LESTER HAYES AND LEBANON

“The Black and Silver secondary will dictate and dominate.” So stammered Lester Hayes, in a deep, menacing voice. Lester, for those of you who are either (a) very young (congratulations!) or (b) ignorant about the most popular spectator sport in America (my condolences), was a Raider. Actually, he won the Super Bowl as both an Oakland and Los Angeles Raider, but at the time when he was feeling particularly invincible and he uttered the above words, his team played in Tinsel Town.

Lester was part of the greatest tandem of cornerbacks who ever played, and he and his running mate Michael Haynes were largely responsible for the destruction of the Washington Redskins 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII. He was also the namesake of the rule permanently banning NFL players from wearing stickum. Lester, you see, couldn’t catch a ball without glue on his hands. But he could still intimidate opposing wide receivers. He would push them, he would shove them, and only if necessary would he run with them. The Smurf-like sprinters who he’d guard rarely stood a chance.

I bring up Lester because he was a stud on one of football’s most dominant and macho franchises. And yet, it’s also a franchise that teaches us a valuable lesson: dictation and domination are indeed short-lived. The Raiduhs, as they are called (based on the Brooklyn roots of their owner), are also known today as the “Once Proud” Raiders. In the last three years, they’ve won 13 games and lost 35. Frankly, they’re no better now at dictation than Napoleon or Genghis Kahn.

To follow the rise and fall of the Raiders is to understand the vicissitudes of power. But apparently, such is not the case with being a Zionist -- or at least it wasn’t the case with the Israeli Government and some of its American supporters. And that’s what need to be discussed.

Now first, let me introduce my biases: I proudly count myself as a member of the American Zionist community. Admittedly, I stand firmly at the edge of that community. I’d be willing to give up all the settlements, concede all the Occupied Territories (and even use that term for the West Bank/Gaza Strip), and even make Jerusalem an international city. Yet I hope never to relinquish the dream of seeing a democracy with a perpetually Jewish majority occupying much of the present state of Israel, that is secure and at peace with its neighbors. The world is surely big enough to allow such a nation to exist.

But it is one thing to announce one’s goals, and something very different to know how to reach them. And it’s with the means to the ends that I am most confused. My only point of clarity is this: we can’t reach any peaceful solution as long as we think the claims of Israel’s neighbors can be subdued with force alone. I should think Hezbollah proved that on the battle field. What is mystifying is that the Israeli army gave them the opportunity.

I was riveted when I came home one night and saw a message from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the head of the national Union for Reform Judaism. Talking about the recent fighting in Lebanon, his message included the following categorical statement, which was set apart as a paragraph onto itself: “This is a war in which the rights and wrongs are beyond all doubt.” (The emphasis was mine.)

Rabbi Yoffie was, of course, intending to refer simply to the fighting that was sparked by Hezbollah’s capture of three Israeli soldiers. And presumably, he meant that Israeli had a right to do something in return to deter such conduct. Lord knows that proposition is difficult to dispute.

But look more closely at his word choice in the sentence at issue. He didn’t say Israeli’s right to defend itself is beyond all doubt. He said the rights and wrongs of the war are beyond all doubt. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? This is a war between two groups of aggrieved peoples – the Jews and the Arabs – who are fighting over land that was colonized by Europeans and partitioned by the United Nations without the approval of all the people who live on the land. The rights and wrongs of this larger war couldn’t be more confusing, and any attempt by one side to pulverize the other will be met with the most passionate and resolute resistance imaginable.

Indeed, even the recent month-long fighting in Lebanon is fraught with ambiguities and moral dilemmas. Rabbi Yoffie went on to defend not only Israel’s right to take limited reprisals, but to justify its destroying much of Lebanon’s infrastructure and killing many Lebanese civilians. Was the counter-attack sensible? Did it accomplish its goals? Or was it, as many impartial observers claim, extremely “disproportionate” and foolhardy? Indeed, switching from our left hands to our right, couldn’t it be argued that the only way to have made this counter-attack effective was to commit huge numbers of ground troops and create a battle royal, at tremendous cost to both sides, until finally the Hezbollah cried uncle?

