Whenever I have lunch with my close friend Carl (not his real name), a conservative Republican, a Jew, and a successful businessman, our conversation ranges over a wide spectrum of topics and ideas. Carl is one of the smartest people I know. He’s also a good man, quietly charitable and sincere, and possessed of a grand smile and infectious laugh.
Though Carl is not Orthodox, in my opinion he is deeply religious. He attends the Daf Yomi class at my synagogue — a huge commitment in terms of time and intellectual effort. And I can always count on him to pose questions about halacha (Jewish law) to which I usually have no coherent answer.
Carl and I like to clue each other in to favorite books, blogs, movies, and worthy political groups. When we first met, Carl loaned me a slim but provocative volume entitled Judaism, Law & the Free Market. It’s a challenging and splendid work written by Joseph Isaac Lifshitz, a Torah scholar, and published by the Acton Institute.
An active member of the Acton Institute, Carl frequently attends their workshops that explore liberty and political, economic and theological thought through a Conservative lens. I plan to attend an Acton conference in the future.
We’re all familiar with Acton’s famous quote: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
But Lord Acton also said the following:
“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.”
“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.”
“Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought.”
And my personal favorite:
“Socialism means slavery.”
But there was more to Lord Acton than zingy quotes. Carl has taught me a great deal about this great man and the institute that bears his name.
The last time we had lunch, Carl asked me if there was any one book that influenced my conversion from Democrat to Conservative Republican.
I said: The True Believer by the longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer.
Much to my surprise, Carl had never read any of Hoffer’s work.
Here’s a Hoffer quote written in May 1968, after the Six Day War — a time, as we now see, when liberals began their radical leftist campaign against Israel — against the very philosophies that inform Judeo-Christian civilization.
Hoffer’s words are prophetic:
The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey drove out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese—and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.
Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.
No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us.
“… things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.” — this is a point you’ve made many times before, and well you should.
The current upheavals that pretend to be about the Temple Mount serve as a good example. In any other middle east country, this would have been “solved” long ago by ethnic cleansing followed by bulldozing the existing structure. But Israel is expected to be (and, in fact, IS) tolerant of terrorists, their continued presence in the country, and their continued control over holy sites.
I’ve never read Rabbi (?) Lifshitz’s book, but far as I can tell – and I spent seven years post-high school in seminary – Jewish law propounds a regulated free market. Is that Rabbi L’s take?
Yes, Torah Judaism firmly believes in the importance and rights of private property and the free market. No knowledgeable Orthodox Jew can claim that Torah Judaism advocates Socialism. I strongly recommend the book.
“Regulated free market.” That’s an oxymoron.
Regulation is government-imposed: non-criminal behavior made criminal by arbitrary edict. Without regulation criminal behavior is already restricted. Lacking provable criminal behavior, e.g., fraud, theft, assault, etc, regulation makes market behavior less free. So, what, pray tell, would you regulate and still call it a free market?
Here’s one example: Jewish law prohibits price gouging.
That example demonstrates my point: government interference by regulation in the free market hurts the economy, making it less free. I have not seen evidence that the Jewish law identifies price gouging so precisely as to have a criminal definition. Rabbi Wein (http://www.rabbiwein.com/blog/price-gouging-629.html) identifies divine wrath, not governmental and gives only vague definition of when a profit percentage becomes a gouge. Setting emotional, pie-in-the-sky restrictions on pricing with gouging rhetoric flies in the face of supply and demand. (http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams032404.asp)
Another example: In many places (although I can’t quote chapters and verses), the Talmud describes laws and policies which are intended to prevent inflation and/or maintain supply to the market.
I think it boils down to Solomon’s philosophy: There’s a time and a place for everything.
Inflation is an increase in the money supply, not in pricing. You’re confusing cause and effect. Government does the inflating, not the preventing, unless it makes a point of negative action: not increase the money supply. Check history: governments always inflate, leading to downfall.
As for maintaining supply, governments do no such thing. By interfering in the market with regulation government fouls the market. Check history: governments controlling supply cause shortages, raise prices, create depressions, and instill tyranny.
I love this quote: “where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.” Now only has history proven that fact. It seems to recycle it all too often!
As an aside, does anyone else here think that the photo of Eric Hoffer looks like David Letterman?
You’re right! It’s the glasses and cigar that visually unite Hoffer and Letterman.
A smart man in a world of weakness. Gives me no pleasure to say, now that Stephen Harper is gone, our very own Vlad the Impaler represents the best our world offers. Without him to at least attempting to bring order, the chills should be running up and down our collective spines.
What a passage.