Church and State

Rabbi Melanie Aron

July 15, 2004

(for Commonwealth Club)

Jewish communal life in America began 350 years ago with the arrival in New York City, known at that time as New Amsterdam, of 23 bedraggled refugees from the Inquisition in Brazil. From that day until today, Jewish life has flourished in the United States, in an atmosphere of freedom and equality unknown elsewhere in the world or at any other time in history.

What has made America special? Not the complete absence of Anti-Semitism, because there have been from the beginning of American history and until now, isolated incidents and issues. When the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam they were greeted by the governor Peter Stuyvesant, who complained that the Jews were a “deceitful race”, “hateful enemies and blasphemers.” Were it not for the direct orders of his bosses in the Netherlands, he would have expelled them immediately. And Anti-Semitism didn’t disappear completely, even in the last generation and even here in California. When I purchased my home here in Santa Clara County in 1993 I discovered that the original deed for the house, built in the mid 1960’s, had a restrictive covenant banning its sale to Jews.

What’s important about America is not that there haven’t been any anti-Semites here; Rather, what has made America special is that the government has never embraced a policy of religious chauvinism. It has addressed Jews as individual citizens, like any others, and not as members of a religious group. There has been no direct alignment between the state and its religious elements, and an environment of personal toleration and religious acceptance has for the most part prevailed, at least in comparison to what Jews experienced in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Through the Bill of Rights, which protects citizens from limitations on the free exercise of their religious faith, and prevents governmental support for any religious group, the founding fathers laid the groundwork for the free and equal participation of members of all religious faiths in the civic and communal life of our nation. They also succeeded in depoliticizing religion, preventing the skirmishes between different Protestant groups that they feared in the late 18th century, and continuing to keep America free of the religious battles so common in other parts of the world.

In recent years, and in particular in this year’s presidential campaign, there have been a number of disturbing efforts to politicize religion and to breech the wall of separation that has served both our country and our religious communities so well for the last two centuries.

Most egregious has been the attempt by the Bush-Cheney campaign to enlist houses of worship in partisan politics. Churches, Temples and Synagogues are allowed to participate in registration and get out the vote efforts. Religious communities have long spoken publicly about issues related to their religious concerns and conducted candidates’ nights. However, what was described two weeks ago in the Washington Post where “the president’s reelection team has begun circulating an instruction sheet to religious volunteers across the country asking them to recruit campaign supporters amongst other churchgoers, to turn over church directories to the campaign, and to distribute issue guides in their churches” has been considered an affront even by fundamentalist religious leaders like Richard Land, of the conservative Southern Baptist convention. Supposing that these and others of the 22 campaign duties outlined in the memo were technically legal, still they violate the spirit of the rules which keep houses of worship out of partisan electoral activity.

Later this evening we will speak about various divisive issues including same sex marriage and abortion rights. These are issues about which different religions, and even different denominations of the same religious tradition, differ widely, but these are all religious issues. Every religious faith will have an answer to the question of when does life begin, what constitutes a blessed union, and for exactly that reason, it is the place of government to stand aside, and not involve itself in the establishment of religion.

In addition, and perhaps of greatest concern, is the atmosphere of religious triumphalism and vainglory, the lack of humility and questioning one’s own certitude, the use of religion to justify oneself. Biblical scholars raise questions about the ancient meaning of the third commandment, but I think we have seen many recent examples of the taking of the name of God in vain.

Those who are in the majority religiously may not feel as acutely the danger of this encroachment, but there is a wonderful folk tale about a barnyard that I would like to apply to our current situation. Imagine a barnyard into which a mousetrap has been introduced. The mouse is upset and tries to enlist the help of the other animals. But the chicken can’t be bothered, the goat is unconcerned and the cow considers it too minor an issue to bother with. That night, the farmer’s wife hears the mouse trap spring, and goes out into the dark barn to investigate. She can’t see that a snake that has been caught in the trap. The snake bites the farmer’s wife and she becomes ill. The farmer treats her illness with chicken soup, but she continues to get worse. Friends come to visit, and in order to feed them, the farmer butchers his goat. The farmer’s wife continues to slide down hill until she passes away. So many people came to her funeral that the farmer has the cow slaughtered to provide meat for them to eat.

Religious minorities may sound the alarm, but the breakdown of the separation of Church and State is a danger to the civil liberties of all Americans. When there is a mouse trap in the barn, the whole farmyard is at risk.