In short, if Israel hopes to defeat the Arabs with air power alone, they will simply replicate the Mess-opotamia, recruiting more and more enemy cells while failing to destroy its nucleus. And I’m not just talking about enemies. I’m talking about passionate, indignant, violent, ends-justify-the-means enemies. If Israel thinks it can win that war, it had better bring more than the old Black and Silver secondary. It would need the vaunted 49ers receivers, the Steel Curtain defensive line, the Dolphins running backs, the Broncos offensive line, the Giants linebackers, and the Vikings’ Fran Tarkenton at quarterback scrambling around using every possible weapon at his disposal. Was Israel willing to use every weapon? If not, what kind of hubris led it to think it could dictate or dominate to a well-armed guerilla force fighting in its own terrain?

War is hell. For both sides. We mustn’t let anyone forget that. And while we’re at it, let’s also remember that when it comes to war, the “rights” and “wrongs” of the matter are rarely as clear as crystal.

HELP WANTED: A MINORITY PARTY WITH IDEAS

Every now and then it’s good to look back at watershed events in our nation’s history. If we don’t, we fail to learn from them – we keep repeating idiocies of the past (like the Vietnam War), and prevent ourselves from duplicating our previous successes.

When speaking of successes, most of us like to hearken back to the days of Jefferson and Washington. We treat those men and their comrades almost like Biblical patriarchs, which isn’t hard to do, considering that they lived in a by-gone era of horses and buggies. The “Founding Fathers” could refer to the men of the Bible, but they refer instead to a band of brothers who declared independence from a traditional world power, successfully defended our turf against that power, and then drafted a Constitution so incredibly prescient that it now seems like the product of divine intervention. Abraham? No, Madison. But they’re both great, so you’ll pardon us if we confuse them from time to time.

Greatness is rarely a word that you see used to refer to events of the recent past. It’s rarer still when you see the word used by an unabashed liberal to refer to the product of right-wing minds. Still, 12 years is enough time for someone like me to step back and glance at a moment in time with some dispassion. When I look back 12 years, I cannot help but marvel at what I see. As a model of how to use a common set of ideas to seize legislative power, I’ve never seen anything half as effective as what we witnessed in 1994. It makes me wonder why that model can’t be replicated again – only this time, from the opposing point of view.

The summer of 1994 was an ugly year for us liberals. It was particularly ugly for the liberal baseball fan. You might recall that in 1994, the players went on strike, and the World Series was cancelled for the first time in 90 years. But in the place of sports, we were given politics – lots and lots of politics. And as political battles go, that “series” was clearly over in four games.

The then-minority party had a plan, you see, and stuck to that plan like glue. It was associated with the representatives of our Government’s most representative branch, but the truth is that it enjoyed the support of the entire party, and practically all its adherents. Their coalition building was a thing of beauty.

They called their plan the “Contract for America.” Their opponents would come to ridicule the plan as the “Contract on America,” but just like America loves a good mob movie, they didn’t seem to find this Contract terribly off-putting. The party who proposed the Contract won at the polls by an incredible landslide. On Capitol Hill, that party hasn’t looked back since. Coincidence? I doubt it.

The Contract originated at a right-wing think tank called the Heritage Foundation. This is a place where well-funded intellectuals get together with a single purpose in mind: to formulate, disseminate and ensure the hegemony of conservative ideas. Heritage Fellows don’t need to feign objectivity, balance, open-mindedness, or any of the other characteristics that liberal thinkers take as their bone fides for entry into the realm of intellectuality. Heritage Fellows are there to ensure that their side wins at the polls, and wins convincingly. In 1994, they saw their work bear incredible fruit.

