Why Rabbis Shouldn’t Endorse Candidates. The Importance of Voting and of Keeping a Low Profile in Chutz La’aretz.

Shalom aleichem raboisai, I hope everyone is well. Let’s talk for a few minutes b'ezras Hashem about elections, about the election. I don’t intend to express an opinion or suggest for whom people should vote, and not only because I assume everyone has already voted by absentee ballot, but even lu yetzuyar that we knew that everyone is going to mail their ballot in tomorrow, if it’s not too late to do so, it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so. I remember, I don’t know, this probably goes back 40 years or so, maybe more, that my grandfather zatzal was being asked to endorse, and the party that was asking for his endorsement he actually did support, and he refused to give an endorsement, and the representatives kept pushing and his answer consistently was, "I don’t tell people how to vote, I don’t tell people how to vote." The explanation that we’re going to discuss I didn’t ask him for because it seemed intuitive to me, it resonated with me, it wasn’t something that I felt needed an explanation, so I can't say that I’m quoting an authoritative explanation; the explanation is lefi aniyas daati. At first glance, maybe one would push back against that position. It’s certainly the case that anything we do in life, any decision we make, any course of action should be guided by Torah values, should be guided by our commitment to Torah, and voting is certainly no exception to that. We have commitments, we have values based on our commitment to Toras Hashem, and we should vote in a way that reflects and tries to implement those commitments, those values. So that being the case, so why wouldn’t the Rav tell people how to vote? When people called him with shailos, he answered the shailos. So why wouldn’t he tell people how to vote? So the answer l'chora is simple, in that whereas the values come from the Torah, the vision that one wants to see implemented in society, the posture one wants to see vis-a-vis Eretz Yisroel, Medinas Yisroel, all that comes from the Torah, but before you fill in the ballot, there's an assessment of the metzius, of the political metzius that needs to be made. You can have two people who have the exact same axiological commitment, the same commitment to Torah, the same understanding of what Torah values are and imply, and they’ll have two very different assessments of whether... Voting for candidate X or voting for candidate Y will help advance those values, will help that vision materialize. So whereas the values are certainly should be coming from the Torah, but the decision to whom for whom to vote also includes and has to include this element of political assessment. It's it's a it never נער הייתי גם זקנתי, it never ceases to amaze me that כשם שפרצופיהם שונים כך דעותיהם שונות how people, we see the world so differently. How two people, four people, 20 people look at the same metzius, the same reality, and they see very different things. Which is why in 99 percent of cases, maybe 99 percent plus of cases in elections, it's not the place even of a gadol shebe'gadolim, such as the Rav, to tell people how to vote, because one is venturing outside of the realm of Torah into an assessment of the candidate, the party, the political forces, economic forces, etcetera. And that's not the province of of a Rav, it's not even the province of the Rav. And what happens is when when a Rav ventures outside of Torah in the name of Torah, so Torah becomes politicized. When a Rav ventures outside of the realm of Torah in the name of Torah, so then Torah becomes politicized. Can there be an extreme case where where the reality is just so overwhelming that the metzius of deioson shonos notwithstanding, virtually everyone or even everyone will see it the same way? And then when the political assessment, when the assessment of the reality is a given, so then it can be a purely Torah decision. It can happen. I think the from from what was reported here again, in the United States you don't get so much coverage of what happens in other countries, but certainly in terms of what was reported, it seems like the last elections in England were like that. That the the head of the Labour, the then head of the Labour Party, such a sonei Yisrael, just so openly, unambiguously, that there was no the deioson shonos didn't affect how one perceived the metzius, and there was room to speak in the name of Torah in the context of an election. But in order before before a Rav, a mechanech can do that, it has to be not only the case that he thinks the objective reality is such, but it has to be that he recognizes that in this instance the deioson shonos notwithstanding, everyone is going to see the objective reality that way. That doesn't happen very often. It's a very rare, very, very rare occurrence. And no matter how convinced the the Rav or the Mechanech is that this is the objective reality, kol zman that the deios hen shonos, the variations of deios hen shonos means that others don't see that as the objective reality. What's more, with the same passion and the same conviction and the same determination, they, they see the objective reality differently. So then inevitably his view is considered a political view. And again, and when, when a Rav, when a Mechanech speaking in the name of Torah, not only objectively, but over here the perception determines the reality, ventures outside of Torah, so then Torah becomes politicized and that is not supposed to happen. So that's why the Rav didn't give endorsements. Again, in extreme cases, I think he would have, but ruva deruva, as clear as, as it may have been to him, but recognizing that, that because of deios hen shonos, that clarity wasn't necessarily universal or shared by others, it's not appropriate speaking in the name of Torah to, to advocate or to lobby. Okay, so if we're not going to talk about who to vote for, so what's the taka about? All right, so I've already talked for ten minutes. I guess we could, I guess we could stop now. But I don't know, keivan de’oso leyodam, let's shmooze a bit more about it, Rabbosai. A, again, I assume this is lesho’avar in terms of this election, it's lehaba in terms of other elections. One thing that, that Rabbanim can say and should say is that it's important to vote. It's important to vote. We have an achrayus, we have an achrayus for our fellow Jews, we have an achrayus for general society, different type, different level. And one important way in which a person exercises that achrayus is, is through voting. So it's, it's very important that a person take advantage of the opportunity, of the privilege to, to vote. And again, I hope everyone got their absentee ballots and, and was able to mail them in. That's obviously the shvil hazahav between exercising caution in terms of Covid and, and voting. But as important as it is to vote, it's equally important, more important, that a Jew should do so while maintaining a low profile. It doesn't matter which party or which candidate one supports, the support should be quiet. The support should be while maintaining a low profile. There shouldn't be banners hanging in the street and there shouldn't be loud gatherings regardless, regardless of of which party one is supporting. Why is that? The modus vivendi for a Jew in chutz la’aretz is

מלמד שלא ירד יעקב אבינו להשתקע במצרים אלא לגור שם.

