preparing for a planned response

In ear­ly March 2020, before the Coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic lock­down began here in New York City, I was approached by T’ru­ah:

the invitation

I’m reach­ing out with what I hope might be a fun vol­un­teer project with T’ru­ah. We’re putting togeth­er a group of… peo­ple who can craft what we’re call­ing non-rapid response state­ments and oth­er mate­ri­als– basi­cal­ly, to look at some of the most like­ly sce­nar­ios that might hap­pen (we’ve done some of this work already, but there’s more to do) and pre-craft some Jew­ish and human rights lan­guage to respond. That is, when some­thing dra­mat­ic hap­pens (God for­bid a vio­lent inci­dent, or new leg­is­la­tion, or some­thing else either in the US or in Israel), we want to be able to be a moral voice, includ­ing hav­ing some thought­ful and deep Jew­ish lan­guage ready to go. Some­times, this might mean a state­ment of our posi­tion and oth­er times, it might mean a text study. For exam­ple, when the impeach­ment hap­pened, we quick­ly threw togeth­er some texts for study; dit­to on the acquit­tal. Oth­er times, we have a more clear state­ment of what our posi­tion is. The goal of these is both to mod­el a moral rab­binic voice (and to be heard in news sto­ries, etc.) and to give rab­bis in the field mate­r­i­al that they (you) need to talk with/teach their com­mu­ni­ties.
So here’s the ask– like I said, we’re putting togeth­er a small (8−10) group of peo­ple who can iden­ti­fy some of these key oppor­tu­ni­ties and start to craft some language/identify some sources that we would use if the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose…. We’ve ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled a first meet­ing (via Zoom) for Thu, March 12 at 2PM (we hope you can make this time, but if you can’t, it’s not a deal break­er. At this meet­ing, we will iden­ti­fy a few of the top oppor­tu­ni­ties for response and divvy sev­er­al of them out to pairs of peo­ple to work togeth­er (so it’s a chance to work with an old/new friend–or even if there’s some­one you want to bring in, that’s great too) and to take a few weeks to draft some lan­guage and/or text sug­ges­tions. We’d come back togeth­er after Pesach to look these through, give feed­back & iden­ti­fy new oppor­tu­ni­ties. I would imag­ine the com­mit­ment being about a quar­ter­ly meet­ing, plus some writ­ing with a part­ner in between (but it can be some­what flexible).

I accept­ed the invi­ta­tion. On the des­ig­nat­ed date, we gath­ered and dis­cussed the pos­si­ble sit­u­a­tions fac­ing us.

our agenda

Note, that while “Trump drops dead of heart attack or oth­er nat­ur­al caus­es” was men­tioned as a pos­si­bil­i­ty, at that ear­ly date, none of us imag­ined the extent of death and destruc­tion COVID-19 would cause. The day of our Zoom meet­ing Gov­er­nor Cuo­mo announced restric­tions on mass gath­er­ings and closed all Broad­way the­aters. Eight days lat­er, on March 20, he man­dat­ed a state-wide lock­down and all our T’ru­ah plan­ning paused.

At the end of June, our group was recon­vened in order to devel­op mate­ri­als specif­i­cal­ly relat­ed to the upcom­ing pres­i­den­tial election.

my chevruta

I was paired with Ed Stafman, who I’d not met out­side of our Zoom gath­er­ings. In 2000, fol­low­ing the Bush/Gore elec­tion, Ed was a lawyer on a case involv­ing a local Repub­li­can super­vi­sor of elec­tions act­ing in con­cert with local Repub­li­can offi­cials to achieve a par­ti­san advan­tage in that elec­tion. Since then, he stud­ied in the ALEPH Rab­binic pro­gram and became the rab­bi (now emer­i­tus) of Con­gre­ga­tion Beth Shalom of Boze­man MT, Mon­tana. He is cur­rent­ly run­ning to rep­re­sent Dis­trict 62 in the Mon­tana House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. We were tasked with prepar­ing a selec­tion of texts that col­leagues could use in their con­gre­ga­tions and/or organizations.

I have been polit­i­cal­ly active my entire life, but I had not stud­ied Jew­ish texts relat­ed to elec­toral pol­i­tics. I used the search tools avail­able to me and reached out to friends and col­leagues for leads, but came back emp­ty-hand­ed. Ed pro­ceed­ed sim­i­lar­ly, though he still has his rab­binic library with­in arm’s reach. Ed dis­cov­ered R. David Markus’ ALEPH senior teshu­va on “The Jew­ish Duty to Vote”. A brief, pop­u­lar ver­sion was lat­er pub­lished at the blog of Rab­bis With­out Bor­ders and his own blog. We invit­ed R. Markus to join us in updat­ing his work and he gra­cious­ly engaged with us.

the result of our effort

While the con­ver­sa­tion has shift­ed some­what from pro­tect­ing the vot­ing process, our efforts remain help­ful in clar­i­fy­ing a num­ber of the issues involved. On Octo­ber 14, T’ru­ah announced:

Elec­tion Day is three weeks away, but we already know we are unlike­ly to have clear elec­tion results on the night of Novem­ber 3. Between expect­ed delays in count­ing mail-in bal­lots, attempts to dis­pute elec­tion results, and politi­cians who pre­fer to serve their own egos rather than the demo­c­ra­t­ic process, we are look­ing at an entire elec­tion season.

That is why, today, we are pleased to unveil T’ruah’s online Elec­tion Cen­ter.