The Contract didn’t deal with every issue. Certain hot-button topics like abortion were left for future battles – such as the battle for President in 2004, which was also won by the party who drew up the Contract. Instead of focusing on social issues, where there was some split inside the ranks, the Contract concentrated on tried-and-true conservative shibboleths that appealed to virtually all members of the then-minority party.

-- Shrinking the size of Government.

-- Placing the Government at the service of the private sector, not itself.

-- Reducing the burden of taxes.

-- Assisting that true American hero: the entrepreneur.

-- Eliminating the culture of dependency that results from our welfare system.

-- Protecting businesses from vexatious lawsuits and excessive judgments.

The Contract, then, had many objectives, but they all had a common theme: to return the United States to its people and not to the professional politicians and lawyers who seek to strangle initiative, decrease incentives for hard work, and bolster their own power. To an entire political party, this was the most beautiful music since Mozart.

The Contract wasn’t just about themes and overarching principles. It was about practical suggestions. The designers, you see, recognized that they had to come across as serious men who were mad as hell and weren’t going to see their country hijacked any more. The people deserved better. They deserved specific, workable proposals that could immediately change the culture in Washington and usher in a new business-friendly economy.

Here was the promise. On day one, if the minority party ascended to power in the House of Representatives, they would vote on the eight different government reforms. These proposed laws, if passed, would: require all laws that apply outside of Congress to apply to Congress as well; audit Congress itself for potential fraud or abuse; sharply reduce the number of House committees and their staffers; prevent Representatives from voting by proxies at committee; cut the terms of committee chairs; require committee meetings to be held in public; require a 3/5^th vote to pass tax increases; and mandate a zero baseline for the federal budget process.

Eight proposals, then, would come to a vote on Day One. But that was just the start. The Contractors also promised that during the next 100 days, bills would be sent up on a wide variety of major public policy areas aside from government reform. These included tax cuts for individuals and business entities, legislative term limits, and pro-business reforms in the areas of social security, tort law, and the welfare system.

The Contractors had it all – a wellspring of ideas from which to draw; enough discipline to emphasize only those ideas that could support a broad coalition; and the wisdom to speak in terms of feasible suggestions for change, rather than broad slogans. You’ll also note that the Contractors didn’t merely bash the party in power. They advanced an agenda that was both concrete and visionary. They came across as people who wanted to govern, not merely to win an election. And this only makes sense, given that they were espousing the ideas of intellectuals who were not themselves professional politicians but merely citizens devoted to a common political philosophy.

So here’s my question, which by now should be quite obvious: if the GOP could pull this off in 1994, why couldn’t the Democrats have pulled it off in 2006? Surely, the party of the donkey can agree on some broad themes other than that “Bush is bad” and “We want to win.” Right? Well … maybe I’m speaking too quickly. When I reflect on what the Democrats would accomplish if they controlled the House or the Senate, I find myself quite confused. What votes would the Democrats send to the floor on Day One? What bills involving important public policy issues would the Democrats propose by Day 100? Truly, I don’t have a clue.

I’m not sure my Party has one either. Recently, I received in the mail a form letter from Al Gore asking me to give money to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Rather than talking about what the Senate would accomplish if the Democrats regained power, Gore talked about what the Senate would accomplish if the Republicans retained power. “A free pass on Iraq … More damage to the environment … More right wing judges … An all-out assault on Social Security … More tax cuts for the wealthy … No fix for Medicare … More jobs sent overseas …”

In short, his message was very clear: “Be afraid. Be very afraid. Vote for us, or suffer the consequences.”

Is that really the best we Democrats can do? Even Republicans who care about living in a vibrant democracy would have to shudder at what has become of our new minority party. Ideas? Try having one idea. Just one. But make it an affirmative idea – not just that the other guys are evil. As they say in the Red states, that dog couldn’t hunt in 2004. It won’t hunt in 2006 or 2008 either.

