The Good Rabbi's Blog

You know, there's a saying in Hebrew which, roughly translated, states: Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut, and have everyone think that you're stupid, than it is to open your mouth and remove all the doubt. This seems to be the case here. In Stephen Hirsch's largely irrelevant article, he uses a logically flawed argument to make a Judaically flawed statement. It also bears noting that even if you accept that Lieberman's rebuke of president Clinton was halachically wrong (which is a HUGE leap, but I'll get to that in a moment), it was certainly Halachically wrong for Mr. Hirsch to post this rebuke of Joe Lieberman. You don't make up for one breach of Halacha by committing another one.

In either case, let's look at the argument that Mr. Hirsch makes. First, he claims that in order to rebuke someone, you should have no self-interest. It's a very difficult argument to make that Sen. Lieberman made this rebuke for personal gain. Just because he did gain something from it two years later, does not mean that he specifically gained something at that time. He did not know at the time that he would be on the national ticket in 2000, and that decision was made because he raised a good amount of money for Gore, and he was exactly the type of centrist that the Democrats needed in order to appeal to a broader electorate. He also wouldn't need a pass from a posek, since that was his whole job, to make speeches from the floor - he could have gotten that national recognition from any speech he made.

Second, Hirsch claims that you must believe the rebuke will lead to a change in behaviour. Well, even though I do know Sen. Lieberman (he's not in my inner circle, and I'm sure I'm not in his, but I did live in Connecticut for a good number of years, and he ate at my restaurant fairly frequently), I would definitely say that a rebuke of any sort coming from a centrist democrat would send a message to the administration that Clinton's behaviour should be reined in.

Third, Hirsch claims that you must not humiliate someone while rebuking them. Well, I would argue that ANY public rebuke would be a humiliation of sorts. President Clinton was humiliated by his own actions, not by something that Joe Lieberman said. Lieberman's rebuke was based on information that was already public, and as such could not have humiliated Clinton any more than the president's own actions did.

In summary, it is a huge leap to assume that Sen. Lieberman's rebuke was not Halachically ok. It's an even bigger leap to assume that he lost the primary due to that rebuke. However, it's an entirely reasonable argument that in either case, Stephen Hirsch's rebuke of Joe Lieberman is both Asur (halachically forbidden/illegal), and largely irrelevant (really, this happened eight years ago, don't you think that there are better things to write about?) both in the grand scheme of things and in terms of the election he just lost. That's a real shame for the Democrats, because he's the kind of candidate that they could use right now.

As a personal note to Stephen Hirsch, I would like to ask that you please refrain from couching opinions and political discourse in Judaic language. We will not move forward as a society until we stop referring to people as Jews/Muslims/Hindus/Whites/Blacks/etc. and start referring to and treating each other as human beings. By couching your opinions in a Judaic discourse, you give the impression that you are an authority to speak for all Jews, which you clearly are not (if you were, you would have realised that your entire article is not correct, and is itself a violation of Halacha). I'm Jewish, and although I'm not particularly religious, I have quite a bit of Yeshiva training, and I'm pretty up on my Halacha. I don't purport to speak for all Jews, as that would be offensive, and I advise that you do the same.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether or not Joe Lieberman is a good Jew. He lost the election on Tuesday because a bunch of lefty bloggers don't like the fact that he supports the war in Iraq, and therefore was a bad Democrat. Ned Lamont, the candidate that opposed him, is relatively unknown, and aside from the whole Iraq thing (which was pretty much his whole campaign), he really has no platform. Personally, I think that Lieberman will run and win as an independent, which will cost the Dems a seat in the Senate, and a relatively senior one at that. Hopefully, Chuck Schumer (the Senator from New York that heads the Democratic campaign to take back the Senate) will not advise donors not to donate to Lieberman, and will not invest time and energy on a candidate with no agenda. It's a shame, really, because although I disagree with some of his platforms, Joe Lieberman is really the kind of candidate that the Dems need these days.