While T’ruah: The Rab­binic Call for Human Rights is a 501(c)(3) and does not con­duct par­ti­san polit­i­cal activ­i­ties in sup­port or in oppo­si­tion to any polit­i­cal can­di­date, you can find a vari­ety of help­ful mate­ri­als at the Elec­tion Cen­ter site. These include:

• What cler­gy and con­gre­ga­tions can do
• Text stud­ies
• Prayers
• Webi­na­rs
• Divrei Torah
• Protest plac­ards

The doc­u­ment Ed and I pre­pared is under the Text stud­ies sec­tion. You can down­load and print a PDF of it here. Or, you can review the doc­u­ment and all its relat­ed text here.

​Jewish Texts On Fair Voting And Just Elections

In the form we know them today, pop­u­lar elec­tions – where all adult cit­i­zens vote for their lead­ers – are the prod­uct of west­ern democ­ra­cies. In west­ern democ­ra­cies, as time has passed, mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy has allowed for wide­spread cam­paigns and for hun­dreds of mil­lions of votes to be cast and counted.

Although Jew­ish tra­di­tion long pre­dates west­ern democ­ra­cy, over an extend­ed time, Jew­ish tra­di­tion takes an increas­ing­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic approach to choos­ing lead­ers. That tra­di­tion evolves along a clear path from Moses’ appoint­ment by God to a Jew­ish duty to vote for gov­ern­men­tal lead­ers and even assess tax­es. It fol­lows, there­fore, that for this duty to vote to be mean­ing­ful, the elec­tion must be just and votes must be fair­ly counted.

The Jew­ish trend towards demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions is root­ed in the notion that we view gov­ern­ment as a human part­ner­ship with God. Where Torah pre­dicts that Israelites would want civ­il rulers instead of priests and prophets, Moses told the peo­ple: “[B]e sure to place over your­selves the king that God elects for you” (Deut. 17:14–15). Tanach records that God chose the first king, Saul (1 Sam. 9:16–17). The sec­ond king, David, how­ev­er, was cho­sen by God but con­firmed by “all of Israel’s elders” (2 Sam. 5:3). The third king, his son Solomon, ruled in David’s blood­line but “all the peo­ple” togeth­er rat­i­fied his acces­sion (1 Kings 1:39). This demo­c­ra­t­ic shift becomes clear in the Tal­mud, which opined that not even God would select rulers with­out con­sult­ing the peo­ple (B.T. Bera­chot 55a).

With the destruc­tion of Jew­ish sov­er­eign­ty in the Land of Israel, the role of the peo­ple in select­ing their lead­ers and sup­port­ing sec­u­lar gov­ern­ment slow­ly expand­ed and extend­ed. It began with the propo­si­tion that civ­il gov­ern­ment is impor­tant. Thus, as in ancient days, we still “pray for government’s wel­fare, for with­out fear of it [we] would swal­low each oth­er alive” (M. Avot 3:2). The duty to cre­ate and sup­port gov­ern­ment was so impor­tant that it became one of the few duties that Jew­ish law rec­og­nizes for all, Jew and non-Jew alike (B.T. San­hedrin 56b). To R. Moses Mai­monides (the “Ram­bam,” 1135–1204), the pur­pose is to ensure pub­lic order (Mish­neh Torah, Melachim 9:14); the Tal­mud extends the pur­pose to include all social wel­fare (B.T. Avo­dah Zara 4a). This is even more evi­dent today where pub­lic safe­ty, health, social equi­ty, the rule of law – the very fab­ric of life in an inter­de­pen­dent world – require wise, effec­tive and demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly account­able government.

When Jews elect­ed tax col­lec­tors to remit Jew­ish tax­es to sec­u­lar author­i­ties, Moses Isser­les (the “Rema,” 1520–1572) held that all tax­pay­ers were to assem­ble and vote “for the sake of heav­en” (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mish­pat 163:1). Declin­ing to vote means ignor­ing Torah’s notion of human part­ner­ship in the “heav­en­ly” work of gov­ern­ment. Some 200 years lat­er, R. Moses Schreiber Sofer of Press­burg (the “Chatam Sofer,” 1762–1839) held that tax­pay­ers who didn’t vote for­feit­ed their rights to shape elec­tion out­comes and were bound by those out­comes. Both based on the impor­tant call to vote and the bind­ing nature of elec­tion out­comes, the Chatam Sofer nec­es­sar­i­ly assumed that votes would be count­ed in a fair and just elec­tion process.

While these author­i­ties did not them­selves estab­lish a duty to vote, the Jew­ish focus on col­lec­tive action – in polit­i­cal lan­guage, “the social con­tract” — so high­ly val­ues the pub­lic inter­est as to com­pel indi­vid­ual behav­ior that serves the com­mon good. As Shlo­mo ben Meiri (“Rash­bam,” 1080–1174) held, this social com­pact oblig­es Jews to hon­or the realm’s civ­il laws in exchange for the realm’s ben­e­fits and pro­tec­tion (comm. B.T. Bava Batra 54b). By choos­ing to live some­where as cit­i­zens, we bind our­selves to a con­tract with that society.

Jew­ish choice of res­i­den­cy also trig­gers a duty to help pro­vide the ben­e­fits of soci­ety, lest anyone’s non-par­tic­i­pa­tion cause what econ­o­mists call free rid­ing. (If any­one could take a pub­lic good with­out giv­ing, then all would have the same incen­tive – and the pub­lic good itself could dis­ap­pear.) For this rea­son, Jews must not only pay for pub­lic ben­e­fits they receive (B.T. Bava Batra 8a), but also direct­ly help as need­ed to serve the pub­lic (B.T. Bava Met­zia 108a).