IT’S GOOD TO HAVE A GOAL

I’ve always believed in having goals and am hardly alone in that regard. For some people, the goal involves some sort of career success – like being able to call your colleagues “partners” instead of just “colleagues” (or worse yet, “supervisors”). For others, it involves money – like having a million bucks in the bank, or a $250,000 salary. Still others set goals based on their kids’ achievements – “my daughter goes to Hahvahd, isn’t that special?”

My dad had a goal: to reach age 90. I heard him mention that goal for years when I was growing up, and it thrilled me to no end to see him reach such a milestone. At his 90^th birthday party, we bought him a cake that bore the words “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving.” My dad didn’t get the joke at first – his name was Julius, not Irving – but then we explained that Edith Bunker brought home a similar cake to her husband Archie, the Jew hater, in a classic episode of All in the Family. The cake made him laugh. Then, a few minutes later, watching his two granddaughters sing a song to him made him cry. That was May 2002. That October, I didn’t so much cry as keen – my father, you see, never reached 91. But at least he reached his goal.

Those who know me best realize that I obtained virtually my entire philosophy of life from my father. My values. My sensibilities. You can pretty much name it – he inspired them. And that includes my goal.

So as not to be a mere clone, however, I’ve always adjusted my father’s ideas just enough to be able to consider them my own. That applies to my goal as well. I would like someday to celebrate my 60^th wedding anniversary. Today, September 24, 2006, I can happily report that I have exactly 42 years to go.

I can’t remember how old I was when I decided someday to get married, but I couldn’t have been more than ten. It’s not that my parents’ marriage was so idyllic; they did more than their share of fighting. But they persevered through each and every battle, and continued deeply to love each other, even when it appeared that they didn’t like each other. I knew, as a boy, that if they – Ali and Frazier -- could stay together through thick and thin, there must be something very special about this institution called marriage. I understood, in other words, that all I had to do was meet one person with compatible values, compatible chemistry, and an ample capacity for tolerance, and I would have found the closest possible thing to earthly salvation.

As a post-adolescent, I would meet a few people who made me wonder could this be the one? Then one thing or another would go wrong, and I would go into a deep depression – at least until it was time to start studying for Finals. (I guess those Nazi bastards were wise when they inscribed on the gate at Auschwitz the words “Work shall set you free.”) Finally, in my 27^th year, I saw an old friend from law school whom I had never dated but always liked very much. It probably took me all of an hour to realize that my search was over. I also realized that if luck would have it, we could someday celebrate our 60^th anniversary. Today, we could still realize that goal without reaching my father’s favorite milestone – we’d both have to come close but wouldn’t quite have to get there.

I place my wedding day as the greatest in my life, greater even than the birth of my daughters. Without the first, you see, the latter days would never have occurred. I’ve never seen anything nearly as beautiful as the face of my then-fiancé who walked down the aisle. For I was smart -- I made sure that neither of us saw each other’s face prior to that moment during the day of the wedding.

Today, 18 years later, I am happy to say that while we argue occasionally – mostly about child rearing philosophies – we’re happier together than ever. Based on any objective standard, my marriage is by far the best thing in my life. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

In light of the above, it should not surprise you that I value deeply marriage as an institution. I value the idea that a teenager, smitten with infatuation, only to learn a bit later that the infatuation was unrequited, can contemplate the fact that an institution exists that will support his ability to find someone, someday whom he can count on for a love that is permanent. I value the idea that a young adult, whose work-ethic is exceeded only by her loneliness, can someday stop counting on her technocratic job for emotional fulfillment but find it instead in the adoring smile of her husband. I value the idea that a student of philosophy who learns that enlightenment stems from expanding the concept of “self” from one’s pitiful little ego to the universe as a whole, can realize that a wonderful first stage in this progression is to get married. His old self will then vanish, and in its wake he will find the knowledge of what it is like to love “the other” as much as the “self” and, in fact, to transcend the opposition between the two. In a good marriage, you see, two people come before their friends and, if applicable, their God, and take advantage of the opportunity to double their metaphysical size. Strike that – I meant to say that a bride or groom can more than double their own metaphysical size, because never has the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” applied better than in the case of a successful marriage. Perhaps that’s why we call it holy matrimony – holiness resides in harmonious unions.

