided to try to have a state established without making peace with Israel. Do not be duped into believing that Israel is the problem. Remember that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat virtually everything he wanted, including a capital in East Jerusalem. Arafat did not even bother to say no, let alone make a counteroffer. He simply escalated terrorism against Israel.

On October 12, one of my Bat Mitzvah students arrived for her lesson very excited. She said, "You know that guy you're always talking about?" I didn't know whom she meant (it could have been anyone from a world leader to a Philadelphia Phillie), so she was more specific. "That soldier. They're letting him go."

After an extended hiatus, I will be resuming my blogging at RabbiBen.org. However, I have not been completely inactive since my last blog article. My new congregation, Cong. Shaarey Tefilla of Carmel, Indiana, has a great web site. You can read my Shabbat evening sermons on the there. In the meantime, keep watching RabbiBen.org for future blog posts.

On the eve of America’s highest holiday, I thought to write about God and public expressions of religion. To do so, I began to collect some references to God by American Presidents. For example:

President Obama, in his Inaugural Address, referred to “that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

President Kennedy’s Inaugural Address said, “…let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.”

President Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address invoked God frequently, including this memorable description of the pro-slavery and abolitionist camps: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."”

Perhaps you know that the Constitution requires that an incoming President swear the following oath: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Where are the words “so help me God?” They are not in the Constitution. They were spontaneously added by George Washington when he took the oath, and to my knowledge, they have been repeated by every President since.

Finally, I planned to conclude with my favorite line from my favorite Inaugural Address, which is a return to the address of President Kennedy, who, in my opinion, captured the very essence of America when he said, “…the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.”

As I typed the words “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God,” I had a flash of insight. I went to my briefcase and pulled out a small copy of the Constitution that I keep there, and read the Bill of Rights with a fresh eye. I realized that eight of the ten amendments comprising the Bill of Rights do not bestow any rights upon Americans at all. The only exceptions are the Sixth Amendment, which grants certain right to a citizen accused of a crime, and the Seventh Amendment, which preserves the right to a jury trial in any dispute in which the value in controversy exceeds twenty dollars. The other eight amendments give us no rights whatsoever.

If that is so, then what is the purpose of the other eight amendments? They prevent the federal government from taking rights away from us. What is the source of the rights we have, upon which Congress may not infringe? The question leads us directly to the quote from President Kennedy: “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” Of course! How could I not have paid more attention to this until now, I who speaks so frequently about this concept being uniquely American, I who believes that banning God and religion from the public square is contrary to the wishes of our Founding Fathers?

It is now so clear to me, and makes so much sense. Why did our forbears sever ties with the English crown? Because, they explained, they believed certain truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal—in other words, that King George did not rule as a Divinely appointed sovereign, and further, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

In other words, the Founding Fathers were magnificently consistent. They declared that human rights are God-given, not granted by the government. Later, in the Bill of Rights, they did not presume to grant human rights, but instead sought to insure that unlike the Crown, their new government would be based on the idea that government cannot revoke the rights bestowed on the human race by God Himself.

With this fresh in our minds, look what happens to the religion clause of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

It becomes crystal clear that it is not the role of government to say what we cannot do with regard to religious expression any more than it is the role of government to legislate what we must do. It is we the people who hold that right, a right given us by God.

Perhaps it is the will of the American people that God have no place in our schools. But for the most part, Americans do not object to the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, despite addition of the words “under God” to the pledge. Perhaps it is the will of the American people that the Ten Commandments not be displayed in schools nor in courts, despite the fact that the words “so help me God” were, and perhaps in some jurisdictions still are part of the oath sworn by those giving testimony. If it is the will of the people, then so be it. But if it is merely the opinion of a majority of Supreme Court justices, then it is not enough. The government cannot remove God from the public square. Has the government done so anyway? I believe that the answer is that to a great extent, yes they have. So it is we the people who must restore God to His place in American society—a place governed not by the government, but by the governed themselves.

On this Independence Day weekend, let us remember the beautiful words of Irving Berlin: God bless American, land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the praries, to the oceans white with foam, God bless America, my home, sweet home. My hope and prayer is that these words be true whether they are read from left to right, or from right to left. Indeed, God bless America. But just as importantly, America, bless God.

Until next time, Shalom.

The following is an excerpt from a talk I gave at the Baccalaureate Service for Canterbury School in Fort Myers, Florida:

The first Jewish President of the United States is on the phone with his mother. He wants her to visit the family in the White House. No, she says, I can’t get to the airport. A limo will take her to Air Force One. No, she says, you’re too busy to pick me up at the airport. She will land on the South Lawn in a chopper No, she says, why should the First Lady have to cook for her? The White House has a kitchen staff. No, one of the kids will have to sleep in the living room on a couch. The White House has nothing if not plenty of rooms. She will have the Lincoln bedroom. Reluctantly, the President’s mother agrees to being picked up by limo, flown to Washington on the President’s plane, choppered to the White House in the Presidential helicopter, and staying for a week in the Lincoln bedroom.

When she hangs up from the President, she calls a friend. “I’m going to spend a week at my son’s house.”

“How nice! Which son? The one who’s a doctor?”

“Nah. The other one.”