While in tal­mu­dic times the main con­cerns for col­lec­tive action were flood con­trol, pub­lic trans­porta­tion, civ­il defense and pub­lic health, in our day these con­cerns devolve main­ly on gov­ern­ment. It is via gov­ern­ment that Jews ful­fill their civic duty to com­mu­ni­ties where they main­tain res­i­dence and cit­i­zen­ship – not only by pay­ing tax­es, but also through pub­lic ser­vice and espe­cial­ly by vot­ing. The impli­ca­tions are pro­found. The real “Jew­ish issue” is government’s effec­tive­ness to per­form its pub­lic duties. Under­stood prop­er­ly, government’s whole agen­da – pub­lic health and safe­ty, social pol­i­cy, crim­i­nal jus­tice, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and more – is a “Jew­ish issue.” All are nec­es­sary con­cerns of Jew­ish vot­ers as Jew­ish vot­ers. That is the Jew­ish com­mit­ment to our nation, tra­di­tion and val­ues – what­ev­er our per­son­al pol­i­tics and par­ti­san­ship may be.

This Jew­ish require­ment to hon­or the social con­tract strong­ly implies a duty to vote, which in turn, implies a right to a fair and just process that allows for and counts those votes accu­rate­ly. Indeed, in the Rama’s view, an election’s legit­i­ma­cy depends on uni­ver­sal notice of the elec­tion and the cor­re­spond­ing full and fair oppor­tu­ni­ty for all eli­gi­ble vot­ers to cast bal­lots. Indeed, even before the advent of mod­ern elec­tion mechan­ics, halachi­cal­ly it was well-set­tled that an election’s legit­i­ma­cy would be under­mined – and its out­come thus unen­force­able – if the elec­tion was inad­e­quate­ly pub­li­cized or some vot­ers inhib­it­ed eli­gi­ble oth­ers from vot­ing. So also held R. Yechezkel Lan­dau (the “Noda b’Yehuda,” 1713–1793) and the Chatam Sofer.

It fol­lows that in this mod­ern era of com­plex elec­tion mechan­ics – any of which can and often do sup­press vot­ing or raise rea­son­able pub­lic ques­tion about the fair­ness of elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion – the spir­i­tu­al duty to vote nec­es­sar­i­ly requires that elec­tion pro­ce­dures be fair.

This result accords with mod­ern Israel’s sta­tus as a demo­c­ra­t­ic state, reflect­ing its con­tin­u­a­tion of Jew­ish com­mit­ment to the pub­lic good and fair elec­tions. Indeed, after the found­ing of mod­ern Israel, the Lubav­itch­er Rebbe (Igrot HaKodesh, at 32) and the Cha­zon Ish both urged all eli­gi­ble vot­ers to vote (albeit for spec­i­fied can­di­dates). So impor­tant was the elec­toral fran­chise that at least one promi­nent Israeli rab­bi wouldn’t receive con­gre­gants on elec­tion day until they vot­ed. To them, it was obvi­ous that Jews must vote.

This result also accords with the views of con­tem­po­rary pro­gres­sive Jew­ish move­ments that deemed vot­ing key to democ­ra­cy and urged reforms against vot­er sup­pres­sion to ful­fill the verse (Lev. 19:15): לֹא־תַעֲשׂוּ עָוֶל בַּמִּשְׁפָּט לֹא־תִשָּׂא פְנֵי־דָל וְלֹא תֶהְדַּר פְּנֵי גָדוֹל בְּצֶדֶק תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ — “Do not ren­der an unfair deci­sion, do not respect the poor or favor the mighty.” This verse inspired the Con­ser­v­a­tive Movement’s Rab­bini­cal Assembly’s call for fair elec­tion mechan­ics to enforce the prac­ti­cal right to vote and have each vote count­ed, and its lat­er res­o­lu­tion demand­ing elec­tions in which “all eli­gi­ble vot­ers… have free and equal access to cast their bal­lots and all votes should be count­ed equally.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, the Reform Movement’s Cen­tral Con­fer­ence of Amer­i­can Rab­bis (“CCAR”) adopt­ed a 2001 res­o­lu­tion call­ing for elec­tion reform after the dis­put­ed U.S. pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 2000. The CCAR nar­rat­ed a soci­etal “eth­ic of polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion [that] has guid­ed Jews” and that ren­ders anath­e­ma to Jew­ish thought what the CCAR called undue bar­ri­ers to vot­ing. The CCAR held a 2010 sym­po­sium on this sub­ject, in which lead­ing Reform rab­bis offered case stud­ies of Jew­ish reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pat­ing in the civic sphere.

Judaism’s wis­dom tra­di­tion teach­es that “You do not need to fin­ish the work, but you are not free to desist from it” (M. Avot 2:16). Maybe no sin­gle elec­tion will fix the nation’s fate, but every elec­tion is impor­tant – and Judaism’s val­ue of col­lec­tive action man­dates Jews to pitch in. That demand, in turn, implies a right to an elec­tion that is just and where the votes are fair­ly counted.

Pre­pared by R. Mark Hurvitz and R. Ed Stafman, with spe­cial thanks to R. David Markus, whose 2014 rab­binic teshu­vah on these mat­ters pro­vid­ed much of the research and thought sup­port­ing this paper.

Resources in order of their appear­ance in the doc­u­ment above (apolo­gies for the odd for­mat­ting… the text appears cor­rect­ly for­mat­ted in the PDF):

Deut. 17:14–15

“When you come into the land that YHVH your God is giv­ing you, and you pos­sess and set­tle it, and say, ‘I will set over me a king like all oth­er nations around me,’ be sure to place over your­self the king YHVH will elect for you….

כִי־תָבֹא אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶר ה‘ אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ וִירִשְתָה וְיָשַבְתָה בָה וְאָמַרְתָ אָשִימָה עָלַי מֶלֶךְ כְכָל־הַגויִם אֲשֶר סְבִיבֹתָי. שום תָשִים עָלֶיךָ מֶלֶךְ אֲשֶר יִבְחַר ה‘ אֱלֹהֶיךָ בו….