With that as introduction, perhaps I should realize for the first time why so many voters in 2004 felt the need to go to the ballot box and safeguard the institution of marriage by voting Republican. It’s not that the Democratic candidates – Kerry, Dean and Edwards – came out in support of same-sex marriage. Lord knows, they “couldn’t” do that without committing “political suicide.” But it was clear that in opposing gay marriage, the Democrats didn’t have their hearts in their work. They couldn’t figure out how to invoke the traditional values of the Democratic party in a way that would permit them to wax eloquent about the threat to the institution that is posed by two men or two women tying the knot. Only a Republican could explain the threat in a way that truly comes from the heart.

The GOP message is straight from John Wayne, or if you prefer, Ward Cleaver: the strong, powerful, responsible father figure knows best. Daddy understands what paths in life are tried and true, and what paths are deviant and potentially dangerous. Daddy recognizes, as we should as well, that marriage has been associated in the past with the notion of a man and a woman joining together to have children who benefit from both a “male” and “female” role model. Why then mess with the formula by encouraging gay couples to get married and raise children? Seriously, if it isn’t broke, why fix it?

Daddy may be OK with the idea of a “civil union,” or with the notion that gay couples should have the same economic benefits as married couples. Daddy, you see, doesn’t like to think of himself as prejudiced against gay people. “Some of my best friends are gay,” he might say, while adding, “but we’re just friends, you understand?” (Pfew. For a minute there, I was worried.) “Civil unions” don’t threaten the institution that we consider holy. Nor will we as a society grant “holy” status to such a union. And we shouldn’t, daddy tells us, because Scripture – that ultimate arbiter of holiness – hardly blesses homosexuality. It’s one thing to accept it, much as we accept blindness or herpes, but it’s something else to actually encourage it, and allow it to enter the realm of holiness. That, daddy tells us, would be going way too far.

Personally, I don’t expect the “daddies” of the world – or their wives, bless their traditional hearts – to change their view of gay marriage over night. They, after all, are self-proclaimed “conservatives,” and it is hardly a conservative concept to see two men walk into a church in front of rabbi or priest, smooch for several seconds, and walk out of the building with wedding rings.

But what about the so-called “liberal” party? What about the Democrats? Should their leaders support gay marriage? I know a lot of Democrats who would analogize such support to committing hari-kari. “Think about it,” they’d say. “The Democrats lost the last election because they didn’t bash gay marriage enough. Now you’re talking about actively supporting it? Are you nuts?”

Perhaps. Then again, perhaps I’m just a long range thinker. I continue to believe that the three most important Presidential campaigns in my lifetime were those of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barry Goldwater. Reagan told us that he would govern well to the right, and he honored his promise – the result has been called the Reagan “revolution” and that might indeed be an apt term, so powerful was his reign. Clinton, who came to power after the Reagan revolution was a man of unbridled ambition and highly bridled principles – so he decided to triangulate, and therefore served as an example of a “New Democrat”: a Democrat in name only. But Goldwater is the one I’d really like to think about as the model for the Democratic party today. In 1964, Goldwater’s party, the GOP, was at sea. The conservatives who controlled the party were confused, fractionalized, and accordingly, marginalized. So what did they do? They turned to a true believer and found their soul. Sure they lost that election, but they won nearly every election since.

The Democrats need a Goldwater – a serious person, someone with gravitas, but someone who is also beloved by the faithful. I’m talking about a person who can rally the troops from all wings of the party. And I’m talking about a person who has the stones to take on difficult issues in which the party’s core values demand that they announce a position that is not held by the majority of Americans.