Lagur leshon ger, a stranger. Lehishtakeia means to settle, to sink roots, to settle. A Jew's self-perception in chutz la’aretz And it doesn't matter whether it's a country that Rachmana litzlan persecutes him, whether it's Spain during the times of the Inquisition Rachmana litzlan, whether it's Tsarist Russia, or whether a person is living in a golden age in the earlier tekufah, the Golden Age of Spain, in a Malchus shel chesed as Rav Moshe famously described the United States. Either way, Lagu ba'aretz banu. יהיו בעיני עצמם במשימי רץ לא כאזרחים. Someone who's a stranger maintains a low profile. Someone who's a stranger is not vociferous in expressing support, is not looking to attract media attention through his political positions. Lagu ba'aretz banu, a person goes to the polls, should go to the polls. It's very important and goes quietly. So that's always true. It's true no matter what the circumstances are around election day. It's the modus vivendi in Chutz La'aretz. It's also true that living in Chutz La'aretz, we always always have to be aware of eivah. We always always have to be mindful of provoking resentment, of arousing enmity. And in the context of political campaigns and election, that sensitivity should be heightened, the sensitivity not to act in a provocative way. The more conspicuous, the more confrontational one is in advocating and lobbying, the more provocative one is and the more that ignores the concern for eivah. That's also true perennially. But especially this year, and especially surrounding this election, regardless of which candidate a person is voting for, regardless of which candidate a person wants to see emerge victorious, Jews should be maintaining a very, very low profile. And the reason for that is as follows. I can't remember in my lifetime an election where there was more divisiveness and more anger on both sides of the aisle. I suspect that even people older than I don't remember it either. What's more, not only is there divisiveness and intense feeling and intense emotion on both sides of the aisle, there are dangerous anti-Semites, there are dangerous soney Yisrael on both sides of the aisle, each group of which should be a fringe, but the fringe is no longer a fringe. On one side of the aisle, you have white supremacists. And no matter what the skin color of a Jew is, he doesn't measure up for white supremacists. On the other side, inextricably bound up with the whole progressive platform is sinas Yisrael. An element in all the Black Lives Matter protests has been sinas Yisrael. It would be very noble to protest racism. That's a very noble thing to do, to peacefully protest against racism is very noble. To combine that cause with the hateful cause of antisemitism is unspeakable. And both of those groups, mikan umikan, on both sides of the aisle, feel emboldened by recent events. The white supremacists have been brought into the mainstream as on the other side of the aisle, it's true for the sonei Yisrael on the other side of the aisle also. There are going to be some dangerous sonei Yisrael who are very angry about the election results, no matter what those results are. We shouldn't be inviting anyone to think of us in terms of why the results of the election turn out to be as they will be. It's not as if, well, if only we were successful, no, because either way on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the aisle there are sonei Yisrael who are going to be very, very upset about the results of this election. It's not simple times. I don't mean to be alarmist, but we should be aware it's not simple times that we're living through. This isn't just sort of the presidential every four years is a presidential election. It's different. It's different than past elections. הלוואי זאל גאט העלפן that things will be peaceful, but no one really knows what this country is going to look like next Wednesday or in the days and weeks and months afterwards. So in addition to the perennial modus vivendi of יהיו בעיני עצמם כגרים, a person who is ke-ger keeps a low profile. In addition to the perennial sensitivity to eivah, all of that is heightened this year. It's a time, it's a time for Jews to be very careful about keeping a low profile. There are two, on a natural level, they seem contradictory phenomena that we've seen in recent months. On the one hand, there is again a resurgence That there's flare-ups of antisemitism, more antisemitic events reported than in the past. Me'idach gisa, we inexplicably act increasingly as though we are at home here. The governor does something we don't like it, we sue. The mayor says something we don't like it, we insult him. The issue is not who's right and who's wrong. Just because you think you're right doesn't mean you sue, and just because you think you're right, it doesn't mean that you insult. Very rarely is it the right thing to do to sue, and just about never is it the right thing to do to insult. And we do it because we're complacent, because we're too much at home. So on a natural level, it's a very strange contradiction. On a providential level, it's perfectly clear. The Netziv and other Gedolei Yisrael explain that antisemitism flares when we forget that לא גור בארץ באנו. When we allow ourselves to be too comfortable, when we allow ourselves to think that the streets are ours, the neighborhoods are ours, the land is ours. When we allow ourselves not to think twice and to confront the governor and to sue him. No, I want to send my child to camp, so I'll sue the governor. When we allow ourselves to feel that sense of comfort and so comfortable that eiva is not has no place within our mindset. So if we don't remind ourselves לא גור בארץ באנו, so then we're given external reminders of לא גור בארץ באנו. I assume many of you saw the clips from the Sunday rally when they had the sonei Yisrael yelling go back to... When we lose sight of the fact that לא גור בארץ באנו, so then that's when providentially the sina surfaces and rachmana litzlan begins to affect us. So on a natural level, these two phenomena are contradictory. On a providential level, they're cause and effect. So halevai, halevai that we should recognize it and whatever hishtadlus needs to be made on the natural level notwithstanding, the avoda is to remind ourselves לא גור בארץ באנו and that that should be reflected in how we conduct ourselves, how we interact, how we relate to people on the street, and of course how we relate to governmental authorities. Zol Gott helfen we should be zoche to see yeshuos ve-nechamos.