​

1 Sam. 9:16–17

‘To-mor­row about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Ben­jamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be prince over My peo­ple Israel, and he shall save My peo­ple out of the hand of the Philistines; for I have looked upon My peo­ple, because their cry is come unto Me.’ And when Samuel saw Saul, the LORD spoke unto him: ‘Behold the man of whom I said unto thee: This same shall have author­i­ty over My people.’

כָּעֵת מָחָר אֶשְׁלַח אֵלֶיךָ אִישׁ מֵאֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן, וּמְשַׁחְתּוֹ לְנָגִיד עַל‑עַמִּי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְהוֹשִׁיעַ אֶת‑עַמִּי, מִיַּד פְּלִשְׁתִּים: כִּי רָאִיתִי אֶת‑עַמִּי, כִּי בָּאָה צַעֲקָתוֹ אֵלָי. וּשְׁמוּאֵל, רָאָה אֶת‑שָׁאוּל; וַיהוָה עָנָהוּ–הִנֵּה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֵלֶיךָ, זֶה יַעְצֹר בְּעַמִּי.

2 Sam. 5:3

“All the elders of Israel came to [David] before God, and anoint­ed David as King of Israel.”

וַיָבֹאו כָל‑זִקְנֵי יִשְרָאֵל אֶל‑הַמֶלֶךְ … לִפְנֵי ה‘ וַיִמְשְחו אֶת‑דָוִד לְמֶלֶךְ עַל‑יִשְרָאֵל

​

1 Kings 1:39

And Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the Tent, and anoint­ed Solomon. And they blew the ram’s horn; and all the peo­ple said: ‘Long live king Solomon.’

וַיִּקַּח צָדוֹק הַכֹּהֵן אֶת‑קֶרֶן הַשֶּׁמֶן, מִן‑הָאֹהֶל, וַיִּמְשַׁח, אֶת‑שְׁלֹמֹה; וַיִּתְקְעוּ, בַּשּׁוֹפָר, וַיֹּאמְרוּ כָּל‑הָעָם, יְחִי הַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה.

B.T. Bera­chot 55a

“R. Yochanan said: the Holy Blessed One pro­claims three things: famine, plen­ty and a good leader.… A good leader, as in (Ex. 31:2): God spoke to Moses say­ing, ‘See I called by name Bet­za­lel son of Uri.’ R. Yitzchak said: We mustn’t appoint a leader for a com­mu­ni­ty with­out con­sult­ing it, as in (Ex. 35:30): ‘See, God called by name Bet­za­lel.’ The Holy Blessed One said to Moses: Moses, do you think Bet­za­lel suit­able? [Moses] replied: Ribono shel Olam, if You think him suit­able, all the more do I! [God] said to [Moses]: All the same, go con­sult them. [Moses] went and asked [Israel]: Do you think Bet­za­lel suit­able? They replied: If the Holy Blessed One and you think him suit­able, all the more do we!”

אמר רבי יוחנן שלשה דברים מכריז עליהם הקב“ה בעצמוואלו הן רעב ושובע ופרנס טוב. … פרנס טוב דכתיב (שמותלא:ב) (ויאמר) ה‘ אל משה לאמר ראה קראתי בשם בצלאלוגו‘ אמר רבי יצחק אין מעמידין פרנס על הצבור אלא אם כןנמלכים בצבור שנא‘ (שמות לה:ל) ראו קרא ה‘ בשם בצלאלאמר לו הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה משה הגון עליך בצלאל אמרלו רבונו של עולם אם לפניך הגון לפני לא כל שכן. אמר לו אףעל פי כן לך אמור להם הלך ואמר להם לישראל הגון עליכםבצלאל אמרו לו אם לפני הקדוש ברוך הוא ולפניך הוא הגוןלפנינו לא כל שכן.

​

Mish­na Avot 3:2

R. Chan­i­na, assis­tant to the priests, said: Pray for the wel­fare of the gov­ern­ment, since but for the fear of it men would swal­low each oth­er alive.

רבי חנינא סגן הכהנים אומר הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות שאלמלא מוראה איש את רעהו חיים בלעו.

​

B.T. San­hedrin 56b

It was taught in a Barai­ta: Just as Israelites were com­mand­ed to estab­lish courts in each and every province and each and every town, so to were Noahites com­mand­ed to estab­lish courts in each and every province and each and every town.

כשם שנצטוו ישראל להושיב בתי דינין בכל פלך ופלך ובכל עיר ועיר כך נצטוו בני נח להושיב בתי דינין בכל פלך ופלך ובכל עיר ועיר

Ram­bam, Mish­neh Torah, Melachim 9:14

How must the gen­tiles ful­fill the com­mand­ment to estab­lish laws and courts? They are oblig­at­ed to set up judges and mag­is­trates in every major city to ren­der judge­ment con­cern­ing these six mitzvot and to admon­ish the peo­ple regard­ing their observance.A gen­tile who trans­gress­es these sev­en com­mands shall be exe­cut­ed by decap­i­ta­tion. For this rea­son, all the inhab­i­tants of Shechem were oblig­at­ed to die. Shechem kid­napped. They observed and were aware of his deeds, but did not judge him.A gen­tile is exe­cut­ed on the basis of the tes­ti­mo­ny of one wit­ness and the ver­dict of a sin­gle judge. No warn­ing is required. Rel­a­tives may serve as wit­ness­es. How­ev­er, a woman may not serve as a wit­ness or a judge for them.