Imagine that – the Democrats standing for something that most Americans disagree with. Imagine the Democrats standing for something like the right of two consenting adults to enter into wedlock regardless of their race, color, creed, or sexual preference. Imagine the Democrats wagging their finger at their opponent, asking who the heck are they to get the Government involved in telling a law-abiding, taxpaying adult whom he can marry and whom he can’t. Imagine the Democrats coming across as people who are willing to put principle over pragmatism if a core moral issue is involved. Imagine the Democrats fighting for the right of gay people to get married not because they’re moral relativists, but precisely because they believe in the absolute beauty of marriage. And imagine Democrats blasting the notion of a “civil union” as an alternative to marriage because they hold the unique spirituality of marriage – holy matrimony -- in such esteem.

I’m not sure John Kerry could imagine it, but I bet John Lennon could. And I can imagine my political party someday proposing a Presidential candidate whom John Lennon could respect as a fellow traveler.

Here’s to a liberal Barry Goldwater. And here’s to wedding anniversaries!

HAPPY JEWISH NEW YEAR!

This is always one of my favorite times of year – and no, it’s not just because the pennant races are heading down the home stretch and the football season is beginning to take shape. For those of us who are Jewish, it is a time for reflection and a time for prayer.

Of course, it’s easy enough for me to reflect and pray all year around. I can do that by myself, or I can go to my synagogue on any given Friday evening and do it with several dozen others. But none of that compares to attending a temple during the High Holidays. I adore the sensation of looking around a room and seeing the better part of 1000 people chanting in unison their love for God or commitment to their fellow human beings.

Purportedly, the purpose of the High Holidays is to inscribe ourselves for a good year by sincerely atoning for all of our transgressions. We are required to apologize directly to those people who we’ve wronged, but for “sins against God,” we need only atone during the High Holidays and all is forgiven.

I don’t believe for a second that there exists some kind of super-mind who is judging our conduct and preparing to either reward or punish us depending upon the sincerity of our apologies. Then again, such a belief is hardly necessary to recognize the value of atonement or the virtue of expressing gratitude. Few activities are more beneficial than time spent taking stock of our successes and failures in practicing humanistic ethics. When we atone for our mistakes, we give ourselves a chance to avoid repeating them. When we express gratitude for that which makes life worth living, we remind ourselves that none of those things should ever be taken for granted.

It cheapens the value of the High Holidays to think of them primarily as opportunities for us as individuals to ask God for help. Prayer shouldn’t be about asking God to help us. Prayer should be about asking ourselves for inspiration to honor God – and that means to beautify God’s world, and ours. There are few places better able to generate such inspiration than a crowded synagogue during a High Holiday service.

Sometimes during the High Holidays, I permit myself a joyous thought at the idea that I live in a county that has so many Jewish residents that every public school child gets the High Holidays off. It’s not that I want every gentile to convert. Yet the fact remains that were it not for Hitler and his henchman, and were it not for legions of men who for centuries forced Jews to renounce their faith at the point of a sword, our globe would be populated by many, many more children of Jacob. To revel in the fact that I live in a community that is hospitable to Jews is simply to recognize that each of us who is proud to associate ourselves with this rich spiritual tradition is making the strongest possible statement against Nazism. Think what you want about us, but we survive! Baruch Hashem.

DOUBTING AND QUESTIONING

I heard the line from an Orthodox rabbi 25 years ago. It sounded great, but I couldn’t believe that his community took it literally: “The Jew is supposed to wake up every morning questioning the existence of God.”

“Yeah right,” I said to myself. “I’m sure these people, whose entire culture, community and lives are predicated on the existence of the Biblical God are seriously going to start each day wondering if they should throw their God away.” For them, it would be like starting each day contemplating suicide. But for me, who at the time was still deciding whether to become a religious Jew, or just another Jew-by-culture, the rabbi’s principle was beautiful. It was an affirmation that religious Judaism and intellectuality are not mutually exclusive. No wait, let me make a stronger point – it was an affirmation that Judaism so venerates the search for truth for its own sake that even the Orthodox -- the Fundamentalists -- are in some respect disciples of Socrates as well as Moses.

