Last Thursday –
Thanksgiving – was the 49
th anniversary of the assassination of our
thirty-fifth President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
We were invited by our
mehutanim (in-laws)
for Thanksgiving dinner.
Somehow it just
didn’t feel right to sit down to a feast on November 22;
I
always feel like an avel (mourner) on that day.
Why can’t Thanksgiving be postponed one week
to November 29, the fifth Thursday in November, when the fourth Thursday is
November 22?
I wasn’t able to run the
Thanksgiving Turkey Trot in Prospect Park; when Thanksgiving coincides with
this terrible anniversary I run it with a
special
custom-made shirt, then repair to the
monument
at Grand Army Plaza to recite tehilim (psalms) and leave my race number,
suitably inscribed.
As it turned out, if
I’d known that “be here at 2:00” meant Jewish time, I would have been able to
run the race.
It took this alteration of
my routine to show me just how much doing that run meant to me; the depression
that comes over me every year on November 22 took much longer than usual to
lift this year, despite thoroughly enjoying the company of my in-laws.
During JFK’s
campaign to secure the Democratic nomination in 1960, much was made of the fact
that he was a Roman Catholic. Supposedly,
if he were to be elected, American policy would be made in the Vatican and not
the White House, c.f. the oft-repeated concern of Irish Protestants that “home
rule means Rome rule.” This is what John
F. Kennedy had to say about such concerns when he accepted his party’s
nomination:
I am fully aware of the fact that the
Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new
and hazardous risk new, at least since 1928. The Democratic Party has once again placed
its confidence in the American people, and in their ability to render a free and fair
judgment and in my ability to render a free and fair judgment.
To uphold the Constitution and my oath
of office, to reject any kind of religious pressure or obligation that might directly or
indirectly interfere with my conduct of the Presidency in the national interest. My record of
fourteen years in supporting public education, supporting complete separation of Church and
State and resisting pressure from sources of any kind should be clear by now to everyone.
I hope that no American, considering
the really critical issues facing this country, will waste his franchise and throw away his vote
by voting either for me or against me because of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant. I am telling you what you are entitled
to know: As I come before you seeking your support for the most powerful office in the free
world, I am saying to you that my decisions on every public policy
will be my own, as an American, as a Democrat, and as a free man.
The President-to-be must have had a terrific
speechwriter. Nothing could have been
clearer. I first heard it shortly after
the assassination, and it still rings in my ears, as does his Inaugural
Address. Contrast this ringing affirmation
of American ideals and his own political independence with what I heard
sometime in the 1980s from that professional
hater and perennial candidate for local public office, Rabbi Yehuda Levin. During one of his campaigns, asking for the
votes of the Orthodox community, he stated that he was a shaliah
(messenger) of gedolim (prominent rabbis) and, if elected, would do
their bidding. He said that he was
looking for someone to say alai kilelatkha b’ni (see Gen. 27:13), to take the blame if he,
Yehuda Levin, messed up. The battle lines could hardly be more starkly
drawn: a man with wide shoulders willing to take responsibility for his
acts in office, and some of them were less than creditable (the Bay of Pigs
invasion comes to mind), versus an errand boy for old greybeards. And ever since, campaigns by Orthodox
candidates for public office consist mainly of contests to garner the most haredi
Rabbinical endorsements and pabulum about “sharing our values.”
Some sort of yeridat ha-dorot
(generational decline) seems to be at play here. In those days there were giants on the earth
(see Gen. 6:4). Now we have nothing but
pygmies. Heaven help us all.
Labels: America, gedolim, haredim, Kennedy, manliness