וְכֵיצַד מְצֻוִּין הֵן עַל הַדִּינִין. חַיָּבִין לְהוֹשִׁיב דַּיָּנִין וְשׁוֹפְטִים בְּכָל פֶּלֶךְ וּפֶלֶךְ לָדוּן בְּשֵׁשׁ מִצְוֹת אֵלּוּ. וּלְהַזְהִיר אֶת הָעָם. וּבֶן נֹחַ שֶׁעָבַר עַל אַחַת מִשֶּׁבַע מִצְוֹת אֵלּוּ יֵהָרֵג בְּסַיִף. וּמִפְּנֵי זֶה נִתְחַיְּבוּ כָּל בַּעֲלֵי שְׁכֶם הֲרִיגָה. שֶׁהֲרֵי שְׁכֶם גָּזַל וְהֵם רָאוּ וְיָדְעוּ וְלֹא דָּנוּהוּ. וּבֶן נֹחַ נֶהֱרָג בְּעֵד אֶחָד וּבְדַיָּן אֶחָד בְּלֹא הַתְרָאָה וְעַל פִּי קְרוֹבִין. אֲבָל לֹא בְּעֵדוּת אִשָּׁה. וְלֹא תָּדוּן אִשָּׁה לָהֶם:

B.T. Avo­dah Zara 4a

Alter­na­tive­ly, just as in the case of fish of the sea, any fish that is big­ger than anoth­er swal­lows the oth­er, so too in the case of peo­ple, were it not for the fear of the rul­ing gov­ern­ment, any­one who is big­ger than anoth­er would swal­low the oth­er. And this is as we learned in a mish­na (Avot 3:2) that Rab­bi Ḥan­i­na, the deputy High Priest, says: One should pray for the con­tin­ued wel­fare of the gov­ern­ment, as were it not for the fear of the gov­ern­ment, every man would swal­low his neigh­bor alive.

דבר אחר מה דגים שבים כל הגדול מחבירו בולע את חבירו אף בני אדם אלמלא מוראה של מלכות כל הגדול מחבירו בולע את חבירו והיינו דתנן רבי חנינא סגן הכהנים אומר הוי מתפלל בשלומה של מלכות שאלמלא מוראה של מלכות איש את רעהו חיים בלעו

​

Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mish­pat 163:1

It is nec­es­sary to assem­ble by writ of elec­tion all tax­pay­ers and prompt them to speak accord­ing to their judg­ment for the sake of heav­en, and then we fol­low the major­i­ty. But if a minor­i­ty refus­es [to fol­low] the major­i­ty, it is per­mis­si­ble to force them, even by order of star wor­ship­pers (i.e. non-Jews), to pay their share to the tax col­lec­tor select­ed. If one boy­cotts and refus­es to offer one’s opin­ion (i.e. vote), then it is dis­re­gard­ed and the opin­ions of the major­i­ty remain­ing decide the matter.

יש להושיב כל בע“ב הנותנים מס ויקבלו עליהם שכל אחד יאמר דעתו לשם שמים וילכו אחר הרוב ואם המיעוט ימאנו הרוב יכולין לכוף אותן אפילו בדיני עכו“ם ולהוציא ממון על זה והם צריכין לתת חלקם והמסרב מלומר דעתו ע“פ החרם בטילה דעתו ואזלי‘ בתר רוב הנשארים האומרים דעתן.

Shlo­mo ben Meiri (Rash­bam), Comm. B.T. Bava Batra 54b

All the tax­es and fees and cus­toms that kings are accus­tomed to enact in their king­doms are the law! For every per­son of the king­dom accepts upon them­selves, of their own free will, the laws of the king. There­fore, it is com­plete­ly set­tled law.

והאמר שמואל דינא דמלכותא דינא — כל מסים וארנוניות ומנהגות של משפטי מלכים שרגילים להנהיג במלכותם דינא הוא שכל בני המלכות מקבלים עליהם מרצונם חוקי המלך ומשפטיו והלכך דין גמור הוא ואין למחזיק בממון חבירו ע“פ חוק המלך הנהוג בעיר משום גזל.

B.T. Bava Batra 8a

Rav Yehu­da says: All of the city’s res­i­dents must con­tribute to the build­ing and upkeep of the city gates [le’aglei gap­pa], and for this pur­pose mon­ey is col­lect­ed even from orphans. But the Sages do not require pro­tec­tion and are there­fore exempt from this pay­ment. All of the city’s res­i­dents must con­tribute to the dig­ging of cis­terns [lekarya patya], and for this pur­pose mon­ey is col­lect­ed even from the Sages, since they too need water. The Gemara com­ments: And we said this only when the peo­ple are not required to go out en masse [be’akhluza] and do the actu­al dig­ging, but are oblig­at­ed mere­ly to con­tribute mon­ey for that pur­pose. But if the peo­ple are required to go out en masse and actu­al­ly dig, the Sages are not expect­ed to go out with them en masse, but rather they are exempt from such labor.

אמר רב יהודה הכל לאגלי גפא אפילו מיתמי אבל רבנן לא צריכי נטירותא הכל לכריא פתיא אפילו מרבנן ולא אמרן אלא דלא נפקי באכלוזא אבל נפקי באכלוזא רבנן לאו בני מיפק באכלוזא נינהו:

B.T. Bava Met­zia 108a

“Rav Yehu­dah said: When the riv­er requires dredg­ing, those dwelling on the low­er reach­es must aid the upper inhab­i­tants, but not vice ver­sa. But it is the reverse in respect to rain water [in a drainage ditch].”

אמר רב יהודה לכריא דנהרא תתאי מסייעי עילאי עילאי לא מסייעי תתאי וחילופא במיא דמיטרא.

​

Lubav­itch­er Rebbe

In response to a let­ter ask­ing about the halacha of vot­ing for an Israeli civ­il gov­ern­ment. the Lubav­itch­er Rebbe replied on 5 Kislev 5709 (Decem­ber 7, 1948) that vot­ing is halachi­cal­ly manda­to­ry to ensure the elec­tion of the most reli­gious can­di­dates run­ning for office. Schneer­son, Igrot HaKodesh, at 32.