The grain of truth around which this pearl of humor has grown is that we are often guilty of the sin of idolatry, idolatry in the sense that it is what can happen when we make one of our values, other than goodness and related things, values in and of themselves. We do that in many ways. One way is when holding a certain degree, or being in a certain career, becomes the most important thing in life. Grandmothers do it when they respond to inquiries about the ages of their grandchildren with “the doctor is four and the lawyer is two.”

Graduates, you have invited me here tonight to talk to you on the eve of a momentous occasion in your academic careers. I assure you, I do not merely congratulate you on your graduation, but in many ways, I am humbled in the face of what you have achieved. I know what it means that your diploma is from Canterbury School. 

You will each leave Canterbury for another campus, each to your own choice. At your university, you will find education and knowledge in great abundance, and you should absorb every last bit of it you can. You should look not through a telephoto lens at what your university offers, but with a wide angle lens, expanding your field of view. A friend of mine spent his medical career as a professor of pediatrics, and he told me that if a student had an opening in his schedule and wanted to put in some extra science, he as the student’s advisor would not sign off on it. He insisted that it be used for something else, almost anything else, history, literature, music or art appreciation—anything, as long as it broadened the student’s education. I urge you to do the same. You will have opportunities during these next years that you may never have again. Just understand that what you become from this exposure is educated. We consider that a worthy goal in and of itself—in other words, we have made education a value in and of itself, and that, my friends, I am calling idolatry. Now I have to make the case for doing so.

My case is simple. Education is analogous to a gun. Take it and put it into the hands of a highly trained police sniper, and that gun will be used to protect and defend innocent lives. Put it into the wrong hands, it is used in precisely the opposite way. Give a man a medical education, and sometimes you get a Jonas Salk. Or, sometimes, a Josef Mengele.

Society’s highest value must not be to produce educated people. Our highest value must be to produce good people. Then we can put a high value on educating them. But we ignore the following at our own peril: the correlation between a person’s level of education and degree of goodness is, to quote the classic film Animal House, zero point zero.

Knowledge alone is insufficient to make good people. What must accompany knowledge is wisdom. My friends, please understand that you will glean much knowledge from your education, but not wisdom. Wisdom comes from another source.

To aid you in beginning a life-long pursuit of wisdom, let me offer you the following verse from the Book of Psalms:

Wisdom begins with awe of God.

Here is what it means. Science has taught us a great deal about the origins of the universe. I accept and embrace this secular knowledge of how the universe came to be, but I have a question that science cannot answer: for what purpose did the universe come into being? I think that question demands an answer, and I cannot accept that the answer is it just plain happened for no purpose at all. The intricacies of the universe lead me to conclude it could not be the result of randomness. There is too much structure and order not to have been the result of a design of some sort. I call the source of that design God. I believe that God’s design of the universe included certain moral absolutes. I stand in awe of that God.

That is the beginning of the wisdom needed to decide between right and wrong, or even between right and right. It is the idea that certain things are wrong in and of themselves, not because you say so or I say so or the community says so, but because they were defined so by the Creator of the Universe. This is the stuff of wisdom—ethics, morality, good and evil. And although one might choose to use one’s talents, gifts, and education to make some piece of this world a little bit better, wisdom that begins with awe of God leads to the realization that we are obliged to do so.

My friends, go to your universities and soak up knowledge like Larry the Cable Guy soaking up sausage gravy with buttermilk biscuits. While you are there, ponder the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and the quotation Wisdom begins with the awe of God. Ask yourself if you believe the universe is merely a happy accident. See if your own inner wisdom leads to you the conclusion there was a Creator. Consider the idea that reaping the benefits of the Creator’s world obligates each of us to contribute something back to it. Grow in knowledge, and grow in wisdom. And then, my friends, make it so that the world is better off because you, a person both educated and wise, are part of it.

With that challenge now before you, I return once again to the Biblical text, and conclude with these words:

May God bless you and watch over you;

May God’s light shine upon you and may God be gracious unto you;

May God look upon you and grant you peace.

Did you see the quote from a Vatican Cardinal in today's newspaper?  Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the Church does not reject scientific reality, and that it is absurd to assert that acknowledging evolution precludes belief in God as Creator of the universe. "We believe that however creation has come about and evolved, ultimately God is the Creator of all things," he said. He's right.

I was delighted to read the Cardinal's words. He said in his way what I have believed and taught for years, which is the more we learn through science about how the universe came to be, the more we know about how God did it.

The Torah is not a scientific book about the origins of the universe. One might say the Torah is the answer to the post-creation question "Now what?" Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the nature of Chapter One of Genesis. Unlike previous pagan theologies, Torah has no account of the origins of God. God transcends time. God always was. The creation story could depict this omnipotent God bringing the universe into existence in countless ways. Torah depicts God as doing it in stages,  in a process one might describe as evolutionary. Certainly life begins in non-human form, and the creative process culminates in the emergence of human life.

Today, we have an especially intriguing possibility to ponder. Do you remember how the creation story begins? God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. The light mentioned cannot be the light of the sun. The Torah defers the creation of celestial bodies until Day Four, thus eliminating the possibility of them being seen as partner gods and creators. To what light, then, does Genesis refer? Throughout history, it has been understood to be the Light of the Divine Presence. But we live at a time in which we can speculate whether Genesis somehow managed to refer to the Big Bang. Amazing.

Cardinal Levada is saying that evolution was God's way of creating the universe. Tov dibarta, Cardinal. Well spoken.

Until next time, Shalom.