With the help of such principles, I decided to become religious – not Orthodox, mind you, but religious in my own way. Do I question that choice? Heck yes. For what do I know about such things as the eternality of life, the immortality of the “soul,” the existence of fundamental unity in the cosmos, and other such matters? The first principle of philosophy is Socrates’s greatest truth: the world’s wisest man attains that status precisely because he knows that he knows nothing profound with complete certainty. OK. So perhaps that’s an exaggeration. As Descartes so eloquently discovered: we “think,” therefore we exist. I’ll grant that knowledge, but that’s as far as we can go … if what we seek is certainty.

As a skeptic, I go way past the great Spinoza. For it was he who uttered the following words to a former pupil named Albert Burgh:

“You seem to wish to employ reason, and ask me, ‘How I know that my philosophy is the best among all that have ever been taught, or ever will be taught?’ a question which I might with much greater right ask you; for I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy. If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that this is sufficient, will be denied by no one whose brain is sound, and who does not go dreaming of evil spirits inspiring us with false ideas like the true. For the truth is the index of itself and of what is false.”

That passage is near the top of the most regrettable passages that Spinoza ever wrote – right up there with his argument that women are not suitable to serve as government officials. Of course he didn’t “know” that his was “the true philosophy.” And I’ll show you the courtesy of not waste your time trying to spin that passage so as to distort its intended meaning, much like a rabbi would spin some antiquated provision of the Torah. Thankfully, Lady Philosophy doesn’t demand that all statements made by her disciples be deemed as “truth.”

So let us question early and let us question often. Let us question our friends – civilly, of course – and let us question ourselves. Most of all, let us question anyone who claims to know that they are right and you are wrong with certainty. But it is one thing to question, and yet another to doubt. As strongly as I affirm questioning, that’s how strongly I oppose doubting.

Yes, of course I know what you’re thinking. In the case of a student of philosophy, “to question” and “to doubt” are synonyms. So why is one so grand, and the other so dangerous? The answer depends on a semantic distinction, perhaps, but it’s one that carries tremendous power. Besides, isn’t that largely what philosophy is: the art of creating semantic distinctions, some of which can be very powerful for those who have taken the time to parse away.

It was the Jewish writer and maggid, Yitzhak Buxbaum, who inserted in my head the distinction between questioning and doubting. He claimed that it was understood and appreciated by the early Hasids, who I’ve always viewed as among the wisest people in Jewish history. Doubting, according to this distinction, refers to what some of us do when it’s time to focus on our own beliefs. As Spinoza recognized, “doubt” is but a softer word for vacillation, meaning a state of conflicting emotions. When we doubt a belief, we don’t simply question its veracity and raise the possibility that some day we will dislodge it from our minds. Instead, our emotional conflict saps us of holding a belief with passion and vigor. Indeed, such “doubt” can also immobilize us – just ask General George McClellan, who almost single handedly gave away the Civil War. \

Nothing is more enervating than doubt. Nothing else can so deter your willingness to fight hard for your chosen principles. Questioning, by contrast, merely makes you stronger. When you question, you consider additional arguments for and against your beliefs, and better arm yourselves to battle your ideological opponents. Who knows? You might even convince yourself that they were right all along.

When you’re consumed with doubt, it hardly matters what your beliefs are. I can almost guarantee that your actions – such as they are -- will be limited and ineffective.

Doubting, of course, is a natural human emotion. Perhaps it’s inevitable when our questioning tells us that an earlier belief was mistaken that we will go through an interim period of doubt. But let’s please not make that our customary state of being. As Marx taught, we followers of reason are needed not merely to interpret the world, but also to change it. That requires us to muster all our passion in support of our principles, whatever they may be. If it turns out that we were mistaken, so be it. Remember, it’s not like anyone else really knows the truth either.