“[Some­one] asks about the issue of par­tic­i­pat­ing in elec­tions for the gov­ern­ment in the Land of Israel. Cer­tain­ly it is oblig­a­tory for all eli­gi­ble to vote not to give up this [vot­ing] right. All who par­tic­i­pate must try to [elect] the most reli­gious par­ty, but not for one whose inter­est is to cre­ate con­tro­ver­sy and sow dis­uni­ty through advo­ca­cy in the [mere] name of Torah. May awe in God stoke the pride of our broth­ers in Israel liv­ing in the Holy Land, may it be built and com­plet­ed, and in all the lands of exile. May they mer­it the com­ing of the Redeemer… who will gath­er us to the Holy Land, may it be built and com­plet­ed, from all nations in which we were scattered.”

[פב‘‘פ] שואל על אודות ההשתתפות בענין הבחירות לממשלה בארץ ישראל. בודאי חובה על כל אחד ואחד שראוי לבחור לא יותר על זכותו זה. ועם מי להשתתף צריכים להשתדל להשתתף עם חבורת היראים יותר אבל לא עם אלו אשר כל ענינם הוא לעשות מחלוקת ופירוד לבבות ודוגלים בשם התורה. והיראת השי‘‘ת ירים קרן אחינו בני ישראל ד‘ עליהם יחיו באה‘‘ק ת‘‘ו ובכל מדינות הגולה ונזכה לביאת הגואל צדק משיח צדקנו אשר יקבצנו מכל ארצות פזורנו לאה‘‘ק ת‘‘ו.

R. Avro­hom Yeshaya Kare­litz (1878−1953, the Cha­zon Ish):

The Gedolim’s View On Vot­ing In the Israeli Elections

Many years ago, Rab­bi Shi­mon Soro­ka, a leader of Zeirei Agu­dath Israel in Israel and a vice may­or of Bnei Brak, came to Bal­ti­more to solic­it funds for the upcom­ing Israeli elec­tions. As a yeshi­va bochur who was the head of Pirchei Agu­das Yis­roel of Bal­ti­more, I was zocheh to accom­pa­ny him on his vis­its in Bal­ti­more. He relat­ed to me the sto­ry of a Bnei Brak res­i­dent, who took it as a giv­en that he shouldn’t vote. He did, how­ev­er, pose the ques­tion to the Cha­zon Ish. The Cha­zon Ish answered him very firm­ly that, in fact, he must vote.

On Elec­tion Day, the Cha­zon Ish met this same Jew in the street. “Did you vote yet?” inquired the Cha­zon Ish.

“No,” was the response.

“Why not?” per­sist­ed the Cha­zon Ish.

“I don’t have the three Israeli pounds to pay the poll tax,” was the answer.

The Cha­zon Ish would not give up. “Do you own a pair of tefill­in?” he continued.

“Of course!” answered the Jew.

“Well, go and sell your pair of tefill­in and use the funds to pay the poll tax so that you can go and vote,” said the Cha­zon Ish.

The Cha­zon Ish lat­er explained to Rab­bi Soro­ka that wear­ing tefill­in is a mitz­vah, but vot­ing in the elec­tion is also a mitzvah.

“I’m not wor­ried that this Jew will not put be putting on tefillin,”explained the Cha­zon Ish. “If need be, he’ll bor­row a pair. I am afraid that he won’t per­form this oth­er mitz­vah – vot­ing in the election.”

How Gedolei Yis­rael Viewed Elec­tions in Israel

​He adds that he heard from Har­av Yitzchak Flakser, zt”l, R”M in Sfas Emes, who was a neigh­bor of the Tchebin­er Rav, that on the morn­ing of Elec­tion Day, he heard peo­ple argu­ing out­side the Rav’s house. They argued that if the Tchebin­er Rav didn’t have to go to vote, then why did they? Reb Yitzchak shared what he had heard with the Rav, who told him to go out­side and tell the peo­ple there that he had already vot­ed. Reb Yitzchak was stunned. “Reb­bi, ad kedei kach [to such an extent?]” and the Rav replied, “Ya, ya, ad kedei kach.”

…

The meshamshim recall how the Rav was adamant that every­one go vote, includ­ing his gabba’im, and even the Reb­bet­zin — and they trav­eled to Tel Aviv, where they were reg­is­tered as res­i­dents. That day, he didn’t take kvit­lach [which were con­veyed through the gabba’im]. When peo­ple came to him with kvit­lach, he said, “Go vote.”

Har­av Weber, who was then a bachur, relates that only he remained in the Rav’s house while the oth­er gabba’im went to their places of res­i­dence to vote.

“The Rebbe said to me, ‘The truth is it was very hard for me to send all the gabba’im away,’” Har­av Weber recalls. “‘But I had no choice, because the elec­tions are such a great mitz­vah I could not hold them back!’ He waved his two holy arms in the air and said ‘Aza groiseh mitz­vah!’ with reverence.”

If the Belz­er Rav, who knew what a mitz­vah means, said of elec­tions “Aza groiseh mitz­vah!”— dare we doubt it?

Chatam Sofer, Choshen Mish­pat 116

An elec­tion’s legit­i­ma­cy can be under­mined – and its out­come thus unen­force­able against non-vot­ers – only if the elec­tion is inad­e­quate­ly pub­li­cized or some vot­ers inhib­it eli­gi­ble oth­ers from vot­ing… once a pub­lic announce­ment issues for an elec­tion, all who choose not to vote give up their rights to cast bal­lots and are treat­ed as if they appoint­ed those who do vote as their prox­ies to decide the election.

​

The Rab­bini­cal Assem­bly (“RA”)

The RA urged reforms against vot­er sup­pres­sion to ful­fill the verse לֹא־תַעֲשׂוּ עָוֶל בַּמִּשְׁפָּט לֹא־תִשָּׂא פְנֵי־דָל וְלֹא תֶהְדַּר פְּנֵי גָדוֹל בְּצֶדֶק תִּשְׁפֹּט עֲמִיתֶךָ — “Do not ren­der an unfair deci­sion, do not respect the poor or favor the mighty. This result impelled what the RA called fair elec­tion mechan­ics to enforce the prac­ti­cal right to vote and have each vote count­ed. Rabbinicalassembly.org/resolution-election-reform?tp=270, quot­ing Lev. 19:15; see also “Res­o­lu­tion on Vot­ing Rights in the Unit­ed States” (2014), avail­able at http://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/story/resolution-voting-rights-united-states?tp=1355. Sim­i­lar­ly, the RA advo­cat­ed pub­lic financ­ing of cam­paigns to equal­ize polit­i­cal influ­ence, based on the Deuteron­o­my ban on par­tial­i­ty in judg­ment. See Rab­bini­cal Assem­bly, “Res­o­lu­tion on Cam­paign Finance Reform in the Unit­ed States,” avail­able at http://www.-rabbinicalassembly.org/story/resolution-campaign-finance-reform-united-states?tp=378.

​

Cen­tral Con­fer­ence of Amer­i­can Rab­bis (CCAR), “Res­o­lu­tion on Elec­tion Reform” (2001)

The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 2000 exposed numer­ous flaws in the Unit­ed States’ elec­tion pro­ce­dures. Across the nation, polling mech­a­nisms, the design of elec­tion bal­lots, vot­ing rules, hours, and allo­ca­tion of finan­cial resources vary sig­nif­i­cant­ly between states and local­i­ties. In many juris­dic­tions uti­liz­ing old­er types of vot­ing equip­ment (such as punch card machines) bal­lots are dis­qual­i­fied at sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er rates than in juris­dic­tions employ­ing more accu­rate and reli­able equip­ment (such as opti­cal scan machines). In some states, it has been found that old­er machines are con­cen­trat­ed in poor­er areas and result in sta­tis­ti­cal­ly high­er rates of dis­qual­i­fied votes for cit­i­zens of col­or, who tend to reside in these precincts. More­over, due to the lack of leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ti­za­tion for fund­ing of elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion, offi­cials in many states and local­i­ties do not have the resources to hire ade­quate num­bers of elec­tion work­ers and con­duct mean­ing­ful vot­er edu­ca­tion pro­grams. Final­ly, in some instances, efforts to purge inel­i­gi­ble vot­ers from reg­is­tra­tion rolls (includ­ing those who have died, moved, or been sen­tenced as felons) have result­ed in the mis­tak­en elim­i­na­tion of ful­ly eli­gi­ble vot­ers from reg­is­tra­tion rolls. Elec­tion laws that place high bur­dens of proof on the vot­er, com­bined with inad­e­quate checks and bal­ances in these sys­tems in place on Elec­tion Day, have made it dif­fi­cult for such aggriev­ed vot­ers to obtain redress.

Many cit­i­zens are par­tic­u­lar­ly embit­tered over the alleged dis­en­fran­chise­ment of cit­i­zens of col­or dur­ing the 2000 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. While the events in the state of Flori­da have received the most atten­tion, the phe­nom­e­non is not lim­it­ed to that state in par­tic­u­lar. Along with the dis­qual­i­fy­ing of thou­sands of dis­put­ed bal­lots, there are unan­swered ques­tions about both access to the polls and the fair­ness of pro­ce­dures for count­ing of votes. Many cit­i­zens of col­or har­bor lin­ger­ing resent­ment over this process, and echo the sen­ti­ment of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Lewis (D‑GA), who remarked, “I thought this was behind us.” Alle­ga­tions of vot­er dis­en­fran­chise­ment remind us of the vital impor­tance of our government’s oblig­a­tions to vig­or­ous­ly enforce vot­ing rights laws and ensure that all Amer­i­cans have free, unfet­tered access to ful­fill their right to a secret ballot.

Our tra­di­tion teach­es us that the process of choos­ing lead­ers is not a priv­i­lege, but a col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty. The Sage Hil­lel taught “Al tifros min hatz­ibur, Do not sep­a­rate your­self from the com­mu­ni­ty” (Pirke Avot 2:5). Rab­bi Yitzhak taught that “A ruler is not to be appoint­ed unless the com­mu­ni­ty is first con­sult­ed” (Baby­lon­ian Tal­mud Bera­chot 55a). This eth­ic of polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion has guid­ed Jews to enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly par­tic­i­pate in the Amer­i­can elec­toral process and is epit­o­mized by our tra­di­tion­al­ly strong vot­er turnout. Jews also have placed a pri­or­i­ty on vot­er edu­ca­tion and reg­is­tra­tion efforts. In the past elec­tion cycle, the Reform Move­ment, through the Reli­gious Action Cen­ter, took a lead role in this effort by pub­lish­ing a “Get Out the Vote Pro­gram Plan and Action Man­u­al,” joint­ly with the Recon­struc­tion­ist, Con­ser­v­a­tive, and Ortho­dox Move­ments. More­over, giv­en our his­tor­i­cal role in the civ­il rights strug­gle, alle­ga­tions of vot­er dis­en­fran­chise­ment com­pel us to speak out. It is our duty to ensure that all cit­i­zens are afford­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote and have their votes counted.

In order to restore con­fi­dence in the integri­ty and fair­ness of our nation’s elec­tion process, gov­ern­ment agen­cies at the fed­er­al, state and local lev­els must work togeth­er to eval­u­ate the var­i­ous com­po­nents of our elec­toral sys­tem. They should take any nec­es­sary and appro­pri­ate steps to strength­en and/or change pol­i­cy at the fed­er­al, state and local lev­els to ensure that all per­sons wish­ing to vote are giv­en a mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so, and all votes deter­mined to be valid in accor­dance with estab­lished fair stan­dards are count­ed accord­ing­ly. Con­gress and oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies should assess approach­es that aim to ensure fair­ness with regard to cast­ing and count­ing of votes, includ­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, the imple­men­ta­tion of a uni­form nation­wide poll clos­ing time and uni­form stan­dards for count­ing dis­put­ed bal­lots with­in indi­vid­ual states. Gov­ern­ment agen­cies at the fed­er­al, state and local lev­els should also eval­u­ate and under­take mea­sures aimed at expand­ing vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, increas­ing vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion and ensur­ing equal access to the polls for all Amer­i­cans. Such mea­sures could include, but are not lim­it­ed to, week­end vot­ing; mail-in bal­lots; estab­lish­ment of Elec­tion Day as a hol­i­day; and same-day vot­er registration.

For the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, the events sur­round­ing the 2000 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion must be seen as a clar­i­on call to civic duty. The impe­tus now exists for us to redou­ble efforts, indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, to increase vot­er reg­is­tra­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion, and engage in leg­isla­tive advo­ca­cy to ensure that vital elec­tion reform pro­pos­als are afford­ed seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion by our nation’s elect­ed officials.

There­fore, the Cen­tral Con­fer­ence of Amer­i­can Rab­bis resolves to:

• Call on fed­er­al, state and local gov­ern­ments to vig­or­ous­ly enforce vot­ing rights laws and to ensure that all Amer­i­cans have free, unfet­tered access to ful­fill their right to a secret ballot.

• Sup­port leg­is­la­tion at the fed­er­al, state and local lev­els to ensure fair­ness with respect to the cast­ing and count­ing of votes.

• Sup­port the replace­ment of unre­li­able and out­mod­ed vot­ing equip­ment with more accu­rate and reli­able equipment.

• Urge the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to pro­vide finan­cial assis­tance to state and local gov­ern­ments to imple­ment improve­ments in their elec­tion systems.

• Call on the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Jus­tice and oth­er appro­pri­ate gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies to con­duct a prop­er and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the deeply trou­bling alle­ga­tions of vot­er dis­en­fran­chise­ment dur­ing the 2000 pres­i­den­tial election.

• Encour­age fed­er­al, state and local gov­ern­ment agen­cies to under­take mea­sures aimed at expand­ing vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, increas­ing vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion and ensur­ing equal access to the polls for all Americans.

• Call on our mem­ber rab­bis to take a lead­er­ship role with­in their con­gre­ga­tions and com­mu­ni­ties in spon­sor­ing non­par­ti­san vot­er reg­is­tra­tion and vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion drives.

Mish­na Avot 2:16

Rab­bi Tar­fon said: the day is short, and the work is plen­ti­ful, and the labor­ers are indo­lent, and the reward is great, and the mas­ter of the house is insistent.

רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן אוֹמֵר, הַיּוֹם קָצָר וְהַמְּלָאכָה מְרֻבָּה, וְהַפּוֹעֲלִים עֲצֵלִים, וְהַשָּׂכָר הַרְבֵּה, וּבַעַל הַבַּיִת דּוֹחֵק:

judaic presidential campaign buttons for 2020

This year there were no Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry cam­paign but­tons. The large field of Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry can­di­dates pro­duced a num­ber of but­tons. How­ev­er, it appears that only the cam­paigns of Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, and Eliz­a­beth War­ren pro­duced but­tons aimed at the Jew­ish community.

The Trump cam­paign has pro­duced a huge amount of swag, but no but­tons relat­ed to the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty. The pri­ma­ry Jew­ish Trump sur­ro­gate group: “Jews Choose Trump” has pro­duced bumper stick­ers, tote bags, hats, kip­pot, and tee shirts. How­ev­er, the pri­ma­ry item at their Web site is a face mask with their logo.

Third par­ty but­ton mak­ers have pro­duced a wide vari­ety of pr0-Trump Jew­ish themed but­tons. One depicts Trump as Daniel in the lion’s den. A sec­ond pairs Trump with Cyrus the Great, hint­ing at the rebuild­ing of the Tem­ple in Jerusalem, Anoth­er dis­plays the Amer­i­can flag atop the Dome of the Rock… renamed Trump Tow­er. Per­haps the strangest of them has Trump with raised fist and a crown of thorns that holds up an Israeli flag with the Hebrew text (trans­lat­ed): “Hear o Israel, God won”.

Date:	2020
Size:	7.62
Pin Form:	clasp
Print Method:	cel­lu­loid
Text	שמע ישראל, האל ניצח

The Biden cam­paign, on the oth­er hand seems to be more restrained. The Jew­ish Demo­c­ra­t­ic Coun­cil of Amer­i­can, which seems to have replaced the Nation­al Jew­ish Demo­c­ra­t­ic Coun­cil, has a vari­ety of Jew­ish-themed swag (sim­i­lar objects as the Jews who choose Trump… minus the kip­pot), but no but­tons. Only the region­al Michi­gan Demo­c­ra­t­ic Jew­ish Cau­cus has but­tons avail­able. Their but­tons are, by far, more sub­tle than the pro-Trump buttons.

Date:	2020
Size:	5.6
Pin Form:	clasp
Print Method:	cel­lu­loid
Text	B“T 2020

your lapel buttons

Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jack­et you no longer wear or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any lying around that you do not feel emo­tion­al­ly attached to, please let me know. I pre­serve these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point, they will all go to an appro­pri­ate muse­um. You can see all the but­tons shared to date.